The Ukraine war thread

[Renauda]

No better way to tell the Kremlin that not only are you not willing to play any of the cards you can play, but you have never been the least bit serious about the diplomatic initiative you have launched from the onset. A clown show.

[Wim]

Medvedev speaking bluntly:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/moscow-rejects-kievs-peace-plan-152431680.html

[Renauda]

No surprise. Further proof that Kremlin is not serious about peace talks with Ukraine. In absence of Putin at least send the obnoxious foreign minister, Lavrov to meet with the Ukrainians for the meeting Putin ordered in the first place. Zelenskyi and a couple of his ministers will be there tomorrow and Friday. Word has it that so will Rubio.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpqe9g0vn57o

And here:

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/14/putin-taps-kremlin-aide-medinsky-to-lead-new-istanbul-talks-with-ukraine-a89086

Like Republican Senator Kennedy of Louisiana pointed out a couple weeks back, Putin is playing the US (read: Trump Administration) for a bunch of chumps.

[Tom-K]

@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:

Kennedy gets it, in fact, he got it all along.

For all his, "awe shuks" and "yes" and "no ma'am" he's the smartest guy in the Senate.

[Horace]

@Tom-K said in The Ukraine war thread:

@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:

Kennedy gets it, in fact, he got it all along.

For all his, "awe shuks" and "yes" and "no ma'am" he's the smartest guy in the Senate.

I'm sure he loves it when people underestimate him.

[Renauda]

Well at least Russia has moved past some its medieval mythology to justify the war. It’s now moved on to early modern history lessons from the time Peter the Great:

“The Great Northern War with Sweden lasted 21 years. Twenty-one years. But just a few years after it began, Peter the Great offered peace to the Swedes… What did the Swedes say? ‘No, we will fight to the last Swede’,” Medinsky said in an interview with pro-Kremlin TV host Yevgeny Popov.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/16/kremlin-negotiator-invokes-peter-the-greats-21-year-war-with-sweden-in-ukraine-talks-a89109

Still, the Russians get the history of the war with Sweden wrong and lay a back handed insult to all members of NATO at the same time. But that is only to be expected of an aggressor state.

Kremlin is not interested in any terms short of Ukraine’s total capitulation.

[Horace]

[Renauda]

I can’t see what or when Klaus posted it.

[Mik]

It still has Twitter as the site, so probably old.

[Renauda]

I can only guess - possibly a thermobaric rocket mortar. Nasty for sure, but effective and permissible as an anti-infantry weapon. Sucks the O2 out of the blast area. Russians have used them regularly since the 2022 invasion.