• SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      IIRC in the early phases of the war some western ‘observers’ tried to negotiate their way out of some encirclement they were trapped in (they were NATO officers). I don’t remember the outcome; I’d assume they lived or we would have seen quite a bit more on that

      So we already have been the whole time

      • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        There were probably NATO officers that got evacuated from Azovstahl, could that be what you’re thinking about? The mad run of various doomed helicopter evacs weren’t all failures, a few got in and our IIRC

        • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          9 months ago

          That sounds right.

          I remember it was during the early phases, and they were negotiating with Russians for passage out. I also recall being bemused by Russians being portrayed as savage hordes being especially prevalent during this phase, and contrasting that negotiation with the aforementioned portrayal by Western press should have made it even more clear how that depiction didn’t remotely pass muster.

  • JohnBrownsBussy2 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    I thought you weren’t supposed to reveal that you have a network of spy bases. Isn’t that the whole point of secret facilities? Motherfuckers are desperate.

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    The election of Donald Trump in 2016 “only strengthened” the partnership between Ukrainian intelligence and the CIA, as Trump “had put Russia hawks in key positions, including Mike Pompeo as CIA director and John Bolton as national security adviser.”

    Thank you President Trump for supporting freedom and democracy. I was wrong about you, good sir. You were fighting Ruzzian Disinformyzinia from the inside. RussiaGate was just a brilliant deep cover operation to trick Putler into trusting you. TRUST THE PLAN!

    • kleeon [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      That’s what so weird about russiagate. Libs were talking about trump being “soft on russia”, while he just kept escalating tensions at every turn

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        It’s because HE, personally, was soft on Russia. And because Great Men Dictate History, it doesn’t matter whether or not his administration did everything liberals do - the Cheeto tainted our history.

  • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    If that network of bases has resulted in the present state of the war, like if we have that whole thing and one of the complaints about the Avdiivka retreat was that they couldn’t coordinate it because the different radios couldn’t communicate, funding them more seems silly. Either they’re a completely useless asset or despite their work the Ukrainian military is as incompetent as the Afghan National Army. The CIA was created to outsmart Russians and they’re shitting their butt-asses when that’s tested in the first post-Soviet war against Russians.

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      In light of anxieties around the $61 billion package, Ukrainian intelligence agencies are now worried whether the CIA will “abandon” them, as “it happened in Afghanistan before,” one senior Ukrainian officer told the NYT.

      Not just Afghanistan, but Venezuela (Guaido), Russia (Navalny), Belarus, Hong Kong, and Vietnam (Diem).

      Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me 6+ times… you get fooled again again

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      The CIA was created to outsmart Russians and they’re shitting their butt-asses when that’s tested in the first post-Soviet war against Russians.

      The neoliberal ideology of thatcher and reagan to dismantle the state and privatise literally everything has led to this. This was fine up until inter-capitalist conflict has emerged but now we’re seeing how a strong state with more control is more effective at war.

      Inter-capitalist conflict might be the thing that pushes them back towards older methods.

      • hotcouchguy [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        The problem is that once you rip out all the copper wire, it’s hard to put it back, ya know? There isn’t some big neoliberalism dial that they can just nudge back a bit, the infrastructure and resources they would need are either gone or too hollowed out to be useful. They need some new option instead, which is what’s driving this global experimentation with new neo-fascist projects.

    • Kaplya [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      Because the funding is not supposed to win wars, but to make a certain segment of the elites very rich.

      America has lost many wars over the past century, but it’s always made some people very rich in the process.

      And now in Ukraine, it’s the Ukrainian and European lives that will die against Russia, not Americans. It’s the perfect opportunity to get extremely rich off this war.

      It’s the capital flows that matter, when trying to understand capitalism.

  • how in gods fucking name do they just admit it

    just like out loud

    ‘dude our subversion efforts of ukrainian sovereignty in order to use them as a blood sacrifice for the sake of western capital are at risk please send doge-coin’