Russia - threadbanned users in OP

There were posters saying that nuclear war isn't a big deal. Boggles the mind.

Ultimately there's no need to escalate things anywhere near that so the suggestions that things should go in that direction are ill informed at best.

Volunteers are getting uniforms.

Aggresively, like the way elderly people drive small Korean sedans around the village?

Just to get this straight, in one sentence, you are blaming the US for supplying the Ukrainian army with anti-tank weapons, and you've justified Russian military units in Ukraine blowing up an elderly couple in a car. Okay.

These vehicles have optics and range findings, at that range they can easily see the occupants in the car, it's straight up murder, and will probably be referred to the Hague

Sadly every thread descends into madness.

But what annoys me most is people try to come off as experts. Remember the Japanese earthquakes a decade ago? So many coming off as nuclear scientists. More recently with the covid forum - so many were 'experts'.

We've all seen the drive by molotoving by civilians in a normal car, I doubt it was plastered with markings clearly identifying it.

Same for the APC getting hit with the RPG while telling a crowd of civilians to disperse.

Anyone getting near the Russians is either a direct threat or a distraction for one.

Disgusting flippant comment to make!

The Russians are the attacking force here, Ukraine is just trying to defend their country.

This car was just driving along the road posing no threat.

The Russian still opened fire from the safety of their tanks.. cowardly scum!

The obtuse was in reference to apparently not understanding the persons questions about "refugees" to Europe being, in the majority, male.

Where refugees are actually fleeing somewhere, the ratio would be expected to be 50:50. If, somewhere along the route, the women are taking a pitstop, then people might ask for more information on the actual reality of the situation. That would be natural thing to do.

Russian armor is moving into civilian areas. As we've seen they have zero problem targeting and killing civilians, nuclear reactors, humanitarian columns.

Germans investigating war crimes

Tbf the US have been meddling with the governments of probably half the countries in central and southern America for the last 50 years. They've never fully invaded but a lot of those governments have been the CIAs playground. Us War on Drugs has been a pretty good way to feck Mexico in the last 30/40 years too.

Couple of known posters working hard to validate Russian attacks on civilians. Have watched a lot of nasty footage in the past days, have no time for that kind of behavior

CNN put up a piece about a Ukrainian hotline that Russians are calling, looking for information on the whereabouts of soldier family members.

Can you think of reasons why single, male refugees would tend to make it further from the warzone, and thus make an increasinly large proportion of the population as you get further along the stream?

You really need to identify what's a win and what's a loss in this war.

It'll become much clearer once you look at this war from a macroscopic point of view.

Ukraine is just a battlefield, the real war is between Russia (and the camp it belongs to) and US/Europe.

From the get go, Russia has the upper hand simply because Autocratic regimes have almost nothing to worry about except how the war progresses, while democracies got lots to consider before participating in such war.

Add to that the fact that Putin seem determined to win in Ukraine as it's a strategic interest to him and with every day passing it appears that his objective is to turn the country to rubble leaving it less and less relevant to the west to invest in rather than occupying it and he's willing to sacrifice the already drafted troops for it.

One the other hand from a western perspective, we're fighting a proxy war - that alone is a proof who Ukraine really matters to more.

Now if you pay attention to how americans handle proxy conflicts eventually they're going to pull the plug and abandon whoever is fighting, the last 2 examples for this were the Kurds in Syria and the Afghan army in Afghanistan.

if you keep an eye around the world today, this is what you see happening:

• Nuclear Deal with Iran which was very close to be re-instated putting Iran back on the global oil market is being torpedoed by the Russians who are signatories and Iran seem to be on the russian side as just today the Iranian negotiators seem to have left Vienna where the negotiations are happening - thus keeping the russian oil a necessity for the time being.
• All of a sudden Venzuelan dictator Maduro became appealing to the United States and there are on-going talks to ease sanctions hoping Venezuela can replace Russian oil - Here's Guaido thrown under the bus alongside the kurds and the Afghans. - will Venezuela who's a strategic ally to the Russians and Iran abandon their camp to please the americans just like that ? well i hope so, but i doubt it.
• Gulf relationship with the states has been troubled lately and their refusal to increase production is the proof for this.
• China's position is a game change yet remains unclear.

keeping the above in mind, and with all the implications on world economy, the Russians are putting up a show in Ukraine while blackmailing the west coming to the negotiations table. <-- this is the only relevant negotiation table, and not the one in Belarus.

The real question in Putin's and everyone's mind is, how long can world economies survive before they pull the plug and abandon the Ukrainians to their doom and come to the negotiation table to save their economies.

what is worrying here is that if those negotiations fail, then direct military conflict will be unavoidable.