"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (4 Viewers)
- Thread starter XBe02Drvr
- Start date
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Admiral Beez
Captain
Agreed. WW1 wasn't Germany's fault alone. While Austria-Hungary was broken up, IIRC it didn't did to pay reparations. And the Russians, who took the first offensive of the war with their invasion of Germany in Aug 1914 didn't have to pay a penny. Germany got a beat down, when the Treaty of Versailles should have been an admission that the European system was a mess. And if the Treaty of Versailles had to be punitive, it wasn't punitive enough. If this was the goal, better to break up Germany into its pre-1870s states.
Anger and frustration at Russia's military command following Ukrainian missile strike
Russian military correspondents say hundreds could have been killed and accuse Russia's top commanders of not learning from past mistakes.
www.abc.net.au
manta22
Banned
RCH?? I thought that was a unit of measure!
Krauss-Maffei Wegmann Starts Production Of RCH 155 Self-propelled Howitzers For Ukraine - MilitaryLeak.COM
On December 7, 2022, the German Ministry of Defense updated its list of military equipment that will be delivered to Ukraine. Germany provides support formilitaryleak.com
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I think we ought to prepare for Putin's fall and the possible disintegration of Russia itself -- even if that is admittedly less-likely than your scenario, its consequences will be dire enough that we'd better have some plans in place. I'd be willing to bet the Chinese are thinking along these lines, too, and given their proximity, are looking to leverage it to advantage if such is possible.
manta22
Banned
Any nation with only a history of ruling by force is not a good candidate for any form of a future successful democratic government.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Agreed. I just think that the way in which Putin has concentrated power into his own hands means that if and when he falls, there will be a power-struggle and the outlying statelets and oblasts of Russia will probably want to take advantage of the situation and resume their own disputes, which are currently being (mostly) tamped down.
manta22
Banned
Like a pack of wolves fighting over the scraps of his carcass.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Mazactly. And while the pack fights among itself, the prey scatters.
buffnut453
Captain
Russia has increased the death toll from the Makiivka strike from 63 to 89....and the hunt for scape goats has already begun:
www.bbc.com
Makiivka: Russia blames missile attack on soldiers' mobile phone use
Russia now says 89 soldiers were killed in the attack in Makiivka, in the occupied Donetsk region.
www.bbc.com
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Ok, so...this wasn't a cigarette smoking accident, then?
Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
Probably poor construction techniques.
buffnut453
Captain
Actually, it probably was that lethal weed. Russia blaming recruits using cell phones is merely maskirovka.
Sources in-the-know tell me that the recruits were using their phones...but they were all outside on a break...and smoking. The size of the explosion is directly proportional to the number of cigarettes involved. HIMARS had nothing to do with it.
Last edited:
Glider
Captain
It looks as if the Ukraine are continuing on this path with a second strike
Ukraine's military on Tuesday alleged another devastating attack on Russian troops had taken place.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said around 500 Russian troops were either killed or wounded in a hit near Chulakivka, a town in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, on New Year's Eve.
Ukraine's military on Tuesday alleged another devastating attack on Russian troops had taken place.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said around 500 Russian troops were either killed or wounded in a hit near Chulakivka, a town in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, on New Year's Eve.
Admiral Beez
Captain
Most successful democratic governments started off being ruled by force. That's what Magna Carta of 1215 was about, until then England was an absolute monarchy ruled by force, though universal voting outside of those with property were still a way off. The American colonies were ruled by force from Britain, until the locals rose up and founded a democratic (initially for propertied, white males) USA. Russia is five hundred to a thousand years behind the rest of us, but this war might give them hope.
buffnut453
Captain
Really? What about the electoral processes that were well established in Colonial America (e.g. the House of Burgesses in Virginia)? Democratic processes were very present, and well-exercised, in Colonial America. Rebellious Americans (rightly) chafed against rule from London without representation in Parliament. That's a very different thing than being ruled by force.
Russia's problem is that the rest of the Western democracies want it to accelerate the transition from totalitarianism to democracy. That's really, REALLY hard. Unfortunately, people naturally fall back to what's familiar, as we've seen in the decades following the break-up of the USSR. It's going to take a LOT of concerted support from the West to help Russia progress...unfortunately, that support may not be forthcoming and I doubt Russia will achieve it on their own.
buffnut453
Captain
A colleague posted this article....which I find somewhat disturbing. I did check the date and it's not 1 April:
Russia Is Afraid of Western Psychic Attacks
Pseudoscience and mysticism are common among the Moscow elite.
JANUARY 3, 2023 | 3:31 PM.
By Lauren Wolfe, an award-winning journalist.
There are plenty of reasons these days to wonder if Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies are off their rockers. But a recently leaked memo from the Kremlin reveals that those in charge of the Russian government are farther down the rabbit hole than most of us realized.
The memo, published by the Insider, a Russian news outlet in exile, outlines how the Russian Federal Guard Service (FSO), which protects high-ranking officials such as Putin, would handle the invasion of Ukraine — or any other war — spilling over onto the country's own soil. It focuses on psychological preparedness, ensuring that FSO officers would have the "moral and psychological support" needed to resist what the memo calls a potential "massive ideological attack." But the Russians aren't simply worried about the usual wartime propaganda, like sneaky radio broadcasts or underground newspapers. Instead, the Kremlin is mounting preparations for what it calls the "psychological infection of personnel" by an enemy who would manipulate them through hypnosis—as well as through unknown mystical and psychic powers. The memo warns of "psi-generators" and "hypnotic abilities" used by foreign personnel.
Belief in mystic powers is relatively common in Russia, where roughly 20 percentof people have visited a psychic and more than 60 percent believe in some form of magic. Natalia Antonova, a Washington-based writer and Russia expert who spent seven years reporting from Moscow, said "This issue of hypnosis and telekinesis, whatever it is that they're attempting to do, I think the Russians truly believe it. Most of us are still trying to exist in the real world, and [the Russian leadership] are not. They're not trying anymore."
Such fears may be enforced at the top. It's long been rumored that Russian leaders, including Putin, believe in mysticism, astrology, numerology, and psychics—as well as a conviction that their rule over a greater Russia is predestined. As far back as 1988, the New York Times reported that "[h]oroscopes, folk medicine, psychic healing and all manner of mysticism occupy a prominent place in Soviet society, part faith, part fad, but no joke."
Mysticism merges with more conventional Russian Orthodox beliefs about apocalyptic scenarios and satanic influence. At a September ceremony of the annexation of parts of Ukraine, Putin described how the Western "suppression of freedom itself has taken on the features of a religion: outright Satanism." Then, in October, the Russian government shifted its justification of the war, claiming it had a moral imperative to "carry out the de-Satanization of Ukraine." While the language of satanism is sometimes used purely as exaggerated rhetoric, sometimes it's meant literally. Conservative Russian Orthodox ideas of spiritual warfare, in which the West is depicted as literally demonic, have become incorporated into the Russian state's own vocabulary—and mixed with the country's enthusiasm for psychic pseudoscience.
Not to worry, though. The memo laid out how the FSO plans to avert this kind of psychic assault. Tactics include psychically strengthening officers by telling them stories about the bravery and heroism of their colleagues. Another means of counteracting psychological infection involves giving officers tours of the FSO Hall of Fame and History and visits to Moscow's Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan—presumably to pray the devil away. There will also be a kind of buddy system: "It is necessary to attach the most politically savvy officers of the FSO to the least stable," the memo reads. Or, as a precaution, it may be necessary to commit psychologically vulnerable officers who suffer "neuropsychiatric instability" to a hospital in these mysteriously perilous times. Concerns about psychology and the morale of officers—critically important in a losing war—have become blended with more esoteric worries such as psychic assaults.
The Soviet state and its successor both experimented with mind control (as did the United States during the Cold War, employing a secretive psychic project of its own). A Russian memo declassified in 2019 laid out how, in the 1980s, scientists investigated extrasensory perception (ESP) and other mystical abilities. And in 2019, a Russian military journal declared that the country's soldiers have psychic powers—and that they had used them before. The soldiers purportedly learned how to read thoughts from telepathic dolphins. But it isn't all just Flipper-imparted mind control. The article's author, an army colonel, wrote that the telepathic soldiers also are able to jam communications signals and crash computers with their thoughts.
In the paranormal arms race of the Cold War, no psychic "weapon" was too weird to consider—as long as whatever scientists were trying didn't sound like it was attached to the occult.
Investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen wrote in a 2017 book: "Soviet nomenclature around ESP was rewritten to sound technical, thereby severing all ties with ESP's occult past." Telepathy? It was renamed "long-distance biological systems transmissions." Psychokinesis? Moving objects just by thinking about them was instead called "non-ionizing, in particular electromagnetic, emissions from humans."
The leaked FSO memo explains that the deputy director of the FSO, Gen. Alexander Komov, is responsible for the ultimate implementation of the secret plan to ward off a psychic attack should it be needed. Komov is part science-minded, part kook. He participated in a conference organized last year by the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences about the possibility of spying on Earth from space. He also apparently leads a group of freelance advisors that includes astrologers, black magicians, and psychics.
According to the leaked memo, among other strategies the Russians believe the enemy may employ include "psycho-corrective games," "computer psi-viruses," and "chemical and biological" psychological influence. Psychocorrection, as best I can tell, is a pseudoscience meant to "correct" the development of young children, often using toys, and may include experimental psychology. Its utility for officials being targeted by foreign psychics is questionable. The Insider notes that the possibility of "computer psi-viruses," whatever those are, are unlikely to affect the Kremlin because officers are forbidden from using cellphones or tablets while on duty.
The initial invasion of Ukraine was backed up with hard power: an army of nearly 200,000 men accompanied by serious artillery, tanks, and air power. Russian pundits boasted of an easy victory. That crumbled in the face of Ukrainian resistance, and a panicky mass mobilization did little to change the course of failure. That may be contributing to the atmosphere of fantasy. "With all of these delusions that have been festering for years," Antonova said, "when they run up against the cold, hard reality that they can't win in Ukraine, they start breaking down mentally."
Time to put a pair of underpants on my head and shove two pencils up my nostrils....cluck-cluck, jibber-jibber, my old man's a mushroom etc. (see video below for context):
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2DCExerOsA
Russia Is Afraid of Western Psychic Attacks
Pseudoscience and mysticism are common among the Moscow elite.
JANUARY 3, 2023 | 3:31 PM.
By Lauren Wolfe, an award-winning journalist.
There are plenty of reasons these days to wonder if Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies are off their rockers. But a recently leaked memo from the Kremlin reveals that those in charge of the Russian government are farther down the rabbit hole than most of us realized.
The memo, published by the Insider, a Russian news outlet in exile, outlines how the Russian Federal Guard Service (FSO), which protects high-ranking officials such as Putin, would handle the invasion of Ukraine — or any other war — spilling over onto the country's own soil. It focuses on psychological preparedness, ensuring that FSO officers would have the "moral and psychological support" needed to resist what the memo calls a potential "massive ideological attack." But the Russians aren't simply worried about the usual wartime propaganda, like sneaky radio broadcasts or underground newspapers. Instead, the Kremlin is mounting preparations for what it calls the "psychological infection of personnel" by an enemy who would manipulate them through hypnosis—as well as through unknown mystical and psychic powers. The memo warns of "psi-generators" and "hypnotic abilities" used by foreign personnel.
Belief in mystic powers is relatively common in Russia, where roughly 20 percentof people have visited a psychic and more than 60 percent believe in some form of magic. Natalia Antonova, a Washington-based writer and Russia expert who spent seven years reporting from Moscow, said "This issue of hypnosis and telekinesis, whatever it is that they're attempting to do, I think the Russians truly believe it. Most of us are still trying to exist in the real world, and [the Russian leadership] are not. They're not trying anymore."
Such fears may be enforced at the top. It's long been rumored that Russian leaders, including Putin, believe in mysticism, astrology, numerology, and psychics—as well as a conviction that their rule over a greater Russia is predestined. As far back as 1988, the New York Times reported that "[h]oroscopes, folk medicine, psychic healing and all manner of mysticism occupy a prominent place in Soviet society, part faith, part fad, but no joke."
Mysticism merges with more conventional Russian Orthodox beliefs about apocalyptic scenarios and satanic influence. At a September ceremony of the annexation of parts of Ukraine, Putin described how the Western "suppression of freedom itself has taken on the features of a religion: outright Satanism." Then, in October, the Russian government shifted its justification of the war, claiming it had a moral imperative to "carry out the de-Satanization of Ukraine." While the language of satanism is sometimes used purely as exaggerated rhetoric, sometimes it's meant literally. Conservative Russian Orthodox ideas of spiritual warfare, in which the West is depicted as literally demonic, have become incorporated into the Russian state's own vocabulary—and mixed with the country's enthusiasm for psychic pseudoscience.
Not to worry, though. The memo laid out how the FSO plans to avert this kind of psychic assault. Tactics include psychically strengthening officers by telling them stories about the bravery and heroism of their colleagues. Another means of counteracting psychological infection involves giving officers tours of the FSO Hall of Fame and History and visits to Moscow's Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan—presumably to pray the devil away. There will also be a kind of buddy system: "It is necessary to attach the most politically savvy officers of the FSO to the least stable," the memo reads. Or, as a precaution, it may be necessary to commit psychologically vulnerable officers who suffer "neuropsychiatric instability" to a hospital in these mysteriously perilous times. Concerns about psychology and the morale of officers—critically important in a losing war—have become blended with more esoteric worries such as psychic assaults.
The Soviet state and its successor both experimented with mind control (as did the United States during the Cold War, employing a secretive psychic project of its own). A Russian memo declassified in 2019 laid out how, in the 1980s, scientists investigated extrasensory perception (ESP) and other mystical abilities. And in 2019, a Russian military journal declared that the country's soldiers have psychic powers—and that they had used them before. The soldiers purportedly learned how to read thoughts from telepathic dolphins. But it isn't all just Flipper-imparted mind control. The article's author, an army colonel, wrote that the telepathic soldiers also are able to jam communications signals and crash computers with their thoughts.
In the paranormal arms race of the Cold War, no psychic "weapon" was too weird to consider—as long as whatever scientists were trying didn't sound like it was attached to the occult.
Investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen wrote in a 2017 book: "Soviet nomenclature around ESP was rewritten to sound technical, thereby severing all ties with ESP's occult past." Telepathy? It was renamed "long-distance biological systems transmissions." Psychokinesis? Moving objects just by thinking about them was instead called "non-ionizing, in particular electromagnetic, emissions from humans."
The leaked FSO memo explains that the deputy director of the FSO, Gen. Alexander Komov, is responsible for the ultimate implementation of the secret plan to ward off a psychic attack should it be needed. Komov is part science-minded, part kook. He participated in a conference organized last year by the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences about the possibility of spying on Earth from space. He also apparently leads a group of freelance advisors that includes astrologers, black magicians, and psychics.
According to the leaked memo, among other strategies the Russians believe the enemy may employ include "psycho-corrective games," "computer psi-viruses," and "chemical and biological" psychological influence. Psychocorrection, as best I can tell, is a pseudoscience meant to "correct" the development of young children, often using toys, and may include experimental psychology. Its utility for officials being targeted by foreign psychics is questionable. The Insider notes that the possibility of "computer psi-viruses," whatever those are, are unlikely to affect the Kremlin because officers are forbidden from using cellphones or tablets while on duty.
The initial invasion of Ukraine was backed up with hard power: an army of nearly 200,000 men accompanied by serious artillery, tanks, and air power. Russian pundits boasted of an easy victory. That crumbled in the face of Ukrainian resistance, and a panicky mass mobilization did little to change the course of failure. That may be contributing to the atmosphere of fantasy. "With all of these delusions that have been festering for years," Antonova said, "when they run up against the cold, hard reality that they can't win in Ukraine, they start breaking down mentally."
Time to put a pair of underpants on my head and shove two pencils up my nostrils....cluck-cluck, jibber-jibber, my old man's a mushroom etc. (see video below for context):
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2DCExerOsA
Good news for them is they must have inherited quite a good networks of psychiatric establishments from the soviet era.
