Russia - threadbanned users in OP

If Ukraine eventually takes back Crimea there's no fooking way the Russians are hanging onto Sevastopol for use by their navy.

Beware of those who claim a quick resolution is in sight. Crises in the age of social media can lead people into delusion and "saviour syndrome", or to believe crazy conspiracies. All of these things will be driven by performatively certain grifters seeking to make a name for themselves.

During the Trump shitshow of a presidency there were countless commentators who claimed that "Mueller has got this" and that Trump would be behind bars soon. Unfortunately that was never likely to be the case, as it was with Nixon. Mueller did the minimum, the Democrats did the minimum, and never properly went after Trump. The inertia in the judicial and political system as regards a criminal, especially a criminal president, is massive. There was real fear about what would come out if Trump was properly gone after.

During Covid we had a whole load of people who breathlessly came up with crackpot theories, that China had manufactured it as a bioweapon, that it was a World Economic Forum conspiracy, that the virus itself was a fake, that restrictions were designed to be permanent, that facemasks were dangerous, that the vaccines were state sponsored murder, that hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin were supposedly miracle cures, blah blah blah. All bullshit.

This war will be likely a long grind and the west, for all it is doing, likely still isn't doing enough, nearly, for it to come to the clear resolution that needs to happen. This could go on for several years, even many years. The Balkan wars lasted from 1991 to 1995 and even that wasn't the end of it because there was still Kosovo to come. The Iran-Iraq war lasted from 1980 to 1988, and these would certainly not be the last wars these countries were involved in.

Yes but they had to be beaten back in 2 years of brutal war. The advances of 1918 were obliterated in the negotiating table at Versailles. Russian advances today will be obliterated eventually around a negotiating table too.

They seem to be making small gains. Here's one

Read my comment in the whole instead of going all pretend tabloid gotcha, thanks.

Russia's modus operandi is to use the very freedoms we have in the west to flood our information spaces with total bullshit and create an environment of mass stupidity where governments who do their bidding can be installed and bring down the west from the inside.

A functioning democracy depends on an informed populace. If you can flood the information space with enough propaganda, you no longer have an informed populace, democracy dies, tyranny takes hold, and catastrophe ensues. That's what happened in 1930s Germany. That's why any rise of far right sentiment is always a worry, because these bastards would only love to return western Europe to those dark days. We see that right now, where the far right cheerleads Russia in waging barbaric war.

Making people stupid and individualistic has been a core strategy of all those who desire authoritarian/kleptocratic rule. It's just done to varying degrees. Russia practises an extreme version of it, as does the far right media complex in the US. The right wing media in Britain practises a milder version. One thing the US right wing, the British right wing and the Russians are all in alliance about is they desire the rule of kleptocracy and the super rich. They differ a bit in the amount of basic freedoms they want to extend to ordinary people, and specific groups of ordinary people.

The chief Russian weaknesses seem to be reinforcing troops / giving furlough to those already deployed. And their supply chains of food, equipment and munitions.

Easily countered though, by asking "where would Putin have rolled in to next"? and remembering that the Ukrainian people wish to remain independent.

The problem is the prospect of the coming to power of the far right via mass manipulation of the instruments that a functioning democracy depends on. Mass manipulation like mass Russian propaganda - supported by western kleptocratic interests - both online and in traditional media, in alliance with western kleptocrats.

Functioning democracy and the basic freedoms we enjoy then likely come to an end.

It seems to me you may not have much of a problem with that.

Give that the UK and US are probably training 20-25k, giving the others an average of 3-3.5k give a potential battle group of 50k troops trained to near NATO standard

It was true then two in the context of the Kyiv offensive by the Russian army. They had to make a rapid retreat so as to reorganize in the east. And they has way better air cover then.