Russia - threadbanned users in OP

All that you say is very true, but the whole point and bottom line in all of this regarding Putin and Russia is : Putin is a merciless dictator, each and every attempt to topple him has failed. And until it (A) reaches a critical enough mass for the general population to take to the streets, and drag Putin and his cronies out of the Kremlin, and publicly hang them. (B) The Siloviki and Oligarch's stage a coup, and Putin is given a cup of his own brand Tea, or maybe take the scenic route out of one of the high towers in the Kremlin. The view is exceptional from them. (C) We have the different Military factions jockeying for position. of becoming his successor. (D) And of course, it could unfold completely different than the ways outlined above. But for sure, he's one evil bastard, and the sooner he meets his eternal reward, the better.

Great interview with Claire Daly on the EU and the war in Ukraine.

I don't think there's anything I disagree with that she says. I always voted socialist until the last election (a big mistake). She'd get my vote if she ran in my area.

She describes well my experience here. Any suggestion that a ceasefire or diplomacy as a means forward is attacked and I'm labelled a komrade or some insulting nonsense.

According to various reports they are already taking losses but that's to be expected,they are now facing the same issues the Russians faced recently elsewhere in Ukraine,the Ukrainians are moving against dug in lines of defenses while being under constant artillery bombardments with very few places to hide, let's just hope the Russians lines break fairly quickly rather than forcing Ukraine into long drawn out slogs for every kilometer of land ,

Still hoping for Crimea 2023

This is what Russia did at the start of the war and how they were stopped.

Why did Ukraine think it was a good idea to try the same??

Not a good start.

Not a good start.

Unfortunately this is how it starts men and women are going to die and die in numbers until they break the Russian lines ,this cannot be avoided,they have zero aircover,no helicopter gunships other than Soviet designs lobbing unguided rockets towards a location no guarantee that they will hit anything,no fast jet capable of carrying out CAS missions,

But they have started and this will keep going until they run out of equipment, vehicles and men or they kill or incapacitate every Russian soldier currently inside ukraine first

I understand losses are inevitable, but what sort of plans and directions are they taking when they make the same mistakes the Russians made at the start of the war?

Ukraine are not going to be pushing Russia back to the border or taking Crimea by the end of the year. That was always fanciful thinking by many here and elsewhere.

By the same token the early set backs, if they are as bad as some videos seem to suggest, hopefully will not define the whole counteroffensive. We are only going to see the worst losses celebrated and posted by the Russian side, but Ukranian gains may not be as clear for some time yet.

Its going to be a long few days, weeks or even months waiting on good news from this offensive, hopefully it will be worth it for the amount of lives that will be lost for the Ukranians in trying to liberate their land.

I was saying things like this last year, the funny thing (I am not laughing, believe me) is that you were mocking me about it.

The Russians have multiple lines of defences in the south. They expect the Ukrainian attack. They have drones in the air that can spot the Ukrainian attack the minute it has entered Russian held territory. As far as I can tell, they still have the artillery advantage based on the heavy damage they have dealt to Ukrainian formations so far.

It's up to Ukraine to overcome this. Based on what I've seen so far, instead of concentrating an attack on an area, they seem to be dispersing it. I would have thought they would have concentrated a lot of force on an area in attempt to punch a hole, but so far that is not to be the case. This could be part of a greater plan, I don't know, we will have to see what happens.

I'm not going to draw conclusions from any videos released from the moskovyte side other than whatever they are saying happened is most likely to be lies as has been consistently demonstrated by all statements from the moskovytes since their attempts to commit widespread genocide throughout Ukraine escalated last year. The mistakes being shown being the same as the ones the moskovytes made themselves is most likely down to lack of imagination from the moskovyte video editors.

Outside the Russian embassy in Dublin

Do you have some way of stopping Russia from re arming and invading again in 112 months time? Because that is all that will happen. Will you push to reward the Russians for invading Ukraine again with yet more land for aa ceasefire then as well? What about when they invade Georgia?

People are in favour of a ceasefire that stops any chance of further Russian aggression. Russia will not accept those terms however and Daly is more than willing to sacrifice lives down the line if she can give out about the US now.