Russia - threadbanned users in OP

I see Putin disappeared during his big speech. Literally.

Lithuania is currently full of US troops, tanks, Javelins, F35s and other stuff. Even Germany has sent a contingent of troops there.

Gremlins in Kremlin tv

Poland really in a bind here. The war and the enemy is in a neighbouring friendly country. Strategically it will never be as good for them. They can smell the Russian blood with their army stalled. If they do nothing and If the worst case scenario should happen they will end up with hostile Russian troops right on their border. If this was pre 1945 Poland , Czechoslovakia and Hungary would already be on the frontline in Ukraine making sure the frontline doesn’t get any closer.

The reality is if Poland got stuck in here then we could we see the meaning of tactical nuke used against poland. It would be a pretty massive escalation.

It’s no trump rally

I mean we CAN HOPE he is now being dragged through the streets of Moscow, soon to be shot - id say a technical issue though

That said - it happened before, may it happen again

Ceaușescu ended up fleeing a 'rally gone wrong' - quickly recaptured, tried, and shot up against a wall -

OH TO DREAM -

Think its fair to say he still has a lot of support in Russia - State media has seen to that - we can hope that a large chunk at the very least 'remain unconvinced'

Putin's speech on Luzniki stadium on Crimea invasion anniversary (today) has been cut short mid word due to a server outage :-) Well done whoever was responsible!

Any polls I've seen show massive support for the war and Putin's talking points among ordinary Russian people.

Yes, the propaganda is incredibly potent, but these are a people who have access to the outside, they aren't North Korea, they have access to the wider world via the internet, so we can't rely on that excuse forever.

Likewise a lot of commentators are saying that Putin isn't the sole problem here, e.g. Russian soldiers are pulling triggers to fire bombs at places they know have Ukrainian civilians. We know from e.g. the Holocaust that the "the just following orders" argument is BS, no soldiers were punished for not carrying out orders to murder civilians.

Yes Putin is the kingpin, yes he does have a vast propaganda apparatus, but he also has a lot of support from ordinary Russians who strongly share his views. Ordinary Russians who should be able to see how a slow autocracy has very suddenly shifted into totalitarianism, who have had many opportunities to see through this.

You're basically agreeing with me then.

Er, the Republicans criticised Biden for not allowing the Polish Mig swap deal to go through. I realise it was trying to make capital out of the situation but I have to say I'm on their side on this one, even if they were just being opportunistic.

The drip, drip of slightly better hardware is ridiculous, they needed it yesterday. Every delay is lives lost. They should have got long range and highly capable SAMs at the start.

I'm guessing Putin's speech in Moscow was hit by a cyber attack of some description (the Anonymous guys perhaps?). It meant the last part of his speech and his exit from the stadium was not shown live on TV.