ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

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

Why would anyone care if he green-screened talking to a bunch of flight attendants? If you could depose him with enough sick owns on twitter, you'd be better off spamming the "kissed boy like kitten" photo.

I actually see what they’re talking about now, the fingers slice through the neck of the mic.

I want to believe, but we need a higher resolution video that's free of compression artifacts to do any substantial analysis.

Yeah the hand going through the mic is pretty obvious

more re: Logistics.

Since the end of the Cold War, the Russians have undertaken nothing at all close to their deployment to attack Ukraine, which would be a challenge to any force. But is probably doubly for them as their logistical development also seems not to have progressed much.

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 5, 2022

imo, the Putin video looks strange but the biggest thing that makes me suspect it's fake is just that he appears to be close to other humans, something that is clearly not happening much/if at all these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4wRdoWpw0w

Uhm it's not green screen anyway

This now-viral clip of Putin's hand transposing the microphone supposedly as a keying artifact is not present in the full-quality version (right) and I suspect may itself have been faked pic.twitter.com/ywBVsRj1gy

— Michael Tae Sweeney (@mtsw) March 5, 2022

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t7cbkj/another_interview_with_captured_russians_if_this/

African-American Phoenix Mercury basketball player Brittney Griner, seven-time WNBA All-Star, winner of two Olympic gold medals, detained at Moscow airport "in February"? Why just now popping up in the news?
From BBC:
Phoenix say they are "aware of and are closely monitoring the situation".

A statement from the WNBA club was posted on Twitter after the Russia Federal Customs Service said that an American basketball player was taken into custody after officials found vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in carry-on luggage at Sheremetyevo Airport.
Russian news agency TASS, citing a law enforcement source, has since identified the player as 31-year-old Griner, who has played in the country during the WNBA offseason since 2015.

"We remain in constant contact with her family, her representation, the WNBA and NBA," the club said.
]She could face a sentence of up to 10 years in a Russian prison if convicted.

Bargaining chip?

They could start taking hostages any time now, for a bit more leverage.

time for some game theory

Putin is diabolical. He knows Biden’s Democratic party base is Black women. He knows we are gonna be up in arms about Russia detaining Britney Griner, that we will demand the U.S. get her back here. Even as we are unified against his imperialist invasion of Ukraine.

— Brittney Cooper (@ProfessorCrunk) March 6, 2022

Another ok, short thread on where we are at and might be heading.

I think the question is whether they can take Kyiv before there is a domestic backlash to casualties and economic disruptions. Putin clearly wants to take Kyiv before conducting serious negotiations, but it isn't clear Russia can do so fast enough, especially if Kharkiv holds out https://t.co/FIQQ9GVL4s

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 5, 2022

How central Asia could be affected.

Surreal to see Russians fleeing to Central Asia, frantically trying to figure local migration and registration rules in Telegram group chats, while so many Central Asian migrants are stuck in Russia, not knowing what to expect

— Yan Matusevich (@ymatusik) March 6, 2022

Best blog analysis I've read on the conflict:

https://samf.substack.com/p/space-and-time?s=r

Good conclusion that highlights the particular ambiguities of a war that Russia can't lose but is not exactly winning:

We are left contemplating the psychology of the man who launched this catastrophic adventure and must now decide whether to call it off with whatever face-saving claims he can muster. We wonder whether when he claims his war plan is on schedule and is meeting its goals is a continuation of his past delusions, because the sycophants around him don’t know how to tell him the truth, or because he does not know how to admit to the Russian people how badly he has let them down, especially after he has gone to extreme lengths to hide the truth from them.

he will have encircled and occupied whatever cities and infrastructure he wishes that remain standing as and when he decides to stop.

im not sure this western commentary timeline-as-failure narrative in any way applies to his thinking here.

Just thought I'd drop this here. No reason.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNCRxa5WUAA2OMH?format=jpg&name=medium

what is that from?

it's this: https://newrepublic.com/article/165603/carlson-russia-ukraine-imperialism-nato

Trump mused to donors that we should take our F-22 planes, "put the Chinese flag on them and bomb the shit out" out of Russia. "And then we say, China did it, we didn't do, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch."

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) March 6, 2022

I get that this is exactly the sort of dumb idea he always has but it’s still fucking amazing that the guy was President for 4 years and still has thoughts like this

so basically he watched Mickey Blue Eyes last night, is what that tells me