Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Its believed Ukraine are operating two divisions of soldiers and equipment , which could be somewhere in the region of 50,000 men +armor, artillery and other supports and a third division been kept in reserve that's another possible 25,000 men and supports ,and the numbers of trained soldiers returning to Ukraine is increasing every few weeks .

Russia can't replace its losses and no further troops being deployed to Ukraine suggests russia isn't able to stomach the losses they are suffering at the current rate of men and vehicles

It's taken them far too long, but they are nearly getting there:

"Hungary is no longer a "full democracy" and the EU needs to do everything to bring it back into line with European values, the European Parliament said Thursday.

MEPs voted 433 in favour, 123 against, to now describe Hungary -- ruled by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who maintains close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin -- "a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy" in "serious breach" of EU democratic norms." https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220915-european-parliament-says-hungary-is-no-longer-a-full-democracy

Thanks for that. Out of curiosity how did you to come to learn Russian?

For the last few page's a few posters have been discussing Crimea. A note of my own to add. Russia for a long time has been redistributing humans in ways to serve a purpose. IE thousands of Russians been moved form one area to another. Since the Soviet days this has been on going. Now, if you put a settelment off 100000 Russians next door what do you suppose the Kremlin's thinking is their. Also, you now have Russia kidnapping countless Ukrainian people mainly young people and I am gussing girls and setting them down god knows where for god knows what. They too have a reason for that. Crimea is currently Ukrainian as far as I am concerned.

If everyone respected international law and sovereign borders, military invasions would be virtually unheard of. When it comes to conflicts between nations, ability to use force and the practicalities of the situation at hand matter more, I think. At the end of the day, it's the ability to use force that gives currency to international law in the first place - these laws aren't really observed out of the goodness of nations' hearts so much as they can be enforced if needed.

So, for Ukraine to go into Crimea, it must ask first if it can be done with acceptably low risk of a military disaster, and could it hold that territory. That's the ability to use force part of upholding international law. The practicality of it is what the strategic value of Crimea is to Ukraine at this point in time and how pushing into Crimea would cause Russia to respond. We've seen that support for the war as things stand is declining within Russia. More and more public officials there are openly voicing dissent about it. If Ukraine were able to push into Crimea, it would have to decide if such a move would further collapse Putin's support or if it would give him a surge in patriotic support, enabling to prolong the conflict with sweeping conscription and so on.

And who gets to vote? People who were resident before 2014 or people resident now? If the later then you are just using democracy to facilitate colonialism.

Stalin increased the percentage of Russian speakers in Donbas in the 50s. Well, you can't just move in a bunch of people and say 'this is ours'.

China appears to be getting grumpy at Putin over the Ukraine invasion. I wounder if China now knows its plans for Taiwan are now up in smoke.

I look forward to the day when Putin's reserves are so low that he tells the people manning his troll farms to make their way to the front line.

All this talk of crimea's future is a bit premature anyway. There doesn't seem to be much evidence of Ukrainian advances since their offensive around Kharkiv. I am still worried that retaking Kherson will be carry a huge cost for Ukraine and they will still have to take Melitopol and start to cut Putin's land bridge to Crimea I don't see how they can have a chance of retaking Crimea this year.