Putin says Ukrainian troops in Russia's Kursk must 'surrender or die'
www.voanews.com
The Russian leader says his forces have trapped the remaining Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had trapped the remaining Ukrainian soldiers in its western Kursk region, where they have held on for more than seven months in one of the most important battles of the war.

  • peoplebeproblems@midwest.socialEnglish
    7·
    3 days ago

    Europe, I hope y’all are doing the whole “speak quietly and carry a big stick.”

    Because if Putin steam rolls Ukraine, he’s not stopping there, and now he has the US government under his control too.

    • cool@lemmings.worldEnglish
      41·
      3 days ago

      If Europe really wanted to stop Russia, they would’ve sent armies into Ukraine.

      “We don’t want to escalate because it might start WW3!”

      But Putin is going to attack you guys anyways when he’s done with Ukraine.

      “Yes, but this is the rhetoric dumbasses have been told to peddle so that’s what we’re doing!”

      I still remember when people said Ukraine shouldn’t mine its border because it would be seen as “escalation.” Funny how the wrong-crowd always scatters like roaches after the damage is done.

    • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      They have scheduled a committee meeting to decide where to plant the tree from which they might someday get big sticks.

    • alkbch@lemmy.mlEnglish
      01·
      2 days ago

      Europe is doing the opposite of “speak quietly and carry a big stick”

      • peoplebeproblems@midwest.socialEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        Finland isn’t what I’m quite so worried about yet.

        Its more Estonia. And Latvia. And Moldova, Romania, Poland, Chezchia, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, etc.

        Hungary and Belarus I think we can say are pretty much already Russia.

        Also I didn’t know about the Kaliningrad Oblast, anyone know what the fuck happened there?

            • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              1·
              1 day ago

              There are two "why"s: Why Kaliningrad became.part of Soviet Union and why it ended up as part of the Russia in 1991. Here the answers to both:

              After WWII, Germany had to give USSR a lot of land as a form of reparations. Mostly this was done by handing parts of Germany in the east to Poland, expanding Poland to the west AND them handing the same amount of territory from Poland to USSR, essentially forcibly moving Poland westwards. This was quite an a-hole thing to do to Poland. Also, it had the weird effect that the culture and dialects of easternmost Poland suddenly moved to westernmost parts of Poland. There is a weird dialect border where if you go west past the old German border, suddenly you have eastern dialects. But, the Königsberg area had been an integral part of Germany for a long time before WWII began, so it was possible to simply annex it to USSR and that’s it. Germans were expelled from it, and the area was largely empty. Soviet Union decided to make it part of the state called RSFSR, not a new state, even though the annexed parts of easternmost Germany were not connected to the rest of RSFSR.

              When parts of Poland were annexed to USSR in the process of moving Poland westwards, those parts were made part of the “Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic” (which was called “USSR” within Soviet bureaucracy, heh!)

              Why the Kaliningrad area wasn’t made a part of the neighbouring “Lithuanian Socialist Soviet Republic”, is an interesting question! Probably because in Ukraine the Russification was already quite far, in Lithuania absolutely not. (EDIT: well, of course those parts of Poland were predominantly Ukrainian-speaking, and Soviets allowed the Ukrainian-speakers to remain and only deported the Poles from their homes. And at the same time, the new Kaliningrad area was completely emptied of people, which does make a difference!)

              In any case, in 1991 the Soviet Union fell. Each state became an independent country. Kaliningrad was a part of RSFSR, and that became the Russian Federation, so Kaliningrad ended up as a part of the Russia.