Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said Ukraine has a contingency plan in place in the event that the Ukrainian government no longer has President Volodymyr Zelensky at the helm as Russia continues to intensify its invasion of the country.
Seems that maybe a message needs to be sent to putin that there may be a spate of, um, heart attacks among his closest advisers and perhaps even himself should anything befall Zelenskey.
I must say that hearing US law makers supporting becoming a signatory to, and under the jurisdiction of the ICC is heartening. /snark.
Always good to have a contingency plan, given Russia’s on-going history of treachery.
Stay safe, President Zelenskey.
Meanwhile, on the home front…
I make no claim to expertise but, from what I have read, it seems increasingly clear that Russia has already lost the strategic war and, astonishingly, may be well into the process of losing the tactical war. Among all predictions this seemed the most unlikely and yet …
That said: Я не русофоб. Я путинофоб. (I am not a Russophobe. I’m Putinophobic). And, whatever happens, and in the way I feel certain Zelensky would most desire, Putin has been defeated.
“Ukraine Has ‘Plans In Place’ To Ensure ‘Continuity Of Gov’t’ If Something Happens To Zelensky.”
Bite your tongue!
(G-d forbid, let it be forever on Rubio’s head.)
The message to Putin is: “You can’t win this.”
The fact is, Putin has already lost this war. He’s just too stupid, stubborn and isolated to know it. He’ll likely disappear soon as a result. Mob bosses don’t last long once all of their capos see them as a liability.
So Putin is the Mob boss and TFG is the liability? Just trying to keep up here…
The headline definitely makes one cringe…
But the message to Putin is quite clear…
You did not just go to war with Zelenskey -
You have gone to war with every Ukrainian …
and almost all of the world is making it clear that “we are all Ukrainians” in this situation.
I have so admired Zelensky and his incredible response to the moment, but I have worried about his cult status and how much people like Putin (and Dump) will resent that (plus his youth). This sends an important message. Zelensky is the man of the match, no doubt, but I suspect the bench is deep. In contrast, it’s Putin alone. I am looking for an own goal. Sorry, for the soccer metaphors–trying to keep it light here.
Sounds like his world has been turned inside out and upside down.
Good.
One of the weird revelations of the invasion (so far) has been just how deep inside their own bubble Putin and his cronies have been, and how they haven’t been able to read some truths that should have been obvious. Sure, all people tend to see what they want to see. Remember when a surprising number of US military folks – not just wackjob neocons, but people who should have known better – refused to believe Iraq had fallen into an insurgency? For, like, two years after it obviously had, in some cases? I thought that would take the cake, but Putin and gang really seem to see the rest of the world in the imperial “you’re either the dominator or the dominated” way that they themselves operate. With that in mind, I’m reading this as a straightforward reminder that “you could capture Kiev, and even capture or kill Ukrainian government officials… but it won’t actually end the government because it doesn’t reside in a person”. To someone like Putin, where l’etat, c’est mois, that’s just crazy talk. So it bears repeating over and over.
Patton Oswalt has a line: “I want to be so rich and famous that no one ever tells me the truth ever again.”
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston S. Churchill
Let’s tape photographs of that family that was killed in Irpin today to windows of McDonalds all over the country, with the slogan, “Hey Ronald, you loving this?”
IRL McDonalds sells franchises and owns like 3% of all the McDonalds. Of course they could announce stoppage of shipments of their weird supplies, but hasn’t that already been achieved?
Migulgl zol er vern in a henglayhter, by tog zol er hengen, un bay nakht zol er brenen.
He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by night.
Yeah, if Zelensky keeps on trying to shame us into WWIII with the no-fly zone, then it might be very convenient to remind him we have other plans if he happens to disappear.
And when their franchisee’s start calling corporate and complaining about the bad publicity?
Besides, screw the franchisees.
God forbid, but I think if they lost Zelenskyy the country would grieve and then fight all the harder. There’s blood in the water, and for as much as the civilians have been brutalized, it’s Russian blood. To a person they’re fighting, with AKs and tractors and jars of cucumbers. If you saw the video of an unarmed crowd backing up a small group of armed but near-panicked Russian soldiers, I think you saw something emblematic of the way things are going to go. It’s not one man. It’s every person, 40 million of them, and a whole globe that admires and loves them. Putin had a weaker hand than anyone suspected, but at that he bluffed and lost. I’m sorry for the ongoing suffering but to anyone who says oh, the Russians are strong, they’ll win in the end, all I can say is don’t bet on it.