War in Ukraine

Cnn live

"Ukrainian soldier describes surviving as a wounded prisoner and being subject to "a distortion of reality"

....
Hlib Stryzhko was wounded on April 10 and regained consciousness inside an ambulance. He was brought to a hospital controlled by separatists.

"I was told by a Russian soldier, 'You'll have to forget Ukrainian now. You will only get help if you ask in Russian,'" he told CNN's Nick Paton Walsh.
.....
"There were two of us bedridden. So we had to be fed by nurses. So they would say, 'Because of you, my son got killed.' I tried to be understanding, but they were accusing us of things we never did. And we had Russian news read to us all the time, in the morning and evening. That was a lot of pressure on the mind, a distortion of reality," he said.

The prisoner exchange happened on April 22, and he is recovering from a crushed pelvis, broken jaw, concussion and vision impairment."

 

Your numbers on Vietnam seem way off. Without looking it up, I believe we had between 50 and 60 thousand KIA in Vietnam between 1964 and 1973 (eerily similar to our losses in WWI during just the five months we were engaged in serious ground combat). So even if we go with the high-side estimate of 25K Russian dead, the Ukrainians still have some work to do to catch up with our Vietnam numbers. I am, of course, hoping they make that goal or more if Russia insists.

 

The nuclear football is always in the President’s control. This is about what would trigger the ability of the President to take military action outside of us being directly attacked.

 

Cnn live

"First on CNN: Russia excavating site of heavily bombed drama theater in Mariupol, new satellite images show

From CNN's Paul P. Murphy, Katie Polglase, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Tim Lister

An extensive excavation of the bombed Mariupol drama theater is underway, new satellite images from Maxar Technologies show.

The area is now under Russian control, and the clearance of debris from the fighting is underway in several parts of the city.

The site was bombed on March 16. Ukrainian officials believe at least 300 people who were taking shelter at the building were killed.

On April 29, a satellite image showed a crane at the side of the building. The sidewalks on the northern and southern side of the drama theater, which had been covered in debris from the bombing, were by then cleared."
.......
Per other parts there are no Red Cross or other entities involved, just the Russians. Sounds like dig & hide time so no one sees the bodies.

 

Very glad to see this. Europe needs to be openly using its rail network and ports to help Ukrainian goods get to their final destinations. Let Russia know the only way they can choke off Ukrainian trade is to march all the way to the Romanian and Polish borders.

 

I was addressing the number posted, reserving comment on theie accuracy. I ballparked VN at 50k.

50k x 2 = 100k.

The number posted--what i said was staggering---was 104k..

104k > 100k.

2 months vs 20 years, makes it that much more compelling.

Iraq's 5k in 15 years seems downright pedestrian in comparison.

(...and of course, iraq did nothing to our economy close to the havoc Putin's folly is reeking on Russia).

 

Yes, the Kurds

 

The “treasure” is the tangible cost, what is the intangible cost of lost credibility and everything else that basically sprung out of the instability? ISIS? Libya? Syria? Arab spring? I’d venture to say much higher than $1.7 trillion. As I said, I believe in a way it caused the GOP to lose its damned mind. You could say Obama and likewise Trump were *all* a product of the Iraq War folly. History would have certainly gone down very differently without that major triggering event.

Again, I’m not fully equating GWB/Cheney/et. al actions to the evil of Putin, not quantitatively. I have no intent in picking apart the numbers to determine which lie was more evil. I just wouldn’t say the WMD lie is magnitudes different from Putin’s BS either, certainly not at a moral level. Lies are lies. Lies that led to big numbers of dead civilians/women/children.

Our soldiers are certainly far more professional (at least the vast majority are, there will always be bad seeds). The Russian gangster state, apparently neglects it’s rank and file military personnel such that a much higher % aren’t much more than organized groups of violent criminals and looters interested in bringing home televisions and washing machines. It’s all making Russia seem very much 3rd world.

 

Oh he's gonna be MAD now! Yay!

 

Don't drink the tea!

 

The football is always around the President regardless of whatever is passed by Congress. It’s within the President’s constitutional war powers to retaliate if the US is attacked.

 

Although Afghani tribesman never marched into Moscow they were largely albeit indirectly responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, an event which Vladimir Putin referred to as the "greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century".

 

Hopefully that artillery will help in the counteroffensives to drive the russkies the eff out.

 

Looks like coach dun lost his lockeroom...

‘I Simply Refuse’: Wiretaps Catch Putin’s Troops Breaking Own Tanks in Sabotage Scheme

 

Putin's going down, swirling around the bowl in a spiral, just waiting for the final gurgle of the flush.

What. A. Colossal. Disaster.

It's like watching Yul Binner's Pharoah command his troops into the dead sea chasing Heston's Moses.

You're like...bro...you not seeing the big ass walls of ocean? Didn't you just lose your kid to a puff of smoke, after being told it was going to happen? The staff turn into a snake... ? ... you wanna keep chasing this guy, without bothering to figure what's keeping those water walls up???

Putin's proving to be about as sharp as the Pharaoh....