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On January 05 2026 05:03 Nebuchad wrote: We're also talking about people who are only tangentially connected to reality and mainly behave in reaction to their current perceptions. Most of MAGA will continue to support Trump the neocon imperialist invader, even though five minutes ago they were non-interventionists who didn't want to engage in needless wars under Hillary Clinton the war hawk. You could easily get a fascist leader in France from an "inward focused" far right party and three days later they're at war with Belgium because some belgian politician was mean on Twitter.
In any case, if we read "fascist theory" for whatever it's worth, they typically see warfare as a good idea. It helps with the rejuvenation of the nation, forges identity, and so on. Political violence in general plays an important part in getting rid of the weak and weak-willed men that we have because of wokeness and liberalism.
The most important part of Fascism is how much they love to talk about being a peacemaker while planning for war.
Mussolini loved to talk about how Fascism was all about peace, in 1937 while speaking in Berlin he said "To the anxious people all over the world, who are wondering what our meeting in Berlin represents, war or peace, the Fuhrer and I can answer with one firm voice: peace!"
I bet FIFA thought about giving him a Peace Prize too.
To add onto what Nebuchad said about fascist theory, they don’t understand or recognize peace as an idea. Peace is weakness, it is death, it’s antithetical, it’s incompatible. Society must always be involved in a struggle against an enemy because the struggle is central to existence. To cease to fight the enemy is to cease to fight for the existence of the fascist state, it is through fighting that it self actualizes.
The fight doesn’t have to be external, the war on Christmas is every bit as valid as the war on terror, but it does have to be ongoing. The enemy is strong enough to present an existential threat, weak enough to have no moral or intellectual value, and durable enough to persist indefinitely.
Serbians shooting down exactly one F-117 (which is an early 1980s design) due to a stroke of luck and some good ol' complacency of the US forces and making it the core of their national identity will be forever hilarious to me. Literally nobody else in the world remembers or cares about it.
The Serbian shot down of the F-117 was clever on their part, they had spies at the Italian base where the bombers were taking off, they had spotters along the flight paths that were re-used and the commander was a very smart guy who studied the craft and deployed a bunch of smart techniques to beat the stealth and HARM missiles.
I honestly don't buy the "Venezuelans were surprised and systems weren't online angle", US has been massing ships including a carrier all around Venezuela, seizing ships and sending clear messages to Maduro that he's about to go down.
Venezuela had Pantsir systems flown in specifically because they knew something like this was coming.
The S-300 systems were supposed to be protecting the exact targets that the USA took out, Caracas, military bases etc.
They also had about 5000 Russian Igla portable AA systems.
The US was confident enough that they did the bulk of the attack using low flying helis, this indicates that they gave 0 fucks about whatever AA Venezuela had.
Unless the whole military of Venezuela in charge of AA betrayed their country and decided to not do anything, it's safe to assume that all of these systems were located and neutralized by 5th gen fighters, anti radiation long distance missiles and other assets.
This is consistent with US and Israel losing exactly 0 air-frames when bombing Iran.
The myth of Russian anti air defense is over, if you have the latest technology, F-35 along with the jammers and stand of munitions, there is nothing Russia can do for you to protect you.
Venezuela and Iran are definitive proofs of this.
Anyone buying any of Russian systems is a fool, if I was a non-west aligned country I'd look at Chinese systems which have confirmed shoot downs of modern jets in the India-Pakistan skirmish from last year.
We didn't have too many news from the front recently so here's a quick summary:
Hulaipole - Ukrainians tried to counter-attack around the town but were unsuccessful.
Pokrovsk/Myrnohrad - fights continue in northern parts of the cities but the rumor has it that Ukrainians plan on withdrawing from there.
Konstantinyvka - more fighting in the southeastern outskirts.
Chasiv Yar - minor Russian advances north of town.
Lyman - Russians attempt to advance from several directions but without success so far.
Kupyansk - last fortified Russian positions in the city are being cleared out. Russians are still trying to resupply them and attack from the north but without any success there either.
Russians seem to have some issues with recruitment and personnel. They went from +10k to +3k over the past year and their manpower is depleting at a faster rate. It is supposedly attributed to their change of tactics where they no longer use armored columns but mostly troops on foot. This means that instead of having 3:1 ratio of wounded:killed almost all of them are killed so there are no wounded soldiers that can be recycled and thrown back into the mix.
On January 12 2026 20:43 Manit0u wrote: We didn't have too many news from the front recently so here's a quick summary:
Hulaipole - Ukrainians tried to counter-attack around the town but were unsuccessful.
Pokrovsk/Myrnohrad - fights continue in northern parts of the cities but the rumor has it that Ukrainians plan on withdrawing from there.
Konstantinyvka - more fighting in the southeastern outskirts.
Chasiv Yar - minor Russian advances north of town.
Lyman - Russians attempt to advance from several directions but without success so far.
Kupyansk - last fortified Russian positions in the city are being cleared out. Russians are still trying to resupply them and attack from the north but without any success there either.
Russians seem to have some issues with recruitment and personnel. They went from +10k to +3k over the past year and their manpower is depleting at a faster rate. It is supposedly attributed to their change of tactics where they no longer use armored columns but mostly troops on foot. This means that instead of having 3:1 ratio of wounded:killed almost all of them are killed so there are no wounded soldiers that can be recycled and thrown back into the mix.
On January 12 2026 20:43 Manit0u wrote: We didn't have too many news from the front recently so here's a quick summary:
Hulaipole - Ukrainians tried to counter-attack around the town but were unsuccessful.
Pokrovsk/Myrnohrad - fights continue in northern parts of the cities but the rumor has it that Ukrainians plan on withdrawing from there.
Konstantinyvka - more fighting in the southeastern outskirts.
Chasiv Yar - minor Russian advances north of town.
Lyman - Russians attempt to advance from several directions but without success so far.
Kupyansk - last fortified Russian positions in the city are being cleared out. Russians are still trying to resupply them and attack from the north but without any success there either.
Russians seem to have some issues with recruitment and personnel. They went from +10k to +3k over the past year and their manpower is depleting at a faster rate. It is supposedly attributed to their change of tactics where they no longer use armored columns but mostly troops on foot. This means that instead of having 3:1 ratio of wounded:killed almost all of them are killed so there are no wounded soldiers that can be recycled and thrown back into the mix.
please name the source
Here you go:
And a bonus fun fact: Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine is now longer than WW2 was for them.
On January 12 2026 20:43 Manit0u wrote: We didn't have too many news from the front recently so here's a quick summary:
Hulaipole - Ukrainians tried to counter-attack around the town but were unsuccessful.
Pokrovsk/Myrnohrad - fights continue in northern parts of the cities but the rumor has it that Ukrainians plan on withdrawing from there.
Konstantinyvka - more fighting in the southeastern outskirts.
Chasiv Yar - minor Russian advances north of town.
Lyman - Russians attempt to advance from several directions but without success so far.
Kupyansk - last fortified Russian positions in the city are being cleared out. Russians are still trying to resupply them and attack from the north but without any success there either.
Russians seem to have some issues with recruitment and personnel. They went from +10k to +3k over the past year and their manpower is depleting at a faster rate. It is supposedly attributed to their change of tactics where they no longer use armored columns but mostly troops on foot. This means that instead of having 3:1 ratio of wounded:killed almost all of them are killed so there are no wounded soldiers that can be recycled and thrown back into the mix.
This war boiled down to Russia trading men/equipment for land seems like a very accurate take. And with how much damage is down to each settlement and town Russia is just getting the land itself unlike in Crimea.
I wonder what Russian citizens think of the price? And what they think it is. Like how many people do they believe were hurt and killed in the taking of some of these towns that takes two years. Is that worth it and why?
To me it just seems awful for Russians. You’re spending such a huge percentage of your GDP to gain scorched land. While decimating your human capital and having all these future problems with soldiers returning. That is before you account for all the money lost in the system by selling oil and gas for Pennies in the dollar for years plus all the investment income that could have been earned on that.
I understand Crimena , that was a “cheap” conquest. But this seems like repeatedly shooting your self in the foot. And super similar to how every empire you read about destroying itself in the past.
The more men die the more "worth it" it becomes because the attachment to the land/victory is directly proportionate to the price paid. If you don't understand that you don't understand Russians. If a million lives were spent to win a dog park then that dog park would become the most valuable land in Russia. Anyone questioning the value of the dog park would be directly spitting on the lives of the noble soldiers who died to claim it.
Not understanding Russians seems to be my fundamental problem and why I keep being it up. I don’t even understand what the government is selling the people (as far as a message goes) that makes them support this when there is no way they will be better off after the war than before.
Like with Trump in Venezuela he is selling that it’s a couple days work and America is going to get trillions in oil. It’s not working out like that, but I get the pitch. He gets to show his mighty jets destroy crap, helicopters with rangers rushing in a capturing a leader of a foreign country pretty easily. AND still there is way more push back from citizens. As only a small amount actually believe the narrative they are being fed, which is 100x more believable than what Putin is selling.
I can’t wrap my head around Russians being behind fucking themselves, and generations for rubble you can’t afford to rebuild.
On January 13 2026 03:09 maybenexttime wrote: Think of a wife beater but on a national scale.
This is exactly it. It makes them feel strong. They don’t feel respected among their peers due to not earning any respect and not being worthy of any. That resentment and feeling of inferiority manifests in a vicious need to hurt others to feel strong.
Odds are the U.S. is going to bomb Russia's drone suppliers in Iran soon. That's another ally about to be taken off the board while Russia is tied up in Ukraine. Syria, Venezuela, Iran. The global influence is shrinking rather rapidly.
On January 13 2026 03:00 Billyboy wrote: Not understanding Russians seems to be my fundamental problem and why I keep being it up. I don’t even understand what the government is selling the people (as far as a message goes) that makes them support this when there is no way they will be better off after the war than before.
Like with Trump in Venezuela he is selling that it’s a couple days work and America is going to get trillions in oil. It’s not working out like that, but I get the pitch. He gets to show his mighty jets destroy crap, helicopters with rangers rushing in a capturing a leader of a foreign country pretty easily. AND still there is way more push back from citizens. As only a small amount actually believe the narrative they are being fed, which is 100x more believable than what Putin is selling.
I can’t wrap my head around Russians being behind fucking themselves, and generations for rubble you can’t afford to rebuild.
The Russians most against them were in two camps. The ones that left while they could and still havn't gone back. Then there were the ones protesting which were rounded up and sent to the front. People forget it is a dictatorship with a strong and at the start of the war mostly loyal police/internal military force.
It is interesting if the various outlying areas running out of money means the police forces in those areas might defect to local leadership offering services for them and their family.
Short of manpower, so have to bring in a lot of Chinese people. Short of money so get disconnected from central leadership. If Russia collapses similar to the USSR case China might make a case they have to protect the Chinese people in old Chinese areas such as Manchuria (current under Russian rule). Seems they already started redrawing the borders and there isn't much Russia can do about it right now.
EPT
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