They are trying to encircle Bakhmut,but with heavy losses
They are trying desperately to take it to impress Kremlin for political gains and a victory
Apparently the Russians are putting together a new private company to rival Wagner,due to fears they don't play ball with the government
Russia have thousands of nuclear warheads,lets hope they dont end up the wrong hands if that happens
Somehow I think it is only likely to be applied to those who express views of the 'special military operation' that are contrary to the official view or that publish information that might help the enemy.
I think Prigozhin is looking for the job as president of Russia,after Putins gone.
Pretty it's much it's looking that way,if Putin Lasts another 18 months Russia Will go up like a tinder box ,
He would be worse than putin,if the Ukrainans don't get him , hopefully the Americans grab or remove him
I hope so,he would be a bad choice for sure with his criminal past
Hes on FBIs most wanted list atleast,maybe some russians wants to make some proper money instead of ending up as canonfodder in Ukraine.
he has to. its his job.
I think this is the biggie that the White House is worried about. Not forgetting Chem and Bio agents that can be got at much easier I would guess. It's actually a dangerous time and when Putin goes, and he will go, what might happen to Russia could be 100 times greater than the collapse of the soviet union. In soviet times that had a system in place to safeguard the serious stuff, while it was a free for all with the AK47s. under Putin, Russia has become a disturbed dystopian gangsterstate. what could happen there could well be worse than some science fiction blockbuster.
I fear that Wagner is a danger we need to collectively keep an eye on. Ousting Putin will not soften the Russian Federation's behavior overnight (or possibly at all) and a take over by a Wagner-led Military Dictatorship is just going to push Russia more & more into North Korea style nonsense. We may end up having to spend decades simply containing them, much to the detriment of everyone.
Feels like Russia really needs a "Euro-Maidan" of their own to embrace actual democracy & sense, but I'm not sure how they could manage it at the moment.
Russia have moved their ships in the Black Sea in preparation for more missile attacks on Kyiv.
Utter scumbags.
They conveniently forgot to mention conscription for military age (or even under / over) men and women!!! And Yes, I know that in normal countrys, you cannot conscript non-nationals, but remember this is Russia, and conventional laws do not apply!
And to kill not just 100'000 people, but to kill 5 or even 10 million would not bother the top brass either.
Thats what many are worried about,and the hate towards the west wont be changed over night either,not after Ukraine,that will take atleast a generation to fix if the democracy continue in Russia and things changes to more western friendly politics.
And Russia wont have many allies left either,so the alternative will be other terrorist or totalitarian states that probably would love to get their hands on Russian nuclear weapons and technology.
General feeling here seems to be that all things considered putin is a moderate and the worst is yet to come
I doubt it, since day one of the invasion, any discussion or reference to the "Special Military Operation" was punishable wit 15 years prison. Little old ladies holding white flowers, or blank bits of paper were arrested within minutes of appearing on the streets. Nope, this is just another turn of the screw on the general population.
Its not about whether it would bother anyone - I highly doubt it would too. And its also not about trusting China.
100,000 would be an order of magnitude greater than the highest estimate given by a foreign body present, which in and of itself is already an outlier. There is a vanishingly small likelihood it is the correct number and a simple correction would have stopped all this back and forth. It was a horrific and horrendous event but a casual relationship with the truth is not a good thing from anyone (and yes Russia is worse etc etc), nor is trying to rationalise a way out of the mistake because you don't like the people correcting you.
Yes, but by the time that happens, what will be left of Russia militarily (nuclear options aside, and even that scenario is well played out, and has not changed) not to mention economically? The death toll from the oligarch's civil war will be horrendous, In one part of TraumaZone, it got so bad that the opposing factions had their own graveyards. And that would be Childsplay if they go to full scale war with each other for the grand prize, Russia itself. What Putin had at his disposal when he started the invasion, has been whittled down dramatically.
'Putin is a moderate'. That's quite the statement to make about the man who is the undisputed apex of the Russian power vertical and has total control over every initiative, home and abroad.
Maybe if you added the words 'compared to Stalin or Hitler'.....
I'm not sure on what level Putin could be called a "moderate" either. An unprovoked war on their neighbour which has devolved into lobbing missiles into civilian areas. Never mind his history in Chechnya and other places. At best he displays a veneer of moderation for public consumption.
Unless the definition of moderate has become "doesn't start a nuclear war".
They do it because whatever will happen down the road, for now they have to follow the Dear Leaders orders and be seen to be the best at it. Kadyrov is playing a different game, I think. Without Putin's support, his hold on Chechnya is tenuous, and there are plenty of Chechens who would like to see him gone. Speaking of Chechnya, in Grozny recently thousands turned up to watch the execution of two rapists. They were shot by members of the women's family. The Clan system is alive and well in the Caucasus generally, but especially in Chechnya, a fact that Putin's conscript recruiters would do well to remember.
Yes, and when you factor in the Clan system you will have all the hate you need. Vendettas going back generations. In the former YU, Tito kept all the different states together. Once he went, they all separated into their historical entities, and civil war broke out. Same thing could well happen in Russia when Putin goes
Quite a few rumours that the Belarussian foreign minister was killed on the Kremlin's orders (there's talk he may have been reaching out to the West) and that Lukashenko now fears for his own safety.
Another persistent rumour doing the rounds is that Putin may be planning to annex Belarus. Stage some pseudo-Anschluss stunt where Belarus 'asks' if it can become part of greater Russia.
All the news outlets seem to be quite circumspect and are using phrases like 'died suddenly'. Lukashenko does seem to be walking a tightrope between staying loyal to his Kremlin patron (without whom he'd be gone by the end of the day) and not committing Belarus armed forces directly...
If the plan is genuinely for an 'Anschluss' of some description. then Lukashenko could be in big trouble (as Putin wouldn't even need him any longer). I doubt he would be okay with his foreign minister being murdered by the Kremlin and is probably freaked right now.
Given the absolute and blatant disregard Russia has shown for Ukrainian civilian lives and property, I wouldn't be too surprised if most Ukrainian civilians were more than happy to have similar actions carried out on their Russian civilian counterparts....If you don't believe so, feel free to carry on living in your world of rainbows and unicorns
I can't think of any faster and more efficient way for Ukraine to destroy their Western support, it would be stupidity on a grand scale.
Ukraine is (as much anyone can in the fog of war) largely adhering to the Geneva Conventions and the rule of war. Russia is very demonstrably not. Part of the T&Cs of continuing Western support is that this situation continues. Any barbarism along the lines you are suggesting would likely gravely weaken Ukraine's strategic position. As we have seen throughout this conflict, Ukraine has been very smart in how it fights this war.
Do you happen to have the terms and conditions?
Saw an interesting one on RTEs Eurovision widget on their website few days ago ago (where they collect a selection of translations of articles & videos from different state media around Europe).
What has the war revealed about the Putin regime?
It has demonstrated two things about Putin and the top people in Russia that the West continues to underestimate. First, they [Russians] think in asymmetrical terms. When the Ukrainians defeat the first offensive, a lot of people think that maybe it’s over, and now, we can talk about an off-ramp for Putin. No. They [Russians] then adopt a different strategy. And when you defeat that, they’ll adopt the third strategy. Every time they lose a game, they start another game that you’re not expecting.
The last two of these games have involved, first, the shift to attacks on critical infrastructure, particularly energy infrastructure [...]. Then, this is just beginning but very serious – Iran’s entry into the fighting. It looks as if it will now be followed by the deployment and employment of Iranian ballistic missiles, against which Ukrainians do not appear to have any and even NATO has limited defences.
In other words in his judgement Putin/Russian regime have no intentions of giving up on the goal(s), or agreeing this "peace" some people dream of if only Ukraine/Zelensky "sees sense" etc.
As they are contained (which has been NATO approach so far), they adjust and try a new tactic while they can. Really the only way out of this (IMO) is for NATO to (edit: help Ukraine) to raise cost of war till it becomes intolerable.
Give Ukraine all the conventional weapons it needs with few limits to wreck the Russian military even more severely, in Ukraine, in the Black Sea, maybe even into Belarus/Russian airspace. Would change Russia's calcuations quite a bit if they could reach out over the border and down even just a handful of the old bombers firing missiles or sink a Russian ship or 2 further out in the Black sea (if there's some NATO weapon Ukraine could be provided to do this - no military/weapons expert me?). Turn the screw on Russia a couple more turns.
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