/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>485084
Can't say for sure but that doesn't look nuclear, just like a really big chemical detonation.

The mushroom shape happens because of rising gases, and large chemical detonations can reach high enough energy levels where they produce this effect too. Maybe this was some ammunition/fuel depot.

There isn't any recent controle footage of nuclear detonations to compare it too, obviously, but this just doesn't look bright enough, nuclear creates a lot of light. And you'd expect to see some artifacts from gamma and x rays hitting the camera sensor, like little dots or something. And there seems to be vegetation, that would be on fire because nuclear kicks out a lot off radiant heat too.

>>485085
>What terrible thing do they think is going to happen if the war ends with Putin controlling all of Ukraine?
For the proles in the west it might be beneficial, because it would mean the fighting ends and there's one less battle to burn public funding on.
For the small and medium capitalists it might also have an upside because they realize their profits in the consumer commodity market. Which always shrinks when military spending goes up.
For the big imperial capitalists it's obviously going to be a loss because they could not expand into Ukraine to loot resources and super-exploit the population.

>>485096
>From a Ukrainian POV, it would still be bad though. It would end the war as we know it, but it would also result in decades of permanent low-intensity conflict.
This has always happened during the various US occupations, but i'm not sure if that logic applies here.

The US primarily bombs from the air, and that means all the fighters can hide in holes, and wait out the air-campaign, and then make an insurgency afterwards.

The Russians fought an attrition ground war, that is a different beast. I don't think there would be many "ukro-rebel-fighters" left over to make an insurgency, when this is done. The Russians will probably go after the Bandera types, because they consider that as unfinished business from WW2.

In case you meant it as a power-vacuum causing a struggle for power and a civil war. That can happen, but Ukraine likely isn't going to go that way. It's located in a strategic position between big power blocks, so it's very likely that as soon as one government falls another one gets installed right away. Ukraine might get carved up and then there could be multiple new governments.

>>485100
>For the big imperial capitalists it's obviously going to be a loss because they could not expand into Ukraine to loot resources and super-exploit the population.
Why didn't they loot and "super-exploit" Ukraine before the war started then? They are never going to take back the lost land it is obvious they want to war to continue because the war itself is where the profit is.

>>485105
>Why didn't they loot and "super-exploit" Ukraine before the war started then?
Imperial capital isn't actually that potent by it self, if they have to compete with other capitalists they're not getting imperial super-profits, only regular profits. They needed the Ukrainian state to enforce imperial monopolies and repress the population. The Ukrainian state didn't go for that, they tried to make economic deals with Russian capitalists and a bunch of others who would settle for regular profits.

That's when the regime change program started. Bandera-fascism was basically attempting to become a comprador-elite with enforcer-goons that would divide the population into a small-ish section of people who would be exempt from super-exploitation in exchange for repressing the rest of the population. That's the purpose of all the discrimination shit along religious and ethnic lines. All the shelling of residential areas and so on. That's why you get parts in Eastern Ukraine splitting off like Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk. That's them saying fuck that we're not yours to sell out.

>They are never going to take back the lost land it is obvious they want to war to continue because the war itself is where the profit is.
They probably genuinely thought that the sanctions-squeeze plus the military-expenses would force Russia to yield Ukraine and eventually cause Russia to balkanize. That's why they did provoke a major escalation into the realm of big military hard-power, because they thought they were going to force another neo-liberal shock-doctrine on Russia and make bank like in the 1990s.
The war-profits they are making now is just an internal wealth transfer in the west, they're not bringing in any new wealth from the outside. They are not just harming western workers with that, they're also killing the majority of small and medium capitalists. That's not a viable system, that's the system eating it self.

>>485108
>That's when the regime change program started. Bandera-fascism was basically attempting to become a comprador-elite with enforcer-goons that would divide the population into a small-ish section of people who would be exempt from super-exploitation in exchange for repressing the rest of the population. That's the purpose of all the discrimination shit along religious and ethnic lines. All the shelling of residential areas and so on. That's why you get parts in Eastern Ukraine splitting off like Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk. That's them saying fuck that we're not yours to sell out.
You're just making things up. The east broke away after the president they voted for was overthrown and replaced with a pro-NATO/pro-EU alternative in 2014.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Donbas_status_referendums

>That's not a viable system, that's the system eating it self.
They've been doing it since WW2. Clearly the system is working for someone.

>>485109
>The east broke away after the president they voted for was overthrown and replaced with a pro-NATO/pro-EU alternative in 2014.
Yes the guy that was overthrown tried to make trade agreements with Russia and others. Which meant that Ukraine was trying to play investors from all sides against each other to get a good deal, hence negating the potential for locking in an imperial monopoly. That's why he was overthrown.

>You're just making things up.
Dude we mostly agree.

>They've been doing it since WW2. Clearly the system is working for someone.
Yeah but it seems different now.

They made bad imperial bets before, but on the hole imperialism always payed off, mind you not for the working class, but for the capitalists. I don't think that's the case anymore. I think they made an imperial deficit because of the Ukraine quagmire. All the imperial stuff they did before never had a clear and direct negative impact on the domestic economy in the west, there only were minor disturbances. This time it clearly did. You can clearly see it, they activated the sanctions against Russia and with some delay as the effects work their way through the economic networks, it impacts on the western domestic economy with significant damage. I think they planned that looting Ukraine's resources would more than offset this. Some of the strategy papers i've seen even planned for a broken up Russia being forced into selling off assets for cheap. And that clearly never happened.

>>485109
>You're just making things up.
<cites glowpedia
lmao

>>485111
>Some of the strategy papers i've seen even planned for a broken up Russia being forced into selling off assets for cheap.

Can you link these if available? I'd like to read them.

>>485108
>They probably genuinely thought that the sanctions-squeeze plus the military-expenses would force Russia to yield Ukraine and eventually cause Russia to balkanize.

Most likely, yeah. Washington policy-makers are universally pig-ignorant as a rule, and they get their information from either lobbyists or ngos. The "common wisdom" leading up to this conflict was that Russia is just a gas station with nukes. Factor in also that whatever other information they're getting is coming from the CIA and their Ukrainian counterparts and you're going to get this distorted picture of Russian serfs yearning to breath free beneath Putin's boot heel.

It's the same sort of delusional shit that convinced the Americans they'd be greeted as liberators when they invaded Iraq.

Dniper by Christmas

Is this stupid war over yet? What do the Ukrainians even have left?

>>485541
All over but the dyin

Is there any truth to reports of North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russians? I've heard mixed things wrt whether there are actually any NKers fighting or if they're just participating in training exercises. It sounds weird given the Russians already have an advantage in terms of troop numbers, but it could be legit, and it's possible that being too close to communities like this has made me less receptive to the occasional truth in western propaganda - sometimes they're right, but in this case I don't know.

>>485594
In Kursk.

>>485594
Russia and the DPRK have something like a mutual defense pact, not exactly but similar, can't remember what's it called. So like >>485595 said it's plausible that DPRK fighters could help with defense in Kursk.

This mutual defense thing is pretty recent tho, so it's perhaps more likely that they've just started out doing military cooperation training. You know overcome language barriers, find ways to harmonize military doctrines and so on.

There is another thing, the DPRK has a stupendously massive standing army, and most of those soldiers are also part of something like engineering corps, that build stuff. To make it economically viable to have such a large army.

It's also somewhat likely that the DPRK has "lend" them as labor supply to Russia. For the DPRK that means they can fill up their long term food reserves while all those mouths are eating Russian food, and they probably get industrial and military development in return. The Russians get temporary labor-power to fill the gap caused by all the workers that signed up for military deployment in Ukraine.

The DPRK lacks arable land and as a result their food security is rather tenuous, and sending people away is better than starving them. On the order of 10+ years ago they send workers to Poland where they worked industrial jobs for the parts-supply industry, they used to send workers to the Soviet Union also, so this is not unusual.

The mainstream media has picked up this story because they're looking for cope to explain away Russia's ability to withstand the "Nato proxy pressure" and to maintain the exaggeration-lie about the number of Russian battle-field losses, which in reality likely are much lower than reported in mainstream media.

Another aspect to consider is, whose initiative this would have been. The DPRK knows how hard it gets when there's no "big-power-friend" from the "dark times" in the 1990s, so if any of these rumors prove true, it's somewhat likely that the DPRK would have been eager to prove to the Russians they're good for it.

>the occasional truth in western propaganda
Yeah that degenerated alot.

It used to be that what they said was factually true (for the most part) but it got presented with heavy spin and intense bias. It was possible to figure out how to account for spin and bias (like undoing it in your head) and gain a reasonably realistic understanding of what happened, as long as you looked at enough other sources to get the facts they omitted.

Now they make shit up quite frequently or invert reality by 180°. It's gotten very mentally exhausting parsing what they say. Especially the recent tendency where accusations tend to be confessions and proclaimed victims are perpetrators. People turn away from this, not primarily because of ideological differences, but rather because it's like deciphering a really tedious riddle. That shit requires mental labor.

>>485594
Definitely the most retarded piece of neocon war propaganda we've heard in a while.

Uh oh, looks like World Famous Actor Zelensky is finally gonna be out of the job soon. Neocon rags like The Economist are talking about Ukraine elections scheduled for 2025, with America's favored puppet Valery Zaluzhny "polling well" against Zelensky.

https://archive.is/Kce28

Guess he played his cards wrong when he threatened a few weeks ago to blackmail the US by pursuing nuclear weapons if they stopped sending endless military support. Turns out the West has its own threshold for nuclear power they can't control, much like his statement at the Munich Security Conference in 2022 finally prompted the Russian invasion.

The big question for the Z-man is gonna be whether a spook agency will have any sympathy after they've finished using him and have any willingness to abscond him out of Ukraine to the safety of some Western asylum, or whether they'll leave him out to dry and presumably hanging from a lamppost in Kiev.

>>485703
>Turns out the West has its own threshold for nuclear power they can't control,
Maybe, although the Russians probably gained some leverage because they're exerting a moderating influence on Iran when it comes to nukes.

>Ukraine elections scheduled for 2025
I'm curious about how that's going to go.
You know with the US trying to install a new client regime and the Russian intending to purge the Banderites.

Macron and Starmer want to send troops to Ukraine again.

Considering Macron was voted out of office, i don't really understand why he's still relevant.

Why Starmer is doing this is mysterious as well, given the state of the UK military, invading Ukraine is improbable. Does Starmer expect to get Trump to help him ? After he send "election helpers" to the US to campaign against Trump.

I'm confused is this noise ? Or do they really mean it ?

>>485855
No, they don't. People in France would riot again if France sent soldiers to Ukraine. There were large anti-NATO riots in Montreal just recently, with Mali also supporting Russia, so I'm guessing there's a lot of pro-Russian/anti-NATO sentiment on the Francophone internet.

For the UK, according to latest reports they don't have the manpower, equipment or ammo for a large engagement. They do not want to provoke Russia because they're one of the countries that would get glassed in a nuclear war. I think it is just sabre rattling and Starmer wants to appear strong. "War time" country leaders are usually more popular, so that's why all these European leaders have been LARPing as if we are all in a fight for our lives. But that's all it is, a LARP.

Russia has deliberately targeted foreign soldiers sent by NATO to "train Ukrainians" again and again. That sends a strong message to Western countries "You send NATO troops into Ukraine and they become a priority target." And they're not safe anywhere, Russia destroyed that hotel in Pokrovsk where French soldiers were staying.

>>485858
>They do not want to provoke Russia because they're one of the countries that would get glassed in a nuclear war. I think it is just sabre rattling and Starmer wants to appear strong. "War time" country leaders are usually more popular
So he wants to larp as Churchill ?
But everybody sees him as the moron that starts a bar-fight and ruins everybody's evening.

>that's why all these European leaders have been LARPing as if we are all in a fight for our lives. But that's all it is, a LARP.
Maybe, but a large chunk of the European population interprets this as "these fuckers are trying to get us killed". Maybe they're unaware but they're making death-threats towards the European population.

>Russia has deliberately targeted foreign soldiers sent by NATO
>That sends a strong message
For a while at least.
The neocons are like chickens trying to establish a pecking order. They don't learn from errors, they only ever conclude a) they need a bigger beak, or b) if it's not working you're not pecking hard enough.

We need a way to create a diplomacy-first international order somehow.

>>485863
>So he wants to larp as Churchill ?
Zelenskyy took that role, I guess he's LARPing as Thatcher lol
>a large chunk of the European population interprets this as "these fuckers are trying to get us killed"
Exactly, which is why it's unlikely any country will send troops. Despite what redditors and libs might think, if a country sends troops or allows attacks from its territory, Russia can respond without triggering NATO Article 5. Article 5 is first of all voluntary, and second of all doesn't protect belligerent countries. This is why Kurds from Syria can fight against Turkey and not involve NATO, Turkey attacked Syria.
>The neocons are like chickens trying to establish a pecking order. They don't learn from errors,
Trump filled his cabinet with NATO-skeptics and people against sending weapons to Ukraine. That's why Europe is pretending to "step up" (in the media) when in reality Germany earmarked half as much money for Ukraine in 2025 as 2024.

>>485865
>Zelenskyy took that role,
His Churchill impression is kinda meh. Zelenskyy did those very cringe rants in those so called "peace conferences" where they didn't even invite all the parties involved in the conflict.
>I guess he's LARPing as Thatcher lol
You mean because Starmer did the state terror thing by attacking journalists, i know Thatcher send death squats to kill labor organizers, did she also attack journalism ?

>Exactly, which is why it's unlikely any country will send troops. Despite what redditors and libs might think, if a country sends troops or allows attacks from its territory, Russia can respond without triggering NATO Article 5. Article 5 is first of all voluntary, and second of all doesn't protect belligerent countries. This is why Kurds from Syria can fight against Turkey and not involve NATO, Turkey attacked Syria.
>Trump filled his cabinet with NATO-skeptics and people against sending weapons to Ukraine. That's why Europe is pretending to "step up" (in the media) when in reality Germany earmarked half as much money for Ukraine in 2025 as 2024.
For what reason are they doing this ?
I mean the "battle-for-ukraine-theater" for lack of a better expression. Public opinion shifted against this war about a year ago.

>>485872
>You mean because Starmer did the state terror thing by attacking journalists
I mean because he's a neoliberal ghoul who wants to appear strong. Thatcher's nickname was "The Iron Lady".

>>485872
The perception of power is more important to the west than actual power. It’s an empire of lies. If they lose control of the information space they lose control of politics.

>>485894
He doesn't appear strong tho, more like a henchmen of a petty tyrant that's lashing out at critics because the critics are right.

>>485896
>The perception of power is more important to the west than actual power. It’s an empire of lies.
That seems like a bad strategy. Like trying to win at Poker by bluffing all the time.

>If they lose control of the information space they lose control of politics.
In the end politics is mostly decided by the productive forces, manipulating perception can only be a delay tactic.

Does Zelensky really believe there's a snowball's chance in hell that he could get Ukraine into NATO?

>>486216
>Does Zelensky really believe there's a snowball's chance in hell that he could get Ukraine into NATO?
No, but he probably has the "right sector" aka Bandera fascists threatening him if he negotiates with Russia. And making impossible demands to avoid negotiating is his way of saving face.

Assad might have just prolonged the war for another two or three years. Blinken is in Ankara now negotiating to have whatever weapons caches Israel hasn't already bombed sent to Ukraine. If zelensky lowers the conscription age, that's another hundred-thousand people per age bracket under 25.

>>486256
I don't think Zelensky is actually going to lower the conscription age, that's going to dramatically increase his chances of hanging from a lamppost in Kiev. The war also is very unlikely to be prolonged much longer. Russia has been making massive gains the last month and what's left of the Ukrainian military is probably going to collapse soon. The neocons can see the writing on the wall in their dramatic pivot towards a ceasefire.

>>486258
It's true that Russia has been making big gains recently, and is now on the outskirts of Pokrovsk, but it's not like reaching the organizational borders of the four annexed oblasts is going to end the war. Washington isn't even close to countenancing an end to the conflict, and as long as that's the case Kiev will have to keep fighting to the last Ukrainian.

Personally I think the fall of Syria is a really bitter pill for Russia, but in particular it gives plenty of credence against accepting any kind of "frozen conflict." Assad accepted such, and it just have the West time to strangle Syria and then attack again when it was weak enough. It would be incredible not to draw the same conclusions from the current efforts to do the same, especially after Merkel etc admitted that was the point of Minsk.

I'm not an expert, but if I were to guess, Zelensky is going to wait until there's some kind of catastrophe like the fall of some big city, announce emergency measures, and then bouyed by Syrian weapons squeeze the last drops of blood out of Ukraine to try and make things as difficult as possible for the Russians. He'll have to, if for the very least because by necessity the Russians are going to have to force an end to the conflict in no uncertain terms, regardless of nato's objections.

<A senior Russian general was killed Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service leveled criminal charges against him.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-explosion-head-of-nuclear-defense-forces-killed-9656bce946a9f552454df9debe5fbd18
I love how the West is enabling Ukrainian terrorism. I'm sure this won't be a problem for Europe down the line…

>>486386
>accusation = death sentence
Justice at work in Ukraine.

Russia needs to annex all of Ukraine up until Lvov and Kiev, they can have those as "Ukraine". Russia would be stupid to stop now that they have the initiative and the momentum. They are advancing in 5-10 directions EVERY DAY. 30k+ volounteers a month for the RAF.

How long until Russia decapitates Ukrainian leadership? When will Putin have had enough? A few tactical nukes on the decision-making centres in Kiev and done.

>>486386
I wonder if this is bait to get the Russians to launch a decapitation strike to complicate potential peace negotiations next year.

> I'm sure this won't be a problem for Europe down the line
I would be more worried about the 30% of light weapons deliveries to Ukraine that disappeared into black markets. Does anybody know where those hand-grenades and shoulder-mounted rocket-launchers went ?


>>486387
>Justice at work in Ukraine.
Yeah i get the feeling that if Crete_Lover_419 "was Ukraine" he'd get shot while messing with a scooter

>Russia needs to annex all of Ukraine up until Lvov and Kiev,
More likely is that they will go after the Ukrainian secret service.

>How long until Russia decapitates Ukrainian leadership?
They obviously haven't done that because they still see a possibility to end this conflict with some kind of diplomatic resolution

>When will Putin have had enough? A few tactical nukes on the decision-making centres in Kiev and done.
Yeah but the Russians care what their friends think of them, like China and others, who wouldn't like the destabilizing effects. Also Ukraine kinda is in Russia's front yard, why would they take a radioactive shit in it ? If they decide to decapitate Ukraine they'll use their new toys like that Oreshnik.

>>486394
>why would they take a radioactive shit in it
Tactical nukes are different than what we think when we hear the word "nuke". There's no radioactive fallout, no lingering radiation.
>they'll use their new toys like that Oreshnik.
Oreshnik is designed to carry (tactical) nuclear warheads. So if they use Oreshnik, it will be a tac nuke strike.

>>486395
>Tactical nukes are different than what we think when we hear the word "nuke"
Nah "tactical" is just a marketing word. Like "pro-max" or "anniversary-edition". Words like that refer to differences just big enough that it matters to enthusiasts yet small enough that non-enthusiasts can't tell the difference.
>There's no radioactive fallout, no lingering radiation.
Lol nuclear-free nukes like sugar-free soda or alcohol-free beer.
It's high energy physics something's always getting irradiated.

>Oreshnik is designed to carry (tactical) nuclear warheads. So if they use Oreshnik, it will be a tac nuke strike.
The new feature of the Oreshnik are the kinetic warheads that can break something like a military base and create deterrence but do not cause nuclear escalation, unlike one of them tickle-nukes.

>>486397
>There's no radioactive fallout, no lingering radiation.
>Lol nuclear-free nukes like sugar-free soda or alcohol-free beer.
Nobody says it's "radiation-free". You're being radiated now, the sun emits UV radiation, your infrared remote sensor is radiation. Your oven heats via radiation.

I specifically said nuclear fallout. That is when the unstable particles go up into the atmosphere and are then brought down by rain. The radiation from the nuclear explosion itself doesn't linger very long (regardless of the size of the bomb).
>do not cause nuclear escalation, unlike one of them tickle-nukes.
US has already said that Russia using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine would not trigger a nuclear response or war.

>>486398
>I specifically said nuclear fallout.
I know what you meant, i don't think you can detonate a nuke in a war context without creating fallout. Unless it's something like an underground test and even that is contentious. If you set off a nuke in a city it'll vaporize a bunch of stuff and that'll create irradiated dust. It'll also create a local weather phenomenon that will suck up more dust from the surrounding environment and that'll add to the mess. There is an unverified argument that lower yield nuclear explosions don't shove the nasty shit into the upper layers of the atmosphere and hence don't necessarily cause world-wide fallout. Even if that's true, there still are lots of weather phenomena that can transport particulates around the world. So what you get is a sliver of hope that it won't piss in everybody's aquarium. But even so using a nuke will rattle everybody's cage none the less.

>US has already said that Russia using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine would not trigger a nuclear response or war.
The US used nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they sort of got away with it because there is a plausible case of ignorance about what that would do since it was a first. Obviously there is no more ignorance and using nukes a second time would be interpreted as extremely malicious. The US military however would like to have smaller "usable nukes" anyway, but they want the Russians to do it first so the epic nuclear shit-storm unloads on them instead. They speculate that once somebody else opens that door they'll be able to go too, while only catching a manageable amount of political flak for it.

The Russians have spoiled that plan by inventing the Oreshnik which is militarily as useful as a low yield nuke, without opening any nuclear doors.

>>486400
>There is an unverified argument that lower yield nuclear explosions don't shove the nasty shit into the upper layers of the atmosphere and hence don't necessarily cause world-wide fallout.
The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki did not generate a firestorm. Furthermore, the many atmospheric tests done before the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty exposed people downwind to fallout but not globally.

>>486404
The data from the cold war is not entirely conclusive, it allows for a range of possible interpretations. Why does this feel like you are trying to sell me on a nuclear strike ?

Where do you see the Russian motive for doing this ?
They have a new weapon that doesn't make a big mess, why wouldn't they use that ?

>>486398
>US has already said that Russia using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine would not trigger a nuclear response or war.
That's a fucking stupid thing for any party to say.
"Yeah, you can wipe out an entire city in a single blast, but we draw the line at causing fall out!"

>>486406
If you think the US will start a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine, I have a bridge to sell you.

>>486408
Not op. But if the ruskies are retarded enough to actually use a nuke in modern warfare. ESPECIALLY against a country they should have been able to trample without it. It'll just make them look even weaker than they already do, and it will unilaterally make every eurofag, and americunt band together to decry Russia's frozen shithole of a country.

It'd also probably be the selling point of European countries building up their own nuclear arsenal. And if you think the trade embargo's etc are rough now. Boy howdy would they ever ramp up.

But hey! Just nuke the embarrassment of a failed blitzkrieg away right?

>>486408
>That's a fucking stupid thing
>"Yeah, you can wipe out an entire city in a single blast, but we draw the line at causing fall out!"
I agree its a stupidyes that's a noun now. But there is a plausible logic behind this line of thinking. Imagine there's people who fancy installing a nuclear protection racket. They would want the ability to nuke a city that didn't pay protection money without affecting others that did pay. They would be really annoyed that nukes have so many side effects that render them useless for this purpose.

>>486408
>If you think the US will start a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine, I have a bridge to sell you.
True the US doesn't care about Ukraine, they want to bully Russia into submission. There are some nutcases with fantasies about winning at a fictional contest they call a "limited nuclear war". Nobody with any sense believes that once the nuke-train leaves the station anybody can put the breaks on it.

>>486410
The hole thing in Ukraine was a proxy war. The Russians won the attrition contest against Nato. They also neutralized sanctions as a weapon that can be used against their economy.

>It'd also probably be the selling point of European countries building up their own nuclear arsenal. And if you think the trade embargo's etc are rough now. Boy howdy would they ever ramp up.
Europeans look at sanctions as suicidal folly if they have any sense. As far as weapons go, nukes are an OK deterrent, but those new "hyper-kinetics" are the better choice imho. You probably can have hundreds or thousands of impactors on a larger inter continental type. It'll be a cheaper way to achieve strategical deterrence without any of the doomsday bullshit. Considering that these likely will just sit there for decades, there's no contamination risk, and the maintenance is easier, just some upkeep for the rocket-motors.