Russia - threadbanned users in OP

the battle for Odessa is next after Mariupol falls and then the battle for the Dnieper Valley all the way to link up with the armies attacking the North in Kyiv.....but if China steps in Putin will be happy to just take Mariupol, Kherson and a few other cities in order to take the whole of the coast to the sea of Azov and have a constant flow of water from the Dnieper river to Crimea through the pre-built canal that Ukraine had switched off since 2014

Granny is a national security threat. Off to the Siberian gulag with her. Putin has stressed that Russia needs security, so this goes some way to achieving that.👍️

But if he stays in Ukraine, he's looking at years of crippling sanctions and Russia remaining banned from everything (including the flights, the banks, sport etc). He has created the most almighty mess for himself.

To stop a snake as big as Putin you need more bodies on the ground. One (Ukraine) is not enough.

The Putin nuclear threat will always be there and could happen at any time, now or in the future.

Do we wait until he's massacred tens or hundreds of thousands more?

So unshackle the military might of the free world, and send his murdering army to hell.

"Putin may encircle Kyiv with tanks but he'll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people..."

-Joe Biden

It is my hope it would be none, but we already have civilian casualties.

Here's a question for you: how many Ukrainian kids were killed from 2014 up to 2022? Those are children in the war torn Donbass killed by the Ukrainian Government and Russian-backed Rebels. I can find data only from 2017 up to 2020: https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/f/b/469734.pdf

This is on page 4:

The war was going on in Donbass since 2014. Personally I think it did not get many headlines till 2022, but I have no statistics to prove it. You can also see looking at these casualties that each side can legitimately hate one another.

European/US/Ukrainian/Russian 8-year efforts led nowhere to finish this war. That is why one of the objectives of this 'invasion'(I'll use this word going forward to avoid any outrage among forum members) was 'defence of Donbass' per Putin's speech. When diplomacy ends, war begins.

I don't justify what Putin did because I have no idea about his objectives. I certainly did not expect this scale 'invasion'. I thought only about some small-scale operations aimed at securing a ceasefire in Donbass if it cannot be achieved differently.

Russian version of equipment losses so far.

(I won't link to Tass here as it's just bad fan fiction)

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MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/. A Russian tank participating in the special operation in Ukraine has been attacked with a US Javelin anti-tank missile, the crew suffered a concussion but did not stop fighting, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday.

"A Russian tank was attacked with a US Javelin anti-tank guided missile during the battle. The crew sustained a concussion, but did not abandon the battle," he said adding that after making sure that the vehicle was in good working order, the tank crew destroyed two more enemy tanks with accurate fire.

Konashenkov added that the Russian Defense Ministry would continue to inform about Russian service members’ heroic acts.

Total ban on trade (gas is still flowing). Prohibit all EU companies to do any business in Russia. Same for USA. IAnyway the only thing that would stop the invasion is not something that can be done with a pen. OK, maybe with this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_gun

Another Russian serial liar? No thanks.

Russians possibly still probing any remaining air defence systems.

Were any of the commentaries stating that 10 days was maximum length of time the Russians could afford to pursue this War (before the sanctions) close to accurate?