He adds that the reason is that nobody wants to actually go to Ukraine (and the tyrant can't force them to go, not without mobilisation / conscription).
Go to Ukraine, see the afterlife, who'd have thought that'd be a losing slogan?
Can't remember where, could be here or various other places, but I've read putrid has had his oligarchs finance personal armies - that haven't been sent to Ukraine. he's not going without a fight, unless someone stabs him in the back.
I would be more concerned when ukraine conflict escalate more. There may be whole raft of another conflicts and settlement of border issues all over the world. You pointed to one but there is more like China itching to get Taiwan, problems in Syria, Iraq, Moldova, Kosovo, Turkey, Greece just to name few. Whole lot more in Africa too. We sure live in interesting times.
I wager the orcs are going home and going to lay siege to mordor. Couple of thousand orcs will make security stand down. lets just hope he has nothing like the link.
CNN now leading their bulletins on growing dissent against Putin, not the Queen's death. I think they may be reading the room correctly - these are very risky times for the dictator.
Yep. Countries don't have friends, they have mutual interests. Right up to the point where they don't.
There have been tit-for-tat actions between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the last 18 months, this looks like it could be something different. Armenia defense ministry are reporting major artillery and drone strikes in Armenia proper, not Nagorno Karabakh. Several border regions, mostly in the south, are being hit pretty hard. It started at 5 minutes past midnight (Armenian time)
Thats true
Ukraine have repeatedly hit Russian territory with strikes in the past.
They are obviously not going to put boots on the ground in Russian territory.
Thats because he is still seen as being untouchable, largely through fear, but once that ring is broken, it will be a landslide.
Another accidental fall.
When Putin goes down, it will be in disgrace, the knives will be out in full force. There will be a mad scramble of people rapidly trying to disassociate themselves from him. So for this reason, I don't think that Medvedev would be a candidate. He will be too much associated with Putin. Better someone who cannot be linked to Putin, but who would even have been known to be anti-Putin ( as much as possible. I guess in this case, we will be surprised at the vast nr of government people who were really anti Putin.
Not necessarily true
And a major difference between the Russian and Ukrainian military training is that for the Ukrainian's, there will not be any deaths from Dedovshchina, or "Hazing", which is endemic in the Russian military training, and leads to many recruits dying each year.
Kazakhstan is slowly and rather publically being pulled into China's orbit.
Russia doesn't like it, but it's not a fight they want to pick.
The Khazak President even went so far as to appear in St Petersburg at ostensibly a Putin lackey economic forum and took a shot at the Donbas puppet republics saying they would never be recognised. He also called out Putinists who have designs on Northern Khazakstan which is Russian ethnic majority.
Russia and China are not friends. Plenty of big-talk, but they fundamentally don't trust each other. They're like two theives in an Arab souk. They run the same swindle, but they'd have their hands in each others pockets as soon as the back is turned.
Leprechauns. Definitely leprechauns. Evil little sh1tes.
Putin wanted an excuse that he could use to justify his invasion of Ukraine. Any excuse, if NATO was not there, or even the non-existent fictitious Nazi's.... it would have been something else.
Dont think they have much choice at this stage,if they want to avoid more airstrikes in Kharkiv
Correct! And that enormous natural obstacle lies between the Russians in Kherson and safety.
They'll surrender, and probably sooner rather than later.
Stalin was so short of Generals equipped with a bit of a clue that Rokossovsky was given a command on his release from prison. Luckily for him he had never signed the confession his NKVD captors had so thoughtfully written for him.
(Rokossovsky's release followed a "relaxation" after the death of Yezhov, who was replaced by Beria. Meet the new boss...)
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1569330463738630145
Old news and Crimea
They just don't get that there's a diiference between a poorly-trained, poorly-fed, poorly-equipped, poorly-led and poorly-motivated army i.e. them, and a highly-motivated, well-led and well-equipped army like the Ukrainians now have. The Russians obviously learned absolutely nothing from the Winter War in 1939-40.
Or they know damned well and just can't bring themselves to admit it, which is good news for Ukraine since the first step in finding a solution is accepting that you have a problem.
Azerbaijan are shelling Armenian positions in Nagorno Karabakh.
Interesting timing.
Yes, support from NATO countries is basically the reason Ukraine has been so successful. And a good thing too
Not sure about the depth, but it's very wide. When Russian troops arrived in Germany and Poland in 1945, they were very unimpressed with the rivers which they thought were more like streams when compared with their own.
At one of its narrower points, the Dniepr is 560m wide, but in places that widens to over 6km.
For comparison, the Liffey at the East Link bridge is 142m, the Shannon at Athlone 128m, the Thames at Westminster Bridge 250m, The Lower Rhine at Arnhem 132m, the Vistula 665m, the Volga at Volgograd 900m, the Oder at Kustrin 240m and bringing up the rear, the Spree at Berlin is a measly 56m wide. Sure you'd jump it.
(Caveat: these are rough Google Maps measurements.)
So Ukraine won't hit Russian territory.
Obviously the Ukrainans don't listen to people on here
meaning that they'll likely have better tactical and technical training when they hit the field.
That'll be the biggie. Russia is still running the old Soviet style military, where orders are top down and the men at the pointy end just follow them for the most part. Individual action when opportunities arise is frowned upon, or not promoted. Unlike in Western militaries.
I was watching a vid recently about an airliner crash in the Black sea and one thing jumped out at me: in Western airline culture and law the captain of the flight is most in charge, the guy who makes the ultimate call for the most part, in Russian/Soviet airline culture, the ground controller has far more say and can order the captain in a different direction. That's a very different mindset. Remember the time when the Soviets shot down the Korean 007 747. Well the Soviet fighter pilot who shot them down was almost entirely controlled from the ground. In interviews he was asked did he not see it was an airliner. He replied he had doubts, bu when asked did he relay those doubts to the ground his answer was along the lines of no, they didn't need to know. He was following orders in essence. A meat robot in the cockpit being controlled remotely.
I suppose part of that culture was they didn't want independent thinkers in charge in the military. All autocrats fear the miliary, because they're the guys who can take them out. All revolutions require the backing, or at least the neutrality of the military or they'll fail. When Stalin got in his biggest purges were among the officer class. To the degree that when Hitler invaded he had few good men left. One, Zhukov made a huge difference and won many battles for them. A hero of the Soviet Union. And popular. So when it was all over and medals were handed out what does Stalin do? Well he could't kill him as he was way too popular, but he was also way too dangerous to keep around, so he invents some trumped up charges and sidelines him to the provinces behind a desk. And we wonder why the Russians have lacklustre generals today? They're either loyal mates of Vlad or too useless to worry about.
Not so sure toppling Putin will get the desired effect .... be careful what you wish for.
I see very little evidence of anti-war feeling in the military channels. If anything, they think that Putin is not taking aggressive enough measures. They want full mobilization, they want tactical nukes, they want increased filtration of Ukrainians in occupied territories, they want Ukrainian infrastructure destroyed. These people are completely brainwashed by the propaganda, it's madness.
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