Icochet posted:

Is it ok to call the russian invaders "droids", as in battle-hardened droid army?

RDM posted:

It's smart for a dictator who will be couped without the well trained and armed loyal army. They can safely war crime occupied regions and suppress internal threats while the army you filled with undesirables and haven't really given any resources to gets shredded.

The fightin' army kills some dudes on the other side and it would be nice if they succeeded, but this is an internal ethnic cleansing wearing a hat and a trenchcoat, and your territorial integrity is assured by your nuclear arsenal anyway.

It's horrible sense, but it does make sense (and is why dictatorships tend to be dogshit at wars).

Karate Bastard posted:

Fun fact, the word robot comes from the russian word for worker.

Threw me off for a fair bit, looking at a video way back about work, working, and workers, and they kept talking about "robots" while only ever having humans in frame.

Karate Bastard posted:

Fun fact, the word robot comes from the russian word for worker.

Threw me off for a fair bit, looking at a video way back about work, working, and workers, and they kept talking about "robots" while only ever having humans in frame.

Telsa Cola posted:

I think we can just call them people instead of calling them robots.

Tai posted:

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1633335134979072001

The gently caress is this gibberish. Russians can't live abroad for long? Yeah tell that to all the billionaires and their kids studying in London.

Icochet posted:

Is it ok to call the russian invaders "droids", as in battle-hardened droid army?

Rust Martialis posted:

Now they've been angry lately
Thinking about the GBS postings to come
And I believe it could be
Something awful has begun
Oh, they've been posting lately
Wishin' that the Russians had won
And I believe it could be
Probations going to come
'Cause out from the thread of dorkness
There ride the peace trolls
Oh, peace trolls take this sixer
And gently caress off home again

Oh, peace trolls sounding louder
Sixers for the peace trolls
Ooh-ah, ee-ah, ooh-ah
Come on now, peace trolls
Yes, peace trolls hatin' Ukraine
Everyone laughin' at the peace trolls
Ooh-ah, ee-ah, ooh-ah
Come on now, peace trolls

(no apologies to Yusuf Islam)

CannonFodder posted:

What song are you parodying, btw? I don't know his works very well.

CannonFodder posted:

What song are you parodying, btw? I don't know his works very well.

DiomedesGodshill posted:

Bad joke aside I have this vague feeling that Russia is just trying to get out of Russia and into Eastern Europe for some reason. Is it access to better warm water ports and better farmland? Also I have a probably misguided sense that when Russians talk about Russia, they really talking about the section between Eastern Europe and the Volga. Is that accurate? Is developing Eastern Russia not practical?

Prince Potemkin, 1783 to Empress Catherine the Great posted:

The Porte has not kept good faith from the very beginning. Their primary goal has been to deprive the Crimeans of independence. They banished the legal khan and replaced him with the thief Devlet Giray. They consistently refused to evacuate the Taman. They made numerous perfidious attempts to introduce rebellion in the Crimea against the legitimate Khan Şahin Giray. All of these efforts did not bring us to declare war…The Porte never ceased to drink in each drop of revolt among the Tatars…Our only wish has been to bring peace to Crimea…and we were finally forced by the Turks to annex the area.

HonorableTB posted:

Siberia and the Far East are so sparsely populated with such a large land mass that it is extremely impractical to develop it beyond natural resource extraction. The only reason there's as many people as there are in those areas right now (aside from native peoples already there) is that the Russian colonization of the East was deliberate and involved specifically constructing military posts, citadels, and forts to establish control over an area then internally deporting colonists to live there from the West. The Trans-Siberian Railway exists but in most places it's literally just two tracks (or sometimes one! with pull offs for traffic control) for hundreds of miles. Russia is impossibly large. You probably think it's a long way down to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts compared to Russia.

I went on a train from SPb to Moscow and it was an overnight sleeper train, and that's a relatively short journey by Russian standards.

Take a look at this map of the territorial evolution of Russia:



You can follow the colonization and development along the line from Saint Petersburg to Yekaterinburg where the trans-siberian railway links up at Chelyabinsk and goes east through Omsk, Nobosibirsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Chita, Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok. As far as I'm aware, those were all military outposts first and foremost that later developed into settlements and cities, and all were deliberate settlements. The Russian imperial idea for the Far East was resource extraction to support the imperial core of Western Russia. There was never a need to develop it more necessarily than it is (and where there IS development, it's quite extensive - Norilsk is one such example, Norilsk was at one point the leading nickel producing city in the world despite it's absolutely desolate location in the Far North)

Icon Of Sin posted:

I was curious about the actual distance between St Petersburg and Vladivostok, and it’s around 6,000 miles. Or, the same the same distance as going from the North Carolina Outer Banks to the Hawaiian Islands…plus another thousand miles or so

HonorableTB posted:

Siberia and the Far East are so sparsely populated with such a large land mass that it is extremely impractical to develop it beyond natural resource extraction. The only reason there's as many people as there are in those areas right now (aside from native peoples already there) is that the Russian colonization of the East was deliberate and involved specifically constructing military posts, citadels, and forts to establish control over an area then internally deporting colonists to live there from the West. The Trans-Siberian Railway exists but in most places it's literally just two tracks (or sometimes one! with pull offs for traffic control) for hundreds of miles. Russia is impossibly large. You probably think it's a long way down to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts compared to Russia.

I went on a train from SPb to Moscow and it was an overnight sleeper train, and that's a relatively short journey by Russian standards.

Take a look at this map of the territorial evolution of Russia:



You can follow the colonization and development along the line from Saint Petersburg to Yekaterinburg where the trans-siberian railway links up at Chelyabinsk and goes east through Omsk, Nobosibirsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Chita, Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok. As far as I'm aware, those were all military outposts first and foremost that later developed into settlements and cities, and all were deliberate settlements. The Russian imperial idea for the Far East was resource extraction to support the imperial core of Western Russia. There was never a need to develop it more necessarily than it is (and where there IS development, it's quite extensive - Norilsk is one such example, Norilsk was at one point the leading nickel producing city in the world -and still might be- despite it's absolutely desolate location in the Far North)

Russia is miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles until suddenly you come across a fully modernized industrial complex in the middle of nowhere, then you might not see anything but fields and swamp for the next six hours before oh hey, pine cone processing complex!

loving history posted:

Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great, weighted the advantages and disadvantages of annexing the Crimean Peninsula in violation of the Peace Treaty of Kϋϛϋk Kaynarca. Turks and Crimean Tartars had aspirations at taking the entire peninsula so Russia had to have a presence in the region. Annexing Crimea would lead to a continuous border between the Black and the Azov Seas which would change the defense strategy of the southern border. Setting the defense of the southern border in Crimea would strengthen Russia’s influence in the Black Sea. It would give Russia the power to monitor the mouths of the Danube and Dniper Rivers. Another benefit was that the Black Sea had no restrictions on the size and tonnage of vessels, unlike the Dniper estuary which could be blocked at any time by Turkish fleets. A Black Sea fleet would keep the Ottoman Empire in check. Establishing a port in the Black Sea was strategically important for Russia as most of its ports freeze in winter and it was essential for trading and to support a strong navy.

Catherine II was determined to continue her territorial expansion and preparations for annexation started over a year before the final annexation took place. In December 1782 she ordered the Foreign Affairs Board to start diplomatic work with European powers of the day such as Britain, France, Austria and Sardinia. Concluding that Russian ports would feel threatened by the Ottoman Empire, Catherine the Great issued a manifesto on April 1783 justifying the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Empire. The final documents were signed on February 2, 1784.

Russians were continually meddling in Crimea destabilizing their government. Catherine encouraged revolt against the Khan and installed a puppet government faithful to her. When the annexation took place Tartars raised in protest. She insisted that she was saving them from misgovernment.

European countries ultimately accepted the appropriation of the Crimean territory and it was considered a huge success of Russia’s foreign policy. The Treaty of Constantinople in 1784 ceded the Crimea Peninsula to the Russian Empire.

In order to secure its borders Catherine the Great gave orders to build the fortress of Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet. The construction of the Black Sea Fleet was given to Prince Grigory Potemkin, the Governor and General in Chief of Novorossiysk.

HonorableTB posted:

To answer your question about warm water ports, the only one Russia has is Sevastopol and that's why they're so bugshit crazy about Crimea in particular. Sevastopol's year-round ice free deep water port was so valuable that the location was the reason for Russia invading and annexing Crimea in 1783.

This might sound familiar Having returned from Crimea, Prince Potemkin convinced Catherine the Great that many Crimeans would "happily submit" to Russian rule, and encouraged by this news Catherine proclaimed the annexation on April 19, 1783 lol.

This view was far from reality. Crimean "independence" had been a puppet regime, and the Ottomans had played little role in the Crimean revolts. Crimea was incorporated into the Empire as the Taurida Oblast. Later that year, the Ottoman Empire signed an agreement with Russia that recognized the loss of Crimea and other territories that had been held by the Khanate.

DiomedesGodshill posted:

I assumed as much regarding Sevastopol. I guess just annexing Crimea was easier/cheaper than creating new or expanding existing ports on the Black Sea? Novorossiysk not good enough?

KirbyKhan posted:

Peace is good, war is bad

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Runa posted:

If you say peace is good then prove it

Say Russia and its armies should leave Ukraine

HonorableTB posted:

Novorossiysk is one of the largest ports in the Black Sea, for sure. However, it's not as good as Sevastopol because while Novorossiysk is ice-free all year AND deep enough for blue water ships, in winter navigation can sometimes just completely halt because of the bora wind coming from the northeast. A bora wind is a katabatic wind that happens specifically near the Adriatic Sea, and if you don't know what a katabatic wind is, it's a wind gust that can reach hurricane force speeds and drops on you from above because that kind of wind carries high density air from a higher elevation, and gravity bombs you with it at windspeeds that can reach up to 190mph (300 km/h). Makes port work not ideal when your entire reason for being there is to have an ice-free port; much easier to just use Sevastopol which doesn't have HIMARS hitting your naval base in the form of unexpected hurricane winds that last for 15 minutes for 40% of the year

Katabatic winds also just look cool as gently caress, you can visibly see the poo poo coming to ruin your day. It should be noted that most katabatic winds aren't super dangerous and destructive; most are about 10-15 mph. Which in my view sucks worse because you get lulled into a false sense of security before getting whalloped by a piece of wood flying at 130 mph towards you

DiomedesGodshill posted:

Also I have a probably misguided sense that when Russians talk about Russia, they really talking about the section between Eastern Europe and the Volga. Is that accurate? Is developing Eastern Russia not practical?

Rad-daddio posted:

War is bad and everyone should just stop doing it.

HonorableTB posted:

Novorossiysk is one of the largest ports in the Black Sea, for sure. However, it's not as good as Sevastopol because while Novorossiysk is ice-free all year AND deep enough for blue water ships, in winter navigation can sometimes just completely halt because of the bora wind coming from the northeast. A bora wind is a katabatic wind that happens specifically near the Adriatic Sea, and if you don't know what a katabatic wind is, it's a wind gust that can reach hurricane force speeds and drops on you from above because that kind of wind carries high density air from a higher elevation, and gravity bombs you with it at windspeeds that can reach up to 190mph (300 km/h). Makes port work not ideal when your entire reason for being there is to have an ice-free port; much easier to just use Sevastopol which doesn't have HIMARS hitting your naval base in the form of unexpected hurricane winds that last for 15 minutes for 40% of the year

Katabatic winds also just look cool as gently caress, you can visibly see the poo poo coming to ruin your day. It should be noted that most katabatic winds aren't super dangerous and destructive; most are about 10-15 mph. Which in my view sucks worse because you get lulled into a false sense of security before getting whalloped by a piece of wood flying at 130 mph towards you

Raku posted:

Putin sitting on his unannounced decree making everyone serfs again because the land they're all bound to is held by Ukraine

Raku posted:

Putin sitting on his unannounced decree making everyone serfs again because the land they're all bound to is held by Ukraine

DiomedesGodshill posted:

Runa posted:

If you say peace is good then prove it

Say Russia and its armies should leave Ukraine