Ontopic Ukrainian War

Someone defaced my Ukraine bumper sticker? Shit has been weird at work, someone stole my flashlight out of my car and now this. It's pretty high risk as well cause I park right in the front. Security footage, some black dude came out of the laundromat and tried to scrape up my sticker... Im confused really, did they even know about what it is, it wasnt a flagView attachment 16438... I dont know.

How did they steal a flashlight out of your car, do you not lock it and keep valuable items out of view?

Yes a 2 for 3 buck harbor freight flashlight is a valuable item.

Anybody who's ever lived in a car knows not to display anything that draws attention. Former car liver telling you that here.
You're I ❤️ Ukraine bumper sticker doesn't do shit for anyone in Ukraine anyway. Stay grayman and stop drawing unnecessary attention.
 
Someone defaced my Ukraine bumper sticker? Shit has been weird at work, someone stole my flashlight out of my car and now this. It's pretty high risk as well cause I park right in the front. Security footage, some black dude came out of the laundromat and tried to scrape up my sticker... Im confused really, did they even know about what it is, it wasnt a flagView attachment 16438... I dont know.

How did they steal a flashlight out of your car, do you not lock it and keep valuable items out of view?

Yes a 2 for 3 buck harbor freight flashlight is a valuable item.

Anybody who's ever lived in a car knows not to display anything that draws attention. Former car liver telling you that here.
You're I ❤️ Ukraine bumper sticker doesn't do shit for anyone in Ukraine anyway. Stay grayman and stop drawing unnecessary attention.
What we knew in February was that Ukraine was basically a Soviet client state, so what they had at the time wasn't up to the task.

Circumstances changed.
The EU has been hesitant (to put it nicely) to bring in former eastern bloc/Warsaw pact "nations" for a reason. One of those reasons is at least some of those nations aren't/weren't nations at all but just lines drawn on a map dating back to 1918. Left to their own devices they'd fall back into ethnic/tribal internal skirmishes and divisions akin to 19th century mindset.

Ukraine is one of those today. It's a region, not a cohesive unified country. It's basically like if east texas, central texas, and west Texas all fought it out to be individual little areas.
There's enough of them that could put aside enough differences to still amount to something called "Ukraine" but it could and will be something less than the "Ukraine" other colonial powers drew on a map for them saying "within these physical boundaries is Ukraine"

If anything it makes you appreciate what the United States is, warts and all. Yep we got growing pains and bad shit happened and it still ain't just right but we keep it together and learn as we go and spread equality to more and more people and because of that someday maybe it will be right. There's at least enough hope in the idea there to keep working towards that ideal. Lot of places around the world don't even have that.

We do. We might not always agree on what that looks like but the vast majority of us (save for a few weirds, they're free to be weird after all too) at least put in effort to make this place better, whatever that means to us.

"Small but vocal" types easily grab attention and headlines. They also don't represent the vast majority of Americans. They just give good shock value.
 
How did they steal a flashlight out of your car, do you not lock it and keep valuable items out of view?

Yes a 2 for 3 buck harbor freight flashlight is a valuable item.

Anybody who's ever lived in a car knows not to display anything that draws attention. Former car liver telling you that here.
You're I ❤️ Ukraine bumper sticker doesn't do shit for anyone in Ukraine anyway. Stay grayman and stop drawing unnecessary attention.

The EU has been hesitant (to put it nicely) to bring in former eastern bloc/Warsaw pact "nations" for a reason. One of those reasons is at least some of those nations aren't/weren't nations at all but just lines drawn on a map dating back to 1918. Left to their own devices they'd fall back into ethnic/tribal internal skirmishes and divisions akin to 19th century mindset.

Ukraine is one of those today. It's a region, not a cohesive unified country. It's basically like if east texas, central texas, and west Texas all fought it out to be individual little areas.
There's enough of them that could put aside enough differences to still amount to something called "Ukraine" but it could and will be something less than the "Ukraine" other colonial powers drew on a map for them saying "within these physical boundaries is Ukraine"

If anything it makes you appreciate what the United States is, warts and all. Yep we got growing pains and bad shit happened and it still ain't just right but we keep it together and learn as we go and spread equality to more and more people and because of that someday maybe it will be right. There's at least enough hope in the idea there to keep working towards that ideal. Lot of places around the world don't even have that.

We do. We might not always agree on what that looks like but the vast majority of us (save for a few weirds, they're free to be weird after all too) at least put in effort to make this place better, whatever that means to us.

"Small but vocal" types easily grab attention and headlines. They also don't represent the vast majority of Americans. They just give good shock value.
You could same the same thing about sweden/Norway belgium/Netherlands and Russia is like 10 different countries.

Most of Central America was a country at one point. Ukraine is fairly homogenous.
 
  • Gravy
Reactions: HipHugHer
You could same the same thing about sweden/Norway belgium/Netherlands and Russia is like 10 different countries.

Most of Central America was a country at one point. Ukraine is fairly homogenous.
You could say that about a lot of places but Ukraine is about as homogenous as Iraq is.
 
You could say that about a lot of places but Ukraine is about as homogenous as Iraq is.
I'd say this war is going to push them closer together if anything. Russia was probably hoping to balkanize the area and now it5backfiring
 
Judging by how Russia is conscripting LPR/DPR men as cannon fodder basically, I expect the former separatists are feeling a little less nostalgic for Russia than they were before.
Yeah never mind history or anything, just roll with the today plan, I'm sure it'll work.
.
It would be nice if it did but I'm not putting all my marbles on it
 
Russia pulling back troops and trying to regroup. This is going to be Afghanistan all over again for Russia.

 
The nuke stuff is just chest-beating, IMO.
7 months later the ground gained doesn't look all that much different than it has at the 3 or 4, maybe 5 month point.

ed3e119d-6462-490a-9085-81327fd51fe2.jpg

That's pretty much where it's stood for awhile now. Some back & forth, give & take, but pretty much that.
That's likely where it will stay as long as NATO doesn't get involved to the point it pushes it beyond a "regional conflict".

Russia's goal is to rebuild the former empire but let's not forget Ukraine ain't exactly a bunch of saints either. Plenty long history of corrupt oligarchs and czars and shit there.
Way more going on than the good guys vs. bad guys western media and politics likes to distill it down to.

So, we'll see. At this point there's so much meddling and influence going on from outside there whatever ends up likely not in the best interests of any of them.
 
The nuke stuff is just chest-beating, IMO.
7 months later the ground gained doesn't look all that much different than it has at the 3 or 4, maybe 5 month point.

View attachment 16619

That's pretty much where it's stood for awhile now. Some back & forth, give & take, but pretty much that.
That's likely where it will stay as long as NATO doesn't get involved to the point it pushes it beyond a "regional conflict".

Russia's goal is to rebuild the former empire but let's not forget Ukraine ain't exactly a bunch of saints either. Plenty long history of corrupt oligarchs and czars and shit there.
Way more going on than the good guys vs. bad guys western media and politics likes to distill it down to.

So, we'll see. At this point there's so much meddling and influence going on from outside there whatever ends up likely not in the best interests of any of them.
Kharkiv, Dniepro areas were firmly under russian control until last week. Ukraine is really pushing back.