Russia - threadbanned users in OP

The days of driving machines into cities are gone. A Barrett gun and a few rocket propelled grenades would make short work of the terminator, not to mention anti tank weapons.

Unless they are literally willing to shoot their way through the Black Sea Fleet, which I very much doubt, it will remain very much an idea only...

If Ukraine get them then they will only need to sink one Russian ship to end the blockade. There is little risk of conflict escalation if Ukraine get these weapons. They need to get them and the training asap.

Few people can be under the illusion at this present time that Putin is actively looking for a way out of this war. His representatives have thus far either rebuffed calls for negotiations on a possible settlement between the countries or come to talks with demands far too sweeping and unreasonable for Zelenskyy to accept.

But every single war is ultimately ended by a diplomatic action, even if that's the signing of a declaration of unconditional surrender, so this will end with a compromise on one side's original goals. The only question is who will be making that compromise and how much of a one they will be making.

Going back to the idea that Putin is not contemplating compromise and will simply chuck legion after legion after legion of men at the situation until his forces manage to eke out gains across eastern Ukraine - it's true that Putin does not seem to much value the lives of his soldiers, but that doesn't mean that the soldiers don't value their own lives and their lives are not valued by their families. Russian casualties in Ukraine, even by relatively conservative estimates, have already surpassed what the Soviet army suffered in Afghanistan, and that was a war which helped to precipitate the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin would want to have an iron grip on the Russian people quite unlike anything seen in history that he can essentially fling tens of thousands of men into the meat grinder of Ukraine and expect to maintain domestic political stability over a prolonged period of time. It would be one thing if this was an existential war for Russia, but it most certainly is not.

If, as the Atlantic article points out, Russia is not prepared to abide by international agreements, then the only way to end the war is a sufficient destruction of Russia's military, but this will never happen because failing all else, Russia has a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons - the ultimate bargaining tool - which make it impervious to complete takeover or subjugation by conventional military means. It seems to me that in international diplomacy, one of the things that binds a country to international agreements is the sense that it has more to gain from abiding to it than breaking it. Russia has seen less and less utility in sticking to agreements signed between itself and Ukraine or itself and the West, but is still doing business with China. This suggests to me that it wants to continue building good faith with China in an effort to build this new authoritarian world order. However, a change of leadership and political philosophy in Russia would change the calculus on how it deals with the West.

In the end, the likelihood is that if Putin is to endure defeat, it doesn't happen on the battlefield, but in a rapid disintegration of his domestic power, similar to the German revolution of October 1918 that unseated Kaiser Wilhelm. That's what this war appears to be developing into - a protracted, bloody slaughter and it's all about which side can withstand the internal political pressures such a war generates.

I don't know if it works or not but your man on Sky could have been referring to the story about seeding the clouds on May 9th over Moscow. It might work in small measures.

20 to 1 odds against Ukraine in Donbas

What happened to 'Ukraine now has more tanks than Russia', the fact that shoulder-mounted systems were mincing Russian armour and that much of Russia's armour reserves are from the swinging 60s?

She's absolutely right. I blame that bastard Goldstein...

"Retribution" would have been making him kneel in the street and shooting him in the back of the head.

It would be nice if he were dying, but I could as easily put his posture and twitching movements down to stress. Right now, my more pressing concern is his huge case of massive dickhead syndrome which is contributing to a huge amount of casualties in Ukraine.

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