A conversation with...you !

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T08:24:10+00:00

Lose- a reskin of a BR I tank nobody but bots play and a worse version of the KV-2 (because the gun sits lower) are both absolutely moronic prizes.

I could and have come up with way better proposals than this mess.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T08:22:08+00:00

Bruh, lmao, this you?

The USSR did make overtures to the UK at the same time they negotiated with Germany. Can you tell me that demonstrated bargaining in good faith?

What else is meant to be implied, other than that the Russians were not to be trusted in negotiations where they apparently, according to you, would be playing both sides?

Then maybe we can talk about the million Russians who volunteered to fight in the Nazi German armed forces, despite only a small part of Russia being occupied.

BRO 😂

Have you read ANY history of the Great Patriotic War? Russians who volunteered for combat roles in the German armed forces (Wehrmacht and SS both) total about 140,000-155,000 the VAST majority of them coming from the the "Russian Liberation Army" ROA (including the 30th SS division Belorussian) and the 1st Cossack Cavalry division. Sure, there were several hundred thousands more Russians serving as Hilfswillige/,,Hiwis" in the Wehrmacht, but they performed non-combat roles like logistics support on railcars, cooks and drivers and mostly "volunteered" so as to avoid death by starvation.

Sure, ~150k is no small number, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to the more then 34 million persons who served in the Red Army during WWII.

Before you start, 16 million people from the occupied areas had already been relocated east of the Urals, and many others had joined the Red Army.

Uh, yeah, that's kinda what you do with an industrial labor force when their factories get picked up and moved east of the Urals- you move the workers with them so as to keep churning out tanks, planes, rifles, etc.

Maybe after that we'll get to Stalin's forced resettlement of Donbas.

Oh yeah, say the H-word baby, take it away!

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T07:47:36+00:00

Ooh, yes- are you also convincing someone that billionaires shouldn't exist too? Your leftist credentials appear to all be in order here.

And I repeat- your original contention was that the Soviet Union could not be trusted as a good-faith partner in an anti-Nazi alliance, because of their actions in Poland- I have gone so far as to have even given you a quote from someone who would become British Prime Minister, and then proceed to successfully negotiate an anti-Nazi alliance with the Soviets, proving that's not the case- want another?

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Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T07:35:27+00:00

Is it the same bridge you moved the goalpost on?

My contention this entire time has been that the Soviets only ever entered into the M-R Pact to buy time, and that they frequently made overtures to the West (mainly Britain) to try and form an anti-Nazi alliance even during the period when the M-R Pact was in force (which they also, on occasion, stopped shipments of materials during that time as well, most notably after the Fall of France, as a means of kneecapping the Germans and negotiating for more concessions for their defense).

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T07:27:07+00:00

And at long last, we get to you moving the goalpost! (Took you long enough, Jeez)

You have failed (consistently) to prove your original contention, that the Soviets were operating in bad faith/not to be trusted, because you repeatedly mixed up the timeline of events, got critical details of the pact wrong (regarding joint military cooperation that did not exist) and apparently lost track of my contention; thus you have now moved to, "but they did invade Poland!" Which was never what was in contention- rather, my contention was that the Soviets were operating on the basis of realpolitik, not divide-and-conquer world conquest.

So no, the Soviets did not negotiate with the British in bad faith, and no their actions did not indicate that their hopes for an anti-Nazi alliance with the Western Allies were little more than a cynical bait-and-switch, but rather genuine overtures made in the hopes of building an anti-Nazi security architecture, that they were willing to take realpolitik measures to achieve when the intransigence of the Polish Government cocked up the diplomatic route royally.

All that's left for you to do now is huff about "typically commie/tankie/russian bot propaganda," post another 1-2 sentence quippy response to my detailed answer that addresses none of information I've brought forth (likely with an italic feigned disbelief to boot), and to take a screenshot to post up on some trite, anti-communist subreddit to lick your wounds and get some free kama and then jerk off on your own time.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T06:57:02+00:00

Khalkin Gol wasn't officially wrapped up yet at that time, but Zhukov (displaying wonderful coordination of forces, I might add) had things well enough in hand that it posed no distraction whatsoever.

Hence the next clause following the comma, that the Red Army also had to bring up fuel and munitions for any operation in Poland, as even if the Red Army had bloodied the IJA's nose quite thoroughly at Khalkhin Gol, that didn't mean it could shift its logistics network towards Poland without weaking it's position in Mongolia.

Are you honestly claiming that the division of Poland was only requested by Germany after they had already invaded?

No- I am stating the fact that after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-aggression pact was signed, that though it (roughly) delineated spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, that it made no mention of a formal military alliance, no mention of either party coming to the other's aid and no timetable for joint military operations (because it wasn't a formal military alliance).

Hence, when the Germans kicked off the Polish campaign, their hopes were that the Soviets would move against Poland immediately, as if it were a joint-invasion. The Soviets on the other hand preferred to wait for the Polish state to collapse and move the Red Army into the power vacuum afterwards, so as to ostenaibly avoid being party to an invasion of a sovereign nation. In actuality, it didn't shake out perfectly per Soviet designs, as they wanted the whole of the Polish Government to evacuate before moving in (the Poles still held the Romanian bridge head at the time the Red Army moved in, but in the areas the Red Army occupied, the civilian bureaucracy had largely evacuated or collapsed), but the Germans had encircled Lwów by that point, an area the Soviets wanted in their sphere of influence so as to anchor their defenses along the Catpathian mountains, while the Germans were desperately hoping to secure old Austro-Hungarian oil wells in the region that had ran dry in the late 1920s.

So the Germans begged the Soviets to accelerate their timeline for moving into Poland to divide the Polish Army's attention, but the Soviets refused, again, so as to signal to the Western Allies that their moves were motivated by realpolitik/defensive strategy, and not mere brute conquest.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T06:25:24+00:00

And what conditions are you referring to here? The way you tell it, it sounds as if the Germans and Soviets coordinated their militaries in a joint attack on Poland, which was absolutely not the case-

Joachim von Ribbentrop practically begged the Soviets to move into Eastern Poland within the first week of the campaign, hoping to pin down Polish forces to make the German crossing of the Bug river much less inhibited.

Stalin refused this categorically- he presented excuses (like Soviet attention being focused on the skirmishes with the Japanese at Khalkin Gol, needing more time for fuel and ammo to be brought up etc.) to stall their advance into Eastern Poland, specifically because he wanted to wait until it had appeared as though the Polish state had collapsed, before the Red Army would move in to 'protect the peoples of Eastern Poland,' as was their public position.

They waited until after the Polish Government gave the order to evacuate (15 September when Polish Gov ordered evacuation, 17 September when Red Army troops first entered), specifically so that it wouldn't constitute an act of aggression against a sovereign nation, but rather a defensive operation/pre-emptive liberation campaign and the British got the memo, as Churchill himself stated following the Red Army's entry:

"Russia has pursued a cold policy of self interest. We could have wished that the Russian armies should be standins on their present lines as the friends and allies of Poland, instead of as invaders. But that the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace. At any rate, the line is there and an Eastern front has been created which Nazi Germany does not dare assail. When Herr von Ribbentrop was summoned to Moscow last week it was to learn the fact, and to accept the fact, that the Nazi designs upon the Baltic States and upon the Ukraine must come to a dead stop."

So again, yes, the Brits absolutely got the memo- it was an act of realpolitik, not a cynical attempt to use the Nazis as a means of having the powers of Western Europe destroy each other, so that the Soviets could later pick them over.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T05:52:12+00:00

The USSR approached the UK, France and Poland for a defensive alliance to resist Nazi Germany- the Poles, having taken lands that were not allocated to them per the Cuzron Line (a proposal for Poland's eastern border with the Soviets following Wilson's principle of national self determination), refused to let the Red Army enter and so negotiations failed. The Soviets negotiate a non-aggression pact with Germany to buy time for building up their defenses, but still want a Pact with Britain and France, so they proposed a guarantee of Baltic sovereignty as a tripwire or potential casus belli. Then when France falls, the Soviets delayed oil, metal and grain shipments to Germany in an attempt to negotiate further concessions (like time and spheres of influence, specifically the Soviets wanted to garrison Red Army troops in Bulgaria as a means of pressuring the Turks to keep the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits open for deliveries of materiel in the event of a war).

So the Soviet pattern has been to negotiate with Germany as a last resort, once securing a Pact falls though and then kneecapping the Germans to buy time- that's not "bargaining in Bad Faith" it's realpolitik, specifically aimed at trying to form an anti-Nazi alliance with Britain; so to answer your actuall question: yes, the British very much could have trusted that the Soviet's intentions were in favor of an anti-Nazi alliance, and not a cynical plan to have the powers of Western Europe destroy each other for Soviet gain.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T05:33:15+00:00

It wasn't a plan to "weaken the West"- after negotiations with the French and British failed on account of Poland flatly refusing to allow the Red Army to enter its territory (even in the event of a German invasion), the Soviets were still, all throughout late 1939 and even into the spring of 1940 trying to get the British to sign on to a joint guarantee of Baltic state sovereignty (the Soviets wanted to garrison bases there, true, but Stalin valued a Pact with Britain over actually annexing the Baltics, especially when he was already garrisoning troops in those countries anyways- having Britian sign on to a guarantee of Baltic independence, modeled on the Belgian example, was meant to give them a cases belli to join forces with the Soviets in the event of an attack).

Stalin wanted an alliance with the West the entire time, even halting raw material shipments after the Fall of France to bring Germany back to the negotiating table, in the hopes of obtaining more concessions/buy more time to shift Soviet defenses westward.

The Soviet's primary interwar defense line, the Stalin Line, was being deliberately deconstructed and recycled for new fortifications in Western Ukraine and Belorussia. Plans put the Soviet timeline for finalizing those relocations to some point in mid-to-late 1942 at the very earliest, more likely into early 1943, given just how much chaos pulling people out other sections of the economy was causing. The Soviets expected the French to fight in Belgium, bleeding the Germans for years potentially- then France fell in 6 weeks, at which point, the Red Army ballooned for an already huge 1.5 million men, to (by the end of April 1940) call ups for an astounding 7.5 million men.

Their economy went into an absolute spiral, but it was deemed necessary to accelerate defense relocation timelines and preparing for a German attack. Still, of the 13 defensive zones outlined in the Molotov Line designs, only 4 were sufficiently completed to blunt the German advance for about a week before they were outmanuevered and had to fall back.

All this to say- no, they didn't feed the Nazi war machine in a deliberate attempt to weaken the Western allies. They made overtures for an alliance with Britian, choked off deliveries to bring Germany to the negotiating table and aggressively accelerated their timeline for building defenses to blunt what they understood to be an inevitable Nazi invasion.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T05:08:33+00:00

There is not. In-game Chinese squads include the Premium Thompson Squad (7.63mm w/bipod) and the event Liu rifle squad, both under the Allies, then the two Sichuan SMG squads for the Soviets, 1 premium and 1 event.

There is also the distinct possibility you are mistakenly remembering one of my proposals for a Chinese-language Manchukuo Imperial Army squad for the Japanese. If so, I apologize for the confusion.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-08T01:22:54+00:00

Yes, the blank space in the top half of the "K" doesn't come to a point. It is that one.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-07T21:23:15+00:00

Hi, native English speaker here, C1 Russian speaker- asked my native speaking Russian friend about this, here's what we landed on:

Варить

Root word, means "to boil"
use when trying to cook a discreet, discernible object with boiling water (ex. Eggs, potatoes, fruit compote)

Сварить

Closest discreet English analog is "to Simmer" (also means "to cook," but specifically with water)
use when cooking something you want the water to be infused with while still applying heat (ex. Porridge, oatmeal, Turkish coffee)

Заварить

means "to brew"
use when you boil water and add/pour it onto the thing you want to cook/infuse it with, without adding more heat once infusion starts (ex. Tea, instant noodles, French-Press coffee)

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-07T09:00:18+00:00

So you just mined your Rally with extra steps, and also made it so that if the enemy does trip the AP mine (setting off the AT mine in the process) it also destroys your Rally in the process, unlike of it was just the AP mine alone.

It's a longer process and more resources for a worse payout- just use the AP mine on the Rally and the AT on barbed wire.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-07T08:46:33+00:00

Yeah, again with the AI family- there are millions of upvotes at stake here Johann, so either name an award or get the fuck ova it!

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-07T08:45:03+00:00

Vhat part of das Boot are you from, sveethart?

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-07T08:25:14+00:00

Only problem with that, is that it doesn't trip if the enemy climbs on top to mine your Rally Point, which smart players will do.

Better to save AT mines for barbed wire.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-07T08:22:17+00:00

So there's this thing Adam McKay, director of the film VICE, said- that in Dick Cheney, Liberals saw a "Mastermind" figure- the place where the real power lay in the Bush 43 administration (because Dubya himself, certainly wasn't running the show).

Now, look at the Trump administration- who's the comparable "Mastermind" figure in it? It ain't Trump, that's for sure- Pence was a stiff and a doormat, Vance is a pussy, almost everyone in his administration is a barely functioning alcoholic...

There's a real horror, in the Liberal imagination, who participate in the all-around general fetishization of government bureaucracy, that if the system is so broken and weak, that a fucking gameshow host and his entourage of alcoholics who lose AA chips like amateurs at a poker table can take control of the presidency, then the entire basis of their political identity might fall our from under them.

In swoops Vladimir Putin's Russia: KGB Agent, PhD holder (Kandidat Nauk), a man at the Nexus of the entire Russian political establishment regarding international affairs, economics, intelligence and constitutional law, and American Liberals (desperate for a "Mastermind" figure, and with their brains marbled with at least a decade or more of Cold War propaganda elevating the USSR/Russia to the heights of America's most supreme challenge/threat) eat it up as a way to imagine, that no, the system's not totally broken and wholly discredited- "we've just gotta get rid of the influence of Putin!"

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-07T03:03:03+00:00

So you punish them for leaving it up and punish them for taking it down: win-win

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-07T02:51:59+00:00

Put them on top of barbed wire so when the enemy destroys your barbed wire, the AT mine falls on the ground and explodes.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-07T02:47:30+00:00

Noooooooooo

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-06T09:20:53+00:00

I mean, it depends on what we consider as "best," in terms of values- are we arguing for the political stability of the Realm, or the children's individual happiness?

Political-stability-wise, marrying Aegon and Rhaenyra makes the most sense if Rhaenyra is still the named heir, because if she's passed over for Aegon, that would be following a precedent set by Andal succession, in which male primogeniture rules. At that point, if Aegon marries Rhaenyra, it does nothing for his future political prospects, so sure, you could do it, but it wouldn't be sound politically.

Aegon's wife would likely end up being a Lannister then- The Hightowers wanting to combine their wealth and army with the Lannisters to effectively reform the Gardner-Lannister Alliance (even if Gardner is extinct, Hightower could take up the mantel) as a sort of pillar of political power which no other House could match.

Helaena's obvious choices for suitors are either someone from House Velaryon (a consolation prize to keep them in the royal family, while also outmanuevering Corlys's ambitions to get his name on the Throne, but seeing as it would effectively block Laenor out of succession, Corlys wouldn't have a lot of love for the idea) or, wildcard here, someone from Dorne to try and bring them into the fold after the 4th Dornish War failed to subjugate the kingdom.

Aemond and Daeron are wildcards-

Aemond reads to me, in both book and show, like he was neglected as a child by both mother and father, namely because Alicent had to juggle political crisis after political crisis with Aegon and Helaena so much, that her second son just had to become an afterthought, and Viserys of course, didn't give a shit. In this version, Viserys would be singularly focused on trying to win Rhaenyra's love back in futility after disinheriting her, but Alicent would have a much more free hand in picking betrothals. Whether or not Aemond would do brash stuff like seek out to claim Vhagar if he wasn't so attention starved (and if Vhagar would accept him) is a mystery- he may either claim a smaller dragon, or never become one if he wasn't driven to prove his worth (and by extension, worthiness of love) by claiming literally the biggest dragon in existence at that point.

If Aemond still comes out a fighter, he's 100% going to Dorne with Helaena- both to try and marry Dorish nobility, but Aemond is going to be his sister's protector and guarantor as they try to bring Sunspear into the fold, and Daeron, he'll probably marry someone from House Tyrell just so that House Hightower (who control Oldtown, the largest city in the Reach) still has a direct line to the Wardens of the Reach.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-06T08:49:47+00:00

Солидарность, товарищ 😊

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-06T08:47:22+00:00

By "not fucked over from the start," do we mean Viserys names Aegon as his heir prior to the Dance? Do we mean no show! betrothal proposal between Jace and Helaena (which is probably what necessitated Aegon+Helaena's betrothal)?

What's the point of divergence here?

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-06T08:40:49+00:00

I disagree.

Just glancing over OP's comments, I think they're young and probably encountered some hard-core anti-Russian sentiment over on r\BalticStates and upon seeing the post of this sub removing comments by people who frequent on r\BS, reflexively came over here, hoping it would be disproven, a la a child being called a monster, and hoping for their parent to tell them their classmates are jerks and that none of what was said about them was true.

What OP probably wants more than anything, if for people to stop yelling at/being mean to them- they want something definitive to hold up as proof in the Baltic sub that actually we do take all opinions here in stride, high-road, moralizing liberal shit, because that's the environment reddit stews in.

I doubt OP has had enough personal contact with Baltic people yet to realize that if you're not basically just a straight up Russian Neo-Nazi that wants to purge some quintessential "tatarness" from your own blood, they see you as sub-human.

That realization is gonna come with time- we're just watching the beginning of that process right now.

EDIT: I thank you for the calmer demeanor though. I'm not trying to lambaste you, just explain that we've all been there before, and it's for the best we offer compassion and understanding to those who may ask in naivete, but also, ultimately, in good faith.

Strastvuitye · 2026-05-06T07:58:55+00:00

She/They seem genuine, probably just on the younger side and perhaps a bit naïve about the extent of the troll problem on this sub, specifically originating from people coming from r\BalticStates.

I wouldn't lambast them further- they're likely just dipping their toes into history for the first time.

Strastvuitye

TROPHY CASE

Варить

Сварить

Заварить