Russia - threadbanned users in OP

All of this talk of supposed justification for Russia's invasion ignores that senior members of Putin's cabinet were unaware until the very last moment he intended invading all of Ukraine. They assumed it would be a very limited operation in the Donbas and that the rest of Ukraine would be completely untouched (meaning even they didn't buy the guff of the dictator and the Putin bots that war against all of Ukraine was justified).

At one point they didn't even want ukraine to be part of the Minsk agreements they Putin only wanted to negotiate with the Germans, french and his buddy in Belarus,as if even back then Ukraine didn't actually exist

Even before Minsk the Russians had Yanukovych and his agents in power and they destabilized Ukraine. Orange Revolution - Wikipedia

And then there is this; Opinion | The Speech In Which Putin Told Us Who He Was - POLITICO

Here is the speech DP_Fillinger_Speeches.pdf (muni.cz)

And this is a reiteration of the substance of the speech

No. There was a small few sources who alleged Russia had not the resources to wage war, and another handful who claimed putin was at deaths door. Don't try claim it was a general consensus.

Russia may not give in, but they are definitely not in the position they claim to be. They are being largely held by a less well armed adversary. The only reason they are still in this fight is the reluctance of western nations to provide the means for Ukraine to win, as opposed to defend themselves.

The rouble is only strong because imports to Russia have fallen off a cliff. That's not the sign of a healthy economy.

There seems to be a substantial group of Irish people that think like this and its crazy that many of these people would condemn, bash and wont believe anything the US says but will parrot word by word anything that comes out of the Kremlin even after all the blatant lies and propaganda it puts out.

So first of all Russia invaded Ukrainian territory by anexing Crimea and then more or less invaded the eastern regions by stirring up trouble and sending in unofficial army personnel to help them. We seen the effect of this when the airliner was shot down. This then set the president for the trouble that followed for years after that.

Second, their was never any official request from Ukraine to join NATO even though they did express a desire to (and who would have blamed them after previous events).

As others have said, the NATO thing is a red herring anyway, when has NATO ever attacked Russian territory? It would never happen due to the risk of nuclear war and Russia full well knows this.

Thirdly, how was the initial invasion just supposed to be to protect the Donbas? when from day one they went full on to try and take Kiev and other areas in Ukraine?

And only then that was drawn back due to the comple balls they made of that attempt.

Fourthly, so you think after all that Russia has inflicted on their nation they should just roll over, disarm and let Russia make it another proxy state like Belarus? It seems the people of Ukraine dont want to accept that and they have done a damn good job of stopping it so far, even though they have now lost more territory in the east.

I just hope that the west and NATO has the will to keep standing by them to keep the fight for their freedom from Russia for as long as it takes.

I love how you neglected to quote the rest of that exact article because the rest of it doesn't agree with the wafer thin narrative of Russia's mighty economy you're trying to push.

It's strongest because the import is over but export is doing mostly fine. There is lot less demand for currencies on MOEX. Trading volumes are about 10% of pre-war period. Also it's nearly impossible to withdraw USD/EUR in ATMs in Russia.

The sanctions are effective. They aren't powerful enough but they are definitely effective.

Citizens of Russia do feel sanctions. For example many cancer patients died without chemotherapy. The consumer inflation is there.

Unfortunately, SWIFT is not the only way to transact and many countries are willing to transact with Russia using alternative ways, including russian QPS (quick payment system). Also so far most of the russian banks are still connected to swift. That's not a north korean level yet.

Ol' Putin seems to have to work hard at hiding the shakey-shakes in his latest vid where he is made to wait.

He can't sit still...like he has the DTs after a hard night on the turps....