Russia - threadbanned users in OP

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.

I would have much prefered it to have been due to a 13mm (0.50" cal) attack than a cyber attack.

@sutrapall

Literally never happening. I can't say that they won't take Ukraine, or that they wouldn't try to install a puppet government, but the idea that it would be back to business as usual is ludicrous. There would be massive, massive resentment toward Russia in the wake of what they're after doing to Ukraine. Any puppet president will have a target on his or her back, and the moment Russia withdraw to any significant degree, that target would be fired upon until the mark was found. Again and again and again.

Will be pretty interesting to see what message China puts out about this, will know in 2 hours

Hopefully somewhere in the future we can read what really happened in the Kremlin regarding this plan. The gamble they took is extraordinary.