Russia - threadbanned users in OP

A neighbour was complaining about a favourite hotel in Killarney been taken over for Ukrainians, that we were doing too much.

A neighbour who respects boundaries wouldn't even say such a thing.

It could be that Russia doesn't want to risk the neutral or positive view of it held by the 70% of the worlds population outside of Europe and NA. It is likely they will try to sustain something of a stalemate until the US elections and then review their tactics.

Ukraine won't fall though, Russia are severely on back foot, matter of when not if war ends. Putin messed up big time with this invasion.

Easy to tell which side you're rooting for.

In essence, what you are saying is that you would be much happier if the evil Russians were able to continue raping, torturing and killing Ukrainians. Well, may your depression continue to deepen.

Well whatever about the Russian army it's clear the Putinbots have rallied from recent defeats and are on the counter offensive.

"We hear nothing"?? The article actually states Russia is losing much more men/women on the battlefield. Like did you actually read it?

Talk about stating the obvious.

Of course the ideal solution would be for Russia to go home, war over. I never said anything different. But that's not going to happen with Putin in power. Hence as I said many times: he has to go, either through coup or assassination, I'd welcome either option.

And the BBC article IS balanced, that's the whole point. As expected, the person has already been attacked by several people for posting it.

There is a limit to the number of men and material you can lose in a modern war. Manpower alone isn't worth much past a certain point without the necessary training, equipment and logistical support.

The limit for Russia is lower than Ukraine which is literally fighting for survival against an invading army behaving like a barbarian horde.

Russia cannot restock its military with tanks, artillery and other equipment with modern equivalents at the rate it is being lost. Their air force is barely even in the conflict for whatever reason.

The Russia army was incomparably bigger and better equipped than Ukrainian army at the outset. Look at them now. It's broadly a 1:1 stalemate with Ukraine making some respectful gains and inroads that are certainly pressing Russia extremely hard.

Russia cannot win the war. It's literally not possible. 18 months after their invasion they still only hold relatively small areas of Ukraine they didn't already control (Crimea, Donetsk/Luhansk) and the best and decent elements of their army have been destroyed.

The war is over, the invasion was a colossal blunder that will go down with the biggest in history, but unfortunately a ton more people will die before Putin/Russia actually accepts that.

If this was 1944 certain people in this thread would be saying "Germany is still very dangerous, and it's willing to sacrifice as many men as it takes, the USSR is going to suffer horrendous casualties" and "Everyone needs to sit down and talk peace to save Soviet lives".

Germany hadn't the faintest hope by that point of anything other than eventual defeat. A staggering amount of the Eastern Front casulties happened between summer 1944 and May 1945, but there was zero question long before then of what the outcome would be.

You seem like a very angry person, there is zero need for cursing. I posted a link to a very good BBC article explaining the situation on the ground in invaded Ukraine. You went off on some rant about Russian bingo cards?? and propaganda. Look i'll leave you to it.

If Russia were doing well they'd have fox news reporters covering all the successes of their three day war.

The other way to look at that is Putin took the most compedient (I'm being generous) wing of his armed forces and it's now crushed.

Russia may be a larger country but its not the Russian country fighting, its their army. Putin might replace its broken equipment with WW11 equipment, that really doesn't help much and replacing Russian troops with untrained and poorly motivate individuals will eventually. Is it different with UKR, yes it is. They don't have an endless supply of equipment but what's coming is superior to what they currently have and their armed forces are being trained by other countries. This has probably slowed the expected offensive, but UKR are fighting for their land, their parents, their children.

Every UAF person has skin in the game, they fight so their parents can hold what they worked their life for. They fight so their children have a future and hope. With time Russia will do what its done in other countries it will slink back to its shrinking borders. But that's not the end of it.

So why don't you report back to your superior comrade, tell them the game is up, because if we in Ireland know Russia is a joke, a mere shadow of its former self, then you can take it every other country in Europe knows it too. And the future ? well who knows, maybe a cold war starts where Europe continues sanctions until Russia buckles and starts paying for its illegal invasion for the rebuilding of Ukraine, what a total waste of Human life, decades of people lives will be affected. Any Russian should be totally ashamed of their country, will the penny drop and will Russian's start to demand change, well time will tell.

@Gerry T

Very generous. Wagner were alright when fighting poorly-armed African rebels. When it came to fighting a proper military, their best success involved slaughtering tens of thousands of barely trained convicts in a lemming meat assault and it took eight months and that battle is still ongoing. If that was their most competent force, Russia's ambitions in Ukraine are truly unobtainable.

These UAF deep strikes into Russia and occupied Crimea must be causing havoc with Russian logistics and personnel deployments. Its very clever stuff.

Ruble on the move again, back up to 96 RUB to the dollar.

Dead cat bounce?