[iARTEMx]

Originally Posted by WonderMomma ↗

Of course it was Ukraine's fault.
Jesus h. Christ. Russia thinks the world is stupid.

Note, not only Ukrainian, even from Azov. Bet that he has also some bio-lab weapons with him

[WonderMomma]

Originally Posted by iARTEMx ↗

Note, not only Ukrainian, even from Azov. Bet that he has also some bio-lab weapons with him

He's also probably gay, worships satan and eats small children. lol

[Guns N' Coffee]

It is time for another episode of:

♪ ♫ Ljubodrag Avatar Watch ♫ ♪

In today's episode Dmitry Medvedev

From Wikipedia:

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (Russian: Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, IPA: [ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf]; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. Medvedev also served as the president of Russia between 2008 and 2012 and as the prime minister of Russia between 2012 and 2020.

Medvedev was elected president in the 2008 election. He was regarded as more liberal than his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who was also appointed prime minister during Medvedev's presidency. Medvedev's top agenda as president was a wide-ranging modernisation programme, aiming at modernising Russia's economy and society, and lessening the country's reliance on oil and gas. During Medvedev's tenure, the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty was signed by Russia and the United States, Russia emerged victorious in the Russo-Georgian War, and recovered from the Great Recession. Medvedev also launched an anti-corruption campaign, despite later being accused of corruption himself.

He served a single term in office and was succeeded by Putin following the 2012 presidential election. Medvedev was then appointed by Putin as prime minister. He resigned along with the rest of the government on 15 January 2020 to allow Putin to make sweeping constitutional changes; he was succeeded by Mikhail Mishustin on 16 January 2020. On the same day, Putin appointed Medvedev to the new office of deputy chairman of the Security Council.

In the views of some analysts, Medvedev's presidency did seem to promise positive changes, both at home and in ties with the West, signaling "the possibility of a new, more liberal period in Russian politics"; however, he later seemed to adopt increasingly authoritarian and anti-West positions. It has been suggested by observers both domestically and internationally that this break with past rhetoric is Medvedev attempting to change his public perception as a moderate subordinate to Putin.

[kellyhound]

Russian forces are allegedly committing continuous war crimes in Ukraine, including rape and "widespread and systematic" torture, the latest Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine found.

The Russians are allegedly torturing people accused of being Ukrainian army informants in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and in one case, the torture was so extreme that it caused a victim's death, the commission said in its latest report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday.

One torture survivor said, "Every time I answered that I didn't know or didn't remember something, they gave me electric shocks," according to the commission.

"Well into the second year of the armed conflict, people in Ukraine have been continuing to cope with the loss and injury of loved ones, large-scale destruction, suffering and trauma as well as economic hardship that have resulted from it," Eric Mose, chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, wrote in the report. "Thousands have been killed and injured, and millions remain internally displaced or out of the country."

In the Kherson region, members of the Russian forces allegedly sexually assaulted women as their relatives were forced to listen from nearby rooms, the commission said. Sexual assault victims ranged in age from 19 to 83.

The commission also found evidence of "unlawful attacks with explosive weapons," including attacks on residential buildings, shops, a restaurant and a medical facility.

Konstantin Yefremov, a senior Russian army lieutenant who fled Russia, told ABC News in February he witnessed his country's troops torture prisoners in Ukraine, including beating and threats to rape.

Yefremov, 33, spent three months as an officer in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region and said he personally witnessed the torture of Ukrainian prisoners during interrogations, including the shooting of one POW in the arms and legs and threats of rape.

The commission stressed "the need for accountability" for Russia's "scale and gravity of violations," as well as "the need for the Ukrainian authorities to expeditiously and thoroughly investigate the few cases of violations by its own forces."

[Guns N' Coffee]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/23...ssia-war-hawk/

The Fall and Fall of Dmitry Medvedev
How the former Russian president went from geeky technocrat to deranged war hawk.

In the summer of 2010, then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev set off on a tour of Silicon Valley in search of investors and ideas on how to modernize his country’s resource-dependent economy. The young president, known for his love of technology, paid visits to Google, Apple, and Twitter in what the social media platform’s co-founder Biz Stone described as “one of the most special days in the history of Twitter.”

It was there that Medvedev sent out his first ever tweet. “Hello everyone, I’m now on Twitter and this is my6 first message,” he wrote in Russian, complete with a typo. These days, Medvedev tends to use Twitter and other social media platforms for shitposting about U.S. and European officials as well as making thinly veiled threats to attack the United States and wipe Ukraine from the map. In a post on Telegram on Monday, he said the United States should beg for Russia to restart arms control negotiations. “Let them run or crawl back themselves and ask for it,” he wrote.

Despite tweeting his bellicose Mad Libs in a number of languages, Medvedev’s audience is most likely domestic, analysts say, as he looks to cover his back and shore up his political future as the domestic turmoil brought by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine begins to unfurl and speculation about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health continues to mount.

“There’s a lot of worry among the elite, even among those who are considered to be under Putin’s krysha [protection],” said Mark Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. “For some, it means keeping a low profile. For some, it’s posing as a hawk. But it all stems from this general sense that winter is coming and no one knows how it’s going to be.”

In October of last year, shortly before Russia began building up its troop presence along its border with Ukraine, Medvedev published an essay in the Russian newspaper Kommersant, which seethed with conspiracy theories and contempt for Ukraine’s leaders. In a passage laced with antisemitic overtones, he accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, of being beholden to Nazis.

Threats of fire and brimstone have become the norm from senior Russian officials and hosts on Russian state television. But even by these standards, the remarks from the once mild-mannered Medvedev have raised eyebrows. The former president’s descent into a barely intelligible rage against the Western machine mirrors Russia’s broader shift from annoying neighbor to an existential threat to Europe—and maybe worse.

“It’s one of the [bigger] intrigues of current domestic policy,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst and founder of the R.Politik consultancy. Cognizant of circling hawks, Medvedev’s outbursts are likely an attempt to curry favor in Russia’s new political climate, which has become markedly more nationalist and intolerant of dissent since the invasion of Ukraine in February.

“Russia has changed. And Medvedev has to show that he belongs to this Russia,” Stanovaya said.

Scorned by liberals for his willingness to please Putin and regarded with suspicion by the strongmen of Russia’s security services for his overtures on the United States, Medvedev has grown increasingly isolated in recent years as his allies have been arrested or driven into exile, leaving him dependent on Putin’s good graces.

“Medvedev is one of the most vulnerable figures in the Russian political elite,” Stanovaya said.

In a post on Telegram this month, Medvedev sought to address some of the speculation around his newfound jingoism. “People often ask me why my Telegram posts are so harsh. The answer is that I hate them. They are bastards and scum,” he wrote, presumably about Ukraine. “And as long as I’m alive, I’ll do anything I can to make them disappear.”

When Medvedev was inaugurated as president in 2008, after Putin’s first two presidential terms in office, it reinvigorated hopes in Russia and the West that reform was still possible. Medvedev cut a markedly different figure from his predecessors. At just 42 years old, he was largely untainted by the Soviet political system, having graduated from law school just a few years before the fall of the Berlin wall. He talked the talk, calling out the country’s “weak democracy” and “ineffective economy,” and he appeared to embrace the tech optimism sweeping the world.

Sensing an opening, the United States’ own reform-minded then-president, Barack Obama, pursued a “reset” in the country’s relationship with Russia, traveling to Moscow during his first year in office. “Together, we can build a world where people are protected, prosperity is enlarged, and our power truly serves progress,” Obama said in his commencement address at Moscow’s New Economic School in 2009.

But the very traits that were the cause of optimism among Western officials drew derision and suspicion from conservative political circles in Russia. Medvedev’s avid iPad use garnered the nickname “iPedik,” which tacked Apple’s signature prefix onto a Russian homophobic slur. In 2011, a video of Medvedev dancing to the 1990’s Russian pop hit “American Boy” at a university reunion was leaked online and quickly went viral. “We’re rocking out last year at a reunion with my (university) class,” tweeted Medvedev, confirming the video’s authenticity.

Despite Medvedev’s rhetoric, it gradually became clear that he was little more than a placeholder for Putin, who was paying lip service to the constitutionally imposed term limits. The pair ruled as a tandem or, as the U.S. ambassador to Russia put it in a 2010 cable later leaked by Wikileaks, a “bicephalous ruling format.” After flirting with running for a second term in 2011, Medvedev quickly stepped aside to allow Putin to return to the presidency, humiliating himself in the process.

“Since then, he’s basically been in retreat as an independent political figure,” said Eugene Rumer, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Russia and Eurasia program.

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny capitalized on the widespread contempt for Medvedev, making him the target of an extensive and highly embarrassing anti-corruption investigation released in 2017, which prompted tens of thousands of Russians to take to the streets across the country, outraged by the corruption underpinning Medvedev’s luxurious lifestyle. Russian teenagers who don’t know a country without Putin, brandished yellow rubber ducks as a symbol of protest, a nod to the duck house at Medvedev’s luxurious summer home uncovered by the Navalny investigation, complete with a marina, ski slopes, and trio of helipads.

In 2020, Medvedev abruptly resigned as prime minister, with his approval ratings in the doldrums—by Russian standards—at 38 percent. While he was down, the former president was not out and was appointed to the newly created post of deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, though it’s unclear what the role actually entails. “He has a job, which no one really knows what it is supposed to be,” Galeotti said.

Despite his unpopularity, Medvedev’s survival is a testament to Putin’s loyalty to his obedient foot soldiers. “Putin doesn’t like change. He doesn’t like churn. He doesn’t like to see people go out of his circle,” Galeotti added.

Speculation about Putin’s health has electrified tabloids in the West, as the Russian president continues to keep his distance from crowds and even his own senior officials two years into the pandemic. These rumors have not gone unnoticed in Moscow either. Although Putin’s health is a closely guarded secret, it has underscored the political and physical mortality of Medvedev’s long-standing patron.

“He’s fighting for his future place in post-Putin Russia,” Stanovaya said.

[Desert Rat]

Russiaphobia still strong on this silly site. Should probably be changed to mockingbirdreality.com.

Scratch that, I'm buying that domain. PM me for access.

[marekparek]

Originally Posted by Desert Rat ↗

Russiaphobia still strong on this silly site. Should probably be changed to mockingbirdreality.com.

Scratch that, I'm buying that domain. PM me for access.

Phobia is fear, but nobody seems to be scared of russians. So, i would disagree with you

[WonderMomma]

Originally Posted by Desert Rat ↗

Russiaphobia still strong on this silly site. Should probably be changed to mockingbirdreality.com.

Scratch that, I'm buying that domain. PM me for access.

No Russophobia with me. I've explained that a million times. The people from this section who like to throw people into the same box tends to be pro-Russians. They do it with Ukrainians, they do it with Europeans and they do it with Americans.

We do have one pro-Ukraine person who is pretty very Russophobic and speaks in genocidal terms towards all Russians. But he does not represent anyone but himself.

I know full well that not everyone in a specific country or group of people are responsible for what their government does.


BTW, it's been a while. Hope you are well.

[WonderMomma]

Originally Posted by Faust ↗

Even ISW are creating memes now

ISW does not do memes so again, this is adding a laughing emoji to your opinion and calling it a meme. Just in case you missed it the first time I told you, you suck at this and your tactics reek of desperation. This thread is not for you to spread your shitty opinion in because you're banned in the threads you should be doing that in. If you can't post actual memes, don't post anything at all.

[Desert Rat]

Originally Posted by marekparek ↗

Phobia is fear, but nobody seems to be scared of russians. So, i would disagree with you

So, the funneling of (how many zeros?... hell) $YES to Kiev is for a water park? Maybe we all should try not-fearing actual problems in our own states? Things may get done.