Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Poland? Poland is heading to a bankruptcy fast with the highest inflation and mad spending, which won't stop till election in the autumn next year...

Timing is really bad, that's why Putin started that war just after Covid knowing that world will be in a very bad state.

Yeah, but he has much more different ethnic groups to please, while he is mainly killing young men from these nations sending them to this war.

Russian excess deaths in Nov 2021 were 930,000, so their total Covid deaths must have exceeded a million. Maybe the war is all about stealing children to make up for the losses? They sure seem to be devoting considerable effort and prioritising the mass kidnappings.

Of course all that grain and gas would come in handy for adjusting the behaviours of many food importing countries, so a bonus.

I recently saw something about Ukraine finishing a natural gas production well that would save them $150m a year in imports, I'll try and find it. Another thing the Orcs no doubt want.

Well

Well this time last year, the world was a completely different place, and Putin's place in it much more secure. Ditto Lukashenko, Maduro and last but not least Assad. I was in Belgrade when the population rose up and removed Milosevic. They marched as one on Belgrade from all points if the compass and despite heavy military / police roadblocks, swept him aside. They had had enough of him. Putin saved Assads neck at the last minute (for a price, of course) question is, can Assad hold on to power without Putins support? We could be about to find out, the war is not finished yes, and Idlib still has a large rebel / resistance presence. The regime are still carrying out bombing missions there. As for Lukashenko,,,,,,another one whose position heavily depends on Putin. There was always opposition to Putins invasion of Ukraine, but it was heavily suppressed, but in the last few weeks, since mobilization it has become much more vocal, and as the living standards drop, and the death toll rises this opposition will increase. Not to mention the knives waiting in the wings, as his potential successors vie for dominance. I don't think that we will be waiting too long,, definitely not years anyway. I'd be surprised if he is still around in 12 mths. But we will see how it goes throughout the winter.

Yeah, I think honest foreign nationals are going to have to be imported to do the job too.

It points to two things:

Fatigue- Both in reference to the airframes as many jets now have to perform a large number of sorties- but also for the pilots as they have to work their bodies around intense schedules.

Lack of maintenance- Preventative maintenance is a vital part to maintaining any aircraft. During a war the increased need for sorties means that preventative maintenance is now a secondary priority. For more modern aircraft such as SU-30 it can also be impacted by a lack of available western electronics.

Love it.

Because what worked for fixing Japan after WW2 was to have the country run by foreigners for decades until they got the message. It worked. Russia will revert to type, otherwise, which is authoritarian dictatorship.

There is no succession plan for after Putin as far as any opinion I've read on it. Seems he simply hasn't bothered to groom a successor. It's not not like when Yeltsin resigned.

There would probably be a power vacuum if Putin went now and all kinds of chaos.

Japan during/after WWII is not comparable to Russia now, that is nonsense you are speaking. Back in the mid-40's it was acceptable for a state to take control of another for the good of the west, but that isn't the case now. You're tarring all Russians with the one brush here, and think they all need to get some sort of message?

Nikolai Patrushev, 70, head of Putin’s security council.

I was reading an interesting article recently about how Baltic intelligence chiefs regard Russia as a dysfunctional basket case, perhaps one of the most dysfunctional societies on the entire planet. It would / will take one hell of a transformation to bring them even close to being a normal European country. They've had several hundred years of authoritarian rule with virtually no interruptions. The place is almost brutalised.

Is this what you are referring to - former Finnish Intelligence evaluation of Russia. Really interesting. There is a transcript of the lecture lower down.

https://the-culture-shocks.blogspot.com/2022/03/evaluation-of-russia-by-finish.html