Russian warship, go f**k yourself!

Indeed, sanctions are nothing new. However sanctions of this scale are. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of their foreign assets and gold have been frozen. Mass exodus of global companies doing business in or with Russia, e.g. the world's largest shipping container companies, Boeing and Airbus (Russians can no longer service their planes), thousands of Russian airline staff have already been laid off. Russia's tank factory has been forced to stop production because they no longer have the parts. China refused a half billion dollar oil deal (at rock bottom prices) because of the sanctions. Their inflation rate is already close to 20%. This is just 6 or 7 weeks in, it's unlikely the average Russian on the street will feel it yet, however over the next year it's estimated the country's GDP will contract up to 10% (about 3 times higher than contraction from the pandemic). The central bank will run into difficulty propping up the rouble (which they can do in the short term, but not the long term). They are already starting to default.

Indeed, due to high oil/gas prices (chiefly due to the war) Russia is getting a bump in nat resources revenue, however the EU is scheduled to drop reliance significantly over the next year or two, and that's if much of it isn't cut suddenly over the short term. Russian oil exports are projected to drop by as much as a quarter this month. Again, the long term is not good. If the oil doesn't sell, it can back up to the well-heads (something is took them 30 years to recover from the last time it happened)

Who is going to do business with a country that just seizes businesses and steals their assets? with a country that doesn't cover it's obligations? with a country and toxic currency that trigger an absolute minefield of international sanctions? Russia will survive and continue on, but everything here on in is about to get a lot more expensive for them. Even if the war ends tomorrow, no one will forget this. As for the BRICs countries jumping in, sure, but they've already shown caution, they'll exact a high cost, and nat resources infrastructure changes take a long time, especially for a country struggling to get parts and at the wrong end of global sanctions

That mobile crematorium turned out to be fake news. The picture was ripped from an old youtube video of some sort of waste disposal machine.

So you wife''s-friends-hairdressers-maids-neighbour doesn't put were ïnformation"on twitter therefore its legit? And also things are grand in Russia but its also a "sh1tshow".

Again, the Germans didn't take France by air. The method used (The one you describe as old hat by then despite being new and revolutionary) was a combination of air infantry and (most importantly) mechanised units. To say it was old hat by then when it was the first mechanised warfare?

The Germans, famously, drove around the impregnable Maginot Line. As I said, in the first days in France a column of mechanised units stretched from Sedan back across the border. They even repeated the same maneuver in 1944 in the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans rolled in to Paris when the French Government cleared out quickly....no aerial "Massive scale remote bombing" was used.

They "scraficied" a predicted 35 plus % of their working tank force and crews for a psycho-op you reckon

Their tank factory and repair centre is also shut-down

Is this all part of the Russian masterplan and has been accounted for?

Seems to me the longer the War goes on the weaker the Russian army is becoming. The Ukrainians are improving and getting better equipped. For the first time I'm now seeing talks of a Ukrainian counter attack on Russia.

I would not be one bit surprised to see a snap revolt against Lukashenko either. He must be getting worried seeing Belarus Soldiers defecting

America has something like 100k troops in Europe who pays for them to be here.

Does everyone remember when Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was shot down by pro Russian (Russian army) separatists in Eastern Ukraine with a ground to air missile delivered from Russia that morning.

Russia still says it's fake news. No responsibility taken.

If their army is on the point of collapse like he says, why is anyone afraid of Russia let alone the chances of them invading multiple eu countries?

All of this is very much reminiscent of the covid propaganda, we're constantly led along a bit further because it's only two weeks more and we also have to be reminded of how dangerous a threat to the whole of Europe they are even though it contradicts the first bit of propaganda...

Go figure...

I find this whole thread strange, it has been hopping back and forth between "oh look how incompetent and ineffective Russia are", to "Russia are going to take over half of Europe" .

Maybe I'm just slow but in my mind the two of these are inconsistent with eachother.

But what they are consistent with is softening up the population for an extended conflict, lots more inflation and the long-term necessity of us buying lots of fancy weapons from America as well as paying a higher price for their lng vs cheap Russian pipeline gas. (Assuming gas markets ever go back to normality)

Both. They have been generally incompetent against Ukraine, but are still a military superpower and as such are potent.

Russia has several million in total, but battle-ready and trained troops? Around 300k last I read (this figure varies a lot), of which estimated around 190k committed to Ukraine (general consensus)

Likewise they are believed to have around 13k main battle tanks, but only around 3,000 (or less) could be considered battle ready. To give some perspective the Ukrainians are confirmed to have destroyed or captured around 500 main battle tanks. Also keep in mind tanks are just one metric, Russia has considerable air power which has not diminished at the same rate as it's armor.

However now that Russia has shifted it's goals (dramatically), they are not trying to push on the entire country, more they are going to be holding the South and pushing just the East, they "shouldn't" require as much military as trying to take the whole country. Likewise they've learnt a lot of their limitations and are adapting. The fight in the East is going looks like it will be very difficult for Ukraine.