Ironically it actually all hinges on the West and not Putin.
Nato and the EU have to make a big decision, does it allow Ukraine “take one for the team”, ie allow them to be crushed in an unjust manner by not helping them, or does it escalate to save Ukraine but basically start WW3.
China ain’t no charity.
There's plenty of internal strife within Russia. A country that large is never homogeneous. There's dozens of factions who would prefer to be independent and will sense blood in the water. He's not going to nuke his own country.
My concern is this keeps ratcheting up and you end up with Putin deciding to use a tactical nuclear strike on Ukraine or on somewhere else.
The only hope really is the oligarchs and the general population feel the economic heat enough that they decide to do something about it and move against Putin.
The question is do they have the power to do that. Modern Russia doesn’t exactly have a wonderful history people power against the state. The last time that happened really was the Russian Revolution in 1917.
Also in this case it’s more of an imperial driven agenda, so you’ll have patriotism and offended egos.
If they can’t have impact on their leadership, and they’re either powerless or unwilling to rock the boat, there’s a huge problem.
Netflix pulled out a few days ago.
****..
I doubt very much that they are "Kidnappable" in the normal sense...except maybe by a SEAL /SAS type military operation.
🤣
Well not exactly, I'm more wondering if for instance the Russian army on the front fires off all its guided missiles or whatever, do they put in an order to the Acme Guided Missile factory in Kazan, and will the sanctions affect their ability to fulfill their order?
They could also borrow from China too in the unlikely event that they would need to.
He has 6,000 nukes, no one in their right mind is going to attack him
Lads, this just feels like it's escalating out of control at the moment. Heavy sanctions on Russia, terrible bloody fighting in Ukraine, Putin making mental statements on TV. I'm worried about how much more pressure this whole situation can withstand before it becomes a wider conflict.
Potentially. Especially if they’re in a 3rd country and it’s just contact law. It doesn’t necessarily follow that just because a country is being neutral on Ukraine that it wouldn’t follow through on a leasing company claiming back an asset that’s theirs.
You're wondering if ammunition has a "shoot by" date.
And this doesn't end in Kiev or Odessa. There'll be a Ukrainian up every second tree or down every ditch with a javelin or high powered rifle. If you look at the map they have taken less than 1/10 of the total land mass and as they get more spread out they become more vulnerable and weaker.
Dmytro Kuleba (Ukranian Foreign Affairs Minister) has a theory about that...
Despite how the Ukrainians are coping, I still think their future looks very grim. The more "plausible" scenarios for me would be that Russia grinds away at a city at a time, taking them over gradually, replacing the administration, FSB disappear people, fake "referendums" and all that. They'll still continue to lose material and men, but their military should be able to adapt, they aren't stupid. Kremlin has full control of domestic propaganda, no issues controlling the narrative there. The declining economy is blamed firmly on the West and "Western hysteria" seeking to punitively attack Russia just as it was engaging in an operation for it's own security. The West will be blamed for turning that operation into a "war" by supplying so many arms and "mercenaries/terrorists" to Ukraine. Probably a few manufactured incidents, false flags, cities "welcoming" Russian soldiers, all that. Russian economy will go down the tube, but Putin and his cohorts will be fine, a few oligarchs defect maybe. As Ukrainian vehicles are destroyed, soldiers will resort more to infantry and guerilla tactics, hit and run, and Russia will use that to claim their forces are under terrorist attack. A few muslim fighters will be found, so "ISIS are with Ukraine". Conflict grinds on, Ukrainians end up having to accept some horrendous peace deal to salvage what's left of their country and lose territory to the Russians
It's perverse. I'm tired of radicals on all sides waving their political allegiences around like a badge of honor -- they should be ashamed of themselves for being so egotistical, so one-dimensional, and for letting their ideology blind them to universal rights and wrongs. I think we are in for a period of navel gazing in Europe, about our civilization and what we stand for. We're just going to have get over stupid culture war issues and work as one.
the ukranian men are staying behind to fight the russian war .. perhaps the poor unfortunate ukranian women and children will build our over priced houses for us...
The only thing I would say is in Russia a huge percentage of the population can just fire up VPNs and skirt around restrictions. It’s the same in China.
It won’t be driven by desperation to get news, but more likely entertainment services, social media, Netflix, YouTube, downloading games, and apps and even porn, etc but it’ll bring in plenty of news along side.
I know alot of their steel comes from Germany. That's not happening any more. It crazy how many countries can be involved in supplying parts for just one product and it only takes one for it not to work. There was ready a global shortage on microchips and pcbs. Nearly all major weapons have these on board for guidance etc. Russia won't be get preference of supply for a while now.
I guess it'll depend on whether he can advance into western Ukraine and force a government to sign a peace deal. I'm not sure how valuable a puppet government ceding him territory will be if no-one outside Belarus recognises it.
Excellent post.
He has an absolutely vast border to defend too. That’s usually not factored in when they do those infographics that compare Ukraine and Russian armed forces.
He also has to keep a large contingent of the most disciplined troops at home in case of severe civil unrest. It’s not difficult to see why the Russian army can grind to a complete halt. Ukraine can, and will, throw absolutely everything at this conflict though.
But what choice do they (Ukraine] have? To end up with nothing? There’ll be no joining NATO if they are have no country. This is not a contested region. This is an invasion.
See Germany ww2
Putin fears a revolution. It's proving more difficult to keep things quiet than he realised.
Add Facebook to the list.
Western news and internet sites being blocked.
Could this "possession" of leased aircraft trigger a reciprocal action from other Countrys? Aeroflot flight lands, wheel clamps go on. ( I realize of course, that a lot of country's have closed their airspace to Russian flights, but say planes that are on the ground or even ships that are docked?
This occurred to me, does anyone military-minded know how much in the way of stockpiles and reserves of munitions a large military-like Russia would hold? Would they rely on just-in-time production from munitions factories? If so, they might struggle with paying for foreign inputs into munitions production. A lot of raw materials and components I'm guessing are sourced domestically, but for critical foreign inputs surely the sanctions would slow production?
I'm not suggesting they'll run out of bullets exactly, but the sanctions are of such a scale that it will surely affect their productive capacity in some manner. Just spitballing.
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