Power Khan posted:

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1633136675567153153

Karate Bastard posted:

It was totally Luxembourg.

Karate Bastard posted:

No no this guy is on to something

Der Kyhe posted:

There is a gripping movie about Finland going into a war with Luxemburg: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kummeli_Stories

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.

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!

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.

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

HonorableTB posted:

To be fair so does the US, and I'm pretty sure every world leader has a poo guy.

Strategic Tea posted:

This is what happens when you allow rural voters to field candidates that reflect what they actually want

HonorableTB posted:

It actually did. A group of anti-Putinist Russian nationalists called the Russian Volunteer Corps were the ones that did it. They formed up to fight for the Azovs in 2014 and claims to be a part of the International Legions, but Ukraine has not confirmed those claims. The founder is Denis Nikitin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Volunteer_Corps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Bryansk_Oblast_attack

The Ukrainians, of course, say that it's a provocation, but the RVC has been known to do these kinds of off-the-cuff actions before. They have been anti-Putin for quite some time. They're an interesting group - a far right Russian nationalist group that is comprised almost solely of Russian emigres to Ukraine, and which formed up to fight AGAINST Russia since 2014.

Meduza has this to say about them:

https://meduza.io/en/episodes/2023/03/04/the-russian-volunteer-corps-and-its-neo-nazi-leader

Karma Comedian posted:

Russian diplomacy:
https://twitter.com/PMSimferopol/status/1634111915596173312?t=PCYmqx6p5RuTYEafNZqNOg&s=19

HonorableTB posted:

Hahaha holy gently caress partisans set a Su-27 on fire at the Central Corner air base in Artyom, Primorsky Krai.


Just a burning jet, nothing else

https://v.redd.it/r266pa82uyma1


LOL Russia made an entire army unit dedicated just to finding lost mobiks, incredible. The Shepherd Brigade lol

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-army-unit-sent-soldiers-175916203.html

FT posted:

This week’s salvo of Russian nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles targeted at key Ukrainian infrastructure was a worrying indicator of what a cornered Putin might do.

bob dobbs is dead posted:

why settle for callin it grand duke when you can call it Megaduke

Karate Bastard posted:

He has spent decades carefully building a criminal autharitarian bullshit deathstate corner, and backing into it. Now he is in the corner, cornered. There is no way out of the corner. To remain in the corner, he must continue to be awful, or be removed the way awful tyrants normally are.

Karma Comedian posted:

This seems close

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1634638872515682305?t=IB5WOhzb8ssTaMV2Hb1CCg&s=19

Sashimi posted:

I wonder what would happen if some dumbass in a MiG flew into one of these super expensive drones?

Tigey posted:

zone posted:

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1636076416553963521
Very normal question to ask people in a not fascist state at all.

mobby_6kl posted:

Yet more footage is leaking out

https://i.imgur.com/e21hBLC.mp4

Dr. Quarex posted:

This weekend when I do an International Citizen's Arrest on him!!!

Seriously though I do like that they chose that for the indictment because, well, all their war crimes are indefensible obviously, but since that is the most overtly genocidal it is a good place to start, especially as they are following the Republican approach of openly admitting the crimes and just saying it is no big deal

Also like, Finland going from somewhat tolerating Russia to becoming NATO's longest border with Russia by far is going to be pretty intense huh

Butterfly Valley posted:

Spaz means spastic and is offensive (in the UK, and i assume some other places) in much the same way retard is. Lizzo and Beyonce both took the word out of songs recently.

Tai posted:

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1637806814828847106

Alan Smithee posted:

#MargaritaThoughts

Dwesa posted:

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1638587089678737437

something something Russia's sanitation coverage

zone posted:

https://twitter.com/sternenko/status/1638554308659617797
Why are these morons still convinced that an amphibious assault will even happen?

Pekinduck posted:

Congratulations Finland, you've earned it.

Play posted:

A bomb. It's supposed to be a bomb

Seems like it was okay at it too, despite it's clear deficiencies as a statue

Toxic Mental posted:

My Great Friend Marjorie Taylor Greene

https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/1642920191351824386?s=20

Dwesa posted:

meanwhile Russian propagandists sound more and more like doomsday cultists

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1645805713980268544

Play posted:

Man this could not get any stupider


And now, it DOES get stupider!

pop fly to McGillicutty posted:

I heard it was photos of crumbled up pages. Like someone got papers, stuffed them into a pocket, took photos. I don't know if that's true at all, but that's what I'm hearing.

Nelson Mandingo posted:

https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1646615867285708802?cxt=HHwWhICxsYea-tktAAAA

Honestly I'm shocked at the absolute restraint the jews have with the space laser at this point.

Tarquinn posted:

https://twitter.com/WarThunder/status/1645727948949934082?s=20