Russia - threadbanned users in OP

If they just cripple the plant instead of causing a radioactive disaster I highly doubt it. A more measured western response would be announcing ATACMS, F16 and attack helis to Ukraine asap.

The BBC would have certain journalistic standards, that they abide by and speculation about body doubles would, I Imagine, fall below them. Now if there was incontrovertible evidence of their use then that might change.

If you google "Putin Body double" though you can see many other outlets that are happy to write stories on the speculation, especially after the meet & greet in Dagestan the other day (including the Independent which is owned by a Russian oligarch)

Just look at the backdrop to all these videos...and you are looking at the real Russia, Rural Russia, and not the glitzy Moscow or St Petersburg. And when you see / hear reports of Russians stealing toilet's, fridges, washing machines etc. its easy to understand why. No Wonder Putin fears a successful Ukraine, one in the EU, an economic success and his Russians looking over the border and comparing it to their own miserable life and conditions. They would become uncontrollable.

Because they have all been brainwashed that it's WW2 again, and the Nazi'z are coming to kill them all.

Between that guy at the UN and Micky D and our two MEPs our reputation is taking a battering. Russian propaganda is really making inroads in this country. The other day was driving in a car with a friend. This guy is very much non politically engaged but he groaned when he heard on the radio that the US was announcing more aid to Ukraine. We were in mid conversation about something else completely. But the fact that he physically groaned and tut tutted when he heard that really struck me. I was actually Gobsmacked and didn’t acknowledge or tackle him on it. Getting more and more forwarded what’s apps as well decrying the war and anti NATO . The dial has been really turned up in pro Russian activity in this country. This time last year it was no where near as bad. I would bet every second person you meet here now would be 50/50 about the war in Ukraine. It’s a disgrace. Has there been any polls to gauge the level of support? I hope it would be overwhelmingly in favour of Ukraine. Are people in this country that heedless that they side with an expansionist murderous imperial regime over its smaller neighbour after all this country has been through. The issue has been politicised to death as well and being pro Russian is nearly an anti refugee establishment/government position.

How easily we forget, eh?

This country got a bit of money and the charity fell right out of it as a result.

The right wing making in roads in this country is one thing, but the gall of them playing up Ireland's past victimhood out of one side of their mouth, and demonising today's victims with the other.

It's not even somebody from Nigeria perhaps chancing their arm in this case, but a country that is very evidently getting devastated and having huge amounts of its population displaced by the most terrible of war.

If there isn't a charitable attitude to that, then there can be little hope, and it's only our arrogance that makes us think that such a rape of a country could never happen to us again where it's us begging for aid, where it's us putting our women and children on a refugee boat to some safer part of the world, not knowing if we'd ever see them again.

Russians are not too happy

100%.

What you're describing there a network of loosely affiliated groupings who all have 1 thing in common - susceptibility to disinformation. You can see this in action in an Irish context via a little exercise.

1. First you find a twitter account that is straight up racist. Those are easier to come by these days. If you can't find any then this one is a good example of the type.
2. Go to either their list of followers or their list of followed accounts and pick another Irish account.
3. Have a look at their bio and timeline and get a feel for what they are about
4. Repeat steps 3 & 4, choosing accounts you haven't views already each time

If you do this for long enough you'll start to notice that the content of the accounts changes but they'll probably be in certain areas:

• Straight Up racist and xenophobic accounts tweeting race-baiting material. Typical fare are video clips of black people acting aggressively against white people - These accounts are nearly always anonymous
• More garden variety anti-migrant accounts - sometimes named accounts
• Catholic Nationalists / Irish Traditionalists (often combinations of Historical info, migrant bashing, religious and anti-abortion content)
• Anti-vaxxers (Often still tweeting non stop about Covid vaccines and Covid disinformation)
• More general conspiracy theorists (New World Order, W.E.F, Soros & Gates etc)
• Lunatic conspiracy theories (Flat Earthers, Elders of Zion, Freemasons, David Icke theories etc)
• Sinn Fein hate accounts (the anti migrant crowd really despise them - probably because they are populists but they aren't anti-migrant)
• Irish accounts just retweeting American Conservatives and Brexiteers (lots of pro-Trump content)
• Climate Change Denial
• Anti-LGBT
• Anti-Ukrainian/Zelensky/NATO/EU

None of these will be distinct categories as any one account will have bits of many of these. The one constant though is the promotion of content that taps into people's cynicism and fears. It's designed to enrage them but also to be retweeted. Quite often this stuff is blatant disinformation but nobody cares. There's a distinct lack of humour on these timelines (Apart from "ha-ha those idiots said we were wrong but look at this" type stuff which isn't really actually humour). It's all Rage & Fear. It's bleak stuff and it's concerning that so many people get sucked into this rabbit hole.

A lot of American aggression is aimed at containing Russia and if that's the way it has to be, so be it. Russia has been mass murdering since it came into existence.

Inner anarchist.

Putin is seen as anti everything western so if you're an anarchist in the West he's a possible follow.

He's the modern day Hitler. No doubt if the guy himself was reborn and shouting the speeches there'd be followers. Putin just tries to make sure he keeps his speeches in a low voice and mellowed for fear of clips being shown simultaneously. But no less evil nonetheless.