ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

And then they played Frampton

Ooh baby I love your war

i want you to Uskoreniye

More Russia than Ukraine, but:

So... am I seeing this correctly?

Basically Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul gave the pensions of all Kentucky teachers to Russia and now none of those teachers will have retirement money?

'cause it kinda looks like that. https://t.co/hP1hte5Qzg

— Chris Vickery (@VickerySec) March 4, 2022

Sold them off last month. https://t.co/U5wdKzTckL

— Dale Rutz (@DaleRutz) March 4, 2022

That’s fucking insane.

So it's not actually 'completely false' than, right?

I think I saw that it (thankfully) amounted to a relatively small amount of the total fund.

...also how would US Senators control the Kentucy Teachers Retirement System?

(citation needed, also can US posters please stop spamming up this thread with random thoughts and musings kthxbye)

No Josh is right. The KY TRS has $28 billion in assets under management. $13m is less than 0.05% of the fund. And it looks like they sold it.
https://trs.ky.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/20210827-Investment-returns.pdf

Moreover, as US senators, McConnell and Paul have zero to do with state teachers, let alone a state teachers retirement fund.

Moreover, those investments were almost certainly chosen by some fund manager, state govt doesn’t get involved in picking investments.

ty for actual content, appreciated

Actually TBC it’s not like 100% impossible that there’s some corrupt connection between McConnell and a Sberbank investment by a Kentucky fund, but you’d need a lot more info and certainly the pension fund is not bankrupted or seriously harmed atm. Also it doesn’t look to me like it was actually the second largest shareholder or anything close to it, not sure where Twitter is getting that.

And pension funds invest in all kinds of stocks all around the world so it’s not inherently weird to me that they had that investment.

my old job's pension was .33% in russia and now i will never be able to retire

excerpt:

Update 11 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine

...The safety systems of the plant’s six reactors had not been affected and there has been no release of radioactive material.

Radiation monitoring systems at the site are fully functional.

However, the operator has reported that the situation remains very challenging and therefore it has not yet been possible to access the whole site to assess that all safety systems are fully functional.

Of the plant’s reactor units, Unit 1 is shut down for maintenance, Units 2 and 3 have undergone a controlled shut down, Unit 4 is operating at 60 percent power and Units 5 and 6 are being held “in reserve” in low power mode.

Two people were reported injured.

The IAEA Incident and Emergency Centre (IEC) has been put in full response mode due to the events at Zaporizhzhia NPP, Director General Grossi said. The IEC will be manned around the clock to continuously receive, assess and disseminate information about developments. (w more resources linked from this page)https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-11-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine

Okay, I was wondering this same thing... from BBC:

Q: Why doesn't the Ukrainian air force attack the long Russian convoy?

Everyone is baffled as to why Ukraine has not done more to attack the Russian convoy as it is a sitting duck for drone and airstrikes.

There are several possible explanations, Ukraine may be running out of armed drones and its small, outnumbered air force may be wary of being shot down by Russian air defence batteries.

Ben Barry from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) suggests the Ukrainians may well be safeguarding what resources they do have in readiness to counter-attack when the Russians get closer to Kyiv...

They should just do a drive-by Molotov.

They may be stuck in mud, but I’ve reached my limit on sharing Twitter links.

thank you all for answering my no-fly question earlier. makes sense now. i was overthinking it.

and i probably should've worded "would trigger nuclear war" a little differently.

Unless Eazy, I share away. Not a fan of all the memey stuff in the thread but I posted another one by the guy earlier, he knows his stuff, and...this could be why the air force isn't bothering

Lady's and Gentlemen, boys & girls, it is time saddle up for another installment of the "Mud and Truck Maintenance in Ukraine" feed.

And this one will be a doozy, because we are talking about Russian truck refueling in the 64km column north of Kyiv. 🧵

1/ pic.twitter.com/akTbOuo4tI

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 4, 2022

Not unrelated

it’s amusing watching everyone who never served learning in real time just HOW MUCH of a soldier’s time is spent on maintenance. I bet I spent 40 hours in the motor pool for every hour my m1a1 was in actual maneuvers. Probably more.

— John Cole (@Johngcole) March 5, 2022

We're all blind here, one of these people on Twitter has decent eyesight but how would we know?

But this aligns with what I posted earlier about the Russian army being based around artillery.

It's time for a reality check.

Everyone RTing these threads needs to look at an updated map of the conflict.

What they'll find is that the bulk of the Ukrainian military has been *encircled* in the East of the country. pic.twitter.com/SgSltxISU8

— Clint Ehrlich (@ClintEhrlich) March 5, 2022

idk, maybe don't post Russian propaganda by Fox News pundits, because everyone knows where their eyes are.

Yeah, that guy's a regular guest on Carlson, take that shit to the trash

noted! and, honestly, glad to hear that I can ignore him.

When it’s going great

So Putin is now on TV explaining his justifications for the invasion of Ukraine to a room full of Russian trainee air stewardesses...
Bizarre… pic.twitter.com/LC6Uux3aiC

— Patrick Reevell (@Reevellp) March 5, 2022

Interesting that he’s sitting among them.

“Keep those old guys far away. But I am immune for these young ladies.”

That's some centerpiece.

The comments translating (in real time?) are ... odd. I guess someone asked him "why now?" and he started rambling about Ukrainians shooting people in the streets on sight, stuff like that, and just took off from there. Others in the comments also note that they haven't seen him this close to anyone in weeks.

And no one is quite sure what they are drinking. Red root tea? Borscht? Blood?

Come now, he's red blooded autocrat after all, of course he'd want to sit among a crowd of air stewardesses (who will soon be out of a job, if you believe the dire predictions being made about the Russian aviation industry).

I've just remembered that there's a lot of mystery surrouding exactly how many children old Putinballs has fathered - now which world leader does that remind you of?

So Putin is now on TV explaining his justifications for the invasion of Ukraine to a room full of Russian trainee air stewardesses...
Bizarre… pic.twitter.com/LC6Uux3aiC

— Patrick Reevell (@Reevellp) March 5, 2022

why do almost all of the trees behind them look like guys in ghillie suits?

The Ukrainian SBU liquidated a member of the Ukrainian negotiating group Denis Kireev. Kireev was killed during detention.

This was reported by the Ukrainian MP Dubinsky. pic.twitter.com/V9PCnS5D5W

— Maria Dubovikova (@politblogme) March 5, 2022

(he was caught sending info to the Russians apparently)

Inevitable

They actually did it. pic.twitter.com/0PwXDvu65x

— The Eastern Border (@Eastern_Border) March 4, 2022

Said painting: a famed effort by Ilya Repin

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_of_the_Zaporozhian_Cossacks

The first thing that struck me about the Fox News dudes map, is it seemed to over exaggerate the Russian positions. I’m not even sure where the support in the western/Moldova area came from all of the sudden.
He could be right about the plan, but he’s clearly stretching the believability of the Russian placement and speed of advancement.

yeah the dude's map is from a Russian propaganda source

lol my VPN gave me a "untrustworthy sources" warning when I clicked on this thread today, guessing it's fox news dude's fault.

I'm so glad to have brought the thread together

I remember thinking at the time this won that this was a pretty damn heavy topic of choice for a Eurovision winner.

Jamala won Eurovision for Ukraine in 2016

182 million people watched the song contest the following year in Kyiv

Last week Jamala left Ukraine with her children, leaving her husband behind

Last night she performed her winning song - 1944 - on German TVpic.twitter.com/eD6J4qeeic

— Daniel Rosney (@DanielRosney) March 5, 2022

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944_(song)

Could the "liquidation" be more Russian BS?

No-fly would be "act of war," also now it turns out sanctions are already "akin to that," but "Russia is too big for that" to succeed, but also his representative adds:
"As you understand, there must be a corresponding response to economic banditry," Peskov said.
Also "there is not one conscript" etc. etc.:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-says-west-is-behaving-like-bandits-2022-03-05/

Good thread on sanctions and the boycott.

The West-Russia economic & diplomatic decoupling that is underway right now is completely without historical precedent for such a large ($1.5 trillion) and relatively integrated economy as Russia's. And sanctions aren't even the main cause of it 🧵

— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) March 5, 2022

BTW Twitter's going crazy with claims Putin was green-screened into the stewardess meeting. *shrug* If you want a sample of the madness

This video is also faked. He never sat with those women. Green screen tech.

See how his hand moves behind the mic at 0:50 in this slow motion version. In the origial stuff moves and background is different as the video progresses. https://t.co/k0p01tYGmG

— adam seven 🇫🇮 🇪🇺 (@a7_FIN_SWE) March 5, 2022

The green screen is pretty obvious in that.

Sorry why does the mic give anything away? The mic his hand is moving behind is the one in front of him. It’s not the girls mic. In the angled shot the mic to the right is to his left.

I was just looking at the edge of Putin's image against the background, where he'd be 'cut in' against the green screen and it looks like a too-sharp boundary. If you compare his 'edge' to how the other figures appear it is easier to see the difference.

I’m not seeing it honestly