[W. K. Lis]

The Russian leadership is said to be oligarch. What does that mean?

From link.

An oligarch is one of the select few people who rule or influence leaders in an oligarchy—a government in which power is held by a select few individuals or a small class of powerful people.​

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Oligarchs can be the actual leaders, or they can influence or control the decisions that the leaders make (meaning they’re the ones “pulling the strings” behind the scenes).​

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Oligarchy is never used as an official term for a form of government (like monarchy is, for example)—it’s almost always applied as a criticism of such situations. It is frequently used as a way of pointing out the influence of the wealthy and powerful in politics and government—an influence that’s typically used to benefit themselves. Oligarch is used in the same way.​

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A country that is thought to have an oligarchic government can also be referred to as an oligarchy, as in Many outsiders view the nation as an oppressive oligarchy. ​

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Oligarchy can also refer to the class of people who have the power in this kind of system, as in The country was run by an oligarchy consisting of a few powerful industrialists.​

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The word oligarch can refer to a person who’s a part of an oligarchy in any of the senses of the word.​

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The word oligarch is especially associated with and applied to Russian figures known for their wealth and political influence. These figures are frequently called Russian oligarchs and are sometimes referred to collectively as the Russian oligarchy.​

In Russia, (Ras)Putin government is an oligarch.

In USA, the Trump family is an oligarchy.

 

[ShonTron]

It would be great if the dish known as "poutine" were to be renamed Zelensky.

Why?

In French, Russian President Vladimir Putin's surname is spelled "Poutine." Given that the dish originated in Quebec, it would be very uncomfortable for anyone supporting Ukraine in Putin's invasion of said country but enjoy eating it to eat the dish under its current name of poutine.

By renaming the dish Zelensky after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, restaurants selling the dish can show solidarity to Ukraine.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Such an appetizing Zelensky.

It's not the first time popular dishes were renamed for patriotic reasons.

1. The mix of meat gravy and cheese makes poutine decidedly not kosher, probably not a good idea to name it for a Jew.

2. As much as a good poutine is delicious, it’s still gross, and shouldn’t be named in honour of anyone.

 

[MisterF]

Putin fires back and writes his own disco song
Rasputin
he's listening right now in his office

Could be worse. He could try to rap.

 

[Admiral Beez]

This will be over by the end of this month. No one is coming to Ukraine's aid and the Russians, now realizing that the 2nd tier force they sent is insufficient are now sending in their best stuff. Note to date the near total absence of the VVS, the Russian air force and it's over one thousand strike-fighters, that is changing now. Kyiv will fall to the Russians within the next week, with Grozny-like street fighting for another month.

 

[Towered]

This will be over by the end of this month. No one is coming to Ukraine's aid and the Russians, now realizing that the 2nd tier force they sent is insufficient are now sending in their best stuff. Note to date the near total absence of the VVS, the Russian air force and it's over one thousand strike-fighters, that is changing now. Kyiv will fall to the Russians within the next week, with Grozny-like street fighting for another month.

Followed by a huge insurgency lasting for years. No Russian controlled government that gets installed will ever be accepted by the Ukrainians. And the West should keep piling up more and more debilitating sanctions. I believe the UK's foreign minister yesterday said they aim to collapse the Russian economy. This will end as a catastrophic blunder on Putin's part. Hopefully some saner heads in Moscow will come together and the creep will have his Julius Caesar moment.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Followed by a huge insurgency lasting for years. No Russian controlled government that gets installed will ever be accepted by the Ukrainians. And the West should keep piling up more and more debilitating sanctions. I believe the UK's foreign minister yesterday said they aim to collapse the Russian economy. This will end as a catastrophic blunder on Putin's part. Hopefully some saner heads in Moscow will come together and the creep will have his Julius Caesar moment.

Not only that - the West can fund and arm the insurgency indefinitely (not so ironically with the now frozen assets) - nevermind take a page from what Russia has done in Syria and directly engage with irregular forces. In the meantime, Putin can bleed himself dry of the human resources of his country.

AoD

 

[W. K. Lis]

Sainsbury’s becomes first supermarket to rename chicken kiev to kyiv​

From link.

Sainsbury’s has become the first UK supermarket to change the name of its chicken kiev to chicken kyiv in support of Ukraine.

In an announcement on Friday, the retailer said the new packaging will be rolled out across its stores in the coming weeks.

The news comes in response to a social media campaign which had called on major grocers including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer to change the name of the popular chicken dish.

Kyiv, the name of Ukraine’s capital city, is a spelling derived from the Ukrainian language name ÐиÑв, while Kiev is from the Russian language name Ðиев.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration has estimated that a total of 1.25 million people have fled Ukraine since 24 February when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of the country.

Sainsbury’s said it has also removed all products that are “100 per cent sourced from Russia” from its shelves.

“We stand united with the people of Ukraine. We have reviewed our product range and have decided to remove from sale all products that are 100 per cent sourced from Russia,” a statement said.

“This means that from today we will no longer sell two products – Russian Standard vodka and Karpayskiye black sunflower seeds.”

Additionally, the supermarket has donated £2 million to Comic Relief to support Ukrainians affected by the war.

Dozens of other companies have either suspended trading in Russia or announced they will no longer sell Russian products since the start of the war.

Russian Standard Vodka, which is distilled in St Petersburg, has also been removed from shelves in Co-op Food stores and Morrisons.

On Thursday, Marks & Spencer said it has suspended shipments to its stores in Russia, which are operated by Turkish franchise partners, “given the unfolding humanitarian crisis” in Ukraine.

However, a spokesperson for the retailer told the Independent that it would not be changing the name of its chicken kievs.

“Marks & Spencer will always use the Kyiv spelling whenever and wherever we are talking about the Ukrainian city,” a spokesperson said.

“‘Chicken kiev’ has been in use for over 100 years and has been recognised by our customers since M&S brought the product to the high street in the 1970s.”

 

[Bjays92]

Apparently it has the potential to be 10× worse than Chernobyl if it blows.

It could take a large chunk of eastern and central europe with it

I just wanna clarify, that based on everything I've seen this is not the case.

Obviously an explosion at the plant would be very bad, but nuclear power plants are built in a completely different manner today than they were back when Chernobyl was built. If this plant were to explode, it would be much more akin to what happened at Fukushima as opposed to Chernobyl.

Like I said, obviously still not good, but the reactors are made to withstand an incredible amount of force, so the main threat is not direct shelling but rather power loss within the facility which turns off the cooling mechanisms leading to a meltdown and explosion. This would hopefully be largely contained within the facility, but the worst predictions I saw had a fallout radius of a few dozen kilometers.

Again, it's a very alarming situation but it is not a Chernobyl level disaster. The bigger issue imo is if the plant goes offline, so dose 25% of Ukraine's power.

 

[W. K. Lis]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499794642522591237

 

[DSC]

I just wanna clarify, that based on everything I've seen this is not the case.

Obviously an explosion at the plant would be very bad, but nuclear power plants are built in a completely different manner today than they were back when Chernobyl was built. If this plant were to explode, it would be much more akin to what happened at Fukushima as opposed to Chernobyl.

Like I said, obviously still not good, but the reactors are made to withstand an incredible amount of force, so the main threat is not direct shelling but rather power loss within the facility which turns off the cooling mechanisms leading to a meltdown and explosion. This would hopefully be largely contained within the facility, but the worst predictions I saw had a fallout radius of a few dozen kilometers.

Again, it's a very alarming situation but it is not a Chernobyl level disaster. The bigger issue imo is if the plant goes offline, so dose 25% of Ukraine's power.

Absolutely true, there are some around here (and in general) who hear some scrap of news and immediately assume the worst about almost everything.

 

[afransen]

Not only that - the West can fund and arm the insurgency indefinitely (not so ironically with the now frozen assets) - nevermind take a page from what Russia has done in Syria and directly engage with irregular forces. In the meantime, Putin can bleed himself dry of the human resources of his country.

AoD

I wonder about the ethics of feeding a proxy war that will end up annihilating Ukraine.

 

[afransen]

Even Chernobyl was not as bad as people think. Very few were actually killed by the disaster, as bad as it was. There was some elevated disease risk and birth defects, but those are more a consequence of Soviet neglect in mitigating those harms. Europe was never at any real risk, and the HBO miniseries spread a lot of disinformation about how bad Chernobyl could have become. In reality, nuclear power is the safest source of power so far developed, in terms of deaths/unit energy produced.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I wonder about the ethics of feeding a proxy war that will end up annihilating Ukraine.

There are no ethical issues with feeding weapons and materiel to a people who are willing to use them to defend themselves from an invasion. They aren't the ones who started the war with an opponent who are ultimately the ones who'd have to do the annihilating, if it ever gets to that. Don't guilt trip one-self into thinking otherwise.

AoD

 

[afransen]

I don't have a problem with supporting them for now. But if it gets to be a 5, 10, 15 year occupation, do we want to be feeding weapons to extend the fighting? Eventually there won't be anything left of the country, or it will more closely resemble Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

[DSC]

Even Chernobyl was not as bad as people think. Very few were actually killed by the disaster, as bad as it was. There was some elevated disease risk and birth defects, but those are more a consequence of Soviet neglect in mitigating those harms. Europe was never at any real risk, and the HBO miniseries spread a lot of disinformation about how bad Chernobyl could have become. In reality, nuclear power is the safest source of power so far developed, in terms of deaths/unit energy produced.

I think you need to do some fact checking. While between 30 and 50 people actually died in the explosion, a FAR larger number of people (including those who worked on sealing the breach) and people in many countries were exposed to radiation which certainly reduced their life spans. Yes, a better built plant and faster action could have reduced this, somewhat, once the radiation escaped it escaped and is still there in the soil! That said, the plant in Ukraine was built in a different way so a total breach was (is) less likely to be quite as serious a disaster.