Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Dammit, mutant, you stole my goodbye...

Totally agree. IMHO this is largely about the fear that Ukraine a large country physically and population wise might develop into a functioning democracy and having that sitting on his doorstep in stark contrast to life under his authoritarian dictatorship in Russia as well as the authoritarian regime in Belarus would seriously destabilize the authoritarian regimes grip on power in Russia. There also does seem to be a certain amount of yearning for a re-establishing of the old Russia empire aka the USSR on Putins part but that also fits right in with the fear of a functioning democracy developing in Ukraine.

Some early news items

Ukraine is set to receive more Stinger and Javelin missiles from abroad, as well as another shipment of Turkish drones, according to Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov.

Germany is prepared should Russia stop exporting gas to the country, minister for the economy Robert Habeck has said.

Asked by Deutschlandfunk radio what the government would do if Russia stops gas exports, Reuters reports Habeck replied:

We are prepared for that. I can give the all-clear for the current winter and summer. For the next winter, we would take further measures.

Russia cancelled a bid to send four of its warships through Turkish waters into the Black Sea at Turkey’s request, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, adding the decision was made before Ankara closed the straits over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian research ship, Yantar, widely known to be a spy vessel and capable of underse aoperations is currently sitting off the coast of Denmark. This vessel was working off the Mayo Coast in August, right over the optical cables on the sea bed in the area where the Russian navy conducted their "training" exercises.

There is nothing currently showing on ATIS, but I'm surprised that there is no overwatch of that area being conducted by NATO at the moment, given its vulnerability.

People are trying to make sense of this and most are pretty angry about it so it's not a surprise to see some respond accordingly but I can't say I've seen clichés about Russians. Almost everyone has acknowledged that this is a Putin war, not a Russian one and certainly not one supported by the Russian nation. Yes, the adult comment applies to all posters even those judgemental know better posters wagging fingers at others.

Yeah I read that, she makes some very good points but also a little bit histrionic. Annoying article format too!

UK MoD on the latest situation.

if this is the case, with people living outside Russia thinking like this, what are the chances of people living within Russia to oppose Putin?

Our government, and whether you like them or no,they are our Irish government support Ukraine in its war with the Russian invaders. IMO, and I have to be careful as I received a warning already, those who do not condemn putin regardless of their nationality should be treated as enemies of our state.

There is a third option. Ukrainian forces begin a pushback and begin to take the upper hand.

There seems to be a lot of activity on the ground and in the air over and around Ukraine that we, as ordinary citizens, are not aware of. But there are many clues.

The OSINT Community are seeing signs that it may be possible for the Ukranians to take full advantage of Russian difficulties. NATO and USAF aircraft are feeding enormous amounts of data to the Ukranian armed forces on troop movements. The West have supplied and trained the Ukranians to use Western compatible encrypted Data and Communication equipment over the last few years.

It's highly likely, as one poster mentioned earlier, that a move against the large military column will happen very soon. If that does occur, the game is up for Russia.

I was reading that conscripts get under $25 a month for their required year whereas those with a 3 year contract get over $1000. That hardly helps morale.

Think it's highly unlikely Ukraine have the bodies to push the Russians back much as I would love it to happen .Putin will unleash whatever he has and that is a lot . Still hoping against hope he is stopped but am pretty worried for the people of Ukraine .

There needs to be investigations into people and lobby groups at least. It was found that there were Gazprom funded lobbyists who were funded to try and get countries to abandon nuclear.

Russia were also siphoning money to fund Anti-Fracking campaign's

With the exception of 2-4, I don't think any Irish politicians have been compromised by Russia. But there are NGOs constantly in the ears of government politicians in regard to Green issues. We abandoned our own gas exploration. We shut down our power production plants. We banned turf burning and then proceeded to import it from Latvia because it was too soon.

Everything was too soon. The push was hard. We could all see it was too soon. Except for politicians who were getting lobbied hard.

And I haven't even mentioned the dodgy stuff that the former German chancellor was doing with Gazprom. It's all there for Gerhard Schroeder.