really regret bringing this up now
The side that will probably re elect Putin in elections
Sorry these are US tanks
I wonder if China have refused Russian request for weapons, if that could also be a factor in Russia becoming more realistic in negotiations... I think the Russians gave China the impression it would be a limited incursion to secure the disputed area and Crimea hinterland, not a major invasion of Ukraine.
She herself has pointed out she's gone on protests, but doesn't any more. That you can be gaoled for even making vidoes or talking about such protests and even body positivity pages online have attracted the wrong sort of government attention. That they need no excuse if they don't like what you say and how this has affected her mental health and how she approaches making her videos. So she's not all sweetness and light about her country. Remarkably balanced actually. And the reality is that even in autocratic states when you live beyond the capital and the politics and problems of same in such a huge nation life for most people is pretty good, or at least not nearly as bad as we might imagine.
My impression of Russians and their culture is that it's very nuclear family orientated and pastoral beyond the urban areas where anyone with a patch of land grows their own veggies, has a few chickens etc, builds and mends rather than just buy the new thing. The way many of us in Europe used to live, not least here in Ireland.
Someone posted a video from "Survival Russia" earlier in the thread, showing shelves in rural shops etc, its a channel I watch on and off. I just had a dig on who he really is, https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Russia-sheltering-Danish-neo-Nazi-leader-Lars-Agerbak-who-was-convicted-in-his-motherland-for-illegal-arms-dealing, you never know!!
Apparently, the seperatists in Donbass have the ability to print Ukrainian passports and have being handing them out to all and sundry, add to the that the lads that have being trying to get into Poland via Belarus and you can see that there could be a lot of Ukrainians school children with moustaches and dusky hues "fleeing" to safety.
I award myself 1 (one) Internet point! See, ma? All those hours of online gaming not wasted after all 😊
I knew he wasn't Russian @TimeLadsPlease
That might be the case ,but he also used spetznas to take key objectives like airports,so i guess its s mix
Looks like the Russians are in a lot of trouble.
https://liveuamap.com/
I think what gave it away, was when the 'super power' asked China for ready made meals and military equipment, and Syria for volunteers.
Given that Russia may be off limits for a travel destination for the foreseeable future, would you like to add the benefit of your experience to my upcoming business venture?
I'm proposing to set up a facility to replicate the 90's Russian village travel experience down in Leitrim. I've been talking to the banks about it and the only reluctance is that it might take too much money to bring Leitrim up to that standard of living so quickly - even if it was just for a single village facility.
Poland, check and Slovenia have offered to go into Ukraine as a peace keeping force.
The offer is to be discussed with the North Atlantic alliance and the United nations.
Germany has publicly confirmed the purchase of 35 US-made F-35A fighter jets. To combat Russian supremacy
You'd wonder if this could actually lead to a bitter collapse for the Russian Federation. Right now id say there are many regions that would be interesting in breaking away and thinking about options.
it's not like Russia has nothing to fear from the idea of western militaries based in Ukraine, especially southern and eastern Ukraine. Within living memory an alliance of western powers tried to exterminate them. In the Russian psyche, that stuff looms large.
Yeah but those 'concerns' don't reflect the reality of 21st century warfare. If the United States/NATO was to launch an unprovoked attack on Russia (and assuming they stuck to conventional weapons), most of the meaningful 'fighting' would be done from the air, as US planes wipe out their Russian counterparts and Russian ground military installations. The 'tanks rolling east across the steppes' part would be in effect a mopping-up operation/victory parade. Rational people in the Russian political/military leadership know this, which is why I dispute that their objections to Ukraine joining NATO are rooted in genuine concerns about Russia's security. The problem is Putin himself may no longer be thinking entirely rationally...
the longer this drags on the thinner their troops will be on the ground in those far-flung places so their ability to fight breakaway movements will be diminished
Russian Major General Oleg Mityaev, commander of the 150th Motorized Rifle Division. Killed about two days, confirmed dead today
A Russian Major Aleksandr Jegorov of the 103rd Rocket Brigade, killed by Ukrainian forces yesterday.
Good riddance. I very much doubt that his family will receive the compensation that putin was promising on tv last week.
The few Russians I know were born and bred in rural Russia, far from Moscow, one from the depths of Siberia, with most coming to regional cities later on for education, secondary and third level. From what they've told me over the years, yes rural Russia(including the smaller cities) is a different world to the big cities in the West like Moscow, but that even in those rural areas things are different and much better off than the real lows of the 1990's after the USSR fell apart which their age group lived through. One can't base an experience of 90's Russia with the Russia of today. Having lived in the West for years and going back from time to time, they see the contrast and improvements even more starkly.
And that contrast they attribute in large parts to putin. That he alone stopped the rot and reversed it. An image he promotes of course. A lot of his base of Russian support seems to come from that, particularly in the age group of those who lived through and remember the 1990's. Of younger Russians and their views, far more shaped by Western thought, media and indeed the trappings of same living in the big cities in the West, I have zero clue tbh. Though I suspect his support base there would be far more shaky. They don't share the same history and history of misplaced "gratitude" of their parents and grandparents.
They're putin's biggest danger and why I believe he's far more concerned about the long term effect on his younger generation seeing Ukraine being in the EU than it being in NATO. IMHO NATO is the big fear stick he waves to the world and his subjects, to distract from his real fear of an economically growing, stable, uncorrupt, democratic and liberal Ukraine in the EU. Starbucks, Apple stores and BMW dealerships in Ukraine are a far bigger threat to his regime than missile silos.
If Khadyrov were to meet a nasty end in Ukraine, Chechnia could get interesting.
Are you sure you aren't describing the Rocky IV training montage?
I can't imagine the Poles or Czechs going on a solo run like this. They are NATO and EU members and quite used to only taking collective decisions (there was nothing particularly controversial about the three PMs visiting Kyiv today).
You must be kidding and you don't know current Poland at all. PiS (currently a ruling party there) is not a team player. This party goes against EU for the last 6 years and is isolated there. It is always their way or highway. And they are idiots able to endanger the whole world with a simliar ideas to Putin's ones about "greatness of their country". They are the same dangerously delusional...
Yes, I accept that. But it's when it's used in describing another person/s(in any circumstances) that I have a problem with.
They certainly are causing Putin significant problems and intent on doing more.
They understand, as does the entire EU leadership that Russia can still win long term through attrition, through sheer numbers. It may come at a massive cost but the Ukraine will be leveled and half its population in Western Europe and Russia facing in to years of rebuilding.
The question in Berlin and Brussels is does that mean we get cheap gas again? For Poland and others it means that their brutal communist overlord is next door and recouping.
Poland has been exceptional in all this, the Merkel approach to look at them annexing Crimea and Still decide in going ahead with Nordstream 2 and on top of that begining to gut German energy.
Poland is right to be wary of those in either direction, historically and recently.
Thankfully for all of us in Western Europe they are.
What problem exactly?
Is it any wonder the Russians are low on food supplies, there's some feeding in those boys
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