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Russian invasion of Ukraine imminent, BBC reports

wetnose

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EU set to suspend visa travel agreement with Russia


EU foreign ministers are this week set to back a suspension of the bloc’s visa facilitation agreement with Moscow in an effort to curb the number of travel permits issued after some eastern member states threatened to unilaterally close their borders to Russian tourists.

Some countries have demanded collective action to stop ordinary Russians from travelling to the EU on tourist visas, in the latest challenge for the bloc as it tries to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine while maintaining unity among its 27 members.

Countries including the Czech Republic and Poland stopped issuing visas to Russian tourists shortly after president Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. They have since demanded that Brussels enact a complete ban, echoing a plea from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

But others have continued to grant the travel documents, allowing Russians with visas to travel anywhere in the the Schengen free-movement area.

As a first step, ministers plan to give political support to suspending the EU-Russia visa facilitation agreement at a two-day meeting in Prague that begins on Tuesday, three officials involved in the talks told the Financial Times.

“It is inappropriate for Russian tourists to stroll in our cities, on our marinas,” said a senior EU official involved in the talks. “We have to send a signal to the Russian population that this war is not OK, it is not acceptable.”

Parts of the 2007 deal(opens a new window) relating to free movement of government officials and businessmen were suspended in late February. A wider suspension would remove preferential treatment for Russians when applying for all EU visas, requiring more documents, making them more expensive and significantly increasing waiting times.

“We are in an exceptional situation and it requires exceptional steps. We want to go beyond suspending the visa facilitation,” said the senior EU official, adding that deeper changes could be introduced by the end of the year.

However, there is no consensus on additional measures that Brussels could take that would either reduce the number of EU visas to be issued to Russians or halt their issuance entirely, or on proposals such as extending any ban to citizens of Belarus, which has supported Putin’s invasion.
 
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sene5hos

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I wonder if Putin is going to attend Gorbachev's funeral ?

1661975096594.png
 
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EagerBeaver

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Putin critic defenestrated (thrown out of hospital window to his death):
 

EagerBeaver

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Here is the Central Clinical Hospital, the most prestigious hospital in Moscow. Maganov was defenestrated from a 6th floor window. Gorbachev died at the same hospital 2 days ago, and reportedly Putin visited Maganov earlier in the day of his defenestration:
1662073527479.png
 
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EagerBeaver

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Look at this, Ukrainian Kostyuk refused to shake hands with the victorious Belarusian Vicky Azarenka at the US Open after losing to her, this because of Azarenka's silence on Ukraine War:
 
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Fradi

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Around the corner
It can’t be easy for Russian or Belarusian athletes to take sides against Russia even if they don’t live there as they all still have relatives in these countries who would be at risk.
They also stay in high rise hotels that have many windows.
 
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EagerBeaver

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This Daily Mail Article analyzes NUMEROUS defenestrations of Putin critics thrown out of windows to their deaths. For some reason the defenestration has replaced poisoning as Putin's favorite method of silencing critics:
It seems like the critics who lived in tall apartment buildings all were thrown out of them.

Regarding Maganov, there was no suicide note and no cameras that captured the fall or what preceded it.
 
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wetnose

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From Gorbachev's visit to Canada in 1983, before he became leader:


At the time of the visit, 52-year-old Gorbachev was a rising star. Two years after he’d been named to head the Soviet Central Committee’s agricultural portfolio in 1978, he received full member status within the ruling Politburo. Ailing General Secretary Yuri Andropov saw Gorbachev as a lieutenant who could fight the corruption that had stifled the country during the later years of Leonid Brezhnev’s reign. Gorbachev would be only the second member of the Politburo to visit Canada (former premier Alexei Kosygin travelled here in 1971).

The Soviet delegation landed in Ottawa during the afternoon of May 16. “On the tarmac,” Whelan recalled, “Mikhail greeted me with a great big Russian bear hug.” The next day began with Gorbachev addressing a meeting of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence. He attempted to humanize the Soviet side of the Cold War, blamed the Americans for repeatedly raising the temperature, and proposed closer relations between Canada and the Soviet Union. “The distance between the continents,” he declared, “should not be measured by the minutes of flight of ballistic missiles but by the closeness of our human values, the most basic of which is life itself.”

May 20 saw a full schedule of stops, starting with a tour of the Hiram Walker plant in Windsor. From there, it was off to Leamington to visit the Sun Parlour Greenhouse Growers Co-Operative. According to Whelan, that stop stuck in Gorbachev’s mind throughout the rest of the trip. “As Gorbachev was leaving, [greenhouse owner Gino] Pannunzio shook his hand and said, ‘I’m just a little tomato farmer, and I know you’re from a big country, but I don’t think my wishes are any different from yours or those of your people. I hope and pray for peace for you and your people.’”

At all stops, Gorbachev had no shortage of questions, especially concerning expenses and revenue. “Dapper, soft-spoken and completely at ease with farmers and businessmen he encountered on the day-long tour, Gorbachev soaked up a wealth of information on area food production,” the Windsor Star observed. As for how the trip affected Gorbachev, Shulgan concluded that “he realized how far ahead the Western world was, and he saw how the personal ownership of land and the proceeds of labour could motivate a work force.”
 
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wetnose

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Things aren't going well for Russia, in day 195 of its 3 day "special military operation".

What's next: spy satellites from Cuba? Submarines from Mongolia?


Russia is buying millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea to support its invasion of Ukraine, according to a newly declassified US intelligence finding.

A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that the fact Russia’s defence ministry had turned to Pyongyang demonstrated that “the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine, due in part to export controls and sanctions”.
 
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wetnose

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Meanwhile, Ukraine has started its counter offensive - Kherson in the south, and Kharkiv in the north. The stated objective is not necessarily to gain back ground but to degrade the Russian invaders #s and capabilities.

 
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sene5hos

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On the morning of September 8, Vitaly Ganchev, a Russia-appointed administrative head of the Kharkiv region in occupied north-eastern Ukraine, boasted about how an attack by Ukrainian forces had been repulsed and taken heavy losses. The key city of Balakliia, he told Russian state television, was “under our control”.

By that afternoon, however, multiple videos posted on social media showed Ukrainian troops streaming across what Ganchev had earlier claimed was Russian-occupied territory. One video showed Ukrainian soldiers hoisting a flag above the town of Balakliia.

That evening, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed Ukrainian forces had taken more than 1,000 sq km of territory.
 

sene5hos

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KYIV, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Ukrainian forces have seized an expanding area of previously Russian-held territory in the east in a "very sharp and rapid" advance, a Russian-installed regional official said on Friday, in a breakthrough that may mark a turning point in the war.

After keeping silent for a day, Russia effectively acknowledged a section of its frontline had crumbled southeast of Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv.
 
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neverbored

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"IT BEGINS: The Moscow Times reports that after the collapse of the Kharkiv front, Putin retreated to his Sochi mansion and cancelled meetings with his military staff. In other news: the Kremlin announces referendums on the annexation of UKR territories have been cancelled."

 
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