It does cool things, but it’s definitely a “Mark Rosewater designs a perpetual card that stays on the side” design. Like dungeons, attractions, day/night, etc.

Of course Ukraine wanted Russia to leave Ukranian territory? That’s like saying Taiwan wants Taiwanese territory even though China has been complaining on the world stage for 50+ years. Borders have always tragically been enforced through the use of force.

And I don’t think the seperatists were as organized as people think - because almost immediately after the first cease fire, a group of seperatists attacked an airport here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Donetsk_Airport

I’m wondering if instead if maliciousness among all the seperatists, it was disorganization. Even if someone was acting as commander, it only works if someone recognizes that person’s command.

I’m not sure there’s any blameless parties here other than the civilians. Russia used scummy US-esque actions - funding seperatists in a country that isn’t theirs and now doing their own forever war trying to play “global cop”; the seperatists who attacked the airport didn’t honor the original agreement pissing off Ukraine; and Ukraine pulled an Isreal and escalated things way too far in retaliation.

Probably the card design categories as well, since if you know a lot of the categories you know what strategies to expect, or even build.

Things like

Removal - spells and abilities that get rid of permanents you don’t like

Board wipes - cards that clear the board of all creatures (including your own), and sometimes other permanents too.

Ramp - cards that get your more mana than you’re usually “supposed” to have at a stage in the game.

Card Draw - spells or abilities with the magic words “draw a card”, or something similar

Looting - spells and abilities that discard a number of cards and draw a number of cards.

Wheels - spells that discard your entire hand and draw a number of number of cards.

Cantrips - a minor effect with the words “draw a card” tacked onto it.

Xerox spells - 1-2 mana Cantrips with the only effect being some library manipulation + “draw a card”. Usually blue.

Counters - spells and abilities with the magic words “counter target spell”, sometimes with a condition for the counter. Usually blue.

Beaters - big creatures

Mill cards - cards that put the top card(s) of someone’s libraries into your graveyard.

Reanimators - cards that drag a creature from a graveyard to the battlefield

Clones - cards that enter as a copy of something

Tribal - cards that care about creature types, like goblins, angels, etc.

Burn - spells and abilities that directly damage your opponents. Usually red.

Stax - cards that interfere with the normal plans of both you and each of your opponents, hopefully your opponents a lot more

Tutors - spells and abilities that search for a specific card in your library

Fog effects - spells and abilities that prevent all damage for a turn, usually from creatures.

Any I’m missing?

The article is garbage, becuase it assumes NATO acts as a cohesive unit beyond being a defensive alliance with a required (and barely enforced) 2% GDP expenditure. NATO as a whole will never send troops to Ukraine - the US and some of its allies MIGHT send aid beyond sending military supplies, but member states are never required to send aid outside of article 5 invasion triggers. Members are never kicked out or penalized in the alliance if they choose to not participate in the US’s forever wars.

NATO did nothing in Donbass. It was Ukraine and a Russia backed seperatist movement making a series of cease fires, both sides ignoring them over and over, and way too many lives tragically lost. Donbass is not Russian or NATO territory.

Yes there was an very harsh coup. Yes the following election was controversial. But the brutal world is Russia had zero reason to care outside of either US style “global cop” warmongering, or extreme paranoia with Ukraine maybe someday joining a defensive alliance. Ukraine is a sovereign nation, and their shitshow should have been their own.

If Russia truely cared about the Crimean people instead of annexing them for empire building, they’d have opened their borders to Ukrainian migrants and refugees instead of invading.

This isn’t a war between “NATO and Russia”, this is a war between Ukraine and a Russia that is either Warmongering in a sovereign nation to empire build, or a Russia that is Isreal levels of paranoid.

I read the report, and it only says instances where ceasefire were violated.

So I looked up why there was border shelling in the donbas region, and found a French article here. Its a bit goofy in trying to make France look good in the situation, but it is a French source, and importantly, it’s neutral towards both parties.

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220219-live-osce-monitors-report-dramatic-increase-in-ukraine-ceasefire-violations

And a source from All Jezeera for context in 2020: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/29/ukraine-ceasefire-violated-more-than-100-times-within-days-osce

The timeline for the ceasefire violations seem to look like:

In 2020, Donbass has had an over 20 ceasefire agreements broken. Ukraine and Russian backed rebel groups blame eachother, and its hard to determine who is the overall aggressor.

Ceasefire aggreements between Ukraine and Rebels in the region aren’t worth the toilet paper they are written on since they keep firing at each other and breaking them in 2022.

US says Russia likely to invade due to troop movements near border. Russia denies. Ukraine doesn’t trust Russia after the Crimean annexation.

There is shelling near the border and Ukraine is mad. Russian backed seperatists in the eastern region seem to be to blame for escalation?

Ukraine fires back accross border (“north 122 shells” from the OSCE report in the Donbass region). The TASS article claims this is the starting point of aggression.

The 2000+ ceasefire violation shitshow occurs from both sides in the Donbass region. US continues to think Russia will invade Ukraine.

Russia invades Ukraine. NATO starts sending weapons to Ukraine after a while, etc.

So at second and third glances, it looks like the situation is a lot more “he said she said” than straight up “Ukraine performed a bunch of ceasefire violations Donbass.” and TASS wasn’t exactly representing the full situation. You can’t trust direct Russian or Ukrainian sources because they are at war, and will be extremely biased in favor of their country’s politics.

More recent news of a Wagner official admitting to founding a troll farm - Not to say the article is incorrect at hillary being an unliked candidate in 2016.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/europe/russia-yevgeny-prigozhin-internet-research-agency-intl/index.html

Tass is russian controlled state media, and it’s not wise to trust direct Ukrainian Government or Russian Government sources during wartime.

Is there a clear source on the ceasefire violations? Like is the OSCC report reliable? Most news spurces seem to be a bunch of “Russia did it first / Ukraine did it first” accusations like the one here:

https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2022/02/russia-ukraine-sharp-rise-in-ceasefire-violations-reported-along-donbas-line-of-contact-as-of-feb-18-update-16

Ukraine was practicing to blow up the dam and even hit a valve before.

Do you have any neutral sources on this like telegram sources? The only sources I can find are far right RT spam.

Ukraine used water as a weapon with Crimea and blew up the Kerch bridge which justified Russia’s attacks on civilian infrastructure.

I’m not surprised that Ukraine blew up bridges, since blowing up bridges is very much in line with NATO-esque doctrine. It makes sense they’d do that after their military “decommunization” training with foreign militaries.

Hey guys, wanna leak classified military secrets on my minecraft discord server?

I don’t know why people would expect the Russian military to not be behind the attack on the dam when they have a long history of targetting civilian infrastructure.

The Ukrainian military doesn’t have a history of false flag operations, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to be behind an attack on a dam that wouldn’t benefit them.

Yeah, ukraine does have a non-zero facist problem. The country does deserve valid criticism.

I just wish Russia supporters would stop using it as justification for the invasion. The denazification propoganda as a false flag for “putin wants to restore the old USSR by invading a sovereign nation” is insanely annoying, and means any valid criticism is drowned out by wondering if it’s far right Russia Today talking points.