Putin's war

Exactly that was wondering me: all the lies from Moscow that can be quickly uncovered can certainly "convince" the Putin believers in Russia.
But someone who has free access to the internet and the media - why doesn't that someone use these possibilities?

A great many laboratories around the world have the coronavirus in stock right now, including in Ukraine.
But all known pathogens can be found in the freezer in a laboratory somewhere in the world. Even the smallpox virus, which is considered eradicated, is still stored in two laboratories, one in Novosibirsk, Russia, and one in Atlanta, USA.

By the way: there are four laboratory safety levels, S1 to S4. Each pathogen is assigned to a certain risk group or safety level.
S4 labs are very few in the whole world, a few dozen, in Germany for example there are four - in Ukraine there is none.

But there are many S3 laboratories in Ukraine - like anywhere else,every university that has a biological or medical faculty also has an S3 laboratory. And in addition, there are also public institutions that run S3 labs, like anywhere else, too.

Did Germany help Russia prepare for the Ukrainian invasion?
Zelenskyy says yes.

Points to ponder…

https://newsonair.gov.in/News?title=Ukrainian-president-Zelenskyy-accuses-Germany-of-prioritising-economy-ahead-of-invasion&id=437382

Excerpt:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Germany of putting its economy before his country’s security in the run-up to the Russian invasion. In an address to Germany’s parliament today, Zelenskyy criticized the German government’s support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project meant to bring natural gas from Russia.

Ukraine and others had opposed the project, warning that it endangered Ukrainian and European security. Zelenskyy also noted Germany’s hesitancy when it came to imposing some of the toughest sanctions on Russia for fear it could hurt the German economy.

The Ukrainian president called on Germany not to let a new wall divide Europe, urging support for his country’s membership of NATO and the European Union.

He also called for more help for his country, saying thousands of people have been killed in the war that started almost a month ago, including 108 children.

But he's not saying it was a premeditated effort to aid Putin's invasion. The shift in Germany's stance toward its military and with regard to NATO has been rapid – sorting out the economic implications of the sanctions will take a bit longer.

I think Germany was all about the new European order where all countries would work together for the econonic good of all. Honestly, it was working pretty well until Putin accelerated his ambitions. Economic cooperation between Germany and Russia has resulted in significant standard of living increases in Russia and economic prosperity in Germany. One of the biggest ways to reduce the chance of war is to make everyone dependent on everyone else. Germany did a pretty good job bringing Russia into the the European fold. Unfortunately Putin completely ignored (or underestimated) how deep those linkages had become.

If Germany’s help was premeditated, I guess they’d be implicated in the war crimes.

No, Zelenskyy warned them before the pipeline—saying Germany was facilitating the war.
Germany said it was just business, but that business paved the way for Russia to go to war.


I wonder if that’s enough to call Germany to account for the damages of the war?
I guess we’ll see.

OK:which one don't you like and why"

Bigg, Matthew Mpoke. “Putin’s Forces Attack Ukraine.” The New York Times, 23 Feb. 2022. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/24/world/russia-ukraine-putin.

Borger, Julian. “Covid Bioweapon Claims ‘Scientifically Invalid’, US Intelligence Reports.” The Guardian, 29 Oct. 2021. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/29/us-intelligence-report-covid-origins.

“Covid Bioweapon Claims ‘Scientifically Invalid’, US Intelligence Reports.” The Guardian, 29 Oct. 2021. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/29/us-intelligence-report-covid-origins.

Davis, Julia. “Russia, China Team Up to Peddle Insane U.S. COVID Lab Theory.” The Daily Beast, 9 Apr. 2021. www.thedailybeast.com,https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-china-team-up-to-peddle-insane-us-covid-lab-theory.

“DISINFO: US BIOLABS HAVE BEEN DEVELOPING NEW BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS IN UKRAINE.” EuVsDisinfo, 15 Apr. 2021, https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/us-biolabs-have-been-developing-new-biological-weapons-in-ukraine.

“Does the US Have A Secret Germ Warfare Lab on Russia’s Doorstep?” Coda Story, 19 Apr. 2018, https://www.codastory.com/disinformation/does-the-us-have-a-secret-germ-warfare-lab-on-russias-doorstep/.

Knight, Dacre. “COVID-19 Pandemic Origins: Bioweapons and the History of Laboratory Leaks.” Southern Medical Journal, vol. 114, no. 8, Aug. 2021, pp. 465–67. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.14423/SMJ.0000000000001283.

“Maps: Tracking the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.” The New York Times, 14 Feb. 2022. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukraine-maps.html.

Mary Van, Beusekom and 2020. “Scientists: ‘Exactly Zero’ Evidence COVID-19 Came from a Lab.” CIDRAP, https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/scientists-exactly-zero-evidence-covid-19-came-lab. Accessed 24 Feb. 2022.

Romanyuk, Vika. “Fake: Ukraine a US Biological Testing Site.” StopFake, 30 Aug. 2017, https://www.stopfake.org/en/fake-ukraine-a-us-biological-testing-site/.

“Russian Media Spreading Disinformation about US Bioweapons as Troops Mass near Ukraine.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 Feb. 2022, https://thebulletin.org/2022/02/russian-media-spreading-disinformation-about-us-bioweapons-as-troops-mass-near-ukraine/.

“SBU: No US Biological Laboratories in Ukraine.” Kyiv Post, 8 May 2020, https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/sbu-no-us-biological-laboratories-in-ukraine.html.

“U.S.-Ukraine Partnership to Reduce Biological Threats.” U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, 22 Apr. 2020, https://ua.usembassy.gov/u-s-ukraine-partnership-to-reduce-biological-threats/.

Zeleny, Jeff. “U.S., Ukraine Sign Bioterrorism Pact.” Indianapolis Star, 30 Aug. 2005.

“Програма зі зменшення біологічної загрози.” Посольство США в Україні, https://ua.usembassy.gov/uk/embassy-uk/kyiv-uk/sections-offices-uk/defense-threat-reduction-office-uk/biological-threat-reduction-program-uk/. Accessed 24 Feb. 2022.


The problem with you is you confuse your refusal to read sources with a mistaken belief I don't post sources when I debunk your crap.

Zelenskyy was PISSED during his address to the Bundestag.
I thought it was really odd that Germany uncharacteristically swung into action to help Ukraine. Now, I see it was from guilt.

There was a theory that countries who trade with each other are less likely to go to war.

If Russia's economy is too dependent on Western money it's less likely to jeopardise that.

Well, holy ****.

Zelenskyy must be furious at Germany. New headline.

Zelensky tells German MPs ‘never again’ Holocaust slogan is now meaningless

https://www.timesofisrael.com/zelensky-tells-german-mps-never-again-holocaust-slogan-is-now-meaningless/amp/

This is one of the most potent headlines I’ve ever seen.
Run by the Israel Times.

The news seems scary today.
Yesterday, the US president said the Russian president is a war criminal.
Today, the US is warning the world in general and China in hint that any country that aids Russia in any way will be confronted.

I’m paraphrasing.

Looking for a quote.
_______________

It didn’t happen today—I just heard it today. No less scary to me.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-60732486.amp

His video speech was addressing the Bundestag, our second chanber.
And he did, indeed, use some harsher words towards our government than in other countries.

But furious at Germany? We are no border country of Ukraine, but have taken about 200,000 refugees officially plus tens of thousands not registered. (Per day more refugees than 2015, when the then federal government was criticised to open the borders for refugees.)

Report: Fearing Poisoning, Vladimir Putin Replaces 1,000 of His Personal Staff

Daily Beast contributing editor Craig Copetas says he’s been told that Putin has people tasting his food before he eats it and that last month, he replaced his entire personal staff of 1,000 people.

Vladimir Putin appeared on Russian state TV today to denounce Russians who opposed his war with Ukraine as “scum” and “traitors.”

But behind the scenes, the dictator is increasingly paranoid and fears that someone in his inner circle will poison him, a new report says.

Daily Beast contributing editor Craig Copetas says he’s been told that Putin has people tasting his food before he eats it and that last month, he replaced his entire personal staff of 1,000 people.

“Laundresses, secretaries, cooks — to a whole new group of people. The assessment from the intelligence community is that he's scared,” Copetas said.

More: https://www.insideedition.com/fearing-poisoning-vladimir-putin-replaces-1000-of-his-personal-staff-73847

As Russian Troop Deaths Climb, Morale Becomes an Issue, Officials Say

More than 7,000 Russian troops have been killed in less than three weeks of fighting, according to conservative U.S. estimates.



Helene CooperJulian E. BarnesEric Schmitt

By Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt
March 16, 2022

WASHINGTON — In 36 days of fighting on Iwo Jima during World War II, nearly 7,000 Marines were killed. Now, 20 days after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia invaded Ukraine, his military has already lost more soldiers, according to American intelligence estimates.

The conservative side of the estimate, at more than 7,000 Russian troop deaths, is greater than the number of American troops killed over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

It is a staggering number amassed in just three weeks of fighting, American officials say, with implications for the combat effectiveness of Russian units, including soldiers in tank formations. Pentagon officials say a 10 percent casualty rate, including dead and wounded, for a single unit renders it unable to carry out combat-related tasks.

With more than 150,000 Russian troops now involved in the war in Ukraine, Russian casualties, when including the estimated 14,000 to 21,000 injured, are near that level. And the Russian military has also lost at least three generals in the fight, according to Ukrainian, NATO and Russian officials.

Pentagon officials say that a high, and rising, number of war dead can destroy the will to continue fighting. The result, they say, has shown up in intelligence reports that senior officials in the Biden administration read every day: One recent report focused on low morale among Russian troops and described soldiers just parking their vehicles and walking off into the woods.

The American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, caution that their numbers of Russian troop deaths are inexact, compiled through analysis of the news media, Ukrainian figures (which tend to be high, with the latest at 13,500), Russian figures (which tend to be low, with the latest at 498), satellite imagery and careful perusal of video images of Russian tanks and troops that come under fire.

American military and intelligence officials know, for instance, how many troops are usually in a tank, and can extrapolate from that the number of casualties when an armored vehicle is hit by, say, a Javelin anti-tank missile.

The high rate of casualties goes far to explain why Russia’s much-vaunted force has remained largely stalled outside of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.

“Losses like this affect morale and unit cohesion, especially since these soldiers don’t understand why they’re fighting,” said Evelyn Farkas, the top Pentagon official for Russia and Ukraine during the Obama administration. “Your overall situational awareness decreases. Someone’s got to drive, someone’s got to shoot.”

But, she added, “that’s just the land forces.” With Russian ground forces in disarray, Mr. Putin has increasingly looked to the skies to attack Ukrainian cities, residential buildings, hospitals and even schools. That aerial bombardment, officials say, has helped camouflage the Russian military’s poor performance on the ground. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this week that an estimated 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war.

Signs of Russia’s challenges abound. Late last week, Russian news sources reported that Mr. Putin had put two of his top intelligence officials under house arrest. The officials, who run the Fifth Service of Russia’s main intelligence service, the FSB, were interrogated for providing poor intelligence ahead of the invasion, according to Andrei Soldatov, a Russian security services expert.

“They were in charge of providing political intelligence and cultivating networks of support in Ukraine,” Mr. Soldatov said in an interview. “They told Putin what he wanted to hear” about how the invasion would progress.

Russians themselves may be hearing only what Mr. Putin wants them to hear about his “operation” in Ukraine, which he refuses to call a war or an invasion. Since it began, he has exerted iron control over the news outlets in Russia; state media is not publicizing most casualties, and has minimized the destruction.

But some Russians have access to virtual private networks (VPNs) and are able to get news from the West.

“I don’t believe he can wall off, indefinitely, Russians from the truth,” William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, told the Senate last Thursday. “Especially as realities began to puncture that bubble, the realities of killed and wounded coming home, and the increasing number, the realities of the economic consequences for ordinary Russians, the realities of the horrific scenes of hospitals and schools being bombed next door in Ukraine, and of civilian casualties there as well.”

The news of the generals’ deaths is trickling out, first from Ukrainians, then confirmed by NATO officials, with one death acknowledged by Mr. Putin in a speech. They have been identified as Maj. Gen. Andrei Kolesnikov, a commander from Russia’s eastern military district; Maj. Gen. Vitaly Gerasimov, first deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army; and Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky, deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army.

Attack on Mariupol. A theater where up to 1,000 people were believed to be taking shelter was destroyed during an attack in the besieged port city. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine alleged that a Russian aircraft had “purposefully dropped a huge bomb” on the building.

Russian losses. British intelligence reports say that Russian forces have “made minimal progress on land, sea or air in recent days.” The Pentagon estimated that 7,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, more than the total of American troops killed over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Kyiv. A 35-hour curfew in the capital has ended, although a battle raged in the skies. Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers evacuated dozens of civilians and a wounded soldier from Irpin, a suburb on the outskirts of the city, as heavy artillery sounded nearby.

Zelensky’s appeals. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine addressed Congress as part of a wider attempt to put pressure on the Kremlin with a series of video messages to democratic countries. President Biden announced $800 million in new military aid.

Western officials say that around 20 Russian generals were in Ukraine as part of the war effort, and that they may have pushed closer to the front to boost morale.

“Three generals already — that’s a shocking number,” Michael McFaul, the former United States ambassador to Russia, said in an interview.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian officials reported that a fourth general, Maj. Gen. Oleg Mityaev, the commander of the 150th motorized rifle division, had been killed in fighting.

Two American military officials said that many Russian generals are talking on unsecured phones and radios. In at least one instance, they said, the Ukrainians intercepted a general’s call, geolocated it, and attacked his location, killing him and his staff.

If Russian military deaths continue to rise, the kinds of civic organizations that called attention to troop deaths and injuries during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan could once more come to prominence.

But the Russian toll, some military specialists and lawmakers say, is unlikely to change Mr. Putin’s strategy.

“It is stunning, and the Russians haven’t even gotten to the worst of it, when they hit urban combat in the cities,” Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado and a member of the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees, said in an interview.

“I don’t think it’ll have an impact on Putin’s calculus,” Mr. Crow said. “He is not willing to lose. He’s been backed into a corner and will continue to throw troops at the problem.”

Poisoning has been a standby for Russians for a zillion years. When Roosevelt died, Stalin had his people examine our Presidents body closely for indications of poisoning. They did not have free access to his body of course, just the Soviet 'experts' observations during the official visit.

From his statements to the Bundestag, one can infer that Zelenskyy’s opinion is that the invasion wouldn’t have been possible without Germany’s acquiescence to the pipeline.

Rather strong Holocaust statement, wouldn’t you say, Walter?

I feel more hopeful that someone will assassinate him.

I don't know if it is Zelenskyy or his speech writers, but he definitely knows how to tailor his message to his audience. The guy is an inspired public speaker.

I definitely agree. He evoked Pearl Harbor here, touched the hearts of the Brits, and, yeah, that speech to Germans. I’d like to know who penned those speeches.

I watch it live and didn't get that impression.


"Never again" means commemorating the crimes of National Socialism and is indeed an important part of Germany's self-image.

Of course, I also ask myself how can we ensure "Never again" while anti-Semitic and racist attacks are taking place, while people are being attacked on the open street out of LGBTIQ+ hostility and while right-wing populists, right-wing radicals and right-wing extremists are once again sitting in parliaments?


His speech was certainly clever, especially the repeated mention of the "wall".

What I found terrible, very terrible, was that the Bundestag then returned to the normal agenda and argued fiercely about it, no discussion took place, empathy and sympathy were not shown.