This conflict was bound to be decided economically ever since Russia failed to have a short and decisive victory. Russia is willing to throw a massive part of its economy into wartime production and so far the West hasn’t added a single production line because it will not have the return on investment these companies require. So both sides have enough to defend and not enough to take and hold territory.
One Ukrainian guy I follow on yt loves Friends so this could be true.
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I teach teenagers (many of whom are Ukrainian) and nearly all of them love the shit out of Friends.
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There has been shipping in and out of Odessa for months, ignoring Russian threats.
A senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to the country’s intelligence services played a central role in the bombing of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline last year, according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/11/nordstream-bombing-ukraine-chervinsky/
I knew it was the USA, was obvious
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What are the chances that Hamas attacking and now Maduro stirring up trouble in South America are part of a Chinese or Russian or both plot to put pressure on the States? Aim to affect the US election, lessen or remove help to Ukraine, in general to try to challenge US pre-eminece? Or it could be that the human species is filled with jackasses and there is no pattern.
The chances are zero. Trying to “make sense” of disconnected things and attributing agency behind them is the font of conspiracy theories.
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People are doing stuff because they think they can get away with it, and they’re right. Whether that’s because of paralysis or weakness or decadence of the UN, the West, or the US specifically, Trumpism gone international, the end times being upon us or whatever, I don’t know. Maybe we just notice it more. It’s depressing as hell though.
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That’s what they want you to think!
WAAF
Maybe so. Either way it’s going to be a long, unpleasant slog.
On Ukraine, this podcast episode is a general discussion of the war. Where things are, how we got here, where things are going, and how long it will last. Nielsen also does short, more focused but irregular videos on yt. He seems like a thoughtful guy.
2036, eh?
Our old friend the Grim Reaper will hopefully have something to say about that…
Took him decades to get to Kissinger. Goes to show that hatred is the elixir of life.