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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. The Lt Col. recently kidnapped and tortured by Wagner who said on video he fired on Wagner forces because he was drunk and angry with them, has released a new video. I'm sorry guys, but this shit is hilarious. The level of dysfunction is frankly hard to believe. It's stunning Wagner was allowed to get away with this shit..,.but then again, Russia.
  2. I'm surprised no one else has posted this already. Texas Track and Field came out with a hype video, and it's as good as any hype video I've seen for any sport at Texas. It put goosebumps on my goosebumps.
  3. It's been a bummer going into the quagmire of the Russian propaganda universe in search of updates. It's impossible to believe anything they're spouting. On the other hand, there is a pretty "good" video (quality wise) of either artillery or one report said an attack helicopter decimating a few UAF armored vehicles who were stuck in a muddy minefield. Just waiting to see what has actually unfolded. What is clear is that at least one of the more robust attacks towards Tokmak occurred at night, which says to me they were taking advantage of western thermal optics and night vision.
  4. Exports are cheaper. Money sent back home will go further I’ll also say that at least by every account I’ve read the ballots were counted fairly. That shouldn’t be taken for granted, especially in a country where one man has amassed as much power as Erdogan has. Obviously Erdogan’s party controls all state organs including the media, but the opposition could have run a better race, too. He’ll never be as vulnerable as he was in this election. It’s a shame they couldn’t win.
  5. Not endorsing the message in the tweet, but the video is horrific. Here's a "better" video:
  6. Horrific article about what is occurring on the Russian occupied side of the Dnipro River. "...the Russians allegedly destroyed people's means of escape. Serhiy's parents told him the Russians went through the town and rounded up or destroyed all the boats they could find in the weeks before triggering the explosion that caused Ukraine's most lurid catastrophe in decades. "They stole the boats before all this... all the landings, they carried out all the boats," said Serhiy, paraphrasing what his parents told him. "It's like they were preparing for this to specially create a situation so that no one could escape." "We thought they were looting. Now I understand that there was a specific command to remove all means of flotation so that people couldn't save themselves." Oleh said that his aunt told him a similar story. "They (the boats) were taken away," he said, quoting her. "People whose houses were locked kept their boats. The ones on the pier were smashed, shot up, or taken away." https://kyivindependent.com/they-are-destroying-us-people-plea-to-escape-flooded-russian-occupied-areas/ Allegedly Oleshky, a town of 24,000 pre invasion, is expected to be completely submerged.
  7. All the twitter warriors telling posters to be quiet about the offensive. Give me a fucking break. Making sure everyone on twitter stays quiet about a major offensive underway is as likely as holding water with a sieve.
  8. No. He's pretty much a badass. But he's part of the Azov Battalion, so he ends up getting entwined with the neo Nazi propaganda that group gets associated with. He still may be in his grandmother's basement right now, but it's without an eye and with a prosthetic left arm suffered in combat, neither of which stopped him from serving in Mariupol in the Azovstal Steelworks, until their surrender.
  9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illia_Samoilenko_(officer) Here's the BBC interview referenced in the Wikipedia entry: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63231457
  10. Lots of indications by completely untrustworthy twitter posters that there's a massive night offensive going on towards Tokmak. Apparently there's 6 layers of defense between the frontline and the town itself. I guess we'll see. Just as likely to be more probing.
  11. Are you being serious, or purposefully silly? How many NATO countries want to actively send in troops to kick Russia out of there? The US certainly doesn't. I do agree with others that Poland and the Baltic States are probably rarin' to go, but virtually the rest of NATO has no desire to send their own troops in there. In the US, politically it would be a disaster for the president and political party that did such a thing. I do feel alarmist about the power plant right now, particularly after what happened with the dam, but I'm not seeing the kind of rhetoric from the US and other countries I'd like to about the issue. Mostly we're still collectively dithering about whether it was Ukraine or Russia that blew it up (narrator: It was Russia). Anyway, that's not going to be a realistic option. Remember, one member nation can veto any new member. That's why Turkiye can keep Sweden of all places out of NATO. There's simply no way you're going to get every NATO country to agree to such a deal.
  12. I read it as more of a threat to places like France and Germany, if countries like Hungary and Turkiye try to slow everyone's roll. It's very difficult for me to see Poland sending in troops in the near term. And no offense to the Baltic States, but I'm not sure what in the world they could actually do. Honestly, Poland intervening by taking out Russian air defense and enforcing a no fly zone over Ukraine would be more impactful than sending in troops. Not sure they're capable of doing that, but that's a bigger need than Polish infantry. But all of that is fantasy talk. It's a bluff to get reluctant members of NATO to go along with some kind of substantive path to membership for Ukraine. Otherwise all the pressure is going to be on dithering and tabling discussions. There's a real world issue with figuring out how to let in a country to a mutual self defense organization when it's already at war, and none of the members really want to actively intervene. That was the brilliance of the Donbas separatist move by Putin/Russia in the first place. The conflict basically froze Ukraine's admittance into both the EU and NATO. But he overextended his hand, and now all bets are off.
  13. That's some crazy shit right there. Thank you for posting.
  14. 3 times in 300+ years. Charles XII doesn't get the recognition of Napoleon and Operation Barbarossa in the west, but he gets a whole lot more in Russia. He lost through much the same dynamic you're describing. Peter the Great had an incredible knack for failing upward with his military campaigns.
  15. I feel like there's room here for reasonable people to agree to disagree to an extent. It comes down to my fundamental view of humanity, which is we are a tribal species by nature where it takes an extensive amount of cultural programming to overcome those natural tribal instincts, and that programming is always extraordinarily fragile from one generation to the next. My argument would be that the evil actions we associate with Japan and Germany during World War II were actions that have been performed throughout human history and prehistory. It's the inevitable end result of tribalism taken to its furthest point. I say inevitable purposefully, because unless consciously combatted both individually by all of us searching out our natural prejudices and the reasons we hold them, as well as society as a whole having a cultural imperative to protect tribes without the current means to power, so that they can at some point in the future hold the reins of power, the end result is some type of repression and possibly extermination on a grand scale. Whatever else Germany and Japan have done, there can be little doubt their innate sense of superiority is intact and healthy as ever. With Germany I feel like its best display was during the debt crisis following the 2008 global financial meltdown - particularly their position regarding Greece - and their attitudes towards Turkish immigrants. With Japan, I'd argue it's the most xenophobic country on the planet. That's a natural result of being an island nation that has only suffered one military conquest in its history. While it's true their economies are admirable in many respects, it's also true they have extensive cultural impediments to operating with a current account deficit, including the institutional and cultural difficulties in successfully exporting goods and services to either country, the cultural and institutional pressure to be high savers rather than consumers, and the meshing across sectors between various industries, most notably banking and other financial institutions, which is done to a significant degree to protect domestic ownership and management. I'd argue that many of the aspects of their economies the rest of the world might be better off emulating, rather than casting them as some kind of villain. But regardless, they rely on the rest of the world to buy their goods and services to maintain their economic growth, and then they lend the money earned back to those consumer nations so they can buy more goods and services. It's changed somewhat for Germany since the advent of the euro, and become much more European centric, but the dynamics are still firmly in place. At its heart it's a predatory economic model. For a nascent economy trying to grow, it makes sense. Coming out of World War II, with both industrial bases obliterated, both countries are absolutely success stories. But at this point they're both mature economies who sociologically refuse to become more consumption/import reliant. It would be different if some years they maintained high current account surpluses while in others they had high current account deficits, but that's not how either country works. Again, I don't want to say this is entirely Japan and Germany's fault. The rest of the world has responsibilities in how they operate and maintain their economies. I'm simply saying that the current global economic model is unsustainable. It depends to a significant extent on various countries running massive current account deficits every year, and having the money funneled back by buying assets or lending the money through the purchase of bonds to keep the cycle going. That's a predatory cycle which will eventually be changed. Probably catastrophically. The 2008 debt crisis was a fundamental unfolding of this dynamic, but there will be others. And eventually there will be bigger ruptures. All of this is way off the topic of the thread. I'm merely posting this as an aside to whatshisface on Twitter (Huffman maybe?) comparing the future cultural change in Russia to what has already transpired in Germany in Japan, with the response that things aren't changing in Russia, and I also have some questions regarding how much things have changed fundamentally in Germany and Japan, although it's true neither one is seeking to dominate their neighbors through military force.
  16. He’s also a bureaucrat, not an operative. Hes basically the head of a mafia, but he thinks he’s Michael Corleone when he’s really Don Barzini.
  17. That’s certainly been Putin’s M.O.. But who knows what he’s doing. He’s not playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. He made a colossal fuckup by invading Ukraine, but instead of owning up to it he’s punishing anyone who wants to be realistic to him about what’s going on. There is nothing but disaster ahead for Russia. Just hope it doesn’t end in a mushroom cloud. Or multiple ones.
  18. “When Putin finally goes, I suspect there will be one or two interim figures before Russia finally gets a leader who has a shot at righting the ship. But who will that person be? Whoever it is, that person will certainly have a tough road ahead of him (or her).” It’s not a bug. It’s a feature. The kind of western style collaboration necessary to function in a representative government is seen as weakness in Russian culture. Who is their George Washington? Their Abraham Lincoln? All of their admired leaders - including Putin, and whoever ends up taking over for the long term after he’s gone - are ruthless despots. It’s how their society is structured from the top down. I’m not saying every single Russian is supportive of that. I’m saying the few that aren’t have never had any power and are seen as outliers by the rest of society. To the ruthless people who take power they’re the suckers, the sheep, the peasants, who deserve to be ruled over because that’s their lot in life. And the Russian culture is so fucking fatalistic for the most part - fatalism is possibly the strongest fucking strand in the DNA of Russian culture - that they’ll go along with it. That’s a big part of what I admire so much about the Ukrainians. In so many ways they’ve told the Russians “fuck you, we’re not accepting your fatalistic bullshit any more.” To me that’s what the Orange Revolution and the Maidan Revolution were about. And I’ll tell you what. After this war is over and the reforms for corruption still keep going nowhere for the most part - which is what I predict will happen - those fuckers are going to do it again. They’ll simply gather by the hundreds of thousands in Kyiv to say “no more!” That shit simply isn’t going to occur in Russia. Someone will take charge and start murdering and jailing people until no one is protesting any more, just like they always have. To expect something different is foolish, IMO.
  19. There won’t be any “righting of the ship.” There will be another strong man autocrat. This is a foolish and misplaced way of thinking about the future of Russia. What we should be celebrating is the possible excision of Ukraine from that poisonous orbit. It’s not over by a long shot, but the fact they’re this close to being able to finally throw off the yoke of Russian domination is a reason for mass celebration. But there is no chance of some kind of reformation of Russia. None. And to be honest, I’m not completely convinced there’s been a total reformation of Germany and Japan. They were successfully demilitarized and their constitutions were enshrined with protections from having any real offensive military capabilities whatsoever, but in economic terms you’d be hard pressed to find two economies more predatory than Germany and Japan with their export led economic growth strategies. Not to mention Japan’s success led to China following suit. There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There’s a hill, and we’re pushing a boulder up it, and when we get near the top it’s going to roll down again. The key thing in all of this is to try to be a civilization/culture worth aspiring to, and then continue to ensure our existence. But it’s dumb to talk about the possibility of Russia reforming. Just like it was when Yeltsin was president. It ain’t happening. The best we can hope for is it splits into several different pieces so none of them have the power of the Soviet Union.
  20. I've posted videos from this journalist on this thread previously, but it's been a while. She's my absolute favorite covering the war. In particular, her stories in and around Bakhmut I find utterly compelling. In this video she and her colleagues cover a number of elements that make up an assault on the Russian position. No real footage of the assault itself, but 48m of the people behind the operation before and afterwards. I found it extremely compelling. I hope some of you do as well.
  21. Which is a little ironic given that 956 Worldwide is an Aggie, and we all listen to him, as well we should.
  22. The history of that area is fascinating to me, starting with the Scythians who were a powerful nomadic empire in the region who were early adopters in successfully breeding and utilizing horses capable of carrying people (although chariots had been in use for centuries already). For 2000 years the Crimean coast was more Greek than anything else, although that ended in the 15th century. A naval port/base was first established at Sevastopol in the 5th century BC. There's even a strange Jewish/non-Jewish sect called Crimean Karaites who are practically extinct now, but have an extremely odd history.
  23. More regarding a possible Tokmak offensive. And by more, I mean a seven second clip of lots of puffs of smoke from the Russian perspective. But hey, I'm desperate here for updates, and I figure some other folks on this thread are feeling the same way.
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