Russia - threadbanned users in OP

No offence taken, but you are perhaps reading to much into it. I was just listing the lifespan of dictators and wasn't applying any value judgements and differentiating between good dictators and bad, just dictators as a class.

Some people have been suggesting that there is a need to 'appease' Putin, not humiliate him and let him keep the Donbass (or part of the Donbass) in order that he doesn't do something crazy.

But it seems a very naïve viewpoint. That would just leave him time to rebuild his forces and then have another go at seizing territory he fancies subsuming into Russia. Any so called peace agreement he signs will be meaningless to him and not worth the paper its written on. He's going to pose a danger, no matter what the outcome of the war.

They've been rebuilding for two decades and it's still a crap military force. He does need to be seen to get enough to end the war. Like others I think Putin is done after this and we will not have to deal with any future misadventures as he's seen just how strongly the West will respond to him. At some point in the very near future there will need to be a conversation about nuclear weapons.

They always can blame COVID for death

But Ukraine doesn't want 'round 2'. They didn't want round 1 to begin with. Any war carries with it the risk of terrible infrastructural damage and casualties (and we're seeing that bear out), both military and civilian. Another imminent helping of that isn't really a good shadow to live under and makes it very difficult to move forward as a country. They need some sort of security guarantee, and that has to be backed by the U.S.A. or NATO or even just a number of larger European countries. Russia cannot be trusted on the matter.

What a regime.

I remember how I laughed watching this inspection by Putin.

Yet he didn't think it was relevant and showed the state of his army.

I suspect the problem will be that any ceasefire or peace agreement will very likely have significant stipulations about Ukraine's military; or at least that's what Russia desires at this point. I would also be amazed if the "neutrality" they're always talking about doesn't include restrictions on imports and foreign investment in general.

Also let's be real here: if NATO/EU aren't willing to put boots on the ground in Ukraine to defend them right now then why would they do anything remotely similar in the future? I don't see how Ukraine are going to get any actual security guarantees from anyone but themselves.

I don't think many people believe that at all; I think plenty of people wish it would happen though.

It's an interesting question to think about. Ukraine would probably never have a better opportunity than now to get the whole of the Donbas and Crimea back under control of Kyiv. If Russia truly is abandoning plans to go for Kyiv, then Ukrainian forces will presumably be heading south and east to push things back to at least the situation prior to Feb 24, and then could they push further? What are people in Luhansk and Sevastopol saying to themselves these days, I wonder? Would they resist Ukraine coming back to take that land (which is a huge, huge, huge if), or would they allow it because they're suddenly not so hot on Russia?

That is an extraordinarily offensive thing to say.

A "poundshop adolf" is making it sound as if Putin is somehow weak or inferior to Hitler who gassed millions of innocent people?

Please you and the people who thanked your post reflect on what this betrays about you and your character that you would even consider this to be a legitimate or valid thing to say.

Well I think we have to remember that the significant losses suffered by Russia during the first week or so of the invasion were largely self inflicted: they pushed units and large convoys deep into Ukraine where they became cut off and decimated by a still functioning Ukrainian Air Force and determined ground forces.

Crimea and in particular the Donbass are areas with significant Russian air superiority bordering on supremacy in the far east: which is very different to the Kyiv or more central/western areas of Ukraine. Crimea is also heavily fortified and surrounded by Russian controlled waters.

Both Crimea and the Donbass have significant pro-Russian populations also: so you could expect additional volunteers and as we've seen in the DPR/LPR significant numbers of conscripts.

And then you have the issue of supply lines: the Donbass in particular has multiple fairly well secured routes through which supplies can be forwarded covered by both air power, air defences, and a mostly friendly population.

So I don't think you can really compare Ukraine defending around Kyiv or Kherson against troops far from supply lines and without much air coverage versus Ukraine actively attacking into heavily fortified and pro-Russian territory which borders Russia proper.

Indeed I think it can be argued that many of the Ukrainian counter-offensives we have seen over the previous days have been successful due in part to Russia reorganising and resetting for operations in the Donbass; they have been pulling out their better troops and leaving smaller numbers of weaker units (i.e. badly equipped and low morale conscripts and DPR/LPR volunteers) in defensive positions which aren't covered by artillery or air power. These are ripe pickings for Ukraine's small unit advances.

Again I'm just some idiot on the internet but I think expecting Ukraine to be able to militarily win a bonafide full-scale conventional conflict along even one large front against Russia (even a much weaker Russia than anticipated) on its own is just asking far too much.

It’s not right but to win a war against a bunch of animals it takes a bunch of animals, it always has. There is always plenty of time for morals and investigations after the war.

I've also seen it. I'd have to say it looks genuine on the face of it; and it makes sense that pro-Ukrainian sources wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole because it paints them in a very bad light.

Whilst in some sense I can understand their actions torturing or even outright killing prisoners of war is only going to make Ukraine's job that much harder and more unpleasant; and in particular for Ukraine's own prisoners of war when reprisals are inevitably carried out.

I should also mention I've seen another video which looks to be a number of Ukrainian soldiers executed via gunshots to the head lined up on the ground so... yeah; I think it's safe to say there's going to be plenty more nastiness before all this is over.