Russia - threadbanned users in OP

We need people like u who are good at mattamatics otherwise we could be going all over the place

In the Russian context there must be the proverbial thousands of steps to be taken in Ru , as currently constituted, to go from where it is today to becoming a functioning democracy. . I do not know how Georgia , Latvia, Moldova, et al, managed it. I assume the fact that they ‘ broke away’ from the USSR that they wanted to take a different constitutional path . BUT Russia, I cannot see how it is going to change from the current setup given that the Olegarcs are such a big part of the setup, the level of corruption and any opposition - official or otherwise a- is immediately managed/put down

PS anyone know why the ‘POLITICS thread is no longer available to post on?

A well fed demented homeless person judging by the look of him! Not starving himself is the bould Mick, a champagne socialist who prefers to spend his time in McDonalds :)

Nice uplifting quote from Gen D. Patraeus.

"I think that this counteroffensive is going to be very impressive.

My sense is that they will achieve combined arms effects in other words, they will successfully carry out combined arms operations where you have engineers that are breaching the obstacles and diffusing the minefields and so forth; armour following right on through protected by infantry against anti-tank missiles; air defence keeping the Russians aircraft off them; electronic warfare jamming their radio networks; logistics right up behind them; artillery and mortars right out in front of them.

And most important of all … is that as the lead elements inevitably culminate after 72-96 hours, physically that’s about as far as you can go, and they’ll have taken losses … you have follow-on units that will push right on through and capitalise on the progress and maintain the momentum and I think that can get the entire Russian defence in that area moving, then I think you have other opportunities that will open up on the flanks as well."

My view is a bit more pessimistic. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, the Russians went through the process of revolution and overthrowing the Tzar, but in the end it just ended up that they had a Tsar by a different name. Despite the dream of a socialist egalitarian Russia, they still had one guy living in obscene luxury relative to the ordinary person and his 'court' being the most well off. In their next revolution, their people hoped to cast off the shackles of authoritarianism once again, but it just brought about chaos, being poorly implemented with too many forces of corruption getting their piece and dooming the project to failure, such that it once again gave rise to an appetite for the old order in the form of Putin.

Point being that a desire to be ruled by basically a dictator seems deeply embedded in Russian culture and isn't something that would be rolled back in a generation because it's the product of centuries of conditioning. And I think that Russia is welcome to run itself how it likes, but not to try and export that to other nations who don't want it. They cannot handle the idea that Ukraine is going through a sea change of thought and lose influence there, but that is precisely what is happening, and they're failing to learn an old lesson that you cannot bomb a people into loving you.

I don't know why they're so busy talking this offensive up before it even starts. It's almost like they're trying to test the Russian willingness to negotiate. Surely it'd be better to let the action do the talking

Sounds to me like it is a deliberate move to ware down the moskovytes with nervous tension before the actual major moves of the counteroffensive are put into action. I don't think it is designed to test their willingness to negotiate but the willingness of moskovyte troops on the ground to run away to save their own lives rather than being turned into fertiliser serving putin.

I don't get the civil war argument. Who's going to fight against/for the current regime? When Putin goes, he will just be replaced - whether it's by a coup or an "election" remains to be seen.

Nuclear weapons tend to set a countries boundaries in stone and previous dissent (chechnya) became an internal war of attrition so its hard to see the regions break away especially as they contain the resources that let the oligarchs engorge themselves.

Is Putin grooming any successors? It seems like Putin is particularly terrified of death. It's a pretty universal fear, but Putin's looks to be especially heightened. He hid out during Covid, he's cancelling big celebrations so as to avoid being out in public too much, broke the length filter on the iKEA website.... seems like it's something he's doing his utmost to avoid, and not only that, but it seems to me like he doesn't want to entertain the concept of its inevitability. Thus, a true successor is not on the horizon, hype man Medvedev notwithstanding. If he's done anything to bring a successor along, it's to introduce rivals to the throne on the Russian political scene, but I think that's been more to protect his own temporal power by setting them bickering and acting subordinately. I really don't think he wants to imagine a Russia without him, and wouldn't particularly care about that future if he cannot be at the helm.

...

Sounds like an ammo dump.

A Russian protest. Simmering.

It’s definitely intentional anyway. Impossible to know. Maybe just to keep the Russians consistently stressed and on alert to drain them. Maybe they don’t have the capacity to carry out a counteroffensive so just a misinformation campaign (although I doubt this is the case). Also, constantly talking about a counteroffensive means that if Russia receives good intelligence on the time it might be hard for them to separate that from the endless misinformation.