Russia - threadbanned users in OP

To be honest, yes. We teach our kids to grow up and stand up to bullies, to not be afraid. That to stand up for what is 'right' is the right thing to do, that if we let the bullies win, then we will always key them win.

And now as grown ups, when looking at a bully, we cower and appease and let the bully win.

Just for context, for the moment I think sanctions are the way to go. But I think sooner or later, western military will get involved here.

What have you seen? I saw Russian soldiers looting but they are paid like 4 euros a week and starving.

Also i mean a lot of that is the ruble tanking.

Why put landmines in what is supposed to be a humanitarian evacuation corridor?

It's doable in the sense it's surrender and the end of Ukraine as a sovereign state effectively. It's also ends up permanently disfigured and partitioned.

You might say that's inevitable but i'd hope they could hold out a little longer and get something that's less of a surrender if that's possible.

Ukraine’s first International legion of territorial defence forces– fighters from the US, Mexico, India, Sweden, and more.

Maslow's hiearchy of needs. Self Actualisation.

the Ukrainians have come too far too trust anything the russians say. Unless such a truce was backed by UN troops or NATO it would be meaningless

THey also have a muslim as their first minister and crimean tatar muslims are fighting for ukraine (native ukrainian muslims).

Have seen a few military experts interviewed, several have said that Russia seems to be having a problem with combined arms logistics. Basically moving a large army is exponentially complicated, and the Russians haven't done so since the 1940's. So on paper this might have worked for them, in reality they seem to be struggling with the logistics.

Yeah, that's the IEA 10 point plan, officially published tomorrow. A lot of it aspirational on things like energy efficiency and an increase in alternative sources of gas, which are not really that promising at present.

I don't know, would have agreed with you before all the trouble moving the army into place for war + negotiations with Biden etc. started last year.

This whole catastrophe hasn't made much sense at all to me unless he's come to believe at least some stuff he's been coming out with as justification to launch a war (and saw now as a good time to do it). Or perhaps some of the ideas Wibbs expressed in his posts about Ukraine sliding toward potential EU accession + giving a very "bad" counter-example of how to manage affairs to Russians made him angry and fearful about what it could mean for his own rule into the future.

Most of it doesn't seem to have anything with money (well I suppoose 2nd could be self-preservation).

I have/had read about how wealthy Putin is alright (and sheer size of Russia and the natural resources wealth it has, which he is a sense in control of with a small clique are just mind boggling anyway). How could one man actually want or need any more money!? The huge risky undertaking of launching a war to get it really does not make sense. edit: Anyway will stop waffling, better informed and smarter people than me try and fail to know what is going on in minds of dictators and their circle when they do something outrageous like what Putin has done.