Russia - threadbanned users in OP

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Short interesting piece on a Ukrainian M777 gun crew

The majority of Russians and Ukrainians I’ve met so far are in general more white of skin tone and more blue of eyes than many other “white European” people I’ve met. So I’d suggest the anti-western contrarian “racism” you’re talking about is in fact a VERY western elitism, born out of a superior sense of having done so much better in the last 100 years than a place like the USSR/Russia, with all its vastness of land and resources but which managed to fcuk everything up for itself time and again. Plus the further away the trouble is, the less we care about it.

There is no more “racism” toward the Ukrainians than there is toward Russians; it’s those poor incompetent stupid nations in the east who fcuk everything up from the revolutions and the gulags to Chernobyl and the infighting, and can’t get a handle on themselves at all. Those Slavs, eh.

It is easy to sit in scornful judgment and not bother to distinguish one nation from another, when all the suffering brought on by brutal imperialism is far enough away, and has been thus for decades. The west has been too comfortable for too long, and all these anti-west contrarian types who I’ve been meeting lately, frankly don’t know they are born, and are just a very annoying by-product of the west’s indulgence and imperviousness.

Nope, not yet anyway,,,,,,,Its possible that if Prigozhin had continued on and took the Kremlin, that might have been the trigger, give the reception he got when he was leaving Rostov, crowds were cheering an clapping him, quite the opposite of what the police ( yes, they bailed out too! ) got when they returned, bottles stones catcalls and insult's. It was a very big fence sitting moment.

Strictly for home consumption. He's trying to justify the war especially when his usual " Russia is under attack, and only I can save you" spiel is wearing thin. He's in trouble on all fronts now, Ukraine the World and internally in Russia itself.

I never disputed that. The point is about endgame versus keeping the game going.

Nope, I doubt it very much that he wants to get NATO involved, its the one thing that he has ( so far) avoided, same as the west has avoided giving him an excuse to use "The Bomb".

I think that Xi Jinping has warned him strongly against going Nuclear in any shape or form... he made it quite clear that he was not amused even at the frequency Mr. Putin was introducing it into the conversation.

Its not so much the serfs that bother him (although they will be a factor) its the other power blocks in the Kremlin....Silovicki, Oligarch's. FSB, GEU, etc. the Et Tu Brutus moment.

I see an airbase in Crimea was hit this morning.

Waiting benefits Russia during a critical window for counter-offensive. When the mud season starts that window closes.

Ukraine don't really have a choice but to conduct an offensive, they are however doing probing attacks, seeking weaknesses, rather than taking a massive risk and committing the bulk of their forces. Yes, it's crazy to do it without air cover, but again they don't really have a choice.

Russia will have time to rearm.I don't see the benefit of trying to weaken it militarily except in the present case where it has broken international norms regarding the rights of internationally recognized states to not be attacked in their own borders.

After this Ukraine war is resolved one way or another Russia will still be free to rearm and will still be accountable for its actions.

Hopefully it will live in fear and contempt of the neighbours it has mistreated and be obliged to compensate them insofar as that is possible.

But we have seen how well humiliation worked with Germany after WW1 although I am not sure how accurate that interpretation of the causes of Hitler's rise to power is.

There's a third and also kinda conspiratorial explanation. China has indicated to the US that they do not wish to see a complete collapse of the Russian Federation. The cheap Russian resources suit them just fine as is.

So the US has stopped short of supplying Ukraine enough to absolutely blow Russia out of the water(Crimea). Which could be destabilizing.

This is why the allies in the wesr never explicitly state they want Ukraine to win and retake all their territory. They're kinda hoping that Russia will come to the table and negotiate some compromise over Crimea once they've been booted from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. I've always felt this lack of strong messaging is an enormous mistake. But what do i know?

Another business man dies in Russia