Two twitter comments that need highlighting 😁
It's not a crash, it's a "Special Vehical Operation".
Has Ireland now technically invaded Russia?
A vehicle has been smashed into the gates of the Russian embassy in Dublin. Will keep ye posted ( as soon as I clear away the broken glass!)
Ecumenical matter here
The answer is partly corruption, but also partly that the budget is spread far too thin as well.
Russia has a similar budget to several countries which don't have a fraction of the sheer volume of material the Russian armed forces do.
Maintenance, logistics, storage, would be a huge drain. They'd be far, far better off with a drastically reduced and professional military with a focus on training, quality and technology.
It's a paper strong army but the quality of everything from equipment and training to leadership and combined action is incredibly weak.
Look at something like North Korea for an extreme example. Thousands of tanks and IFV's and a million soldiers despite a tiny budget....but they're all hopelessly outdated and would be obliterated in a one-sided turkey shoot in an actual war with South Korea.
I was thinking the same, given the woeful lack of flank security by the Russians...so bad that the guy with the RPG could stand upright and take careful aim. Still, a kill is a kill.
Wouldn't ever tire of punching that smug little face. Prick.
You know what I mean, the whole "I'll nuke if the west gets involved" is all hot air.
Not now lads, eh?
I doubt very much for several reasons they have the ability or wish to do that.
Logistically they couldn't get their existing invasion force of 150-190000 into the country in any organised fashion. They have been reduced to sending civilian trucks to try and fulfil logistics to the existing forces.
They are going to need most of those assets in country when the message filters through that far from being a glorious victory in Ukraine the Russian forces have been shambolic and a lot of young Russian men have lost their lives. Coupled with the additional hardships from sanctions and a collapsing economy he will need those forces to "guide" the people.
It's a hard sell to give Putin anything half credible out of this so he LL save face though.
I am not at all sure that wasn't staged and that they just fired at one the multiple vehicles the Russians seem to have abandoned.
Looks like a Ukrainian mayor has confirmed that some people are getting out of Irpin without being shelled by the Russians. Surreal I have to write that sentence.
Japan to launch Special Military Operation? 😀
He's surrounded by two factions, the oligarchs and the strongmen
The oligarchs runs the industries, their fate is tied to Putin's. The strongmen around Putin (as far as we know) support all his actions.
We are just left with the public, who are heavily indoctrinated, and can now be thrown in prison for years if they protest. It's a tough one.
The next war is Israel + Gulf nations against Iran to take out the nukes. Democrats under Obama developed some sort of strange fascination with Iran and are utterly determined to unleash Iran onto the middle east. It's a very odd thing.
Its not all about Nuclear War, neither Russia nor NATO really want to be fighting each other head on.
I agree though that I dont believe he is the mad dog being protrayed either. If NATO and Ukraine want to save a catastrophe of epic proportions they will need to understand that they need to give a way for Putin to crawl out of this.
Nobodies winning from this.
Just like the Cuban Missile Crisis, both sides need to be able to claim victory for this to work and for people to stop dying.
I think NATO has been a red herring by putin all along. IMHO his biggest fear about Ukraine is it becoming a member of the EU with all that brings; most of all obvious prosperity, democracy, infrastructure etc, bringing it from a post Soviet era corrupt and 'small' nation into the 21st century. On his doorstep and with 'Russian brothers' no less. It would hold a very cruel mirror up to the Russia of Putin and his minions more than Latvia or Poland could ever do. They're 'foreign' enough to be discounted and easy to spin, Ukraine would not be. With her mineral and oil reserves and massive food production it could be a pretty rich nation in not that long of a time.
Based on logic he wouldn't have invaded Ukraine.
Yet here we are.
Problem with this is no outsider really knows how the Russian nuclear chain of command works or how many people make it up. Possible Putin has installed fanatical loyalists to key positions in the chain who would be minded like this guy so he could bypass 'the top generals'.
I think we may be seeing the green shoots of something. Russia's demands will obviously start off very high. If they end up demanding that Crimea stays Russian and Ukraine signs some neutrality bullshit, then I think Ukraine would go for that all day long.
When the invasion began and was being widely described as Putin's personal war, I naively hoped that men of conscience within the Kremlin might step forward to unwind the whole thing, with Putin placed under house arrest (or suffering a massive heart attack), but as the days go on, I'm starting to think that the people in the inner circle are as bold and vicious as Putin is. I suppose, you have to be to earn your place in that circle. I know some of the connections go back to the 70's (jobs for the boys as it were) but reading up about them at the weekend, and if what I read is true, it's quite a rogues gallery that is administering this war...
I'm not saying keep fighting, I am saying the decision is up to the Ukrainians.
The terms aren't "hard to swallow", that's not the issue. They would cease to be a sovereign nation and would become a puppet state.
Just to point out, not everyone is the Azov battalion is a neo-Nazi. They have neo-Nazis among them, but it's not the whole lot.
Based on logic it's nearly a certain that he wouldn't launch nuclear weapons because NATO intervened in Ukraine.
Go thru it yourself say NATO goes in what do you think will happen what's he going to do ? And what's he going to accomplish by doing it ?
It's doubtful Putin would ever accept such peacekeepers
The "agreement" would give Putin carte blanche to strike Ukraine with cruise missiles whenever he wanted citing whatever manufactured "violations" he wanted. He gets to legitimize stealing their territory. There would be a Russian puppet in control. The country would be a completely vassal state at the mercy of an aggressive military power, who will almost certainly be invading them at a later stage (just doing it correctly next time when they've actually learned how to do modern combined arms wars)
Andrei V Kozyrev
@andreivkozyrev
"2. Russian military. The Kremlin spent the last 20 years trying to modernize its military. Much of that budget was stolen and spent on mega-yachts in Cyprus. But as a military advisor you cannot report that to the President. So they reported lies to him instead. Potemkin military"
That would explain a few things, like Putin miscalculating due to an overconfidence in the militaries capabilities.
I guess he's learning the hard way.
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