Russia - threadbanned users in OP

If we’ve already committed an act of war we might as well send in the jets fighters and all the other stuff now since he didn’t use the nukes.

The brutal dictator is also a hypocrite.

It saved south Korea

Isnt that what the poster was saying? Russia had no legitimacy to invade Crimea like they did and we should have acted sooner.

He invaded under Biden. We, the west, believe in principles like freedom of speech and individuality. Do you believe that Putin had some right to invade Crimea because that’s what you seem to be getting at.

I think we’re all forgetting that Russia ≠ the Soviet Union. They aren’t on that scale of power and military might or technology.

The USSR had a population of over 262 million and it had an alliance and economic system that included the Warsaw Pact countries and a huge supply chain that included all of those.

A lot of Soviet industrial capacity, technology and know how was actually in what are once again independent European states. A lot of it was even in Ukraine itself.

Russia isn’t that. It inherited an army and weapons systems but it’s not at all as capable as the Soviet Union. It’s also not driven by the same kinds of political ideologies and is a rather floundering oligarchy, highly capitalist and extremely unequal with a lot of poverty and offers low standards of living for the majority of its citizens. It’s been haemorrhaging talent, creativity and people for decades and it’s not really offering them anything that might attract them to stay.

Their army looks a lot less well organised and uncared for. The equipment isn’t great nor is it well maintained. The soldiers that we’ve seen look like they aren’t getting looked after very well and I would guess the pay is pretty bad. They’re being marched into a war that makes no sense and they’re being used as literal cannon fodder.

I’m more concerned that we’re dealing with an irrational actor of unknown and inexplicable motives than I am about the scale of Russian military defences.

The attack on the nuclear power station shows very poor tactics, poor judgment and probably lack of training and communication/coordination.

There are too many old nuclear weapons hanging around to feel very reassured about this and there’s a very odd character directing this.

Even for the sake of Russia itself, someone needs to restore calm, rationality and sense to this and I think the only likely solution will have to be the army itself deciding that enough is enough.

What's happening in Ukraine is just horrendous and it’s utterly needless human suffering. A country has been severely damaged, lives ended and destroyed and for what? They aren’t even fighting a war. It’s a cruel and irrational invasion and one which cannot succeed because it’s impossible.

They’ve no moral justification for it. The people won’t ever accept them and it will just roll on and on for years and maybe even decades, yet they’re not willing to accept that reality.

In the meantime all the potential Russia has to be something much more than this is just draining away. It could be so much better than this, but this is the path being chosen, not by the people but by the leadership. They are running Russia into the ground.