Fiery The Angels Fell, Ukraine Edition.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those...moments will be lost in time, like tears...in rain. Time to die. ~Roy Batty, Blade Runner.

I just saw this. Video of an Mi-35 Hind being shot down by a MANPADS (MAN-Portable Air Defense System) likely an FIM-92 Stinger missile team in Ukraine.

Watch for that sudden stop at the bottom, Comrades.

Sorry, but I have no sympathy on this one. 

The Russians needed to fuck around and find out. Seems like that's about how this is going. Maybe, if this keeps up for a bit longer, they'll give up and go home. And think twice before they invade another country again. 

Yes, I know, this is mostly about one angry, deranged small man's ego. But too many people have gone along with this shit for too long. That's why that one guy is even a problem now.

Zelensky sits at a table with some of his soldiers in some roughed-out bunker somewhere in the field, talking about the War or the latest Football match or whatever Soldiers talk about when they got an honest-to-god chance to shoot the shit with a real honest-to-god hero. Somehow, the fact that he's their President seems...less relevant to them than that he's eating the same food, drinking from the same kind of cup and eating the same food while he's fighting the same fight that they are. These men, sitting at a common table, are tired, but at ease. Dude cares for his troops, you can see it.

Putin on the other hand sits at the end of some farcically-long table like the one in the first part of Coming To America where Akeem and the King had to talk to each other by intercom. Seriously, I don't know how the hell people look at this guy and see some kind of heroic strength.

Zelensky is That Guy, Putin is not. 

Hell, you can't even see enough of the people on the other end of the table to get some kind of impression of them. The distance between this man and his people is not just metaphorical or physical, it's a spiritual fact. He doesn't give a shit about any of them. And I would imagine they know it, and that's no small part of why the Russian Army is repeatedly getting its collective ass beat in the field.

For all of Russia's firepower and technical advantages, the Ukrainians are holding their own because they believe in their country, their god, and their leaders more than the Russians do.

Earlier today, Zelensky was on a Zoom call with a bunch of US Congress-members, and despite instructions not to, three Republicans Tweeted pictures of Zelensky.

I mean, dude literally has Chechens, the FSB, hell, the whole of the damn Russian Army after his ass and you're going to Tweet his picture and the fact that you're in this conversation when you were specifically asked not to? I mean, come on Marco, what the fuck?

Not that I think Captain Random Bible Verse cares one bit about Zelensky. It's a proven fact that Marco Rubio doesn't give a shit about anybody but Marco Rubio.

President Zelensky is basically the defender of the free world in this moment, and this is how he's treated by the "Conservatives?"

Of course it is. Who am I kidding even asking?

I saw the other day that when an Orthodox cathedral in Kyiv was damaged by Russian bombs, Zelensky said of Putin and the Russians "You can hide from us, but a bunker will not protect you from God." Note, Zelensky is Jewish. He didn't have to say that, concerning a Christian church, but he did it anyway.

Republicans, on the other hand, seem much more comfortable with Putin's Potemkin Russian Orthodox religiosity. It's worth noting that though 41% of Russians are Orthodox and 6% or so belong to other Christian faiths, both the number of actively observant Christians and the percentage of Christians as part of the population are far lower than in the United States.

And the amounts of abortion, alcoholism and drug  use are also higher as a percentage of the population.

So a lot of this talk about Putin and Russia having "Christian values" is pure crap, put forth by those who love Putin's authoritarianism far more than Russia's imagined Christian hegemony.

And more to the point of that 6% and change that are "Other Christians" the Evangelicals, Fundamentalists and Pentecostals are persecuted by the State, as increasingly are members of other religions...and Russia is a very religiously diverse country, just like the United States is.

And in point of fact, that this is known is one of the reasons why the Ukrainians...especially Ukrainian Believers...are fighting so hard against the Russian Army.

Likewise, it seems like not very many people actually want to fight all that hard for Russia.

And the fact that American Christians and "Conservatives" ignore the fact that their kind of Christians are persecuted in Russia tells me just as surely as their inability to follow simple directions does, that everything else that comes out of these people's mouths is a lie.

They don't care about any of this stuff. They don't care about anything at all.

They just like the idea of a country with an authoritarian President, an oligarchy, and a rubber-stamp government. It has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with actively undermining democracy and those who fight for it.

Of course, when I see it all over the internet today that a Russian recon squad got themselves trapped in an elevator because they were trying to get to the top of a building for Over-watch and too lazy to take the stairs...so the Ukrainians just cut the power to the elevator...I can honestly say I'm not too impressed with the forces of Authoritarianism here. Way to fail MOUT training on your first day, Comrades. I mean...Jesus. Dudes, what the fuck? You always take the stairs. In Military Operations in Urban Terrain training it's generally assumed the power is out.

And this is the enemy here, yo. These are the people think when they done with the Ukrainians they gonna take on NATO.

They cannot even subdue Ukraine. Think on that.

I find it disgusting that, when this is all over, we're probably going to find out that a big chunk of Putin's base of supporters was right here in the United States.

I'm a child of the late Cold War, a former Christian, a former conservative Republican, and I served my country. It makes me very, very damned angry that there is such a thing as an American who would support a KGB agent like Vladimir Putin for any reason whatever.

I don't give a damn what it is.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't. If American Conservatism rejects freedom then it becomes functionally incompatible with America. It's really that simple. Like tears in rain, time to die.

I'll tell you what. Take away any of the privilege or social status that goes with being a Christian in America and I'll bet you $10 that millions of these fucking people leave the faith of their own accord.

Meanwhile, the average Ukrainian would kill for what we have here. Hell, they're killing Russians like it's going out of style just to even keep on the path they're on so they can eventually have a chance to have a little of what we have here.

Think about that, too.

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan