So you are proposing nuclear escalation to stop the madness? How very smart.

The world is worth preserving, if it's between no world and a world with Putin, I'll take the evil option as it's the only one.

And you also have any brilliant ideas on where that bomb should land? YOu really think that upon sending one bomb to Moskou it will all stop?

Oh dear.............................................. ..

That should have been done 50 years ago. Many of us tried to make others understand the sheer madness of MAD and nuclear proliferation. It's too late now. And as predicted then- the world will now forever be blackmailed into submission, as NATO is now- by any mad psychopath with access to nuclear weapons.

Russian friends (in Russia, somewhere) report many shops are closed and those that are open are missing many items from their shelves.

There are rumours that martial law will be imposed.

Guys, just be thankful that the technology to extend life is still unachievable, because if the world has not sorted out its stability issues by the time we can cure all illnesses and people (ie: the elite) can extend their lives to 150+ years then we are truly screwed.

Just imagine, Putins and other strongmen that live extra decades in perfect health. *shudders*

The only problem - the babushka will believe him. 😔

My grandparents, until they were alive tended to vote for the socialists because old people in the East vote for the times when they were young and happy. No amount of argumentation is going to change that, it's natural death unfortunately that we had to go through in Eastern Europe to see the former communists parties move from winning elections to being relatively marginal players. In Russia there's simply no alternative whatsoever, even Russians sometimes fail to tell me which party Putin belongs to (United Russia) as this is largely irrelevant.

I had a few socialists in my family going back some time. However, they were definitely of the ruling-class, champagne socialist type.

There is no such thing as true socialism - it would never work because of people's greed for power and money.

That is a very naive way to look at things.

50 years ago was 1972. That is ten years after the US had adopted its defense doctrine to what is called "flexible response". And how is NATO "blackmailed into submission"? NATO borders are the red line, and "flexible response" also works here. If attacked, there would be first conventional defense. If conventional defense would be not strong enough, tactical nuclear response. Only in a final escalation, full out nuclear war i.e. MAD.

If your point is that nuclear weapons are bad, I agree. Let's just not pretend any nuclear situation would automatically mean MAD. But Russia is making again the perfect case for mid sized countries to acquire nukes. Like Russia is also making the perfect case for anyone to seek NATO membership.

Now, bringing this back OT, I saw a headline flying by this morning (or just a tweet?) that apparently the US DOD had confirmed they had (re)installed some direct line to the Russian MOD for the event of escalation. That sounded promising, but I have not seen this confirmed.

Edit: Back channel established https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/rus...NlEcA2SE6kCwHO

That's a great idea: destroy Putin and the planet. That'll make things much better...

A situation in a very good friend's family (in Krasnoyarsk, upper middle class)

Her mother: unconditional support for Putin
Her father: trying to make sense of it all
She: driving around buying up medication for her mother
Her sister: trying to convince mother to hear different sides of the story
Her brother-in-law: it's all the Americans' fault

A good friend of hers cannot leave Kiev because her mother cannot walk, not even as far as the shelter, is trying to help abandoned pets. Her sister, in turn, in Russia, does not believe that Kiev is being bombed.

Just hoping that Russia does not ban WhatsApp, Telegram at some point...

__________________
If you are going through hell, just keep going.

We talked some pages ago about a religious component of this. The National Review have seen this and produced a timely article:

In Some Ways, This Is a Religious War
By JIM GERAGHTY

https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...religious-war/

This pretty much matches what former Secretary of State, and later security advisor, Henry Kissinger said 8 years ago, and probably far earlier.
That "patch" on her right index finger looks very much like fake skin that should cover the finger but has loosened and slid back. With that amount of "blood" in her face her hair should be covered with it, too, and formed blood-clotted strands. And she behaves as if nothing happened, she's even stroking her hair as is so common nowadays - not what might be expected when in shock.

Careful with the clips you trust.

@Axa, what happens March 22?

I thought TikTok hat skipped the pretense of "information" that accompanied twitter (and Youtube) for a while and went straight to "entertainment"?

The old adage "In war, the first casualty is always truth" applies here, too.

Both sides have an equal reason for being "economic" with the truth - both for their own very understandable reasons.

For me the credibility of the author ends with the last sentence of the second paragraph.

This is not to argue that the Russian Orthodox Church was not made a quasi-official state religion. However, the Patriarch has been rather reluctant to state the Church's support for Putin (this time) - something that may indicate divisions within the Church itself. Bombing Kiev does not really fit into its "traditional" values.

Not sure if 22 or 28 but it's the deadline to enforce the EU sanctions, maybe mixing with USA sanctions.

Anyway, the sanctions announcement in the past days was just the notification to business that the rules are changing. Business have to do internal control to find out troubled contracts. Then, end them or initiate the steps to end them by the deadline. All this takes time, that's why the 1 month deadline.

What happened last week was only equities, bonds and stuff like that. Slower processes like food and industrial supply chains takes time.

I wouldn't take Tiktok to be anything other than entertainment, all the time, with or without war.

However TinyK disagrees with "the girl who survived shelling of the school". Reportedly a Kindergarten got clusterbombed in Chernihiv, with at least two people killed.

I honestly don't know, but I think this might be an misunderstood or ignored aspect of what drives Putin. As I mentioned before, there are US national security people who have talked about rumors that Putin is influenced by the extremist elements of the Church.

SRF radio just had a piece about how ordinary Russians feels about the "special operation" and the sanctions. If their Moscow guy (who apparently has left Moscow now) has any clue, then forget about any chance of there being a uprising in the streets. He said the people opposing the "operation" would be a small minority.

Yes and no. We have quite an operation in Russia and see already massive impacts. Suppliers won't deliver to Russia as they fear they will not get paid. Customers in Europe are not accepting shipments with any Russian content.