The media posturing around him is ridiculous. They always put him in those sweaty green fatigues as if I’m supposed to believe any time he’s giving a speech on camera, he didn’t have time to get into something more befitting of a president because moments before he was blasting at Russians on the front lines or something.
It’s hilarious how everyone eats this up.
Or worse, complaining that his image is unpresidential?
What the actual fuck?
What do you think all of Prigozhin’s videos are?
I sincerely would have been more likely to believed that Putin is ran evil warmonger, and that Zelenskyy is a paragon, if it wasn’t the case there was so much of this top-down pressure in the US to make sure people don’t accidentally pick the wrong side to root for.
If I saw that the facts were plainly speaking for themselves I would believe them. But they aren’t, so I have to be very critical.
I understand the need for this propaganda in Ukraine for the sake of Ukrainians. I don’t understand why in the US, Ukrainian propaganda has a state sanctioned monopoly over Russian propaganda.
Your take on propaganda because a president of a country being invaded doesn't dress the part you expect is seriously bizarre. You're not being critical, you are being cynical.
Since that was the aspect of the propaganda that was relevant at the moment, that’s what I focused on. But it is a tiny part of the whole, and yes on its own I agree that it appears quite trivial and inconsequential. But when mass media (including new media) ceaselessly bombards the entire population with tiny things like this over the course of years, then it has a very real and drastic effect. And most nefarious of all, because this kind of propoganda is ever present and so subtle, it is almost invisible. And when you do point out any one of its many aspects you get responses exactly like this: that it is trivial and inconsequential and why don’t I just get with the program, and isn’t it obvious there’s good guys and there’s bad guys and isn’t it obvious who is who.
And this is the cynical post-modernist post-truth part that I criticise about your position. It's just a doubt of everything, of what's even real, and so you are just playing your part of the propaganda that made you think that way. The issue in post-truth is that your take is just another parroted version of "what's even real?". Even on this case, where it's pretty clear who are the bad guys, you prefer to be cynical and not even believe what your eyes can see.
You've been bombarded by subtle or overt propaganda your whole life, by governments and corporations. It's not by being cynical that you are somehow better than others or not being influenced by it, you aren't immune to it by believing nothing. Or by being a contrarian.
There is no reason to believe anything in the media. Anyone who doesn’t suffer from Gell-Mann amnesia should know this is the right stance, it’s not even necessary to believe that it’s all propaganda to reach this conclusion.
Even more because you won't ever be able to verify every single piece of information yourself, you don't have access to all the data possible to verify it. You don't have access to people.
Again, you not trusting anything is the result of falling for propaganda that told you that nothing is trustworthy.
Are you going to reproduce every single scientific experiment to be able to verify them? Are you going to travel to every single place that has news about to interview people yourself and get your own conclusions? Nope, you just don't believe anything, you went to the extreme cynicism side.
It's impossible to achieve what you wrote, it's a lie you tell yourself because it's uncomfortable to trust, there's no truth except your own and that is... Very, very post-modern.
Very start of an invasion doesn't feel like a great time to be broadcasting your exact location. Also maybe not a great time to be doing outtakes in the open streets.
I don't have a whole lot of information to say whether he actually stayed or not. I assume there would be a ton of credible evidence in one direction or the other - photos, videos, etc. But either way, I'm just saying that I could definitely understand the need for a professional studio and obfuscation of location.
Again, President Biden has used a fake Oval Office several times:
https://www.newsweek.com/why-white-house-built-fake-oval-off...
What would it take for the US president to leave Washington DC though? Obviously a real possibility of nuclear war. What else though?
Also President Madison evacuated Washington, DC during the War of 1812.
Where would he go? Australia ?
There's the Pentagon, Raven Rock Mountain Complex, Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the Greenbrier bunker, the Peters Mountain facility, 33 Thomas Street, nearly a dozen aircraft carriers, Camp David, and god knows how many military bases.
Or he could just board the doomsday fleet of E-4Bs and stay in the air ("Airborne Command Center")
Government Continuity of Operations:
Continuity of Operations (COOP) is a United States federal government initiative, required by U.S. Presidential Policy Directive 40 (PPD-40), to ensure that agencies are able to continue performance of essential functions under a broad range of circumstances. PPD-40 specifies certain requirements for continuity plan development, including the requirement that all federal executive branch departments and agencies develop an integrated, overlapping continuity capability, that supports the eight National Essential Functions (NEFs) described in the document.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...>
See also:
Post Attack Command and Control System: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Attack_Command_and_Contro...>
United States Continuity of Operations Facilities: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Continuity_of_Op...>
Nowhere. AF1 can be refueled in the air indefinitely, and carries enough food and water for several days. You ground civilian traffic and shoot down anything non-military in the air; nothing's getting to you.
In other words: APCs on a highway are not that different from intercity buses, and highways are designed to let you cross the country quickly.
Highways let you move fast only as long as they're intact and no one is shooting at you; otherwise, they make you an easy target. Russian army experienced that first-hand in the first two months of their invasion of Ukraine.
my point was that they tried and they failed. wagner has a bunch of manpads and few pantsir sam systems. they tried to bomb them on highway from planes but missed and kill civilians in track. they also tried to shoot at them missles at voronezh but blew up some petrol refinary. they also tried to bomb some bridge to block road to moscow - but also missed
No, I believe the oil refinery got blown up by a Wagner surface to air missile. The Wagners were trying to shoot down a federal Ka-52, the helicopter successfully deployed countermeasures, and the missile flew off target into the backstop - which happened to be a refinery.
There are two videos of the event from different angles circulating on telegram, it's pretty clear.
Edit: here's a link but this is not on the main highway. Unsure of the scale of this "operation" and if this was ordered from top brass or local initiative.
https://meduza.io/news/2023/06/24/v-lipetskoy-oblasti-gde-na...
It surely was considered. I can imagine in the state of panic even tactical nukes were considered, but sure, not reasonable.
But if Wagner forces would have actually pushed through, then they definitely would have blown up bridges, if the alternative would have been Moscow under siege or house to house fighting.
Especially if there's been reports it's seriously been considered in Ukraine.
NATO is not what it was before 1989, and will take decades to come back up to a minimally acceptable level.
And some things do take decades, even in perfect conditions. Building up a navy takes time due to the long construction timelines for ships. Developing coordination for combined arms operations requires both good officers and non-coms. These take time to develop as well, and need to be continually sustained.
If you focus efforts, it doesn’t take long at all.
And surely you understand that the US economy and state of industry in 1943 (when the Liberty ships were being launched daily) is quite different than today? Only one country currently has the shipbuilding capacity to even think of something like that. The US (and Europe) have closed down a huge number of shipyards since the end of the Cold War, and it would take decades to create new ones, with trained workforces. All the US shipyards are short workers in almost all categories.
This one statement means you don’t know what you’re talking about. Non commissioned officers are E4 rank, you can leave bootcamp at E3 rank. 6 months later get E4. NCO only requires experience at the E7 or above level, which don’t fight only lead.
The name Kriegsmarine, when used to describe the German Navy explicitly and not as the German word for "navy" (for other countries), has extremly strong WW2 connotations, on a similar level as "Wehrmacht". :)
NATO simply has neither the stockpiles nor the production capacity to enter this war.
Can you?
That's the amusing part. The sad part is that the people behind the troll farms still think they're fooling anybody in the West.
And of course marching towards Moscow only staying hundrends of kilometers away from it (while being let to march), and "taking Moscow in a matter of hours" is a totally different thing.
i think you overestimate russian military might. russian military is second strongest military in russia those days
prior to this, last month, some RDK and Russian Legion performed ~10km deep incursions into russia, pretty much unopposed and stayed there for a days.
so no, it's not only onliners. it's just state of russian state. where everything is fake and for show
Reality is ground forces let wagner pass out of fear/solidarity. Only aviation tried, and failed hard to stop the convoy.
Note: I support Ukraine, Russia is absolutely in the wrong