?
Germany was incredibly short sighted, led astray by arrogance and 20 years of leadership that was serving an enemy State.
Russia may take most of the East, flat rural country. It will still have to hold it. It's going to lose a lot of men to get there.
Germany must now deal with a war settling in to a long term trench with occasional flare up on the edge of Europe.
Eastern Europe will be facing a long term threat where they will have to be armed and ready and focused on military spending.
It's an economic screw up for years to come. Germany may think it's loyalty to Russia may be rewarded long term but they are trusting a country with no loyalty to them.
Long term it's a big problem for all of Europe , politically, economically and socially, it's going to drive globally political chaos for years to come.
Russia has taken Mariupol
FS... couldn't even do it bare chested. 😏🙄
An overview on current Russian progress. TLDR, some advances, but generally slow
In other news, Airfix has announced a new range of toy soldiers.
This is the leader of modern Chechnya
Maybe it reminded him of the atrocities that the Japanese never committed in China and elsewhere. 😊
It's actually well-known that units made up of slavs fought with the Germans - killed with them too as the Germans they didn't have a lot of trouble getting volunteers to help with mass-shootings of Jews. That doesn't alter the fact that they were viewed as inferior and dispensable. For example while Ukrainians did serve in the SS Galician division, the Nazi plan for Ukraine involved shipping its grain to Germany and letting the population starve. Hardly a brothers-in-arms situation.
Kinda sums it up.
More grotesque stuff
It will indeed be horrendously costly for Russia to pivot to Asia, just as it will be costly for Europe to pivot away from Russia.
Cui bono?
Japanese TV anchor Yumiko Matsuo breaks down when reading the news of Putin bestowing honours on the brigade that committed atrocities in Bucha. She had just shown clips of children hiding in the bunker of the Mariupol steel mill and was overcome with emotion.
According to the comments:
After she started to cry
Yumiko: "There are still a lot of civilians stuck in the bunker, I'm sorry, Excuse me. Ah, I'm sorry, it's just the last news which Putin was honoring the soldier makes me, sorry, really I was so frustrated to read the news, I'm sorry I'll keep my calm. The Ukrainian war has entered a new phase, (continue to introduce the guest)"
Moldova needs to get back transnistria, its a torn in the side for Ukraine. Russia could easily open a new plan of attack on Odessa from there. Moldova been neutral wont be anything to stop Putin from invading, as Ukraine was neutral before 2014 when Russia decided to attack it
Presuming these are Estonian?
Putin may also have his eye on Moldova.
if the Russians take all of the southern coast of Ukraine, Putin may take Moldova and Belarus and incorporate them in to Russia.
He would see himself as the man who restored some part of the Russian Empire
The city of Odessa may well be a crucial part of a plan to stop the Russians in their tracks.
Odessa needs to get as much support, Weapons, Munitions, Air defense systems and artillery batteries
As much military as can be supplied as soon as possible,to make it the most supported and fortified City on the Southern coast of Ukraine
Enough food and medicines to last for a very long time.
That must be done now while there is a chance to do it ASAP
There'll be a lot of denials - like the Malaysian airlines Incident -multiple contradictory statements and reasons why it wasn't the Russians -
Implausible denial -
Belarus suffered hugely in WW2 under the German occupation and from the movement of the front line across its territory. 2+ million dead and 2/3 of population centres destroyed. Perhaps this is weighing on the national consciousness, combined with reports of Russian Dirlewanger-like activities in Ukraine. Or it could be just a combination of knowing that their own president is a buffoon in thrall to an untrustworthy psychopath with expansionist ideas. 😊
I do think the allies abandonment of Eastern Europe in 1945 and appeasement of Stalin and agreeing to mass transfers of peoples was an horrendous act of weakness which condemned millions to 45 + years of misery and can be directly linked to this current conflict today. Even Russians who had left in 1917 were deported straight back to Stalin and the gulags in 1945.
Of course all that was airbrushed from our History but ask the poles or Czechs what they think of Churchill or Clement atlee or Roosevelt.
That could well be true - but which countries are economically linked to Russia - and you can bet that India and china aren't paying full price for their Russian imports -
In the same way that Europe's energy infrastructure is "pointed " towards Russia - so Russia's is pointed to Europe ..
The guy directed JFK. There wouldn't be a grassy knoll conspiracy theory without that film. He's always been a conspiracy theory nut.
It doesn't surprise me that Oliver Stone has latched onto it. He did that programme, 'The Putin Interviews' a few years ago which was all about getting Putin's philosophy and perspective on the world.
At the time, this programme could be posited as seeking perspective and balance. Fair enough. However, in light of recent events, refusal to condemn the massacre in Bucha, or coming to it with a bunch of weasel words, comes off much less like seeking balance and much more like pushing an agenda.
Great opportunity for him to blame losses on the defence minister. Claim his order wasn’t followed and that loads of troops were lost as a result.
Thats the propaganda version we have been fed, but life in the real world was different.Millions of Slavs and Germans were fighting and dying together side by side and many Slavic nations were German allies.
And there was a loyalty between them, for example the German officer commanding the Cossacks at Linz refused to abandon his men when the British brutally shipped them and their families over to Stalin's NKVD for slaughter..he went and died with them.
The real world is never as simple as the black and white version propagandists create for you.
It is an interesting impact for militaries in deeply corrupt countries. After decades of corruption the country can get so good at it that no one in the country itself, let alone outsiders, really knows what is going on. Extrapolating from this we can imagine the state of North Korea’s military. Also, China’s military may also be far less effective than assumed.
Whichever way you cut it the figures don't lie. Russia has been absolutely torn up in this war since day 1.
A third of your military is not sustainable. One could argue if the money doesn't flow to the rest and special going abroad money isn't coming in the rest of their professional forces will opt out too.
As with most events, denialists and conspiracy theorists working hard to create false narratives, in this case that Bucha was "faked". Even the director Oliver Stone has latched onto this stuff
I think they are having ridiculous loses around the plant and it's eating into their resources. It's eating at morale. He will want those troops used elsewhere. Starting them out his his strategy now because the balls out approach completely failed.
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