Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Excellent post. On top of this think the us had known that Putrid would be invading despite his denials all along and had an awful lot of gear,intelligence, money, munitions the lot ready to roll. There may not be NATO boots on the ground there but everything else is piling in.

This kind of thing would be officials. Usually the leaders get involved much later and show up for the photo-op once all the details have been worked out.

Loads of rumours of course. But the interwebs is speculating that Putin is being spirited away to a bunker after threatening nukes.

Could also be that he is hitting the bunker to protect himself from people near him or even a general rebellion/uprising

Or likely could be just general rantings and bollix

Alot of speculation online about Putin's state of mind which seems to have shifted. Ukraine has been independent for 31 years, its 8 years since the annexation of Crimea, perhaps Putins urgency has been ramped up by a health issue be it physical or mental. You can only hope that someone in his inner circle starts to see the light here.

Armageddon?

Time to roll out Aerosmith and Bruce Willis. Putin, your days are numbered

Do we know that with absolute certainty though? In theory he's the commander in chief, the military have to obey his orders to the letter.

There was talk about putting 'guardrails' around Trump to stop him doing something crazy in the final days of his presidency; I'm not confident there are any effective guardrails around Putin.

And hangs the fucker. You'd imagine some of senior lads in Russia are know this is madness. I think a coup could be the best hope.

These talks are pointless, totally pointless. Putin doesnt do half measures, its pure optics and simply buying time for the Russians to reconfigure their war plan which has gone awry so far.

This is rapidly falling apart for Putin here, great in one sense. But as he gets more and more cornered, less and less to lose, it's scary to think what his next step can be.

Also, despite the amazing resistance the Ukrainians are putting up, you'd have to assume they can't sustain that whilst the Russians seem to have bodies in reserve.

The latest nuclear deterrence move means what exactly?

Does anyone find it strange that the NATO countries are being so open about what exactly they're sending to Ukraine? They seem to be there now in all but boots, you have to wonder at what point does Putin interpret that as full on support and decide to attack NATO? It feels like we're on a knife edge really at the moment

I presume that Putin won’t be going to the talks that are planned ? I ask because if he did then maybe the military could pull off a successful version of what was tried and failed in 1991 against Gorbachev.

He is but if those backing him in The Kremlin decide they've had enough he goes. It's been done in the past with other leaders. Putin has shown them all how to create trumped up charges to take care of people.