Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Vladimir Putin in the audience of Pat Kenny's Frontline with Zelenskyy on the panel would have been up there with the great moments of Irish TV.

"Can I just say something, Pat?"

"Grim" does not even describe it wassie. And if that was not enough, imagine the psychological effect of bullets whistling through the air, and bombs exploding. and even worse, when the sergeant shouts " UP, UP...we are going to attack....

There was no real planning going into this ,it was a case of I'm invading in 3 weeks time regardless of what anyone says or does ,and I'll be Hailed Victorious in 3 days ,

Even compare something like the bin laden raid ,not conventional warfare but it's only an example ,they spend months Planning the raid , they had plan A B C they asked all the what ifs and buts ,and drilled for every eventually ,

Putin didn't even do the basics ,he had no real reason to invade , but he went ahead under the notion of annexation of a whole Chunk of Ukraine and installing his own pro Russian government ,and he will be Hailed a Hero of Ukraine.

Fauq me was he wrong .

Actually the build up to the first gulf war is probably a better example of how to carry out an invasion in proper order with thousands of troops , aircraft , armour, naval assets all working together in unison to complete the various tasks given to each force ,and it didn't always go to plan , but they had contingencies and work arounds to achieve successful operations .

We've seen Russians being sent into battle in Ukraine with nothing more than an AK 74 and 3 magazines (90 rounds of ammunition to fight against a determined and hardened defense.

I think Putin's overestimation of the Russian army's abilities may have been even greater than his underestimation of the Ukrainians. He went in there thinking he had the No.1 army in Europe and an elite and ultra professional force who would sweep everything aside in 48 hours.

A lot of those videos of poorly equiped, poorly trained Russian soldiers are the rag-tag rebels of Donbass and Luhansk. The very people they were going in to "Liberate".

I have been thinking a lot about the all those pro-Russian people in Luhansk and Donetsk over the last few weeks. Do they still feel the same? Their major gripe was how the Maidan protests ended and that they felt they would be better off economically with Russia.

I'm sure life was a lot better in 2013 than it is now and in the future years.

Imagine if Ireland did a move on the north (obviously we'd lose but we'll pretend we won). Or even for Unionists if Britain did a move on Ireland. Belfast and Derry absolutely flattened, thousands killed. People who you knew on the otherside of the divide dead, maybe many of your own family and friends dead. Ireland/Britain thrown to the abyss in terms of international relations. Would it be worth it? Would you still be waving that flag?

It wouldn't be far off what people in Luhansk and Donetsk must be living with now.

Well, considering that he pumped billions into the Russian military to upgrade it and transform it into a world class military after the 2008 invasion of Georgia, he could be forgiven for believing that was exactly what he had. Unfortunately, in typical Russian fashion and tradition, the people entrusted to achieve this, were following their leader in the corruption stakes, and in this case, outdid themselves. All along the line, and at every stage, a little ( and sometimes a lot) was skimmed off, so what was actually left at the end wasn't enough to carry out Putin's plan, Which is now becoming more and more painfully obvious for the Russians in Ukraine.

Well, possibly.

It's just that we've had a good month, now, of predictions about what's going to happen with the Russians. In the early days, people were saying Kyiv would fall in a few days. The force was supposed to be overwhelming. The Chechen fighters were supposed to be the fiercest in the world. The Russians were supposed to have a competent military. All of these things have turned out not to be true. Russian ineptitude is one of the things in this invasion that has gone well and truly above and beyond.

I mean we can barely decide if we want it peacefully even, due to the financial impacts.

This war make no sense, there will be generations of ill will, possible further ongoing violence for decades and economically a complete disaster, it's hard to see the logic.

LOL this guy? That is some expert. Would not believe him if he said "good morning". His analysis were bad last time he did a job on Trump I can hardly see he got better in the meantime. Lies on top of lies.

So, in other words , there is NO opposition . There may be the ingredients for the formation of an opposition BUT it is not allowed to form and be active. Oh wait , there is an active opposition in place BUT it is as. Per Putin’s rules

They are probably getting scared Georgia will take their territory back , which was pretty much annexated by Russia

Has been said several times (usually when there are upcoming elections), I'll believe it when I see it.