A huge snowstorm is moving towards the Eastern part of Ukraine. Up to 20 cm of snow and icy winds up to 50 km per hour. I don’t have the energy to do inches and miles right now but it’s a serious winter storm.
In 1941, the Nazi advance on the USSR ran into serious trouble because of record-low temperatures and deep snow.
If I explain the Christian view of these events, you’ll say I’m preaching. So I can’t win here. 🙂
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“If I explain the Christian view of these events…”
Well, there’s always the internet…
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/theological_reflections_on_calamity
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I agree, getting into religious arguments is pointless, especially in this thread. I will just say that I have read Christian views and explanations of these things and they just don’t hold water for me personally. I won’t go into details – I’d be happy to have this debate at some other time, if you’d like.
I think you, and Margaret, and other Christians win in a huge way even if you’re wrong about the existence of God. If the world works the way I think it does, you will never be proven wrong. You will never find out that there is no life after death and no God because the you that could perceive these facts will not exist. So there might as well be a God, when it comes to our perception of this during our lives. It’s a great psychological adaptation.
Anyway. I like picking your brain. I think you may have even said so on the blog itself, but was one of the reasons why you feel so bitter about the liberals is that you feel betrayed by them? In addition to feeling intensely about everything, that is 🙂
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A few minutes ago Latynina wondered in her interview with Юрией Бутусовым from Харьков whether Putin decided to attack now because of gas prices during coldest months in Europe, while ignoring the spring mud and its influence of tanks. Apparently, he decided to ignore winter storms too.
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“whether Putin decided to attack ”
Today I saw a brief clip of him meeting ministers or generals or something. They were seated at least twenty feet away (which makes Putin seem even more freakish). Has he become a germophobe? That does happen to lots of reclusive powerful people… Or is he paranoid about up close and personal assassination?
From a body language point of view the close ups of Putin were interesting. Clear deviations from his baseline (from other films I’ve seen). Tense and no congruity between words and and body, tightness in the face where he’s usually relaxed.
And… he looked really unhealthy (physically). He looked kind of red and bloated…. the ravages of aging or something else?
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I keep wondering if he received a terminal diagnosis. If so, we are really screwed. Anybody who comes after him would be a really bad dude.
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Now I just read an article by a Polish body language specialist who goes into great detail saying more or less what I saw (and saw a longer film so also had more to work with).
He picked up on a lot of very negative interactions between the generals and Putin. He didn’t use the work ‘sick’ but he did point out that Putin frequently seemed to short circuit not finishing words or searching for words and not finding them….
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Wait, so you would NOT want Putin to receive a terminal diagnosis despite the invasion? And not because Putin could become crazier in his final days, a fear I share, but because the next Russian leader would be worse ? Why are you sure of that and how can one go worse from here? I suppose, you mean worse for the world, not merely for Russians.
One Russian blogger I read shared a theory Kadurov could inherit Putin’s place, partly since he is the only one with a private army.
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Oh yeah, the next one is going to be. . . Ghh, I don’t even want to imagine. I never thought I’d wish good health to Putin but I most wholeheartedly do.
The only way out is if the federation is broken apart, denuclearized, and each small state is helped to create its own national identity and there’s some sort of a Marshall plan for each.
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But why, why specifically do you think the next one would be worse? Because only a ruthless man could keep running Russia as a dictator the way Putin is now? Why not just like Putin then? Do you think it’s possible that no such one man will be able to seize control and stay alive, and there could be instability in the country?
I’m not disagreeing about anything, just curious about your reasoning.
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Putin is what the Russian people wanted when he first came to power over 20 years ago. Since then, they’ve radicalized. Nobody who’s completely alien to the culture can lead a country for any length of time.
But even leaving all that aside, do you have any names of any alternative leaders? The only good ones are all dead. Starovoytova, Nemtsov, dead. Navalny? He’s a neo-Nazi. The last thing we need in Russia is the “kill all NWORD” guy. Kadyrov is an Islamist feudal type. I’m seeing them move towards one of these options, which is definitely worse than Putin.
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I read somewhere that Macron has said that Putin seemed to have changed remarkably when he flew to Moscow to meet with him just before the invasion. I think they had last met in person in 2019.
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I’m seeing, this week, a lot of comments about “weird puffiness” associated with the cooties19 shots. FWIW
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Many people think he is on steroids. Possibly roid rage.
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Simply horrible:
Это было предсказуемо, и все же это удар – война становится ужасной. Как любая Большая война
Командование Сил специальных операций (ССО) опубликовало предупреждение к артиллеристам аргессора. Живых в плен больше брать не будут. Максимальный репост на Россию!
Понятно, что мы вызовем симметричный ответ и – пошло-поехало.
Так война превращается в войну на уничтожение
https://trim-c.livejournal.com/4505299.html
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Once the Russian blitzkrieg failed, they switched to the Grozny/Aleppo scenario that they put in practice before. It consists of razing cities to the ground. Let’s not pretend that when the Russians do it, it’s in response to anything that Ukraine did.
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Thank you, David. My brain refuses to work any more.
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The Nazi advance ran into trouble, but what mainly stopped it was that the Germans hadn’t prepared at all for the cold. And then the Russians had secretly amassed a huge force right at Moscow and so surprise attacked the Germans. I don’t know how prepared this Russian army is for winter operations. However, hopefully the storm will screw up their supply lines so that their advance stalls.
Having heard so very, very many stories now about tanks breaking down in huge numbers, lack of supply lines, Russian soldiers shooting into the air, and other seeming unpreparedness to invade… I keep wondering if it’s all incompetence on the Russian side, or if there’s also an element of Russian soldiers who don’t actually want to invade Ukraine. Are they self-sabotaging?
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Never. I’d love to believe it but …
Do you know that my Russian mother-in-law never saw her only grandchild? Not on a screen, not in pictures. This is from long before the war. She simply isn’t interested. Never sent a card or a family memento. She’s not likely to have any other grandchildren. N’s sister is childless at 40.
N is devastated by this. He’d call her and she’d say she’s too busy. She travels the world but she wouldn’t come to visit us because we don’t live in a glamorous, fun place. Took over an expensive property belonging to N. We are fine with that. But never to get as much as a birthday card from your own mom. . . Where’s the humanity?
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Yikes!
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I watching the available interviews with Russian POWs that Ukraine is putting online. It’s shocking and makes me feel old when they are asked for their date of birth, and for about 70% of them the year starts with the digit 2.
There is no doubt that the morale of the invading army is complete shit. There are things in their testimonies that are undoubtedly true because they are pretty much the definition of Russia’s government’s attitude towards its people, the same as it was in Soviet times.
Given the state propaganda and censorship, it’s completely believable that the army would confiscate the soldiers’ smartphones before sending them over the border, so that they wouldn’t be able to communicate the truth to the world.
It’s believable that the equipment would still manage to break down despite whatever money is officially allocated to the army in the budget.
It’s also believable that the authorities would always deny everything, to soldiers and their families, for as long as possible. Informing people in advance would give them time to try to desert the army. I’m not saying that I believe that the soldiers didn’t even know that they were in Ukraine or that they weren’t still doing exercises – and almost no one has claimed that. But sending out their soldiers as cannon fodder without much preparation or warning to them is absolutely something Russia would do, especially given their overconfidence about winning the war within days.
I do believe there is at least a small percentage of Russian soldiers who don’t want to kill Ukrainians. But another terrible thing for morale is knowing that their own government doesn’t give a shit about them, which pretty much all of them do.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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