Hundreds arrested as shocked Russians protest Ukraine attack

[Yssup Rider]

No obstruction. No collusion.

HORSE SHIT!

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

No obstruction. No collusion.

HORSE SHIT!

no collusion. no obstruction. the entire thing was a witch hunt by your fatass goddess Hillary with help from Obama.



i bet you are still waiting for the pee tape to be released. you'll be waiting awhile .. like eternity. that's a pretty long time.

[HedonistForever]

Originally Posted by Precious_b

Where've you been, man?

This guy has been cracking heads for over a decade.
I only followed what's happening when he got a massive hardon for a bunch of girls protesting against him in a church. What became of that? Practically all involved have been jailed, are in jail, under house arrest, poisoned, or fled into exile. All opposition, same as above. Changed rules of government and is nearing dictator for life (if not there yet.) And has crushed demonstrations left and right. And this all before he set troops moving for Ukraine.

Seeing no opposition to the above, he wants more.

So, seeing how everybody loves to armchair quarterback and do hindsight analysis: what do y'all think should have been done since you obviously *know* a better way of handling things.

We should have given Ukraine more air defense capabilities and we should have done that in the Trump administration and certainly the minute our intelligence agencies realized what Putin was going to do visa vie Ukraine.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...stem-rcna17317

Why didn't the US and allies provide Ukraine with a better air defense?

We didn't want to Provoke Putin, one official said. How did that work out?

Years of Western reluctance to help Ukraine modernize its Soviet-era air defenses have left the country dramaticallyvulnerable to a massive Russian bombing and missile campaign that could devastate Ukrainian forces before they ever see a hostile tank or soldier.
A confluence of concerns — fear of provoking Russia, worries the technology could fall into Russian hands, doubts Ukraine could operate the systems — prevented the U.S. and its allies from granting Ukrainian requests for sophisticated surface-to-air missiles in the years after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, current and former American officials and defense experts told NBC News.


Those calculations seemed reasonable at the time, yet they all but ensured Ukraine would be largely defenseless against what experts say would be an overwhelming display of air power should Russia mount a full-scale invasion. American officials are scrambling to find ways to help Ukrainian forces preserve themselves, but there are few good options.


“We certainly all missed an opportunity,” said Philip Breedlove, a retired four-star Air Force general who was supreme allied commander of NATO during the 2014 Russian aggression, and was involved in the ensuing debate over how much aid to give Ukraine. “The West, NATO and all of the individual nations involved missed an opportunity. I think we’re looking at it in retrospect now and thinking maybe we should have made a different decision.”


Retired Adm. James Stavridis, who preceded Breedlove as NATO's supreme allied commander and is now an NBC News national security contributor, agreed.
“I think air defense would have been a very smart move,” he said. “If we had put more out there sooner, we would not be where we are now.”
As it stands, Russia is likely to begin any full-scale invasion with a lethal and largely unchallenged assault by bombers, ballistic missiles and artillery, said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington, D.C., think tank.



“The shock and awe campaign they can launch with those resources against entrenched Ukrainian forces before the main ground invasion begins will be truly devastating," he said. “The Ukrainian military has no answer for these weapons.”


Decisions by American presidents of both parties set the stage. President Barack Obama declined to provide any lethal aid after Crimea fell in 2014, rejecting the recommendations of his most senior national security officials. President Donald Trump signed off on the provision of Javelin anti-tank missiles only after delaying the aid package in an act that led to his impeachment. He didn’t provide air defense.


The Biden administration has been accused of being slow to act as well. By the time U.S. intelligence agencies concluded six months ago that Russia was planning for a possible invasion, there wasn’t enough time to train the Ukrainians to operate sophisticated air defenses such as Patriot missiles, Stavridis said.


“Over the last six months we were kind of at a dead sprint to put the right tools in their hands, but it was kind of too late,” Stavridis said. “There was just no time.”
A U.S. military team visited Ukraine in December to assess its air defenses, but concluded there wasn’t much new equipment that could be provided, defense officials said.
No one is suggesting any set of weapons systems could enable Ukraine to repel a full-scale attack by one of the world’s most potent military forces. But better air defenses might have provided a level of deterrence that now doesn’t exist. Analysts say the prospect of bombers being shot down in flight might have forced forced Russian President Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate his strategy.


Ukraine does have some ability to resist an air attack. Ukraine got a small, last-minute infusion of surface-to-air missiles just this month from European partners. Lithuania and Latvia provided some man-portable Stinger missiles, which the Afghan mujahideen used to drive out the Russians in the 1980s after receiving them from the CIA.

That capability augments Ukraine’s existing air defenses, which are largely dated, Russian-made systems that are extremely susceptible to electronic jamming, experts say.
It’s also true that Russia lacks experience flying through contested air space, said Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corp. think tank.
“If they commit tactical aviation inside Ukrainian airspace for a large operation, some Russian aircraft losses are likely,” she said. “Ultimately though, the sheer volume of combat air power that Russia could bring, particularly in combination with longer range precision strikes, would probably overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.”
And once Russia has air superiority, it will be free to destroy the Ukrainian military from a stand-off distance, without putting ground troops at risk.


Body armor, not air defense

After Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Obama's defense secretary and other top military leaders argued in favor or providing lethal assistance to Ukraine.
But Obama declined, sending items such as night vision goggles and body armor instead.


John Brennan, an NBC News national security contributor who served as CIA director from 2013 to 2017, said there were worries at the time about NATO technology ending up in Russian hands. Obama and some of his aides feared that if the U.S. armed Ukraine, it could set off a dangerous spiral that would see Russia prevail.
In 2015, Obama expressed concern about providing lethal aid, “Can we be certain that any lethal aid that we provide Ukraine is used properly, doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, does not lead to over-aggressive actions that can’t be sustained by the Ukrainians?” Obama told reporters at the White House after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “What kinds of reactions does it prompt, not simply from the separatists but from the Russians? Those are all issues that have to be considered.”
Merkel’s government opposed sending weapons, and instead favored imposing economic sanctions. Germany was playing a crucial role in rallying European allies to back a package of sanctions, and the Obama administration concluded those measures had a better chance of changing Moscow’s calculus than sending anti-tank weapons that might delay, but would not change, the ultimate outcome on the battlefield.

[Bushjumper]

Originally Posted by Why_Yes_I_Do

Nominating Pol Pot for best supporting whack-job.

And I second the nomination.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by Bushjumper

Vladimir Putin aka Vlad the Terrible aparently thinks of himself as a modern day Josef Stalin.

no, not stalin. Peter the Great.

[Levianon17]

Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

Horse shit.

It might be Horse shit to you because you don't know what the hell is going on.

[bambino]

Originally Posted by Levianon17

It might be Horse shit to you because you don't know what the hell is going on.

He never does.

[Yssup Rider]

Is bambino stalking me again? All I can see is the that blowhard has been ignored message.

He just can’t help himself, can he?


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSH

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

Is bambino stalking me again? All I can see is the that blowhard has been ignored message.

He just can’t help himself, can he?


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSH

can you? what does this have to do with Russians protesting this invasion?