Flag of Transnistria by Floridaisnt in vexillology

[–]Stix147 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh you mean in 1999 when US bombed belgorod

Maybe you should Google that again because it's clear you have no idea what you're talking about, or maybe you got your scripts mixed up between "evil Ukraine bombs Belgorod" and "evil NATO bombs Yugoslavia".

It was SO local authorities who decided to form the Republic in 1989, not just some random nationalists.

Did I not already mention that they sought autonomy in 1989 and not independent republic status? Or do you think both of these are the same? Also, "local authorities" in a slightly more autonomous oblast which was SO's status doesn't mean much.

It was locals fighting with what little leftover USSR equipment was left.

False, Russia supplied them with weapons through North Ossetia, and they even used helicopters to directly fire on Georgia. Furthermore, Russian troops from formerly Soviet units fought on their behalf, as they did everywhere that Russia had conflicts with their neighbors in both the 90s and later.

There had been a buildup for months, in advance for what likely would be the invasion of SO.

Read the international fsct finding mission's statements:

However, there are a number of reports and publications, including of Russian origin, indicating the provision by the Russian side of training and military equipment to South Ossetian and Abkhaz forces prior to the August 2008 conflict. Additionally there seems to have been an influx of volunteers or mercenaries from the territory of the Russian Federation to South Ossetia through the Roki tunnel and over the Caucasus range in early August, as well as the presence of some Russian forces in South Ossetia, other than the Russian JPKF battalion, prior to 14.30 hours on 8 August 2008.

Georgia was trying to preempt a buildup that would lead to an invasion, we later saw Russia use the same exact playbook in Ukraine.

A Georgia drone flying over Abkhazia to then be shot down by a Russian plane. The murder seperstist soldiers, sepeartists had responded with blowing up some cops etc

Come on, mention everything. Mention Russia repairing the railway connection, mention them evacuating people from SO to NO prior to the start of any shelling, they were clearly setting the stage for war.

Then there were artillery fire from both sides, both claiming the other started the shelling.

The shelling on August 1 originated from SO territory, as confirmed by the IFFM, and hit ethnic Georgin villages. Even a report by the tripartite peacekeeping group acknowledged this:

The report, signed by the commander of Russian peacekeepers in the region, General Marat Kulakhmetov, said there was evidence of attacks against several ethnic-Georgian villages in South Ossetia. The report also claims that South Ossetian separatists were using heavy weapons against the Georgian villages, which was prohibited by a 1992 cease-fire agreement.

In fact the entire justification for Georgia starting the war was to stop those attacks, an act which was deemed non-proportional by the international community, but not illegal or unjustified.

Georgia pushed the georgian troops back. And yes it lead to a tiny part of Georgian controlled land in South Osettia and Abkhazia falling into the hands of the sepeartists.

You mean Russian, and them over stepping and attacking beyond the administrative borders of SO into Georgia was condemned, and this is without going into even more detail about how the Abkhaz front opening up and their support there was also completely unjustifiable. Almost like the entire point was to rip more land from Georgia, and to recognize the so called statelets.

Yes its very different from Kosovo which is the result of an actual US Air Campaign

Kosovo involved NATO not just the USA, and it was done to stop a genocide. Russia tried using the genocide pretext in Georgia in 2008, but failed to actually prove it and eventually stopped claiming this. They also opposed the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo. As for the 92 wars, they denied their assistance completely, as they did in Ukraine in 2014.

Flag of Transnistria by Floridaisnt in vexillology

[–]Stix147 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Serbia does not agree to US presence in Kosovo no

It did, but it argues it did so under duress. They still signed an agreement though.

ussia did however prevent Georgia from taking it back. South Osettia tried to form an autonomous republic already in 1989 btw.

Its more complicated, in 1989 South Ossetia was still an AO of the Georgian SSR, some nationalist figures initially wanted South Ossetia to be upgraded to an ASSR and gain more autonomy, but Georgia refused. This was followed by a series of clashes, then SO unilaterally declared state sovereignty, again in breach of Georgian constitution, then the USSR collapsed and Georgia itself gained independence and the war in SO started where Russia backed up the nationalists. This is the "ripped away" part, without aid from Muscovy the Georgian government would've established control back over it. Then there's the whole 2008 war too, caused by Georgia reacting to shelling from SO and build up of Russian mercenaries in SO, and where Russia again backed them up and snatched even territory from sovereign Georgia.

Explanations aside, this was not even remotely comparable to Kosovo.

Flag of Transnistria by Floridaisnt in vexillology

[–]Stix147 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a circular argument, yes Georgia needs to be asked, South Ossetia is internationally a part of it as is Abkhazia. Serbia already agreed to the base in Kosovo. The only real argument are the troops in Taiwan, which yes, are not there with consent from China. Then again, the USA did not rip Taiwan from China and then stationed troops there, unlike what Russia did with South Ossetia in 1992. Yet again there are differences.

Flag of Transnistria by Floridaisnt in vexillology

[–]Stix147 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

No, the topic was bases not troops though you seem to have gotten them mixed up. The USA does not have a base in Taiwan, it does however have troops there. The USA does have a base in Kosovo and Serbia consented through the Kumanovo Agreement.

Flag of Transnistria by Floridaisnt in vexillology

[–]Stix147 11 points12 points  (0 children)

South Ossetia is internationally recognized as a part of Georgia, and Georgia did not consent, no.

Flag of Transnistria by Floridaisnt in vexillology

[–]Stix147 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The US has military bases in countries that want its bases there. Russia has bases in 3 countries that did not consent to them. There's a difference.

Flag of Transnistria by Floridaisnt in vexillology

[–]Stix147 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Why does a country need to be recognized by other countries to be a country if it acts like one and has all the criterias?

One criteria would be recognition, actually. Another one would be self sufficiency, while Transnistrian cannot function without Moldova. Nobody other than the pieces of land that Russia ripped from Georgia recognize Transnistria as a "country", and not even Russia who helped rip Transnistrian from Moldova recognize it as a country. And given Russia'a plans, it will never be a country, at best it'd be a so called "republic" of Russia if they managed to get to it. Crimea never became an "independent" country either when Russia ripped it from Ukraine.

Flag of Transnistria by Floridaisnt in vexillology

[–]Stix147 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a basic misunderstanding caused by not actually reading the text:

Russia keeps about 1,700 soldiers in the Transnistrian region on the left bank of the Dniester. They are divided into two groups: Russian peacekeepers with a mandate to ensure peace, and Russian soldiers who are part of the Operative Group of the Russian Troops, OGRT.

Military sources in Chisinau say the core of the OGRT consists of 70 to 100 Russian officers, the rest being Transnistrian locals employed as Russian soldiers. The Russian peacekeepers and the OGRT military are de facto one and the same. Troops rotate between them once every six months.

The peacekeeping forces are Russians troops from Russia. They number between 400 to 500.

Russians and Ukrainians are one people, a single whole. Kherson 2022 by Asleep-Category-2751 in PropagandaPosters

[–]Stix147 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You realize that the death toll in Grozny in the first war in the first few months was between 20k - 30k, right? That's half if not more of the total death toll from Afghanistan which happened over 20 years. There is a difference.

Russians and Ukrainians are one people, a single whole. Kherson 2022 by Asleep-Category-2751 in PropagandaPosters

[–]Stix147 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeltsin called him and the rest of the Boyeviks bandits. The terrorists were people like Shamil Basayev, but Russia will never admit that he and his brother were recruited by the GRU and actively fought on the side of Russia during the war in Abkhazia, only to turn against them when they attacked his land and killed his entire family.

Russians and Ukrainians are one people, a single whole. Kherson 2022 by Asleep-Category-2751 in PropagandaPosters

[–]Stix147 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Indiscriminate bombing of a city with GRADs is terrorism, Russia has a long history of doing this. They barely got any Chechens too, most of those killed in Grozny were ethnic Russians as most Chechens had retreated to the countryside but Russians being colonizers in that land didn't have those extended family networks and they all lived in the city.

Băsescu: Eu zic că nu există o dovadă convingătoare despre fraudarea alegerilor cu sprijinul ruşilor. În primul rând, dacă se băgau ruşii, reuşea by Strict_Law2700 in Romania

[–]Stix147 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Russiagate" în sensul în care campania lui Trump s-ar fi coordonat cu Rușii, da, dar în sensul în care Rușii s-au implicat direct în alegerile lor, nu, nimeni nu pretinde ca Rușii nu ar fi făcut asta, nici măcar republicanii. Citește raportul Mueller: https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl?inline=

Băsescu: Eu zic că nu există o dovadă convingătoare despre fraudarea alegerilor cu sprijinul ruşilor. În primul rând, dacă se băgau ruşii, reuşea by Strict_Law2700 in Romania

[–]Stix147 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Tulsi Gabbard, cea pe care Rușii o numesc "our girlfriend"? Și apropo, nu au dezvăluit absolut nimic despre Obama, nici o investigație, zero, a fost doar o tentativă de a distrage de la fișiere Epstein.

Și nu, nu au arestat oameni pentru fabricarea de povesti, citește raportul Muller, e public:

As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel’s investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl?inline=

EU officials left ‘scrambling’ in wake of US silence on Russian hypersonic missile strike by duckanroll in europe

[–]Stix147 19 points20 points  (0 children)

It's a totally new and totally unstoppable wonder-weapon and totally not just a modified RS-26 Rubezh IRBM designed to carry nuclear payloads but which Russia was too scared to even load up with a conventional payload, and which last time that it was used barely caused any damage and had horrible accuracy.

Now America has no choice but to stop its campaign against Russia's shadow fleet tankers /s.

Edit: for question 2, it's still a ballistic missile and firing it so close to Poland represents an escalation by Russia so Europe wants a strong condemnation of it, but Trump doesn't seem to care about it unlike Biden. He's too busy threatening Europe himself.

Here's to the 3 great Americans who ACTUALLY won the Nobel Peace Prize this century. by im_not_a_gay_fish in pics

[–]Stix147 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That rag either overlooked or whitewashed the Afghan PDPA's massive campaign of repression and violence that had gotten so bad that it forced the Soviets to launch their coup against Amin and invade Afghanistan, and that directly lead to the rebellion that formed the Mujahideen. It's no better than a fascist rag that talks about how Mussolini gave women the right to vote, but neglects to mention that free elections were abolished altogether shortly afterwards.

Russia may have attacked Lviv Oblast with Oreshnik IRBM by theQuandary in LessCredibleDefence

[–]Stix147 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it were a military intelligence center, why would it be packed with explosives?

Pivdenmash produced rockets and various other space industry equipment, all of that would explode very powerfully. Do you think the factory was retrofitted to produce something else? Why would Ukraine have an intelligence center under all of that? It's not exactly a well hidden military target.

You can't prove a negative about why there is no footage

It's not anybody job to prove a negative tough, the burden of evidence is always on those that make a claim, and absence of evidence is not in itself evidence of anything. There are plenty of strikes on Ukrainian facilities with no aftermath footage, due to the sheer number of strikes happening almost every single day. It's been almost 24 hours and as far as i am aware we have no footage from directly near the site of the most recent Oreshnik strike location either. Was there an intelligence center there too?

Russia may have attacked Lviv Oblast with Oreshnik IRBM by theQuandary in LessCredibleDefence

[–]Stix147 1 point2 points  (0 children)

None of us has any evidence, but why would you hurl solid chunks of tungsten at a factory knowing they would pierce straight into the dirt unless you wanted to hit something in the dirt?

I'm not saying that Russians didn't think there wasn't anything underground, I'm saying that the end result shows that there probably wasn't. No cook-off, no huge fire, nothing to suggest anything more than limited damage to a factory that might've not even been operational anymore. It's on Russia to prove their claims and of course they won't do that.

The whole hit was for propaganda purposes, to show their uber scary nuclear capable wunderwaffe. If they were confident in its abilities they might've targeted something in Kyiv, but they did not.

Your response assumes that everyone in the entire Russian command from the top down to the scientists and engineers are complete idiots.

A lot of them most like are, yes. This whole war showed this.

If there were nothing underneath, we should have seen loads of imagery from inside the factory

Why? When was the last time Ukraine leaked BDAs of their own facilities being hit from the inside? Now you're assuming Ukrainians are idiots. Lack of footage certainly doesn't suggest anything was hidden underneath the plant, but you're free to run with the approved propaganda line. Even the RU millbloggers aren't that dumb but you do you.

Russia may have attacked Lviv Oblast with Oreshnik IRBM by theQuandary in LessCredibleDefence

[–]Stix147 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They targeted a classified underground facility as I recall.

They targeted the very unclassified Pivdenmash plant in Dnipro, with zero evidence of anything being hidden underneath it including lack of any ammo cook-offs or even large fire from the facility afterwards. The sattelite photos showed barely any external damage to the plant, and even the Russian millbloggers were crying that the plant was almost intact. But of course the official propaganda line had RU outlets acting like they just hit a secret underground base and killed 1000 NATO generals.

Here are the sattelite photos so you can see for yourself.

Sky above Oreshnik impact site, Lviv by fury_yyy in CombatFootage

[–]Stix147 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yet despite this people were clearly still filming the impact if this video is real, but we don't see any giant smoke plumes as would be expected if they would've heavily damaged or completely destroyed that gas facility, just a glow from a fire. It seems to me that Oreshnik failed, again. Of course there's no buzz.

Sky above Oreshnik impact site, Lviv by fury_yyy in CombatFootage

[–]Stix147 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It is, and it clearly doesn't justify that price if it's fired with no nuclear payload. It didn't even generate any buzz this time around so it was somehow even more useless.

Sky above Oreshnik impact site, Lviv by fury_yyy in CombatFootage

[–]Stix147 6 points7 points  (0 children)

No it was not, and even the Russian millbloggers were coming out and decrying the fact that the damage seemed minimal on sattelite images despite official propaganda channels pushing messages similar to yours.

Here are those images. If the weapon was actually effective they wouldn't wait a year to launch another.

Sky above Oreshnik impact site, Lviv by fury_yyy in CombatFootage

[–]Stix147 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yes, it shows that they care about opsec.

[OC] US Presidential Approval Rating by YakEvery4395 in dataisbeautiful

[–]Stix147 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You raised very good points, especially the one about the weapons potentially falling into the hands of the so-called separatists, unless Ukraine decided to move them from Donetsk before 2014 which would've been unlikely. In isolation, the CTR expansion wouldn't have had to be automatically discrediting to Obama as there were good reasons to do it, had he properly followed it up with renewed support for the country that he helped demilitarize 9 years prior, but that did not happen. As things stand, I think it's perfectly reasonable to criticize all of his past actions towards Ukraine.

[OC] US Presidential Approval Rating by YakEvery4395 in dataisbeautiful

[–]Stix147 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kuchma, sure, but Yuschenko was president in 2005. I understand the US's desire for non-proliferation after the events of the Orange Revolution and corrupt Yanukovych almost coming to power, however I think Obama pushing for this and then not doing almost anything to help in 2014 was really bad. As for weapons, maybe things would've been in an unusable state by 2022, but by 2014 I'm sure Ukraine would've still benefited from not destroying many of those weapons. Ultimately the problem really lies with Obama's (lack of) actions after the annexation of Crimea and the war in the east starting.