Russia - threadbanned users in OP

I remember at the start of the invasion someone joking about Russian supersoldiers capturing Chernobyl and me thinking they can't just be sending the troops 'naked' into the exclusion zone, even the Russian must be taking some sort of protective measures...

Oh look, they've put the flags on the 'opinion poles' 🙄

I said it before the fact you can admire Putin and spread Putin propaganda freely in western countries and the fact that you get 15 years in jail in Russia for something as innocuous as reporting the truth speaks volumes and shuts down any argument about both sides or equivalence.

Why the hell would Russia invade a country where the ordinary motorists do this. No wonder the Russians are getting their asses handed to them!

Those aren't ordinary motorists, this was actually the final exam for students of an advanced driver training course. The lesson on how to react to an ambush on a desrted country road was even tougher and involved live rounds.

Well they have form for that already 😂🤣😂

Well if they didn't have special needs before this assignment...

First of all I never implied that I was ever anything other than " amateur sitting at a keyboard " no more than yourself. Also you seem to be letting your imagination running Away with you. I never suggested "lobbing missiles into Russian residential areas". However imo Russian military targets are fair game. You ask what I think Putin would do next? I don't know that but I do know what he's doing now. He's slaughtering Ukrainians. He will continue slaughtering Ukrainians as long as people like yourself adopt an " oh no let's not upset him " approach. The Russian people either don't know or don't want to know the truth of what's happening so it's time to give them a taste of their own medicine.

There is huge detail on what the Brits got through to their POWs.

They got in little magnetised neddles for compasses, they got in clothing that could be then used by tailors in the camps to turn into suits.

They used monopoly board sets to smuggle in silk maps, compasses and files.

Where the sets went was dictated by what maps were included.

And even better some of the money in the set was actually real currency for use by escaping prisoners.

The reason for silk is that it doesn't rustle like paper.

Fliers also had hidden maps sown into their uniforms.

Cardboard chess sets were also used to smuggle maps and other kit.

Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, draughts were also used.

Waddington was co-opted into the scheme by British secret service (MI-9) and had special operations room adding in all the secret stash.

Now there are two theories.

One is that the sets were then sent in via Red Cross to the prison camps.

Now there is counter theory that the sets were not sent in via Red Cross, but through ficticious organisations set up to help aid the escaping of POWs.

The argument for this was they didn't want the Red Cross parcels to be stopped.

It was the work of James Bond proportions, after all Ian Fleming was involved in secret service during the war.

There were two guys that masterminded the operation of smuggling in escape kit. One guy Christopher Clayton Hutton was a genius at coming up with ideas.

He even got EMI involved in designing gramophone records that would conceal maps. Jewish composers were avoided as they would be confiscated.

Because the records had to be smashed to get at the concealed contraband he labelled the operation "Smash Hits" and the records did actually play.

China not even hiding their continued willingness to cooperate with Russia.

There was a journalist who went on Eamon Dunphy's podcast claiming that not only has Putin's inner circle dwindled to a handful of people, but they're all madder than he is, and Putin is the 'moderate' voice.

Whatever the case may be, there is a wider circle of people in the Kremlin as well who would possibly support regime change so long as it came from within the Kremlin. Wholesale change of the Russian leadership would be nice, but simply getting someone in there who's not as ideological as Putin would be acceptable if it meant ending the war.

Putin authorises 134,000 new army recruits to help the war.