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Grouchio posted:Sorry the Russians are in Finnish territory 1) ready to invade or 2) there to stop the Finns from any wise ideas? They're 6 feet under, not 6 feet in.
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Feb 25, 2022 17:24
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Zero_Grade posted:Wait, you're saying the Irish have strong feelings about a larger nation invading their smaller neighbor to the west? I find this hard to swallow. It's very much this, but also, over the last 20 or so years there has been a lot of immigration of people from Central and Eastern Europe into Ireland, so seeing Ukraine being attacked like this feels very personal - we're seeing the relatives and old homes of people who are now our neighbours and colleagues and friends being attacked and destroyed. It's loving brutal 
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Feb 25, 2022 19:07
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I've been following this here and just for contrast, on an Irish messageboard which has a... reputation for tolerating racist/bigoted/far right/xenophobic members. They regularly parrot all the usual far right talking points. Anyway, the weird and interesting thing is that even there, the consensus is that Putin is totally in the wrong and Ukraine should be supported. The posters who'd usually be cheerleading him as a strong force against WOKE are almost entirely opposed to this current action. They occasionally mutter about how NATO is somehow at fault, but it is very half-hearted. Seems like Putin has, so far, completely lost the propaganda war outside a very small bubble.
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Feb 25, 2022 20:30
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KitConstantine posted:Warning for Russian apologia but the Irish news had the Russian Ambassador on for a chat if you want to hear their diplomatic line. The last 45 seconds are particularly interesting This is a big deal for Irish state media. RTE is very very cautious about being controversial, and regularly simply repeats each and every government's propaganda statements as though they were fact. Calling out lies as... well lies is very unusual.
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Feb 25, 2022 22:02
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How can Putin survive this? Even if/when the Russian forces take control in Ukraine, Russia will have suffered so much geopolitical damage that its hard to see how they can salvage anything from this. They will be isolated from the rest of the world, even their usual allies, (outside the puppet states) are distancing themselves as much as possible. I'm very ignorant on the subject I know, but its hard to see any possible outcome from this that strengthens Russia's position on the world stage. To me, it looks like he's torpedoed his country because he wants to go back to the Good Old Days when Russia was Strong and he had hair.
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Feb 26, 2022 17:27
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the popes toes posted:Another really welcome difference about this conflict is the universal recognition that this is entirely Putin, just Putin, and there's been no demonizing Russians, but oddly sympathy. Im seeing this sentiment alot on Irish online discussion. The vast majority of posters are talking about this as a Putin aggression, and seeing the Russian soldiers as pawns thrown into a grinder to fulfill his ambitions, and the average Russian citizen as entirely powerless to do anything to stop it. Everyone is extremely impressed by the courage of those Russian people willing to go out and protest. We know that they are risking at minimum a beating, and quite possibly summary execution for doing so.
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Feb 26, 2022 20:14
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Glad to see Zelenskyy is back in communication - first tweet in 15 hours https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1497885721931268103?cxt=HHwWjoC-nZjIx8kpAAAA
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Feb 27, 2022 12:49
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TheRat posted:I'm not sure where you're from, but as someone living in western europe I don't think you realise how little western europeans thinks of eastern europe. The anti-eastern racism is real bad. I dunno, I'm in Ireland and the pro-Ukraine sentiment is very strong. We have a loud but small minority of xenophobes who hate nearly all immigrants, but most people here have friends, partners, colleagues, neighbours from all over Central and Eastern Europe. Yeah, I know, a formerly completely colonized state having big empathy for another state being attacked by an imperial power is hardly surprising, but its not just that on its own.
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Feb 28, 2022 17:56
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Polish and Moldovan shops in my town have been acting as collection centres for people to drop off supplies of things like baby food, clothes, bandages, charge banks etc. They're organising runs up to Poland to drop said supplies off at the border. Was feeling so helpless and sad today, but felt a tiny bit better after dropping off some stuff. God knows, it wasn't much, but it helps even one refugee feel a tiny bit of normality, I'll sleep better 
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Feb 28, 2022 20:18
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Quorum posted:Honestly, the collective reaction of the West, and particularly Europe, to frame this as an attack on Us by Them, rather than by Them on some other Them, is one of the biggest differences between this and any other recent war of aggression and is a solid reason to see some hope in the long term. I think it's massively helped by the absolutely superhuman skill the Ukrainian people have shown in using social media to present a united, coherent and extremely admirable national character. Hardly any false steps so far as I have seen.
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Feb 28, 2022 20:26
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awesome-express posted:I just keep thinking about all potential outcomes for Putin in this, and is it me, but none of them seem terribly great? There are no viable good outcomes for Russia in this. We're seeing Russian and Ukrainian people dying and being displaced because one narcissistic old gently caress is angry because he's being made look bad in public. I can't imagine what its like to have my country led by someone who would commit atrocities rather than step down or even look a bit weak for a while
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Mar 1, 2022 19:30
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I'm horribly uninformed, but I had gathered that taking Kiev largely undamaged was important because its ancient buildings are very symbolically important to the idea of a coherent, cohesive russian empire. If they destroy old Kiev, surely they are destroying old imperial Russia,?
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Mar 1, 2022 19:34
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Popete posted:I take it you're not American. Irish. Our lovely politicians are fortunately still at the stage when the can be forced out by being shitbags about covid regs. Nowhere is perfect, but Ireland is generally very sensible, politically speaking. We don't do extremism.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:40
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Captain Beans posted:I doubt the buildings have anything to do with it. The main benefit from rolling in and capturing the capital with minimal force and destruction is the demonstration of how unstoppable the invading force seems. That ripples down to all the people in the UA and civilians and influences their decision to continue fighting or not. If they destroy ancient Kiev, they are going to have to do some crazy information management to convince the Russian people that Ukrainians mysteriously decided to destroy their own heartland to make Russia look bad. Destroying Kiev makes no sense, unless Russia is desperate for a win, any win.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:44
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Kraftwerk posted:Do you have a read on what Sinn Fein and former IRA types might think about this conflict? No idea. As a complete guess, they are desperately scrabbling for a take which leaves them some credibility while distancing them from Russia. Being anti US, anti UK is a reasonable position from many perspectives, but its extremely clear at this point that cosying up to Putins Russia is not a viable " enemy of my enemy is my friend" position
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Mar 1, 2022 19:49
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Just Another Lurker posted:Extremism is all up here in Northern Ireland, with me! I didn't want to bring up the absolute loopers in the North. They represent hardly anyone and are crazy weirdos to the average person.
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Mar 1, 2022 20:38
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Burning_Monk posted:The captions make it so much sadder. That woman is doing so much good by her stoical kindness. She strokes that poor Russian soldiers shoulder to comfort him, she signals to the other person to stop filming him, she tells his mother that he is safe and fed. It all feeds the narrative that Ukraine is kind and good and these Russian conscripts are afraid and alone and hungry. I know it's partly propaganda, but its also decent people doing their best.
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Mar 2, 2022 21:13
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fatherboxx posted:I have bought a giant bag of coffee beans and 2 litre can of olive oil because they could be the last ones I ever have; feeling strange to be in a historical moment when your country may turn to a pariah state status in a month. This whole situation is just unbelievably terrible and surreal, I can't imagine how bad it is for ordinary people in Russia. I'm on the western edge of Europe, and when I was going to the local shops today, all I could think about was what it would look like if there were tanks rolling down the streets, and shells hitting the buildings. All these ordinary, peaceful towns and cities being destroyed because one evil old fool wants to bring back the past. Stay safe and let's hope for better times goonfriend
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Mar 3, 2022 21:18
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KitConstantine posted:The idea is that something like a Javelin will hit the cage first and blow up slightly early preventing a total loss. This is just so incredibly clumsy. Like, anyone who follows more than one of the people is surely going to notice that they are saying exactly, word-for-word the same thing?
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Mar 5, 2022 13:12
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Shes Not Impressed posted:Now, say: you're going to Kyiv, in Kyiv, at Kyiv, above Kyiv, under Kyiv, etc. and learn how to pronounce it like 30 more ways! Oh gently caress Ukrainian is inflected?
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Mar 14, 2022 19:38
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bad_fmr posted:Was this masterpiece posted already? At my grandfather's funeral, a very old man that none of us had ever met came over to tell us about how, when he was a young army officer, my grandad had a sports car with a machine gun mounted on it  (Grandad had a... busy time during the Irish War of Independence and Civil War)
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Mar 14, 2022 19:44
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Shes Not Impressed posted:Yeah. I can respect inflected languages for how clearly they can express exact meaning, but drat they are a pain in the hole for non-infants to learn.
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Mar 14, 2022 19:46
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KitConstantine posted:Wild scene on Russian state TV today Her courage is unbelievable, I can only imagine being this great a person.
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Mar 14, 2022 20:01
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William Bear posted:I remember reading that there was an old Russian joke about this stuff. From Wikipedia: Ooh, so russian has different endings depending on the number of objects. I think Polish does the same thing.
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Mar 14, 2022 20:21
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This may well come off as a terribly uninformed and shallow take, but it feels to me like Putin is having an emotional reaction similar to a very controlling, abusive ex who can't accept that their former victim has moved on and wants nothing to do with them. It's like he behaving as though "if I cant have you Ukraine, no-one can!"
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Mar 15, 2022 21:58
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CommieGIR posted:Worth remembering that the Russian Army is going about cutting down all these trees to "Pay the Bills" making them even more exposed if they do. The tree thing is insane. They have hardly any competent soldiers left, but suddenly they have a whole cohort of woodcutter and transport facilities to export Ukrainian wood. Are they gonna build wooden tanks onsite or what?
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Mar 16, 2022 20:59
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Zhanism posted:Molotov cocktails would like that. Cope Cages = griddles
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Mar 16, 2022 21:02
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with a rebel yell she QQd posted:I would just like to mention that our little independent media that we have left, asked Orban's office the other day if he is also going to visit Kyiv like leaders of other countries. Maybe it's just cos I'm old, but those soldiers look like literal schoolchildren to me 
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Mar 17, 2022 17:32
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Kaal posted:Those are academy cadets. Oh, ok that's a bit better
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Mar 17, 2022 18:41
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FishMcCool posted:Just making things official really: that was already the perception a long time ago. I had a russian coworker, like from 2003 to 2008? And each year where he went back a bit to Russia to see some family or do some official stuff, he was poo poo scared that he wouldn't be allowed to leave. Then all his russia-based friends started to drop him, calling him a spy/traitor/5th column on social networks. His house got robbed too, but nothing much of value was taken, but the family's passports were gone... And that was about 15 years ago, imagine what it must be like now... Just wanted to say, Ireland is incredibly committed to all the central and Eastern European people moving around because of this terrible conflict. Yiz are 100% welcome. We love our neighbours and we value them AS neighbours.
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Mar 17, 2022 21:19
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Putin may have been a cunning negotiator in the past, but its decades since he became a dictator who got angry at hearing about bad news. He's immensely detached from anything negative about the russian army or anything else, because who the gently caress would tell daddy Putin the bad news that everything is hosed? He deliberately hosed up the Russian army so they couldn'd be a threat to him and is now surprised that they are lovely Putin is a dumbass moron. He is an immensely stupid idiot who believes his own bullshit. Eat poo poo putin, you are a stupid, stupid moron.
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Mar 19, 2022 21:02
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Eric Cantonese posted:Not having lived during the Prague Spring, Hungary 1956 or the Cuban Missile Crisis but having endured the 1980s, this isn't quite right. This is way hotter and direct and worrisome than what I remember. Same. I was only a little kid for most of the 80s, and while I was afraid of nuclear war, the Cold War then really did feel very static. Plus Gorbachev never came off as a scary or evil guy.
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Mar 24, 2022 14:32
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William Bear posted:
I'd never heard about this incident, it's really striking how completely the tone has changed between then and the Putin regime.
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Mar 24, 2022 15:01
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And they helpfully wrote the slur in non-Cyrillic characters? Hmm....
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Mar 24, 2022 20:49
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Xombie posted:I'm not sure you can write German in Cyrillic characters. Is it impossible to translate an antisemitic slur into Russian? I would have thought that if you wanted to be anti semitic as a Ukrainian in Russia you'd do it in a way most accessible to Russians. Not in a way so conveniently transmissible to foreign audiences.
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Mar 24, 2022 21:20
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fuctifino posted:Meanwhile in the UK, the government is focused on the important things - the spoils of war. I think you got April Foolsed quote:The case prompted the Conservative MP and former submariner Shiv R M’Timbers to suggest this was exactly the sort of super yacht that could be used by Buckingham Palace.
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Apr 1, 2022 12:10
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fuctifino posted:How did I not see that? I was 100% convinced til I got to that bit tbh .Its the kind of weird/shady/RAH RAH ROYALS! poo poo I expect from the tories, plus I wouldn't have thought the Guardian would be so tasteless as to crack lame jokes about stuff to do with the loving horrible war in Ukraine. edit: Just saw the author's name: Mari Tyme Pookah fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Apr 1, 2022 |
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Apr 1, 2022 12:24
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Dapper_Swindler posted:probably. but this (as of now) is Ukraine's doolittle raid, unless russia is really that much of paper tiger ghost army. i doubt they will be able to pull it off again. least in that area. If that airfield they kept leaving aircraft out to get bombed over and over again is typical strategy, we can assume they're going to put out the fire and store some more fuel there. "They'll never expect us to do something so stupid!"
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Apr 1, 2022 15:21
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Reminder that Europe/the EU has multiple members who have extremely recent memories of how poo poo it is to be under Russian control. I was in adult school with a woman who had 2 official names. One in her own country's language, one in Russian. These people hate Russia from the bottom of their souls.
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Apr 2, 2022 20:10
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Seeing the latest reports of atrocities out of Ukraine, and I'm at the point where I cannot deal with this level of cruelty and devastation. I literally cannot process the emotions of looking at an army willing to commit crimes so utterly vile and evil against a vulnerable civilian population. Who are these soldiers? How can they do such foul things?
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Apr 4, 2022 19:46
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