Russia - threadbanned users in OP

When I hear about numbers of weapons sent I get angry. There should be no f'ing numbers there should be a constant supply of everything they need. F'sake.

I decided to do a little research and took a look at TASS, have a glance at

this for doublespeak nonsense.

This would be up there with:

"Delighted Irish citizens hold parade for Black and Tans" or "Ecstatic Poles celebrate as SS enters Warsaw"

They have been ordered to attack from all sides but haven't succeeded yet as Ukrainians are holding them off. General Wesley Clark, former NATO head honcho, reckons a couple more days for Kyiv.

The European Union is weighing up banning Russian flights in its airspace, an EU official told Reuters.

Foreign ministers will discuss the plans later on Sunday. Many countries have already taken the decision individually but an EU-wide measure could be part of a new package of sanctions.

All Russias security issues might have been allayed if they had emerged as a normal country from the collapse of the soviet union. They may have become a democracy and joined NATO as a counter balance to the US in NATO. Instead we got Boris Yeltsin who oversaw the plundering of Russia by Oligarchs followed by Putin who protected the interest of those same Oligarchs.

I hope this this does result in his head on a stick but I would not wish for another Regime. I would wish for a government that is replaced every 5 years, a parliament and power vested in a prime minister, and a presidential position as figurehead only.

Hang on, I don't understand the land corridor to the Black Sea thing. Do they mean a land corridor along the coast between occupied Crimea and the breakaway regions in Donbas? Otherwise, looking at a map, Russia already appears to have a lot of access to the Black Sea. Sochi sits right on the coast.

Leaks from the Oligarchs summit with Putin seem like they are already running very low on short to medium range rockets and are finding it very hard to replenish supplies themselves. If true they are gonna have to take the entire city on foot which considering how many weapons are in civilians hands is going to be a nightmare and maybe not possible.

Russia has literally never been a functioning democracy. We can all wish devoutly for it to become one but democracy is a plant that requires deep roots, it hasn't even penetrated the topsoil in Russia.

Indeed, this was well explained on a report yesterday by a Russian journalist

The main state controlled Russian outlets, which the majority of Russians use for their news are reporting that the "special operation" is going well, there are no pictures of Kyiv or the fighting elsewhere in Ukraine, no mentions of Russian casualties whatsoever

Russians do have access to the internet, but the country doesn't have that penetration others do, and it's mostly only young professionals who get their news from abroad.

He's made one bad gamble after another here. He gambled on a very swift end to this, that Ukrainians would not fight and that the West would not respond in such a united way as completely as it has done and is still doing. He also gambled that Western governments would not face populations responding to higher energy prices and those populations are more than willing to do so. Finally, the quick German shift on SWIFT and the very big one on weapons exports were not in whatever plan he had.

So they’re just letting the Ukrainian’s get up to speed tooled up by the west and organised before they send in their best ?

Watching RT news last night, the Ukrainians are shelling their own schools. 🙄

Indeed, the Russians can go in much harder than this, they did it to Chechnya.

If Russia continues to struggle making headway, and that could certainly change, how about this as a peace deal -

1. Russia to withdraw all forces, including from Donbas
2. Russia to pay reparations for war damages
3. Internationally-observed referendum held for Crimean accession to Russian Federation

To be fair on the Crimea question, even leaving aside the 2014 referendum, there have been two previous referenda in 1991 and 1994 where the questions were, "Do you want to leave Ukraine and be your own SSR?" and "Do you want greater autonomy from Ukraine and be able to hold dual citizenship?", respectively, and in both cases the answer was overwhelmingly 'yes'. So, I think the question does at least need to be decidedly asked if Crimea wishes to be a part of Ukraine or not. It would give Russia a chance to save face and pipe down a bit.

Still, any peace deal with Russia comes with the troubling suspicion that peace deals with Russia may not be worth so much.