The war will end when Putin is gone, if not before. It’s been his personal desire for immortality and his successor should be able to disavow it relatively easily - that doesn’t necessarily mean a full retreat but I’d expect we’d see an armistice quite quickly.
I don't think there is anyone currently strong enough to replace him , coup or he dies tomorrow,
There isn't a candidate there that would be able to keep Russia under control,
Lavrov he's worse than putin in some degrees he's happy to spout nonsense verbatim,
Mikhail Mishustin current pm makes most sense he's also not a member of the military or the FSB and an engineer by trade ,he's got some links to Bogey Money,
But I don't see anyone in the current military who has the ability to force a power change either ,
I wouldn't be surprised if the whole place went up in fire within a few years of something happening to putin
I’ve read that Medvedev is considered a busted flush in Russia and his ranting is a desperate bid for attention
I'm not aware that people around Putin want nuclear attack despite the raving loons on Russian tv. As for who replaces him - what is to be gained from continuing this war? Endless attrition and sanctions? Whoever gets in power after Putin would be wise to blame this shambles on Putin and pull out "for the sake of Russian lives" or some such excuse.
Medvedev actually used to be progressive by Russian standards and even relatively friendly towards the West. In Obama's last book, he mentioned how he found him quite the contrast to Putin, who subjected him to a long rant about the crimes of the West.
Medvedev has reinvented himself as a hawk since Putin sidelined him after he returned as president in 2012. The question is has Medvedev got to the point where he's started believing his own bullshit. Before 2012 Medvedev was probably Russia's best shot at actually becoming something resembling a normal democratic country. Unfortunately I doubt that's the case now.
I post a link on whataboutery and I get back whataboutery. Russia is on a campaign of mass murder and has been for more than 2 decades. Anyone else's crimes should not be used as an excuse for this. Russia is a psychically sick country and their war is filled with hate. As the man said - By their fruits ye shall know them.
What about all this? Lets not pretend this is a fight between good and evil. There are many innocent people caught up in this war, which draws most people in to support them, there are some people that are conveniently whitewashed from the picture today to protect a narrative. History shows Western powers are quite capable of supporting unsavoury characters when it suits their interests, including in Russia.
@faceman
So when Putin does go - either when he kicks it or by way of political coup, who will take over? Its usually the opposition that rallies a coup. But in this case they're all either in prison or fired. If the coup comes from within the right wing element in the Kremlin, well that could make things worse for everyone.
This is all armchair speculation of course but important to long term security none the less.
Whether a democracy or a dictatorship, you cannot expunge the will of the people and loyalty will only stretch so far. So it's first a question of how much the Russian people are willing to suffer in prosecuting this war, especially younger people, and second of how hard security forces are willing to work for the state they're assigned to protect. Russia is not North Korea, even though people like to say it now is. Younger people who know how to use the Internet a bit better can still get outside information easily enough and get some sense of context. And Russia has very few, if any, outspoken allies in this war. Russia's big international partner (or the one they like to claim is), China, has taken a pretty aloof stance to the situation.
So, you can have General Krull take over Russia and oust Putin, but what political future would their decision to double down on war have? How would they avoid the hard realities of the economic fallout and internal/external political of continuing to prosecute a failing war which is diminishing in popularity with the public?
Apparently if you pose the question that there is a possibility that indeed Putin is holding back the nutcase hawks from taking over you are in fact a putinbot to the clique on here. They'll be here in a minute with the usual "whataboutery" claims etc...
In fact it is a real worry and iv'e spoken out about it on here before that in my opinion Medvedev is the one to look out for when the over throw comes eventually.
Love to be a fly on the wall of the back channels at the moment between the US and Russia on Russia's off-ramp here.
This is not the Cuban missile crisis, it would be near impossible to keep any agreement like that secret today.
At some point a deal will be done to help Russia down from the cliff which I guess could more than likely involve partition of Russian leaning parts of Ukraine as well as other things.
This is what I was saying earlier today there's a definite flash comes across from the rail side and the trucks looks pretty much intact as the explosion engulfs the bridge, where if a bomb exploded inside the truck it would be torn to piece immediately as the explosion went off
Video of a screen playing the video is not a proper way to analyse this stuff. Even if you had the original file, they way video compression works can result in frames having the content of previous frames for some areas instead of what is actually happening.
I may be jumping ahead here, but if/when Putin kicks it, there is an unspoken reality that the media hasn't really tackled yet. Who replaces him?
When Putin came in to power, he was a bit of a hero to Russian people, both on the left and right. He rescued the economy. He also did something that very few world leaders have done - appealed to both the right and the left.
There is a school of thought that Putin is a gatekeeper of right wing extremism. He keeps the wildest ones at bay while entertaining and promoting their views.
Here's the thing. He's currently surrounding himself with those right wing nutcases as he regularly goes through sacking his staff. That new head of operations being an example. As we know, many of his supporters are pushing for extreme response with Ukraine up to and including nukes.
This stuff about Russia adapting assumes that Ukraine won't be able to do the same and are just static in their ability. Ukraine continues to get NATO-spec weapons and training. If Russia's armoury has to be be 'good enough', it must be good enough to match that, and this is a country which is under heavy sanction.
Does Russia actually have until next Autumn to prosecute this war? Or more to the point, does Putin have that time? Already there have been protests over mobilisation, hundreds of thousands of men fleeing the country to avoid conscription and even Putin's top propagandists bemoaning the state of things on the battlefield.
Going frame by frame one sees the start or the explosion, it's here in this screen grab I took ,the white haze you see on screen, that's a microsecond into the explosion and as you see all the trucks look fine.
I don't think that the truck was involved. Its presence was purely accidental. There are simply too many "links" in the chain to make it work. And believe me, Russians check everything (especially trucks) going on to that bridge.
The right track look to be buckled.
They must have run the train on the left one.
Interesting if true ТРУХА⚡️English on Twitter: "Ukraine blew up all the bridges near the border with Belarus, said Anatoly Lapo, head of the State Border Committee of the Republic of Belarus. According to him, border roads are also mined. Potatoes will not pass😁 https://t.co/7gBvYCyoBi" / Twitter
Whataboutery writ large-
Journalist Luke Harding described Russian whataboutism as "practically a national ideology".[21] Writing for Bloomberg News, Leonid Bershidsky called whataboutism a "Russian tradition",[22] while The New Yorker described the technique as "a strategy of false moral equivalences".[23] Julia Ioffe called whataboutism a "sacred Russian tactic",[24][25] and compared it to accusing the pot of calling the kettle black.[26]
Whataboutism - Wikipedia
These crazies are living in the most remote corner of the non-existent multiverse.
Their logistics is atrocious considering they are right next door. Lessons from the front and Ukrainians tactics will be taught to the mobilised men, important issues like how to stay alive and do the maximum damage. They will revert to the proper application of their tactics with new adaptations. Over the next few months the Russians will keep degrading Ukrainian civil infrastructure, their own heartland is not impacted. The equipment only needs to be good enough. Their issue will be the quality of the ammunition will eventually get down to the stuff that does not work or explodes when you handle it, so there is an incentive to bring this to a halt before next Autumn.
There are also the issues of how the Winter plays out in the United States (November elections, lame duck president, domestic leftist violence, lack of support for the war, the war hawks in the Republican party have been stymied, their voters are not interested) and Europe (a collapse of German industry due to the pursuit of Green energy policies over he last two decades, bought forward by the shutdown of Russian energy supplies), coupled with financial instability across the EU and other elections.
This is the hubris of any state that considers itself 'Exceptional'
They can dish it out without batting an eyelid, but if anyone dares to strike back, they complain that they are being treated unfairly or accuse the others of being terrorists.
American does it, the British did it, the Russians do it etc
I wouldnt bet on that. One needs a shame installed in first place to carry for generations. Russians are not known for shame.
The Russian ombudsman for human rights was complaining the bridge attack may have breached Russian citizens human rights
Ah, that was satisfying, taking however long it took you to type that reply out of your day.
At the meeting with head of Russian investigative committee Putin accused Ukrainian special services in explosion at Crimean bridge
in other news the pot called the kettle black
Ukraine’s broader interests are currently certainly best served by limiting their action to their own territory and targets causing them immediate danger (such as supply lines and depots) in nearby Russian territory. But that’s really only because of the pragmatic considerations of trying to keep a varying and disparate coalition of allies on side, rather than any consideration for Putin’s feelings.
No. What is the name of the thread?
Not only that, but it would be a net PR loss to hit a Russian city or town just because. You give Putin an easy thing to rattle the sabre over and Ukraine's moral high ground gets a shade lower.
It was obviously the Russians themselves. Another false flag like them bombing the nuclear plant, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline etc.
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