Russia - threadbanned users in OP

My sympathies for any Irish citizens who have chosen to continue to live in a fascist dictatorship are pretty slim to be honest (obviously not including diplomatic staff)

NATO membership or not, Putin was going to invade. He wants Ukraine to be Russian territory so all this talk about NATO is a deflection.

Actually, if you look up from the immediate awfulness, the news is very good.

This is a strategic win for Ukraine. It solidifies internal unity to resist and also external support. Meanwhile, Russia continues to fall apart internally and to lose everywhere on the battlefield.

Nah she keeps pushing the Ukraine are prolonging the war and should negotiate land to appease Putin.

She just won’t come out and say that.

What other proposal will make Putin stop his war?

Dreadful footage coming out-

That would be a massive mistake. There are plenty of military targets that Ukraine could strike in retaliation that would harm the Russian ability to commit these atrocities. The restraint that Ukraine are showing is to avoid bringing NATO into the war directly.

The reading I get is that Putin could handle Ukraine being a sovereign country so long as it remained in political/economic alignment with Russia. Once the latter stopped being true, so did the former. In Putin's essay last year (On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians), he claims that Ukraine was an overly generous creation of the Bolsheviks who weren't that concerned about borders since they dreamed of a stateless society.

In his last paragraph, Putin declares that a Ukraine which seeks partnership with western countries cannot truly be sovereign.

So, "Your existence was a mistake and your rightful place is within our sphere of influence. I'll be fúcked if you think you can turn your back on Russia."

I thought Belarus was fake news along with Twitter....

@EOQRTL

Yes, Lukashenko knows that he can't really commit a load of Belarusian troops to a failing war effort without severely undermining his own political position. He really had to fight to hang on to power the last time he was challenged and that was in peace time.

The problem is that if Putin really leans on Lackey Lukashenko for hard military support, Lukashenko can't really afford to say no lest Putin decides to stop help propping up Lukashenko in Belarus. Then again, could Putin afford to lose sway over Belarus by having Lukashenko ousted? Interesting quandary.

I used the phrase 'awfulness'; I'm clearly not trying to suggest that civilian deaths are somehow good. Somehow inferring otherwise is simply poor comprehension on your part.

What I am trying to communicate is what is happening strategically. And Russia is losing on all strategic measures in this war. Indeed they had lost strategically before the first tank crossed the border back in February.

It's hard to keep strategic perspective in our always-on world today. Our eyes are drawn to the latest tweet but in the overall strategic picture, individual events are of themselves of little importance. It's the sum of the whole that we need to be always aware of. And that whole picture indicates total, crushing strategic defeat for Russia.

If you think I'm spoofing by the way, I attached a short post I wrote here on 27-Feb on the strategic disaster for Russia that this war represents.

Until Russia relises there is sever consequences for their attacks they will keep coming,you can't realistically fight a war with one hand tied behind your back while some else sits there at your table Telling you,if you hit them we withdraw out supports,

Sooner or later the Ukrainans will say sorry we are going to hit them

...

You don't think it means anything at this stage of the war, with Russia's fortunes at such a low ebb ? The Kremlin can dress it up in any language they want but to me it looks like they're digging deep for manpower...