Well, first of all you have to remember Yanukovych (Putin's puppet) left voluntarily.  He called up Putin who sent a Russian special forces helicopter to pick him up and take him to Moscow and he never returned. He could've stayed and made the case that he wasn't behind the Maidan Massacre and ran for the planned re-election later that year, but he gave up. He couldn't possibly govern Ukraine from Moscow so he was impeached for abandoning his post.

Here's CCTV footage of him hopping into the helicopter and you can see he's on his two feet, bags packed, hands are not bound, no gun to the head:


Their congress was asking him to resign and he's no Zelensky; he took the ride out. Putin called it a "coup" but that's not really what we in the West (where we have fair elections and impeachments) think of when we say "coup." What Prigozhin tried a couple months ago marching his military on Moscow would be called a coup attempt. What Putin did in the Donbas by arming separatist revolutionaries would be called a coup. When Nixon was impeached and he resigned it wasn't a coup. But Russia, who hasn't voted someone out in 5000 years, only uses the word "coup" when it comes to leaders being removed.

Since then the Mueller Investigation showed they bribed ex-Trump aid Manafort to push a plan for Yanukovych to govern the Donbas and he was spotted in Belarus on the eve of the invasion. Apparently he was told it would be a 3 day war.

Why was his congress asking him to resign? Why did he leave? Yanukovych had campaigned hard that he was going to sign an EU association agreement that was very popular in Ukraine and they'd worked on for 5 years since he took office. When it came time to sign it Putin summoned him to Moscow and told him not to sign it, so he didn't. Afterward there were protests:





Then there was a Russian/Syrian style crackdown. Some say the protesters shot themselves, but they're also the tin foil hat kind. The Russian FSB generals were indeed there that day:


Yanukovych was asked to resign, then he fled. He said his car was shot up but it's not like he doesn't have bodyguards or armored vehicles. There were always going to be a Presidential election later that year but now there were no other pro-Russia candidates. Poroshenko was elected President later that fall, and Zelensky beat Poroshenko 5 years later in 2019. Putin no longer had a puppet in both Ukraine and Belarus so he sent "little green men" to take Crimea and armed militias Donbas to start a bloody revolution of his own. When the revolution didn't succeed in taking anything but the Donbas (which the militias controlled since 2015), he invaded.

Professor John Mearsheimer, who does his best to implicate the US State Dept without using propaganda, gives the best explanation I've seen:
https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf
"The West’s final tool for peeling Kiev away from Moscow has been it's efforts to spread Western values and promote democracy in Ukraine and other post Soviet states, a plan that often entails funding proWestern individuals and organizations. Victoria Nuland, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, estimated in December 2013 that the United States had invested more than $5 billion since 1991 to help Ukraine achieve “the future it deserves.” As part of that effort, the U.S. government has bankrolled the National Endowment for Democracy. The nonproft foundation has funded more than 60 projects aimed at promoting civil society in Ukraine, and the NED’s president, Carl Gershman, has called that country “the biggest prize.” After Yanukovych won Ukraine’s presidential election in February 2010, the NED decided he was undermining its goals, and so it stepped up its efforts to support the opposition and strengthen the country’s democratic institutions.

The West’s triple package of policies: NATO enlargement, EU expansion, and democracy promotion added fuel to a fire waiting to ignite. The spark came in November 2013, when Yanukovych rejected a major economic deal he had been negotiating with the EU and decided to accept a $15 billion Russian counteroffer instead. That decision gave rise to antigovernment demonstrations that escalated over the following three months and that by midFebruary had led to the deaths of some one hundred protesters. Western emissaries hurriedly few to Kiev to resolve the crisis. On February 21, the government and the opposition struck a deal that allowed Yanukovych to stay in power until new elections were held. But it immediately fell apart, and Yanukovych fled to Russia the next day. The new government in Kiev was pro-Western and anti-Russian to the core, and it contained four high ranking members who could legitimately be labeled neofascists. Although the full extent of U.S. involvement has not yet come to light, it is clear that Washington backed the coup. Nuland and Republican Senator John McCain participated in antigovernment demonstrations, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, proclaimed after Yanukovych’s toppling that it was “a day for the history books.” As a leaked telephone recording revealed, Nuland had advocated regime change and wanted the Ukrainian politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk to become prime minister in the new government, which he did. No wonder Russians of all persuasions think the West played a role in Yanukovych’s ouster."

Explains a lot. That is someone’s mama. What level of alcoholism does it take to do this so casually?
With video indulgence https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1695490904239559033

It can be challenging to develop the trust required for a cohesive foreign policy when your House flips every 2 years, your Executive every four years, and the Senate every 6.  Especially as things get more polarized and policies flip 180 degrees vs. small tweeks.

At the time, while not widely broadcast, the big concern was just getting all those weapons under a single umbrella and not letting them get sold off to God knows who in all the corruption.

I nominate that for the best Ghost Rider video yet.

Depending on how bad they want to buy more gear, they should auction that patch to the highest bidder. But that particular patch is now a piece of history. And down the road it might be iconic.

Definition of MICE :

A mnemonic device used in counterintelligence training to remind trainees of the four general motivations that could lead someone to commit treason, become an insider threat, or collaborate with a hostile agency or organization. It stands for Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego.

They were designed for the Soviet war, send them to the fight

Not so much with me as I think war fatigue has taken root before the orc invasion.  This was due to the disaster of Iraq (Bush), Afghanistan (Bush), Libya (She came, she saw, and she fucked thing up Hillary), and Syria (Obama). I think it was one of the deciding factors for putin to invade along with what's posted above (loss of politicians willing to be a satellite of russia).

Some of it, though, is political ideology where some lack critical though. Those people just support labels.  There is some of that here where some using political based derogative terms like fascist, isolationist, neo-nazis, far-right conspirators, etc. They don't seem to know what those terms really meant before becoming politicized, or they are jumping on the labeling bandwagon thinking it gives them power in their debate/viewpoint.

Mearsheimer is a socialist so he can go fuck himself.

Its large enough to be 2000 lbs, correct?

Also, amazing hanging off an SU-27

Because of old Soviet mines, RU is probably 10x that

Reason for the UA slow progress.  Mines are a bitch

S-400 has failed against the himars strikes as well.  Either the radar system is not as good as Russian advertising, or they just weren't paying attention, the radar may not have been operating.  The Neptune came in low using terrain to mask it.  It's complicated.

I'm sure there is some official doctrine in some manual somewhere but the US hasn't fought a static attrition warfare like this since WWII. Terraine and the enemy will have more influence anyway.

OH SHIT.

It seems that is what they are doing, moving east torward Verbove almost 2km.

I think I understand. War is for young men who have no idea about life or lunatics. The rest of us want to be soldier again...until it's time to do soldier shit...

We may start to see some HIMARS casualties as this goes on. UA will be tempted to bring them up, into more danger.

Mearsheimer and Harvard Professor Stephen Walt debated ex ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and Radosław Sikorski of Poland here:


It's worth noting that they polled the audience afterwards and Mearsheimer lost. But if you really want to know everything about the NATO provocation claim it's all there.

They do have 2,000 lb versions, but the one pictured is a 500 lb version.

Complicated indeed.  I believe one aspect is HARM missiles that Ukraine has. The financial trade off of a GMLRS missile vs an S-400 has to be a good one.  Perhaps the Ukrainians are enticing the orcs to turn on the radars, or HARMs threat is getting the orcs to use the radars sparingly.

I don't think so, the himars range is so much greater than the Russian artillery being brought in that it is getting picked off by Himars regularly now.  Something new has been added to the Ukrainian arsenal that they can dedicate himars for counter battery now.

Seems to me that air dominance negates land mines. FJB for dragging his feet on aircraft support for Ukraine.

Good point, harm complicates things as well, so do decoy Mald missiles.

Another excellent reminder.

So they fly Nap-of-the-earth, got it.

Made me laugh, and reminds me Easterner needs to send edible crayons to marine units.

Marine diplomacy pic.twitter.com/HzvWCYErUt

— Havoc Six (@Havoc_Six) August 26, 2023

I think they'll have to bring their long range arty and SAMs up both to keep that gap usable.  I mean, it's going to be a high value target area regardless.

Good news is the Russians are facing the opposite problem and have to gather into narrow funnels to pass their second defensive lines.  Which is one more reason to bring HIMARS forward.

In a concession to the gang in GD, I'll bet that the pre-2014 aid the US sent to Ukraine "to promote democracy" was a hotbed of corruption and graft almost certainly led by Clinton and Biden crime families. But if the cia or state dept. had a hand in Maidan, I'll eat my hat, shorts and boots.