The American election in 2024 is probably what gives Putin hope. He'll keep grinding for another 18 months until then in the hope trump gets elected. He trump fails Ukraine is safe. If he gets in things Will get tricky with reduced American support.
If this was to happen and Russia starts winning a grinding war I can see Poland getting directly involved and then things get really messy. There's no way they will allow Russia on their Ukrainian border.
I'm still hoping they'll enter as "peacekeepers" on the Ukrainian/Belarusian border to free up Ukrainian troops and resources for where they're actually needed.
@Addmagnet "But you always start from the premise that it is never 'ok' to kill POWs."
Agreed. But if they kill them, under duress, I'm ok with it. That's my argument.
What we're getting more recently is "Well Russia has ALWAYS done poorly in the first year" as a direct reference to WW2.
Forgetting their previous failures in WW1, Russo-Japanese, Afghanistan etc.
Russia does well when it's fighting some regional insurgency.
I agree with some posters here who say there's more chance of Russia imploding than Russia winning.
Where’s that exception in the conventions of war?
that is the laziest form of engagement possible
Safer in the Ukranian trench. Would probably be dinner in the Russian trench.
Super embarrassing for you too considering what a fan of Putler you've been in the not too distant past.
BTW how's the imminent collapse of the EU going for you, also long predicted?
When a beaver has more success against Ukrainian defenders than the orcs 😂
Yes, critical thinking is what you are trying to inject 🙄
I think Ukraine will win in the end,wont happen overnight or even as soon as we'd all like...look at how much the Ukraine Army has done already since the start of this and now they're getting better and better arms and equipment plus the fact they are on their home grounds and Id have doubts that President Zelenskyy will accept anything other then complete withdrawal of baldybollix in the kremlins troops from all Ukraine lands...
When do you think your certain prediction will be fulfilled by?
I don't think any Russian propaganda is making the case that I am proposing?
All I'm trying to do is inject some critical thinking. I get that the predicted outcomes may not be to everyone's liking - it doesn't mean they are the result of successful Russian propaganda!
100%
Think back to Kherson. For a long time the orcs looked unassailable. Then in the space of a couple of days there was a complete orc collapse.
Same thing with Kharkiv, everything looked great for the orcs there right before they collapsed there as well.
The same thing is going to happen again when the Ukrainians go on their counter offensive, the orcs will collapse again.
There is no confirmation bias, only facts.
The orcs started this war off with their elite VDV and T90 tanks and have regressed to raw conscripts and T54's today. At the rate we're going they will be down to T34's and OAP's within a year, and that is if they are even able to sustain a war effort that long.
Ukraine on the other hand only get stronger and stronger. More troops getting NATO training, more weapons systems, more ammunition factories delivering. They are the ones fighting to save their country, they have stronger morale and the will to win.
Ukraine are winning this war, and they are taking back all the temporarily occupied orc territory. I am certain of this.
Vse bude Ukraina :)
The problem with a messy and unsatisfactory settlement is that it's not so much a conclusion as a pause in the fighting. Russia won't give up its ambitions on Ukraine so long as Putinism remains its dominant ideology and likely seek to revamp its military and then bide its time.
It may be that a negotiated settlement requires Ukraine to cede some territory, maybe with the proviso of an internationally-observed referendum in these regions, but if Ukraine cedes territory, it will surely seek to come under the NATO umbrella in some way, and quickly, in order to make sure as possible that no further Russian aggression takes place.
I admire your optimism but I think you might be setting yourself up for some disappointment with those sky high expectations.
I think you're expressing confirmation bias in your thinking here.
We'd all like the above outcome. It doesn't mean things 'can only end' that way.
The eventual political settlement is likely to be messy and unsatisfying (for both sides).
It can only end in a total Ukrainian victory.
Anything other than the complete removal of all orcs forces from sovereign Ukrainian territory is just going to lead to a frozen conflict. There's no point in Ukraine signing any sort of orc "peace" deal that involves them keeping occupied territory. That that does is encourage putler to come back and take a second bite out of Ukraine later on when he rebuild his army.
Victory is coming though. The orcs have taken devastating losses over the previous year. Most of their experienced soldiers have been killed and their best equipment is all scrap metal. The new western weapons are going to make a big difference when they are finally deployed. Most of the orcs are raw conscripts who will not want to be there. When faced with tanks like Leopards, they are going to abandon their positions and run for their lives. Once that initial rout starts, it will be all over for the orc invasion and putler for that matter.
The population seems to be divided into the "patriots" who swallow the media narrative and the majority who have checked out entirely and are in a state of learned helplessness. A lot of a third category who were anti-Putin have already fled the country. At the same time Putin has been savvy enough not to mobilise too much from the areas of Moscow or St Petersburg. In short, I cannot see a mass uprising. The only alternative is a palace coup and even that seems difficult given how famously paranoid Putin is when it comes to his own personal safety.
How do you see him being toppled?
Seeing as they murdered the last one (Nemtsov) and tried to murder this one via poisoning, it's safe to say the position of 'Opposition Leader' is not exactly over-subscribed with candidates....
Really? the
1905 revolution must have been a 'joke' then too, by that metric.
There is no such opposition today.
Putin is the Kremlin and vice-versa. They aren't keeping Navalny "on ice" like they do Yanukovych, they are straightforward executing him slowly in a Russian prison.
This isn't Turkey or Venezuela where there's some sort of opposition, there's only Putin (and his inner circle of a half dozen like-minded men who run Russia). He's made sure much everyone's fate is tied to his, especially the oligarchs.
In my opinion, unless the man dies of something, he's not going anywhere.
Alexi Navalny is the Kremlin's choice of opposition leader to Putin if the needs ever arises for the Kremlin ever to appoint an opposition leader to Putin and the Presidency.
Kremlin's choice as, as @Wibbs pointed out before Russia and the Kremlin are no ordinary Western like state. If the authority doesn't like you. You're dead or suicided. Simple as.
He's the Kremlin schooled opposition leader if the need arises.
@Manic Moran
.....but it is obvious that a drone has problematic factors in accepting surrenders. They can't take custody and secure prisoners, for starters.
Not yet, anyway. But they're working on it.
No, it's different.
You need to separate the military (going badly for Russia and Putin) from the political (no opposition, total control) spheres.
There was existing political opposition in Russia long before WW1. The war just created the conditions for that opposition to spread and, ultimately overthrow the Tsar.
There is no equivalent political opposition now. The only realistic current alternatives to Putin are other Putinists.
I mean, several people are saying they can or should. I'm not "overlooking" anything - I'm not remotely surprised that such cases are appearing. It is inevitable. The correct response, and the one Ukrainian leadership has generally always taken, is that these incidents should be investigated and the perpetrators held accountable.
The wrong response is "they had it coming, and we should execute more Russian captives".
I think if there's time to ask the question "do we kill these POWs?" then, you don't kill them.
Accidents will happen, actions or words will get misinterpreted, people under extreme stress will react unhelpfully, and all these kinds of situations should be investigated thoroughly as soon as is practicable.
But you always start from the premise that it is never 'ok' to kill POWs.
Not Russia just occupied by Russians
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