In a democracy the intelligence services have no executive power. So whatever they advise, its up to the elected officials to act as they see fit. See Trump and his distrust for the IC . That being said, it's indeed possible that the German services have been compromised from the get go.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
The outrage on Twitter over Zelensky and his wife appearing in Vouge is pathetic.
Do you really expect any different from the Twittersphere?
I guess I shouldn't
Any there should not be any outrage? Doing photoshoot in the middle of a war where people are dying.
It might seem in poor taste, but the 1st lady in the interview in the magazine makes it clear that its to attract attention to their cause.
Which is fair given how people seem far less interested right now, their biggest fear (and sadly I don't think it's that unlikely) is the West slowly dials down their support as time goes on and domestic pressure ramps up for energy.
'We put unprecedented sanctions on Russia, they will think twice before doing anything like this again and we have shown the world NATO is truly united' etc etc. whilst Ukraine gets levelled.
Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard really did them over.
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Because we don’t have photos of any other leaders of war torn countries ever in history..?
Well this looked like more of a fashion photoshoot.
It may seem a bit odd, but they desperately want to keep ukraine in the front covers, so they take any chance. As they should.
Worse than that, it's dangerous.
Well in a sense it seemed to have backfired. But then again most people on twitter seem backwards anyway. Still doing photo ops for a fashion magazine is not necessarily the best way to get positive pr for a war effort.
Fair enough. But it really looked odd tbh.
The selflessness from soldiers always amazes me. They could probably see people chilling right now in Kyiv etc on social media while they themselves are on the frontlines battling the Russians.
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it.
Perhaps not the best PR but the majority of this discourse is from conservatives/trump supporters hinting that the war is some sort of conspiracy.
It's somewhere between the fact that politics has become so tribal that people will discredit a country that has been invaded, its people killed and infrastructure destroyed, just in order to attack their political opponent who has provided aid (Biden), and the not so secret conservative political ties to fake news media and pro-russian agendas.
No doubt about that. Tbh even most europeans no feck all about Ukraine. So I'm not surprised about some Americans not knowing and not caring at all about Ukraine.
The wildest new conspiracy theory I’ve run into is that this war isn’t really happening because there isn’t enough media coverage showing video of it. From the mass media which, mind you, they don’t trust anyway. It’s all a big scam to funnel money to the rich, same as climate change.
I thought they were memeing but they were actually serious. At least the ‘birds aren’t real thing’ is almost amusing.
Agree, but it's determined by the media they consume and twitter is a cesspit in that regard. The whole point of fake news is to provide so many contrasting narratives that it blurs the lines of reality of what is actually going on. Specifically, by delegitimising the the oppressed/victim it aims to create confusion/indifference in the minds of the viewer.
Objectively at first there is a fairly discernible "good" and a "bad" and it is fairly clear to see what is going on. However, over time the drip drip of fake news is used as a machiavellian means of garnering support (or indifference) for agendas ranging from corrupt/devious to evil. This phenomena has plagued western politics in the recent past too. That's how I see it any way.
Second bolded part - the majority of idiots parroting that shite either aren't aware of the script they've been given to read from or are just bot accounts/aggregators.
Yeah, I think both had quite a lot of business dealings with Russians , povetkin wlad being one and the canceled valuev vitali being the other.Interesting indeed given that Wlad was actually quite friendly with Putin at one point.
I can't speak for them but I think they may have complicated feelings over Russian Ukrainian relations as I believe their father was a soviet major general who may have died due to the aftereffects of his involvement in chernobyl's cleanup.
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I never knew this. I cannot even imagine to be asked to do something like that.
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Yeah, horrible stuff, i think they talked about it in their documentary, both got their start in boxing in the renowned soviet amateur system as well which im sure helped them quite a lot with their father being a supporting factor in their success.
Anyway they sure had interesting lives to say the least.
Former German chancellor schroder spends his holiday in Russia
An interesting choice to say the least...
An interesting choice to say the least...
Genuinely
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Not quite, he's a full on Russia shill and mates with Putin. feck that guy and do him for treason for all I care
I know, posted about it already, the current sdp chancellor seems to be doing less than other countries as well, is sdp compromised?
No, not at all. He's not governing alone, and it's more a mirror of the german political landscape. It's also a bit of realism, we know we're in a shit position because we fecked up our energy and defense politics, but we have to live with the consequences now and can't change our energy infrastructure over night
Better than trying and failing to shoot it down?Good to know, always thought Germany was in bed with Russia a tad too much, hopefully this debacle makes you correct course.
At least Kyiv (like all Ukrainian cities) has sirens blazing on the daily and is occasionally the target of cruise missiles. Life isn’t normal there.
But imagine being a Russian soldier and watching people in Moscow/St. Petersburg enjoy a perfect summer while you’re bogged down in the trenches in Ukraine for months on this “special operation” hoping you don’t become a lada-sized cheque for your parents.
If we're talking about imports several European countries are spending more time in Russia's bed than Germany is, if we're staying with the metaphor, it's just a combination of Germany being a big country and that media attention begets more attention. No one cares about Greece or Finland, except when Finland wants to join NATO of course.
I guess I'm saying that relative to their status and importance to the western block, they're supposed to be European union's corner stone for example which is obviously not the same in case of Finland and Greece as you said yourself.
For what it's worth they may have been trying to be too clever in their conduct with Russia for their own sake , im sure it's going to change.
This is taking a new turn now - missiles launched from Belarus overnight. Kiev hit.
No losses apparently. Putin getting desperate as occupation forces are cracking down.Tweet
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The doctrine for a long time was "Wandel durch Handel" (change through trade) and it yielded some results. Without the trust build through early gas deals in the 70s etc the German reunification would likely have been much more complicated for example. Germany definitely missed the point to realize this isn't going to work any more, but it isn't like the good relations were always a mistake.
What could be the Ukrainian response now? Belarus has been sitting more or less on the sidelines for months despite that bald fatty's big mouth, but now this is a very different kind of fish because Belarus is now an aggressor without a formal declaration of war.