Tumgik
#союз постсоветских клептократических ватников
tomorrowusa · 3 days
Text
Tumblr media
Living in a police state means you're governed by criminals who ignore threats to public safety.
It turns out that the four terror suspects were from Tajikistan though living in Russia. This is essentially an internal matter. Putin's secret police were too busy murdering political opponents and harassing dissidents to be concerned about the threat of terrorism from within.
Moscow terror attack: Russian massacre suspects’ homeland Tajikistan is plagued by poverty and religious strife
Putin buddy Emomali Rahmon is Tajikistan's kleptocratic “Leader of the Nation” – essentially dictator for life. Like Russia, the country is undemocratic but holds sham elections for window dressing.
The pro-democracy organization Freedom House lists Tajikistan as a Consolidated Authoritarian Regime. It's a place only a dictator would love.
Tajikistan: Nations in Transit 2023 Country Report | Freedom House
17 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 1 month
Text
« In 1999, exactly a quarter of a century ago, Poland was invited to join NATO and the transatlantic family.
Twenty-five years later, not least because of the security guarantees that NATO provided us, we have become the fifth largest economy of the European Union, and the main buyer of US military equipment as I’ve already mentioned.
Victorious Ukraine may follow a similar path.
[ … ]
Ladies and gentlemen, whether we want it or not, Putin’s decision to start the biggest war in Europe since the defeat of Nazi Germany has already changed the course of history. It is up to us to decide if we want to shape that course ourselves, or let it be shaped by others—in Moscow, Tehran, or Beijing.
Helping Ukraine by defeating Putin is the right thing to do in the broadest sense of the word.
It is morally sound, strategically wise, militarily justified, and economically beneficial.
It outweighs politics. It transcends partisanship.
Now is the moment to act. Let’s get this done. »
— Foreign Minister Radosław "Radek" Sikorski of Poland speaking Monday at the Atlantic Council.
You can see his address and the following discussion in this vid.
youtube
In response to a question from the audience, Pan Sikorski gave this insight on Putin's thinking regarding the war:
[T]he trouble is that Putin doesn’t have an incentive to make peace. He’s already indicted at the Hague for stealing Ukrainian children. And he probably thinks that he—that it’s better for him to have a bad war than an unsatisfactory peace.
The only way to end the war is to make it way bad for Putin to continue it.
Putin is counting on the notoriously short American attention span while manipulating US politics through his vassal Donald Trump. We need to understand that wars don't go away just because Americans get bored with them.
A defeat in Ukraine for ethno-nationalist Putin and his mafia fascist régime is a victory for international liberal democracy.
38 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media
Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock replies to Putin’s declaration of a pseudo-ceasefire.
Direkt am, Frau Ministerin!   👍🏼🇩🇪
Putin’s Russian Christmas “ceasefire” is at best a public relations stunt and at worst a ploy to resupply his sordid troops with ammunition and military hardware.
Putin’s so-called Christmas ceasefire, explained
Putin could stop this war at any moment by simply getting out of Ukraine. Remember that this is an unprovoked invasion of a peaceful neighbor in violation of international law. Putin has no fucking business in Ukraine. Ukrainians are fighting for their existence, Russians are fighting for Putin’s ego.
Putin doesn’t care the least about saving lives. That includes Russian lives; over 100,000 Russians have been killed since February 24th. He continues to send poorly trained conscripts and mercenary convicts to Ukraine where they specialize in committing atrocities.
272 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 9 months
Text
Tumblr media
During the coup attempt (or whatever you want to call it) when Prigozhin's Wagner forces got within 270 km of the Kremlin, all we saw of Putin was a short prerecorded speech which was filmed at an undetermined location.
When genocidal Russian invaders were within 27 km of the government district in Kyiv at the start of the war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other high ranking officials let Ukrainians know that they were remaining in town to defend the country.
youtube
Totalitarian bullies like to talk tough but they scurry away like cockroaches at the slightest sign of danger. We remember Trump hiding in the White House bunker during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in 2020.
Several of Putin's oligarch buddies couldn't get out of Russia fast enough during the mutiny.
Billionaire Oligarchs’ Jets Flee Moscow As Putin’s Regime Plunges Into Crisis
98 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 27 days
Text
Tumblr media
"MAGA Mike" Johnson needs a ride (to Mar-a-Lago) not ammo.
Vicariously, Vladimir Putin is House Speaker these days. 😡
Why do MAGA Republicans hate freedom?
32 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 5 months
Text
Executing your own troops must do wonders for morale. No wonder Russia is losing.
Those comparisons of Putin to Stalin and Hitler are not really hyperbole.
“We have information that the Russian military has been actually executing soldiers who refuse to follow orders,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a press briefing in Washington on Thursday. “We also have information that Russian commanders are threatening to execute entire units if they seek to retreat from Ukrainian artillery fire,” he added. “It’s reprehensible to think … that you would execute your own soldiers because they didn’t want to follow orders,” Kirby said. “And now threatening to execute entire units. It’s barbaric.” [ ... ]
Kirby said Moscow appears to have resumed the “human wave tactics” of throwing hundreds of poorly trained soldiers at the Ukrainian lines, which the Kremlin first used in the winter offensive last year. “Russia’s renewed offensive is a sobering reminder that President Putin has not given up his aspirations to take all of Ukraine. As long as Russia continues its brutal assault, we have to support Ukraine,” Kirby said.
If Russian troops know that Putin's Mafia-style enforcers are probably going to shoot them, they have plenty of incentive to shoot the pro-régime henchmen first. 💡
It's Day 614 of Putin's 3-day "special operation" in Ukraine. It's getting increasingly difficult for Russia's dictator to find people who will voluntarily fight for his cherished goal of restoring the decrepit Soviet Union in all but name. Just yesterday you may have seen a post here about how kids in Russia are being militarized.
The best advice we can give to Russian males of military age is GET OUT.
Tumblr media
Neighboring Mongolia and Kazakhstan are supposed to be beautiful in the autumn. It's the perfect time for a vacation.
Putin has ruined Russia for at least a generation; it's gradually turning into a large version of North Korea. Even if the war ends tomorrow there is little future for anybody in Russia – except maybe in Putin's secret police.
Leaving Russia may be difficult but staying there could become catastrophic.
37 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 6 months
Text
Tumblr media
East Slavic (as opposed to West or South Slavic) culture had its roots in what is now Ukraine.
In the 11th century Kyiv was thriving at a time when what is now the Kremlin was just a place where traders on their way to Novgorod would stop to pee.
Russia even sort of stole the name of the country from Kyivan Rus'.
How Moscow hijacked the history of Ukraine-Rus’
At best, Russia is a former colonial power seeking to re-impose itself on its lost colonies.
Imagine the outrage if Britain tried to take back Nigeria or Kenya. It is hypocritical to be anti-colonialism in Africa and not be anti-colonialism in Europe.
Russia needs to go home and stay home. The only thing to negotiate is how many days it would take Russia to leave Ukraine.
46 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 7 months
Text
Elon Musk understands Eastern Europe about as much as he understands how to run a social media company.
Elon's clueless actions may have prolonged the war in Ukraine.
Elon Musk ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off near the Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships, according to a new biography. CNN quoted an excerpt from the biography Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, which described how armed submarine drones were approaching their targets when they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly”. The biography, due out on Tuesday, alleges Musk ordered Starlink engineers to turn off service in the area of the attack because of his concern that Vladimir Putin would respond with nuclear weapons to a Ukrainian attack on Russian-occupied Crimea. He is reported to have said that Ukraine was “going too far” in threatening to inflict a “strategic defeat” on the Kremlin. Musk’s threats to withdraw Starlink communications at various stages of the conflict have been previously reported, but this is the first time it has been alleged he cut off Ukrainian forces in the middle of a specific operation.
The 2020s are not even half over but Musk is already a top contender for Putz of the Decade.
At the time of the submarine drone attack, according to the extract reported by CNN, Mykhailo Fedorov, one of Ukraine’s deputy prime ministers, pleaded with Musk to restore Starlink communications. “I just want you – the person who is changing the world through technology – to know this,” Fedorov reportedly told Musk. According to Isaacson’s account, Musk refused, saying Ukraine was “now going too far and inviting strategic defeat”. Musk has in the past echoed Russian talking points on Twitter, suggesting that some parts of eastern Ukraine be handed to Russia to reflect “the will of the people”.
Musk is more worried about future business deals with Russia than he is about Putin committing genocide in Ukraine.
The only way to end the war is for Russia to be defeated. The shit-for-brains tankies, Putin marionettes, and foreign policy illiterates push "negotiations" the way Neville Chamberlain pushed negotiations with Hitler over Czechoslovakia in 1938. Hitler kept his part of the Munich agreement for less than six months; and then Hitler invaded Poland less than a year after Munich.
"Peace in our time" should not be dependent on the whims of Putin who has already openly violated international agreements, signed by Russia, regarding Ukraine's security. Bothsiderism is a safe space for idiots.
Playing footsie with imperialistic dictators by caving to them only makes them more voracious.
Dilettante meddlers like Musk, who grew up as a privileged and insulated white boy in apartheid South Africa, should keep their lame asses out of Eastern European affairs. People in the West are usually underinformed about Eastern European history and culture and Elon Musk is worse than most.
39 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 4 months
Text
Tumblr media
Sadly, it's no joke. Commentators on Russia's state-run TV really are delighted with Republicans.
This is from journalist Julia Davis's Russia Media Monitor. Ms. Davis watches and translates Russian media so that we don't have to.
youtube
Ronald Reagan would be sad that his party has become the biggest cheerleader of the Evil Empire in the US.
Republicans hate freedom and they see a friend in Putin.
Republicans helping Russia by denying Ukraine aid, Biden says
One thing Putin's TV marionettes aren't reporting is the price that Russia is paying so that he can think of himself as the 21st century Peter the Great.
Russia has lost 87% of troops it had prior to start of Ukraine war, according to US intelligence assessment
If you don't have a VPN or even an old shortwave radio in Russia than all the news you get is from Putin's lickspittles on state TV and internet.
The bottom line is that Putin's four day (or was it three day?) "special operation" is now in Day 659. Russia has lost more troops in Ukraine than in all its wars from 1946 to 2021. Snowflake Republicans want to betray Ukraine and throw Putin a lifeline when we should be throwing him a large anchor.
24 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 9 months
Text
[P]ressuring Ukraine to accept an agreement against its will would have serious global consequences. Russia would conclude that aggressive warfare should remain in its geopolitical toolbox. After a few years have passed and it has regained its military strength, it might double down and assert new territorial claims in Europe and Eurasia as it continues to stir up conflicts in Africa and elsewhere.
Moreover, an unjust peace would fuel hatred, resentment, and revanchist tendencies in Ukrainian society, hampering reconstruction and reconciliation, while Russian society would once again be spared from having to engage in sorely needed self-reflection. At the same time, tensions in Europe and around the world would remain high, undercutting global economic development efforts as well as international cooperation on other crucial issues.
More broadly, Russian disregard for international law would cast serious doubt on the viability of the twenty-first-century rules-based international order. If a nuclear-armed permanent member of the UN Security Council can invade a sovereign country and unilaterally annex its territories, the existing order will have failed its biggest test.
– Pekka Haavisto, foreign minister of Finland from 2019 to 2023, writing at Project Syndicate. (archived)
The only reasonable lasting outcome of this conflict is for Russia's invasion to be a failure. Russia broke already existing treaties and agreements with its invasion. Only a mental defective believes that Russia would abide by any new "negotiated" agreement that leaves Russia in control of vast swatches of Ukraine.
One of the many agreements which Putin broke is the United Nations Charter. In his article Mr. Haavisto referenced Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Tumblr media
Russia has used its veto at the Security Council to prevent any direct UN action against its aggression. So the "inherent right of individual or collective self-defence" of Ukraine with support of its allies continues – and should continue.
When a conflict is not settled justly and judiciously then the possibility of a subsequent conflict greatly increases. The mess at the end of World War I eventually led to World War II.
If you want long term peace and respect for international law, then support Ukraine in its just fight against an imperialist and genocidal neighbor.
40 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 11 months
Photo
Tumblr media
From @Ohra_aho – a retired Finnish general.
You can’t have a Victory Day parade in Moscow these days. It might just remind Russians that Putin is far from victory on Day 422 of his three-day “special operation” in Ukraine.
Not only does Russia look bad for its poor overall military performance in Ukraine, but it also just bombed one of its own cities, Belgorod, which was never part of Ukraine.
Russia’s air force accidentally bombs own city of Belgorod
Because of tight media censorship, tens of millions of Russians don’t understand what an international embarrassment Putin and his armed forces really are.
Russia is becoming the military equivalent of the Zune, the Edsel, and New Coke.
59 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 5 months
Text
Events in Israel and Gaza have overshadowed news of Ukrainian progress in driving out Russian invaders.
Ukraine used M39 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles provided by the US for the first time against two targets in Ukraine occupied by Putin's forces. One of those targets was an airfield in Berdyansk on the coast of the Sea of Azov.
The result was “one of the most serious strikes of all time” in Russia’s 21-month wider war on Ukraine, according to Fighterbomber, a popular Russian Telegram channel. The Ukrainian military claimed it destroyed a combined nine helicopters in the Berdyansk attack and a simultaneous raid on a facility in Luhansk, farther to the east. Ukrainian analysis team Frontelligence Insight compared high-resolution Planet Labs satellite imagery from September with lower-resolution imagery from Wednesday broadly to confirm the military’s claim. Frontelligence Insight scrutinized imagery from Sept. 29 and pinpointed four Kamov Ka-52 and one Mil Mi-24 helicopters parked on the northern apron at the Berdyansk base. The group then scrutinized imagery from Oct. 17—and found scorch marks where those five helicopters should have been.
Here's how ATACMS work.
The M39 Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, is a two-ton, 13-foot ballistic missile with a solid rocket motor and a warhead containing 950 grenade-size submunitions. Fired by a tracked or wheeled launcher, the 1990s-vintage missile ranges as far as 100 miles under inertial guidance. An M39 usually should strike within 50 yards or so of its aim-point. This isn’t super-accurate by modern standards, but it’s accurate enough considering that the M39 is an area weapon.
Why the attack on Berdyansk is important.
And now the Russians must make some difficult choices in order to protect their surviving rotorcraft from follow-on ATACMS raids. “The impact of this devastating attack is undeniable,” Frontelligence Insight noted. “It will likely disrupt helicopter operations in the south of Ukraine for some time, compelling the Russians to adjust their logistics and the operations of nearby helicopter bases.”
Russia can no longer count on distance to keep its helicopters safe. Not being able to use helicopters reliably will hurt its operations as Ukrainian forces gradually push south to cut off occupied Crimea by land from Russia.
youtube
Wars don't go away because other wars break out or because people in third countries get bored with them. Putin has no fucking business in Ukraine and his invasion is a direct threat to the eastern flank of America's NATO allies.
20 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 6 months
Text
Tumblr media
^^^ Those images don't show Putin's seatmate – Elon Musk.
Ukraine is in this for the long run, and we should be too. Ukraine's existence is at stake – and so is the future of liberal democracy around the world.
Putin is part of a loose worldwide movement of far right authoritarians that includes Donald Trump. It is contradictory to profess to be anti-Trump while not supporting Ukraine.
Isolationists and appeasers in the 1930s claimed to be for peace. But they did more than anybody else in the democratic world to grease the skids for World War II – the worst war in human history.
Putin is akin to the Nazis. We won't know the full extent of Russian war crimes and genocide against Ukrainians until after he is defeated. But there is little doubt that he uses the same playbook as Hitler.
'Shut his mouth, or you’ll all be shot' How Russian occupation forces transformed the Ukrainian city of Melitopol into 'Europe’s largest prison'
27 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 6 months
Text
«I think the creation of a far right echo chamber has been a Russian project for fifteen years. So the idea that they would seek to promote extremism and promote extremist ideas in slogans and memes and so on – I mean – I think they've been doing that for years.
In fact, I know they've been doing it for years. I mean, you can argue about to what degree it was them and what degree it was kind of mind meld of them and the existing far right and to what degree it was just, you know, people were ready for that kind of stuff for other reasons. I mean, I'm not giving them credit for – it's not as if they created this thing, but I mean, they did help.
The idea that Western Civilization is collapsing, that democracy is a disaster, and that the only thing that can save it is an autocratic or dictatorial power or régime is an idea that’s very comfortable for the Russians because it's in their interest for democracies to be weakened and to fall apart, you know, because then they have free run of whatever they wanna do.»
— Journalist and author Anne Applebaum in conversation with Charlie Sykes at The Bulwark Podcast. Audio for the entire excellent conversation in the vid below.
youtube
The main topic of the conversation is the acceptance and regurgitation by Elon Musk of Putin's lying talking points regarding Ukraine.
But the conversation also covers things like the longer term symbiosis between the far right elements in Western democracies and Putin's Russia.
It's in Putin's interest to empower rightwing nationalist régimes in the West who would tend to ignore Russia's revanchism and blatant human rights abuses. He can't do this militarily (look at his disastrous war in Ukraine) but he has had success in boosting his dupes and allies abroad via his digital disinformation campaigns.
21 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media
^^^ The caption in Latvian by the Russian official reads: WE DEMAND THAT THESE SPORTS BE INCLUDED AS WELL. By Latvian cartoonist Gatis Šļūka. 
As long as Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine, which includes killing Ukrainian athletes, it should not be permitted to participate in the 2024 Olympics.
If Russia does not act like a normal country then it should not be treated like a normal country. Starting a war of aggression against a peaceful neighbor and following a policy of genocide are not normal.
Tumblr media
55 notes · View notes
tomorrowusa · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media
Ukraine blasts Musk over Starlink order; Russia praises his ‘balls’
It's easy for Putin to praise Musk's balls because he keeps them in a jar on his desk in the Kremlin bunker.
29 notes · View notes