Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Russia like all other major powers suffers from being lead by imbeciles who are clueless wrt running their country and with interacting with the world. Putin has literally got sick and handed his country over to a crowd of cavemen who have 0 education or social skills whatsoever. Anyone who would continue to wage a war during a pandemic clearly knows jack about anything and should go back to school to learn a lot. These manchilds running Russia and sadly other places need to be replaced ASAP. How has it come to be that the thickest least intelligent clowns in the world can rise to such dizzying heights and cause massive problems because they are basically clueless?

Something changed in Russia during the Covid era. For whatever reason a group of guys with poor intellectual abilities seemed to dominate and sway Putin towards this stupid war. The usual it will be over in a few months thing we heard so often before from WW1 to 2003's Iraq ... we know full well that it is never just a few months!!

Agree 100% we need to talk peace. This war has been stupid, futile, totally unnecessary and wrong in just about every way as is the case with 99% of wars. It has been based on conspiracy theories spouted by sympathetic thickos like Nicolai Patruchev who give new life to them in his propaganda such as Ukraine is spreading Covid via pandemic factories and so on ....

The West and co are just as bad to be honest ... They brough us the Iraq war, Iran sanctions and had another thicko this time with orange hair at the helm causing a lot of trouble ...

It is time to eject Patrushev and other thickos from Russia's government. It is time to also make sure similar western thickos incl. mr orange are not allowed cause wars in Iran, etc. Move on and forge for peace not only in Ukraine but everywhere. The world has seen enough war, terrorism and suffering. It is time we have intelligent leaders ... not thickos.

You're wasting your time responding to Putinbottery. It's just 'both sides are just as bad' nonsense. Russia invaded. They need to either leave, or be kicked out, pay massive reparations and damages, repatriate every man, woman and especially child they've kidnapped, withdraw completely from Crimea, and maybe then some discussion of lifting sanctions can happen.

The first time we saw the face of the new Russia was the goings on around the sinking of the Kursk in August 2000 and the refusal to accept international assistance to rescue their sailors trapped in the depths. It was completely unreasonable and demonstrated shocking callousness. Russia just decided to turn its face away from the west and return to a pre- glasnost environment at that time. With outright lying left right and centre. Then there was the horrible botched poisoning of viktor yushenko and his face visibly getting worse every time he appeared on tv. I remember my roommate in college at the time commenting that this is straight out of the Cold War and is very soviet behaviour. Growing up in the late 80’s and 90’s I hadn’t really seen this menacing side of Russia before.

IMO that decision must be left to Zelensky and the Ukranian people. If they judge at some future point that Putin is genuinely looking to cut a deal, they may decide that ceding Crimea and some of the Donbas is a price worth paying for a guarantee of Ukraine's future security.

Totally agree. Ukraine drives this, it's their country despite RuSSia's best efforts.

Huh. Who are you talking about?

Shashank Joshi writes most of The Economist's articles about Ukraine and they've been excellent. Well researched, fact based journalism.

I've found Michael Kofman's input to be knowledgeable and inciteful.

I'm not sure what your problem is with the opinion that the Ukrainians would prefer to free Kherson city through the Russians being forced to flee. The alternative is having to engage them in a destructive urban battle that would no doubt lead to thousands of Ukrainian deaths (both military and civilian) casualties as well as millions in structural damage to the city itself.

"It takes a worried man, to sing a worried song..."

The only way Kherson is freed is by military action,they are not going to sit there and they sit the Russians out it would take years,and then comes what Russia did to Mariupol they will turn Kherson to dust before the Ukrainians could take it back, ukraine will have to fight for every inch of their country,it's already been claimed the whole counter offensive is geared towards taking the Kakhovka hydroelectric and reservoir back so they can turn off the water to Crimea.

It's not going to change much,the only way ukraine gets Donbas and Crimea back under their control is through sheer force ,

I find it hard to see why the west cannot help Ukraine with an overwhelming attack on Kherson. It is only a few miles away and what the Ukrainians lack can be made up for by quantity; carpet bomb Russian positions.