In response to the bunk some people were posting about Turkey terminating the MIR card system:

In light of the United States threatening Turkish banks with sanctions and SWIFT disconnection if they continued to operate Russian MIR payment cards for Russians visiting Turkiye, Ankara has been discussing a solution.
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Ankara has proposed using its Troy national payment system in place of MIR cards, and it is understood that the Central banks of Russia and Turkiye are discussing the issue.
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Representatives of the Turkish tourism industry have also proposed launching a system of prepaid cards for Russian tourists that would work during their time in the country. Russians could pay for such cards in rubles in Russia along with their tour packages and then use them to pay for goods and services.

Russian, Turkish Banks In Talks To Allow Russians Access To Turkiye’s Troy Payment Card System
The beauty of true capitalism is that it will never allow profits to be denied while there is a possibility for profits to be made. Neither sanctions, no embargoes, nor threats nor wars can stop that.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Oct 20 2022 9:55 utc | 204

Yeah, Right | Oct 20 2022 9:21 utc | 205
Yes, is it that “fog of war” thing. When I do see/hear msm news reports, all so convincing, it is hard to absorb. It’s truly off the scale in a way I have not seen it before. except maybe the lead up to iraq 2003.
ok other items that “throw me”, as in if they were “winning” why would they even bother to do the following:
send a special forces team of 32 yesterday to blow up the ZNPP, all were intercepted and killed.
the kersk bridge terror attack
the nordstream pipelines terror attack
collective silence on cause of the NS attack investigations
the almost non-stop (for weeks recently) shelling of Belgorod
‘Ukraine’ shelling other nearby Russian oblasts in recent days
the two terrorists attempts in Russia recently, captured, eg one with a manpad to shoot down planes at Moscow airport.
complaining about “Iranian drones”
the rush to send in air-defense equipment via Europe
another 96 HIMARS to be built in the next 12 months
State dept hitting up Turkey and Serbia and others to support the sanctions against Russia.
pressure on Latin America states to comply
big bribes to Venezuela to flip
European political leaders rushing all over the place for meetings
Poland buying tanks from South Korea
insurgencies into Belarus by ‘Ukraine military’
the still non-stop shelling of civilian targets in Donesk city etc (can’t they find a military target?)
It’s not so much odd as incredibly weird. The rhetoric defies reality. And it feels to me to be intensifying, increasing in tempo all these odd-ball events.
Of course the ‘propagandized’ (right where I live) would say all the above is either a Russian lie or justified.
I hope Russia moves fairly fast and takes all of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa – then has a vote for them also joining Russia. And I suspect they will encircle Kiev as well to bring down this fake Zelensky regime and force their military to surrender.
That should sort Ukraine out, then Russia can give full attention to the larger battle with the USA/Nato and European allies who still want a fight a world war.
What will NATO/USA do then? Send in the Marines or the B52s and the F35s or Cruise Missiles? Will they send their Navy into the Black Sea and the Baltic too?
I hope Russia goes hard and gives no quarter. Doesn’t blink and never stops until the US is kicked out of Europe, Central Asia, the Middle east and Africa completely! I also hope their allies can grow a spine, stop talking and start acting instead. This is what I want for Xmas from Santa. Not asking for too much, hey?

Posted by: SeanAU | Oct 20 2022 10:07 utc | 206

Mark2 | Oct 20 2022 14:40 utc | 213
This is your first post. Fuck off, shitlib.
I’m really starting to think that the info army has some means of inserting comments with the wrong time zone to promote themselves to the last word in the comments. The posts that wind up there seem shittier than usual.

Posted by: sippy the shot glass | Oct 20 2022 10:36 utc | 208

marko | Oct 20 2022 10:42 utc | 214
Narko – What do you think – it could help your important work– your handlers might approve – might get you over the line with the n word….. go on try :: troll goal is the china desk

Posted by: Gerrard White | Oct 20 2022 10:49 utc | 210

Jax | Oct 20 2022 1:38 utc | 125
You’re literally nothing to us but an imperious whiner, making the same demands characteristic of psy shaping operations, vainglorious like some moral entrepreneur whose brilliant management skills are “entitled” to expression all over a history that may well be older than you are. You should be punched in the throat repeatedly for thinking your ideas are of value here or anywhere, Philosopher-King.

Posted by: sippy the shot glass | Oct 20 2022 11:08 utc | 212

🇩🇪🇺🇦 Germany handed over to Ukraine the first of four promised radars for the IRIS-T air defense system.
According to the technical documentation, TRML-4D radars are capable of detecting, tracking and recognizing various types of airborne objects within a radius of 250 km. About 1.5 targets are simultaneously fixed in the “field of view” of the radar.

https://t.me/intelslava/39710

Posted by: Down South | Oct 20 2022 11:18 utc | 214

Posting this semi-OT here for the lolz.
The Financial Times reports:
LME’s Russian metal dilemma threatens market turmoil

Traders are pushing the London Metal Exchange to stop accepting Russian metal, fearing its warehouses will become a stockpile for unwanted material that distorts global prices for commodities like aluminium and copper.

https://www.ft.com/content/e38371fc-8163-433c-8da4-260b0e9a5937
Pretty sure only wanted material gets a bid.

Posted by: too scents | Oct 20 2022 11:33 utc | 216

“All Ukrainian attacks were repelled. Deputy head of the regional administration Kirill Stremousov confirmed that the line of defense has not moved a single centimeter. He stressed that nothing threatens the city of Kherson region now.”
https://southfront.org/overview-on-october-19-bloody-day-for-ukraine-on-kherson-front-lines/
So far it looks like the Ukrainians are banging their heads against a wall. But the threat of terrorism against the Kakhovskaya dam is still hot.

Posted by: Flying Dutchman | Oct 20 2022 12:10 utc | 218

Yesterday’s UAF attack on Kherson was a complete massacre. They lost 200 troops, 14 tanks and 16 AFVs.
Anyone following this war is by now numbed to this kind of reporting and it may not seem like it, but back out and watch objectively, it’s bad for UAF.

Posted by: unimperator | Oct 20 2022 12:26 utc | 220

Posted by: Flying Dutchman | Oct 20 2022 15:43 utc | 227
Who the fuck do you think you are?! I ignored your previous aggressive and nonsensical reply.
How the hell am I telling lies? You are seemingly too dimwitted to understand there is a massive difference between an ignore list feature and censorship. It is not censorship or “optional censorship” as you put it. The fact you fail to understand the difference is your problem, not mine. So, get off your high-horse. What a fucking prick you are. You are exactly the sort of user I wish I was able to ignore.

Posted by: Jax | Oct 20 2022 12:39 utc | 222

Yeah -the lettuce outlasted Liz Truss.

Posted by: Goingo | Oct 20 2022 12:42 utc | 224

The Lettuce has won. Liz Truss leaves and blames Russia.

Posted by: watcher | Oct 20 2022 12:45 utc | 226

John Mark Dougan speaking with Adrien Bocquet, a French humanitarian worker assaulted for exposing what really happend in Bucha
https://youtu.be/dPb4DPsydPo

Posted by: Anne B | Oct 20 2022 12:52 utc | 228

Jax | Oct 20 2022 12:39 utc | 227
“So, get off your high-horse.”
I’ve never come newly to a site and announced, “I now deign to grace this forum with my presence, but I demand changes!”
So I think you have me beat in the high-horse category.
Meanwhile the way things are going it’s self-evident that anyone with the slightest vestige of humanity needs to fight every call for censorship or the potential mechanisms thereof, and especially at the few dissident (or quasi-dissident) places left.

Posted by: Flying Dutchman | Oct 20 2022 13:01 utc | 230

Posted by: Flying Dutchman | Oct 20 2022 13:01 utc | 235
You (and others) were really triggered when a newcomer made a suggestion weren’t you? You could have simply said “I don’t agree with that suggestion” or said nothing. But, no. The mud starting slinging immediately. Do you feel better about yourself for the way you responded to me? Do you think you accomplished anything?
Look: I made a single suggestion, once. And although you clearly took offensive to it, it was made with the best of intentions. I don’t need or want to make the same suggestion twice. Now, if I was coming here day after day repeating the same suggestion – “demanding changes” as you put it – the attacks might be more understanding but the way I was shot down in flames by you and others says more about you than it does me.
I’ll leave it there as this line of conversation is now starting to clog up the chat – something I didn’t want to happen – and there are more important issues going on.

Posted by: Jax | Oct 20 2022 13:14 utc | 232

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 19 2022 18:09 utc | 31
Gazprom stopped all gas deliveries via Ukraine on 28 September…

Hallo Karl,
this bit of Info is simple false
see for example:

Tass; 17.10.2022
“Russian gas supplies through Ukraine continue at regular volumes”

Posted by: ghiwen | Oct 20 2022 13:34 utc | 234

Vladimir Putins work would be so much easyer if we had a strong anti-nazi movement here in the west, sadly we dont, it got stamped on by the republicans (us) and torys (uk)
The nazi’s in Ukraine both civilian and uniformed used the US far right as thier role model.
Its sad some of us were warning this would happen on this very blog ! We got attacked and driven of.
And now….. its to late, sigh.

Posted by: Mark2 | Oct 20 2022 14:40 utc | 236

Plan 5 may or may not emerge. winter is coming.
Posted by: watcher | Oct 20 2022 4:29 utc | 159
Seems to me that Putin and Xi worked on all this knowing that confrontation at some point was probably inevitable and that it is a geopolitical phenomenon of great importance.
I suspect they let Donbass drag on until they were ready for a complete geopolitical response. This is why within days it was clear the anti-Russian sanctions were going to boomerang back on the West.
Further, they have a win-win scenario: if Ukraine detaches from West and goes sovereign and makes authentic peace, great. If Ukraine insists on being West proxy bent on breaking the Bears back, fine: we will use Ukraine conflict as a proxy for breaking the West’s back. Either way we get the West to stop trying to destroy us or at least to develop the Eurasian sphere without their hegemonic oppressions and interference.
This win-win setup gives them great freedom to speed up or slow down, to intensify or detach military engagement. Ones opponent always provides surprises but they can only rarely change the big picture. Here that larger context is the emergence of the Eurasian civilization whose foundation is the unbreakable alliance of Russia and China with Persia now on board, Turkey soon and India tight with Russia and reserved, but not hostile to, China. As long as Russia and China remain firm symbiotic allies, their aims will be fulfilled and cannot be undermined.
This larger context is established. It is the basis of the win-win scenario Putin and Xi have created.
It would be great if Europe could join in but they are not agreement capable yet and probably won’t be for another few generations.
Meanwhile, we can expect the rats to be jumping the Western ships soon as they realize their schemes are fantasies no match for the twin Eurasian Bears.

Posted by: Scorpion | Oct 20 2022 20:59 utc | 238

@Flying Dutchman 220
It is a fact that Biden, before he went gaga, was much further to the right than Nixon, Obama was much further to the right than Clinton, who was much further to the right than Reagan. It is also a fact that Trump was a lifetime Democrat before his family friend, Bill Clinton asked him to run as a Pied Piper candidate for the Republican nomination.
Most importantly, there is no left wing (representing the petite bourgeoisie, proletariat and the sans coulottes (too poor to own trousers)) in the United States, because the United States is a conservative (resisting progress), belligerent (war seeking), fascist (“ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power”) oligarchy (rule by the wealthy and powerful) which is by definition right wing (representing the wealthy and powerful). Measured objectively, by the number of known incarcerates and under judicial supervision, in the only country still legally permitting slavery, it is likely that there has never been a more freedom suppressing right wing hegemony in history. This is not an accident, but intent, and the US founders made this very explicit. As John Jay, the head of the Constitutional Convention and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would say, “The people who own the country ought to govern it”—that’s the principle on which the United States was founded, it is the principal on which it is run, and you cannot get more right wing than that.

Posted by: Hermit | Oct 21 2022 17:15 utc | 240