xxlshirts_fit_all
Well-known member
First reply “thus inventing the flux capacitor….”
The end?
- Thread starter borolad259
- Start date
TeessideCleveland
Well-known member
‘I fight Russia to topple the tyrant of Belarus’: the Lukashenko guard who defected to the front line in Ukraine
Viachaslau Hranouski, a former policeman responsible for protecting the Belarus leader, reveals why he fled to join Ukraine’s army
www.theguardian.com
I dunno.
Bur 3 of Putin's closest have been offed in the last 5 days. (our man thinks possibly the Tik Toks)
And he just gave me a cryptic "heads up: Smolensk".
A little later than expected, a new missive on all sorts.
"North Koreans and Summa of Summits
Generals are at best an acquired taste, to be able to become one, at least a combat commander type, you have to be somewhat “funny in the head”. And we tend to have ways to occupy our minds, and snap when needed, in interesting ways.
After all, what we do is not the most normal of things, so it is a way of keeping us somewhat sane in life. Having the weekend off, Tank Girl decided to try out a brand-new way of being batshit crazy.
(redacted)
Anyway, next time you read about historical generals, note how often they ended up with stints at hospitals. In many cases those hospitals are really looneybins, and still somehow return to command a while later. Examples are Rommel, Montgomery and Patton, just to name a few.
Anyway, let us ponder things like North Koreans and the week that was, instead of naked generals meandering about.
Summa of Summits
I attended 2 out of 3 summits this week. The European Council PMs meeting and the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting. The one I did not attend was Biden, Macron, Scholz and Starmer, for natural reasons, but I heard what happened there well enough to have opinions.
Before the summits we knew well enough who the villains would be, and a few who would be supportive, like the Nordic/Baltic Group.
Let me begin with saying that the entirety of Zelenzkyy’s Victory Plan would never fly. Part of it is brilliant, and other parts are not well thought out, and some parts are not going to fly. And here’s the thing, he knew this coming in.
Shrewdly he incorporated parts that would never fly, that would give the opposition something to chew on and argue against, and in the end he can deftly step back from it.
What surprised me was how many of the “undecided” came out in favour of the plan, and how many came with good improvements, and ideas. All but two countries took it as an opportunity to brainstorm for a real Victory Plan.
What surprised me was that half of the involved countries came out in favour of even the “sacrificial bone” part of the original plan.
I had the Nordics/Baltics and EU as the natural “Pro” side of things, with Germany, Hungary and the US as the “Opposers”.
To my delight Czechs, France, Netherlands and UK came out strongly in favour, and that swayed more people. The biggest surprise was though that the US took the “cautiously positive” approach to things.
That Orbanus would Orbanus was obviously no great surprise, but he can and will be dealt with. Hungary after all is so deep down in **** creek by now that the country might collapse this winter if he does not play ball.
Thing is that Hungary is totally reliant on gas flowing from Russia via Ukraine. And Ukraine has openly stated that it will cancel the transfer agreement on the 31 st of December. There is no way to supply Hungary with gas through Europe, so he is fooked unless he goes into the good grace of Zelenzkyy, and EU is not giving a rats bone about saving him.
Momsie just shrugged and pointed out that Hungary has had 2.5 years to adapt and switch over their infrastructure and done nothing. Note, EU offered to pay for speed-building a separate pipeline to Hungary to ensure the gas-flow.
No, the big problem is Germany. No, that is not fair, the big problem is Scholz. Most of the German leadership are positive to increasing the support to Ukraine to end the war.
Scholz is East German, and spent his youth being a fervent communist and anti-west, and that truly never left him. Fundamentally he sees Russia as something good that should be dealt with through trade and “Ostpolitik”.
And let us just say that he came out swinging, screaming, and literally frothing at the mouth, against the Victory Plan, in all ways imaginable. He is so entrenched in his position that it is impossible to move him even an inch.
It is said that an image says more than a thousand words, this is a glorious example of this. Look at the contempt and anger of the others against Scholz.
Heck, even Biden looks like he is close to punching him. According to my source that attended it was very close to Scholz getting clocked by Starmer and Macron. In the end it turned into a shouting match.
At the same time the government colleagues of Scholz were quietly positive to many parts of the Victory Plan. Germany is quietly having a rather schizophrenic episode, where Scholz is actively going against the advice of his own ministers, party leadership and coalition parties. And let us not even speak about his opposition parties.
As my good friend Christian Freuding pointed out, “the words nuclear weapons development” drove Scholz insane. After all, Scholz spent his entire youth raving against Western nuclear arms, weirdly he never opposed Soviet and Russian nuclear arms.
Between the lines, Germany is looking into doing something permanent about their diminutively sized Scholz problem. The current idea is to replace him with Boris Pistorius, the German Minister of Defence. And that one has his head securely bolted on.
Unlike Merkel and Scholz he is not harking from East Germany and is not a proponent of Ostpolitik.
Anyway, over to the meat part of what happened. It is time to discuss things nuclear before we return to the actual Victory Plan.
Ukrainian Nuclear Arms
Zelenzkyy openly stated what he had privately told said leaders prior to the summiting. Ukraine needs to either be under the NATO nuclear umbrella, or it will have to develop nuclear arms.
Here I can’t go into many details for obvious reasons. Instead, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions.
Have Ukraine already developed nuclear arms? If not, how long time would it take Ukraine to develop and build their first nuclear weapon? Does Ukraine have the necessary ingredients? Does Ukraine have weapons carriers for such bombs?
Ukraine gave the answer to these questions to NATO, EU, Germany, France, UK & US. And that is the moment when the mind of Scholz somehow snapped. According to Freuding and Pistorius he flat out refused to believe what he was told.
Also, he got into a rage fugue about the entire thing. And it does not help that he is against Ukraine ever entering NATO. He is for now sort of living in denial of realities in this regard.
I suggested to Pistorius and Zelenzkyy that they should send Freuding to Ukraine to spelunk freely in regards of things, and report back his findings to Scholz, it was well received, so Freuding is already here fact-finding away.
The interesting part was how Russia reacted to it. They did not like what they heard; it upends the entire power equation in one fell swoop.
My personal opinion is that Ukraine should not have nuclear arms, any nuclear arms in Europe should be under EU control, that includes any Ukrainian, French, UK and Russian nukes. Individual states should not have nukes at their disposal, and that includes Sweden and their 5- minute to build nukes.
Anyway, let us return to the “or NATO” part of what Zelenzkyy said. To be honest it stated, “NATO and EU”.
Forward Momentum
EU will accept their part of the Victory Plan, and Ukraine will become a member-state as fast as is humanly possible. This is by now written in stone, and red tape is being cut on the “must be in control of its own territory part”.
Hungary is obviously opposing this, but nobody is listening to them. And the German Parliament will vote in favour of it, regardless of what now Scholz is thinking about it. Otherwise, there’s nobody against it.
Yes, there will be a bit of usual political wrangling, but everyone is rushing through those steps as fast as is possible. I would say that I never thought it could go this fast in EU. And, Hungary has been informed that if they make a fuss beyond the Hungarian Language Minority thing, they will have their voting rights suspended. The latter being probable anyway as things stand.
So, what importance does Ukraine’s membership have? A huge one. Economically it means that Ukraine get access directly to the inner market, that funds can be transferred by simple majority in the parliament, and the funds would be much larger since it would be in support of a member under attack, it would also ensure EU rebuilding the country after victory.
From a military standpoint comes another huge difference. It will immediately set Article 51 into action, The Mutual Defence Clause. All aid must be given
“If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.” Article 42.7 (TEU).
It is the moment I would be ordered to go into Ukraine and defend it, mandate and rules of engagement still pending. I would prefer if those came with the words “combat duty”, but even a protection of Western Ukraine would make for a vast difference.
No Momentum
NATO will in the end come around, but with Germany openly blocking proceedings things will take time in this regard.
What was interesting is that US did not oppose Ukrainian membership, instead US was quietly supportive, and they reaffirmed their commitment to aid Ukraine into NATO through their accession plan.
Nordics/Baltics obviously are their own Gung-ho selfs and voted for direct accession to the utter horror of Vladimir Scholz, and with that many countries ratifying an invitation for Ukraine to join it is now sort of hanging in the balance.
My take is that Germany will very soon be in a very uncomfortable minority together with Hungary, and with Scholz being on the way out of German politics, either by being replaced by his own party or by Mertz being elected, Germany will change politics soon enough.
Nukes
“NATO or Nukes”, this is the ultimate test really. When Ukraine through Zelenzkyy stated that they will soon have to develop their own nuclear arms things changed drastically from a political standpoint.
This is the moment that Russia feared more than anything, because they know that Ukraine has the capacity.
North Korea
Everybody assumed that North Korea would send their usual starved diminutive soldiers with poor training. I assumed from getgo that they would send their best, turns out that I was correct.
Let us start with what the Defence Alliance between North Korea and Russia stated. It clearly says that either of the two will send military aid in the form of troops if the other is attacked. So, when Ukraine attacked Kursk, we knew that it would be just a question of time before they came.
The bonus of the attack was though greater than any North Korean intervention could ever be. But the North Korean response took many aback due to both scale and type of soldiers.
We are now at 6 000 logistics support troops that are already aiding in preparing bases and forward strongholds for the 12 000 and counting elite troops that are flowing over the border into Russia.
These are coming from the 200 000 security forces that are under direct command of Kim Yo- jong, they are well fed, trained from very early age, and hand picked for being significantly taller and more muscular than ordinary North Koreans.
She truly loves her men to be big and impressive by NK standards. It is rumoured that all of them are heavily doped up on steroids. What we know is that they are constantly training under warlike conditions and have the best equipment that North Korea can afford.
Normally these troops are the bodyguards of the Kim family, remember those burly guards she had as she arrived in Seoul? Those come from her army.
For being a North Korean woman Kim Yo-jong is tall, surprisingly much so. She is 172cm tall, or 5 cheeseburgers per eagle tall in the American measuring system. Being well fed while growing up is truly a boon for not becoming a stunted midget it turns out. See image on next page.
If we now look at an image of her with her guards one can easily spot how bloody big they are. Anyway, these are probably a tad bigger than the norm, but they are definitely not the scrawny emasculated stunted soldiers that the Punderati laughed about.
For North Korea it is a PR stunt to send them, it is their way to scare everyone by sending their steroid-fueled super soldiers. Will they send more than 18 000 of them? Not that likely really, the next batch will probably be the usual rabble instead.
So, how will they stack up to Ukrainians with 2.5 years of battle experience? Drones will do the talking and the difference. But instead of the 7:1 advantage against Russians, Ukraine is more likely to have a 2 or 3 to 1 advantage.
EU Elections
It was a tight one in Moldova. Currently as I write this the number is closing in on 51 percent in favour of EU citizenship, and a firm vote in favour for Maia Sandu as President before that one goes into the second round.
It was though tighter than what we had hoped for. Moldova sat a new record for tightest referendum on membership, overtaking Swedens 52.3 percent as the slimmest margin. Sweden is now more than 90 percent positive to EU, so the Moldovan number will creep upwards as they see the advantage of being a part of EU.
So, why was it so close? Putin pushed billions into winning the election and securing a No to EU- membership. He outright bought votes by bribing voters in Moldova. He had Transnistrians bussed en masse to vote, he forced Moldovans in Russia to vote No.
And still it was not enough. We do believe it would have been close to 60 percent in an uninterfered election, Moldovan election authority is now investigating 300 000 votes given under duress or bribery.
If those votes in the end are declared null and void, we get that 60 percent vote. EU is not pushing for having those votes cancelled, and EU will count things as is. Anything else would-be election interference on our part after all.
What Moldovans do is up to Moldovans to do, and from their perspective having those votes voided will create problems for Putin for the second Presidential Ballot where Maia Sandu will square off after receiving 41.7 percent of the Votes against Putins main communist candidate who got 20.6 percent of the votes.
It should though be noted that there’s in total 7 Putin candidates in the election, and President Sandu will win, but with a slimmer margin in the second round since her opponent will gain more votes in the second round than she will.
Regardless, she seems to be sailing to a comfy win, even with Russian interference and many mini-Putins running around.
Thankfully we do not think there will be a lot of protests against the election results in Moldova. And even if there are we do think that Moldovan Police can handle it well, and if not Romania will send reinforcements if needed, so unlikely that EU will have to help out.
Next big election is Georgia. It is the one where all gloves are off. It is not an EU referendum, but still the parliamentary election is a referendum on Georgias EU-future. If the Georgian Dream will win the door to EU slams shut for at least a decade, and Caucasus is once more at risk of falling to Russia.
If the opposition wins the EU-membership process will restart and run its course with a referendum within a couple of years.
Russia is spending massively, and so are we. Let us just say that here we are cheating in regards of who we fund and not, and we are spending enormous amounts of money on influencing a more pro-EU vote.
The sad part is that we must do it to counter the ridiculous amount of Russian interference. Obviously we are not buying votes, nor trying to block votes we do not like, but we are definitely aiding the opposition with money and resources on a stupefying scale.
100 000 people demonstrated yesterday, 20 000 Georgian and EU-flags. Those flags were free… you see my point.
If we win, fine. But if Russia can still cheat so hard that they win, the country will explode into a civil war within days. We know this very well. The Georgian Army will split down the middle. And by most accounts if the civil war starts the Georgian opposition will request an intervention to restore order.
And even if we win this can still happen. I am truly believing **** will happen, and with two Battle Groups in place, 4 800 soldiers ready to move out as reinforcement to Armenia, I am as ready as I can be. "
"North Koreans and Summa of Summits
Generals are at best an acquired taste, to be able to become one, at least a combat commander type, you have to be somewhat “funny in the head”. And we tend to have ways to occupy our minds, and snap when needed, in interesting ways.
After all, what we do is not the most normal of things, so it is a way of keeping us somewhat sane in life. Having the weekend off, Tank Girl decided to try out a brand-new way of being batshit crazy.
(redacted)
Anyway, next time you read about historical generals, note how often they ended up with stints at hospitals. In many cases those hospitals are really looneybins, and still somehow return to command a while later. Examples are Rommel, Montgomery and Patton, just to name a few.
Anyway, let us ponder things like North Koreans and the week that was, instead of naked generals meandering about.
Summa of Summits
I attended 2 out of 3 summits this week. The European Council PMs meeting and the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting. The one I did not attend was Biden, Macron, Scholz and Starmer, for natural reasons, but I heard what happened there well enough to have opinions.
Before the summits we knew well enough who the villains would be, and a few who would be supportive, like the Nordic/Baltic Group.
Let me begin with saying that the entirety of Zelenzkyy’s Victory Plan would never fly. Part of it is brilliant, and other parts are not well thought out, and some parts are not going to fly. And here’s the thing, he knew this coming in.
Shrewdly he incorporated parts that would never fly, that would give the opposition something to chew on and argue against, and in the end he can deftly step back from it.
What surprised me was how many of the “undecided” came out in favour of the plan, and how many came with good improvements, and ideas. All but two countries took it as an opportunity to brainstorm for a real Victory Plan.
What surprised me was that half of the involved countries came out in favour of even the “sacrificial bone” part of the original plan.
I had the Nordics/Baltics and EU as the natural “Pro” side of things, with Germany, Hungary and the US as the “Opposers”.
To my delight Czechs, France, Netherlands and UK came out strongly in favour, and that swayed more people. The biggest surprise was though that the US took the “cautiously positive” approach to things.
That Orbanus would Orbanus was obviously no great surprise, but he can and will be dealt with. Hungary after all is so deep down in **** creek by now that the country might collapse this winter if he does not play ball.
Thing is that Hungary is totally reliant on gas flowing from Russia via Ukraine. And Ukraine has openly stated that it will cancel the transfer agreement on the 31 st of December. There is no way to supply Hungary with gas through Europe, so he is fooked unless he goes into the good grace of Zelenzkyy, and EU is not giving a rats bone about saving him.
Momsie just shrugged and pointed out that Hungary has had 2.5 years to adapt and switch over their infrastructure and done nothing. Note, EU offered to pay for speed-building a separate pipeline to Hungary to ensure the gas-flow.
No, the big problem is Germany. No, that is not fair, the big problem is Scholz. Most of the German leadership are positive to increasing the support to Ukraine to end the war.
Scholz is East German, and spent his youth being a fervent communist and anti-west, and that truly never left him. Fundamentally he sees Russia as something good that should be dealt with through trade and “Ostpolitik”.
And let us just say that he came out swinging, screaming, and literally frothing at the mouth, against the Victory Plan, in all ways imaginable. He is so entrenched in his position that it is impossible to move him even an inch.
It is said that an image says more than a thousand words, this is a glorious example of this. Look at the contempt and anger of the others against Scholz.
Heck, even Biden looks like he is close to punching him. According to my source that attended it was very close to Scholz getting clocked by Starmer and Macron. In the end it turned into a shouting match.
At the same time the government colleagues of Scholz were quietly positive to many parts of the Victory Plan. Germany is quietly having a rather schizophrenic episode, where Scholz is actively going against the advice of his own ministers, party leadership and coalition parties. And let us not even speak about his opposition parties.
As my good friend Christian Freuding pointed out, “the words nuclear weapons development” drove Scholz insane. After all, Scholz spent his entire youth raving against Western nuclear arms, weirdly he never opposed Soviet and Russian nuclear arms.
Between the lines, Germany is looking into doing something permanent about their diminutively sized Scholz problem. The current idea is to replace him with Boris Pistorius, the German Minister of Defence. And that one has his head securely bolted on.
Unlike Merkel and Scholz he is not harking from East Germany and is not a proponent of Ostpolitik.
Anyway, over to the meat part of what happened. It is time to discuss things nuclear before we return to the actual Victory Plan.
Ukrainian Nuclear Arms
Zelenzkyy openly stated what he had privately told said leaders prior to the summiting. Ukraine needs to either be under the NATO nuclear umbrella, or it will have to develop nuclear arms.
Here I can’t go into many details for obvious reasons. Instead, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions.
Have Ukraine already developed nuclear arms? If not, how long time would it take Ukraine to develop and build their first nuclear weapon? Does Ukraine have the necessary ingredients? Does Ukraine have weapons carriers for such bombs?
Ukraine gave the answer to these questions to NATO, EU, Germany, France, UK & US. And that is the moment when the mind of Scholz somehow snapped. According to Freuding and Pistorius he flat out refused to believe what he was told.
Also, he got into a rage fugue about the entire thing. And it does not help that he is against Ukraine ever entering NATO. He is for now sort of living in denial of realities in this regard.
I suggested to Pistorius and Zelenzkyy that they should send Freuding to Ukraine to spelunk freely in regards of things, and report back his findings to Scholz, it was well received, so Freuding is already here fact-finding away.
The interesting part was how Russia reacted to it. They did not like what they heard; it upends the entire power equation in one fell swoop.
My personal opinion is that Ukraine should not have nuclear arms, any nuclear arms in Europe should be under EU control, that includes any Ukrainian, French, UK and Russian nukes. Individual states should not have nukes at their disposal, and that includes Sweden and their 5- minute to build nukes.
Anyway, let us return to the “or NATO” part of what Zelenzkyy said. To be honest it stated, “NATO and EU”.
Forward Momentum
EU will accept their part of the Victory Plan, and Ukraine will become a member-state as fast as is humanly possible. This is by now written in stone, and red tape is being cut on the “must be in control of its own territory part”.
Hungary is obviously opposing this, but nobody is listening to them. And the German Parliament will vote in favour of it, regardless of what now Scholz is thinking about it. Otherwise, there’s nobody against it.
Yes, there will be a bit of usual political wrangling, but everyone is rushing through those steps as fast as is possible. I would say that I never thought it could go this fast in EU. And, Hungary has been informed that if they make a fuss beyond the Hungarian Language Minority thing, they will have their voting rights suspended. The latter being probable anyway as things stand.
So, what importance does Ukraine’s membership have? A huge one. Economically it means that Ukraine get access directly to the inner market, that funds can be transferred by simple majority in the parliament, and the funds would be much larger since it would be in support of a member under attack, it would also ensure EU rebuilding the country after victory.
From a military standpoint comes another huge difference. It will immediately set Article 51 into action, The Mutual Defence Clause. All aid must be given
“If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.” Article 42.7 (TEU).
It is the moment I would be ordered to go into Ukraine and defend it, mandate and rules of engagement still pending. I would prefer if those came with the words “combat duty”, but even a protection of Western Ukraine would make for a vast difference.
No Momentum
NATO will in the end come around, but with Germany openly blocking proceedings things will take time in this regard.
What was interesting is that US did not oppose Ukrainian membership, instead US was quietly supportive, and they reaffirmed their commitment to aid Ukraine into NATO through their accession plan.
Nordics/Baltics obviously are their own Gung-ho selfs and voted for direct accession to the utter horror of Vladimir Scholz, and with that many countries ratifying an invitation for Ukraine to join it is now sort of hanging in the balance.
My take is that Germany will very soon be in a very uncomfortable minority together with Hungary, and with Scholz being on the way out of German politics, either by being replaced by his own party or by Mertz being elected, Germany will change politics soon enough.
Nukes
“NATO or Nukes”, this is the ultimate test really. When Ukraine through Zelenzkyy stated that they will soon have to develop their own nuclear arms things changed drastically from a political standpoint.
This is the moment that Russia feared more than anything, because they know that Ukraine has the capacity.
North Korea
Everybody assumed that North Korea would send their usual starved diminutive soldiers with poor training. I assumed from getgo that they would send their best, turns out that I was correct.
Let us start with what the Defence Alliance between North Korea and Russia stated. It clearly says that either of the two will send military aid in the form of troops if the other is attacked. So, when Ukraine attacked Kursk, we knew that it would be just a question of time before they came.
The bonus of the attack was though greater than any North Korean intervention could ever be. But the North Korean response took many aback due to both scale and type of soldiers.
We are now at 6 000 logistics support troops that are already aiding in preparing bases and forward strongholds for the 12 000 and counting elite troops that are flowing over the border into Russia.
These are coming from the 200 000 security forces that are under direct command of Kim Yo- jong, they are well fed, trained from very early age, and hand picked for being significantly taller and more muscular than ordinary North Koreans.
She truly loves her men to be big and impressive by NK standards. It is rumoured that all of them are heavily doped up on steroids. What we know is that they are constantly training under warlike conditions and have the best equipment that North Korea can afford.
Normally these troops are the bodyguards of the Kim family, remember those burly guards she had as she arrived in Seoul? Those come from her army.
For being a North Korean woman Kim Yo-jong is tall, surprisingly much so. She is 172cm tall, or 5 cheeseburgers per eagle tall in the American measuring system. Being well fed while growing up is truly a boon for not becoming a stunted midget it turns out. See image on next page.
If we now look at an image of her with her guards one can easily spot how bloody big they are. Anyway, these are probably a tad bigger than the norm, but they are definitely not the scrawny emasculated stunted soldiers that the Punderati laughed about.
For North Korea it is a PR stunt to send them, it is their way to scare everyone by sending their steroid-fueled super soldiers. Will they send more than 18 000 of them? Not that likely really, the next batch will probably be the usual rabble instead.
So, how will they stack up to Ukrainians with 2.5 years of battle experience? Drones will do the talking and the difference. But instead of the 7:1 advantage against Russians, Ukraine is more likely to have a 2 or 3 to 1 advantage.
EU Elections
It was a tight one in Moldova. Currently as I write this the number is closing in on 51 percent in favour of EU citizenship, and a firm vote in favour for Maia Sandu as President before that one goes into the second round.
It was though tighter than what we had hoped for. Moldova sat a new record for tightest referendum on membership, overtaking Swedens 52.3 percent as the slimmest margin. Sweden is now more than 90 percent positive to EU, so the Moldovan number will creep upwards as they see the advantage of being a part of EU.
So, why was it so close? Putin pushed billions into winning the election and securing a No to EU- membership. He outright bought votes by bribing voters in Moldova. He had Transnistrians bussed en masse to vote, he forced Moldovans in Russia to vote No.
And still it was not enough. We do believe it would have been close to 60 percent in an uninterfered election, Moldovan election authority is now investigating 300 000 votes given under duress or bribery.
If those votes in the end are declared null and void, we get that 60 percent vote. EU is not pushing for having those votes cancelled, and EU will count things as is. Anything else would-be election interference on our part after all.
What Moldovans do is up to Moldovans to do, and from their perspective having those votes voided will create problems for Putin for the second Presidential Ballot where Maia Sandu will square off after receiving 41.7 percent of the Votes against Putins main communist candidate who got 20.6 percent of the votes.
It should though be noted that there’s in total 7 Putin candidates in the election, and President Sandu will win, but with a slimmer margin in the second round since her opponent will gain more votes in the second round than she will.
Regardless, she seems to be sailing to a comfy win, even with Russian interference and many mini-Putins running around.
Thankfully we do not think there will be a lot of protests against the election results in Moldova. And even if there are we do think that Moldovan Police can handle it well, and if not Romania will send reinforcements if needed, so unlikely that EU will have to help out.
Next big election is Georgia. It is the one where all gloves are off. It is not an EU referendum, but still the parliamentary election is a referendum on Georgias EU-future. If the Georgian Dream will win the door to EU slams shut for at least a decade, and Caucasus is once more at risk of falling to Russia.
If the opposition wins the EU-membership process will restart and run its course with a referendum within a couple of years.
Russia is spending massively, and so are we. Let us just say that here we are cheating in regards of who we fund and not, and we are spending enormous amounts of money on influencing a more pro-EU vote.
The sad part is that we must do it to counter the ridiculous amount of Russian interference. Obviously we are not buying votes, nor trying to block votes we do not like, but we are definitely aiding the opposition with money and resources on a stupefying scale.
100 000 people demonstrated yesterday, 20 000 Georgian and EU-flags. Those flags were free… you see my point.
If we win, fine. But if Russia can still cheat so hard that they win, the country will explode into a civil war within days. We know this very well. The Georgian Army will split down the middle. And by most accounts if the civil war starts the Georgian opposition will request an intervention to restore order.
And even if we win this can still happen. I am truly believing **** will happen, and with two Battle Groups in place, 4 800 soldiers ready to move out as reinforcement to Armenia, I am as ready as I can be. "
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Mr Picky writes: Scholz is actually a west German - but he’s a west German of the type that Deutschland 83 showed so well as being always on the streets complaining about Nuclear this that and the other and American missiles on German soil.
I hadn’t realised that he was basically the SDP top official when Vatnik Schroeder was in power.
There is a strand of pro Ruzzia running through an entire strata of German politics/academia and commentariat that was hiding in plain sight since unification I thought had come down with the wall till the Putler invasion. It’s horrible to see.
One last thing on Scholz - the Scholz govt waved through the Chinese govt taking a stake in the port of Hamburg, a plan that had been started years before when the then mayor of Hamburg signed it off. The mayor was Olaf Scholz.
I hadn’t realised that he was basically the SDP top official when Vatnik Schroeder was in power.
There is a strand of pro Ruzzia running through an entire strata of German politics/academia and commentariat that was hiding in plain sight since unification I thought had come down with the wall till the Putler invasion. It’s horrible to see.
One last thing on Scholz - the Scholz govt waved through the Chinese govt taking a stake in the port of Hamburg, a plan that had been started years before when the then mayor of Hamburg signed it off. The mayor was Olaf Scholz.
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Sorry, so many questions, does the General have a view on the Slovakian Orban mini me issue. It’s only 5 years when that country is up for the EU presidency again.
Not sure. He's on route to be on hand for his battle group in case Georgia goes a bit wrong. Dunno how much I will hear from him in the coming days. Will prompt if I do.
But I presume his view will involve Russia being a different place by then.
Well, now it's in the open. Something of a headache for General Euro at this particular moment.
h_m_boro
Well-known member
So as not to escalate things into WW3, would it not be better to see how these troops perform in combat?
Getting the sh*t blown out of them day after day, asking them to join Russian meatwaves may not be what they are used to.
If they turn and leg it will they be treated the same as the Russians by the blocking troops?
Getting the sh*t blown out of them day after day, asking them to join Russian meatwaves may not be what they are used to.
If they turn and leg it will they be treated the same as the Russians by the blocking troops?
I assume NK has the troops' families as hostages. They'll all desert at the first opportunity otherwise.
Hap
Well-known member
Probably not necessary. They’re conditioned to believe the Supreme Ruler come above all else - family most definitely included.
Denouncing your parents is most especially rewarded.
My mate expects the NK troops to be "good". Much better than most of the dross Russia is throwing into battle.
The first batch of NK troops that abandoned their positions were not the same as the special forces that are now preparing to go to the front.
But they haven't been exposed to Tank Girl and her battle hardened heavy mech brigades. And certainly not thousands of drones hunting them down. So only time will tell.
My mate is having to plan for all sorts of eventualities. Complications he doesn't really need on his plate before this particular weekend.
The first batch of NK troops that abandoned their positions were not the same as the special forces that are now preparing to go to the front.
But they haven't been exposed to Tank Girl and her battle hardened heavy mech brigades. And certainly not thousands of drones hunting them down. So only time will tell.
My mate is having to plan for all sorts of eventualities. Complications he doesn't really need on his plate before this particular weekend.
BobUpnDown
Well-known member
Hoping your mate has happy hunting..
I know where he is right now. He is being fed and watered (wined/"cognac-ed") to within an inch of his life.
Let's say he had an interesting helicopter ride today.
Let's say he had an interesting helicopter ride today.
Close. The BBC are reviving "Challenge Anneka", with our man taking over from the blond bombshell in the lead role.
italianjob
Well-known member
He might get 'rear of the year'
RedAsABeetroot
Well-known member
Tank Girl as pilot?
As she has only one eye, that might be interesting.