Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Has Russia managed to capture a single one of the tanks or other armour donated to Ukraine since earlier this year?

It needs more than a pushback to the original borders, inc Crimea, but militarily and economically Russia needs to be destroyed, so that even if Putins replacement turns out to be even more of a tyrant, with much worse ambition's he won't have the wherewithal to wage war. He will be too busy trying to keep a restless population under control.

I’m living in some hope that this war in itself will sweep the legs of Russia’s military capabilities. Their response to the Wagner Rising really seemed to suggest that almost every manned gun Russia has available is deployed to Ukraine. Beyond some token garrisons dotted around Russia, I feel that their forces to Ukraine is pretty much all they have.

If that force is defeated, they’d be back to square one, and I feel practically demilitarised. They’d still need to be contained, but an intact NATO with Ukraine as part of it, would likely be well able for the job.

NATO membership would definitely drive Russia ( regardless of who is in charge ) to seek softer targets to pick on. Then let them stew in their own mess. Hopefully, without Putin, the Russian people themselves will rise up and sort out their own future, but that will take some doing, even without the threat of prison for anyone speaking out against Putin like tactics. The serf-like mindset is still prevalent amongst the majority of Russians. But maybe this time, the younger and better educated Russians will bring change, that is if they can be persuaded to return.

I'm sort-of surprised the Georgians, Armenians and Chechens haven't "tested the water" when it comes to kicking RuZZia out. RuZZias military is big, but seriously inept and ffs prosecuting its war with museum pieces. Isn't Kadyrov an actor in the Ukraine theater, posting tiktoks or whatever? I'm surprised he still has his head, I think his son is pushing up the daisies now in Checen. You have many great insights into RuZZia, any thoughts?

Ukrainians definitely making substantial progress down South,

All this talk of a Russian offensive up North will achieve nothing since Sky News is reporting that Russia is withdrawing forces up North and East to reinforce down South.

They wouldnt do this unless they thought Russian lines were about to collapse.

If they loose the South, they will probably loose the war.

I'm not going to mention names as I've been warned before but checking into this thread one of the usual suspects is spreading sillage.

Some stink.

To address views that "F16s will make no difference"

Far too optimistic alas.

It’s the hope that they’d just give up and return home, but the current regime have no choice (in their heads) than to dig in and keep fighting. Ukraine need to fight them to the point where Russia might have to engage in “good will gestures” and withdraw, until eventually they “good will” themselves over the 1991 border.

I'd be careful, there's many different versions of AMRAAMS, the version with those distances can't be currently fired from the version of F16's Ukraine will be getting (according to comments).

Similar to the IRIS missile. Ukraine uses them, but there's 3 versions, Ukraine only received the short and medium range missiles but not the long range ones.

As the US and Canada already announced them, I'd suspect they are going to be ground launched from NASAMS.

You get it. As numerous posters have pointed out had Darkman/ Kermit been around during the Normandy landings he'd probably have said the allies were bogged down and should just negotiate with The Germans. What Ukraine has achieved thus far without air support is incredible. I fully believe the Russians didn't think the Ukranians would breakthrough the first line of defense. Russia is going to lose this war because every day their ability to wage war is being depleted as Ukraine gets more and more advanced weaponry, it's just a matter of when Putin accepts defeat. Putin was heralded as a master strategist up to a few years ago, but i think history will judge him in a far worst light than Gorbachev for this monumental geo political blunder that has made Russia a crippled and pariah state for years to come.

I didn't hear what they done with the Patriot batteries, what did they do?

Good video about what the F16's can and can't do for Ukraine. Very interesting with the HARM missiles that Ukraine already use. Because it's adapted to fire from their migs, it can only use 1 mode. When fired from an F16, it can use all 3 modes. Ukraine need to know the target location of the SAM site, when they get their F16's, they can just patrol and when the HARM missile detects a random SAM site, the pilot can then fire the missile.

Ukraine has made some significant progress in recent weeks, not as much as might have been hoped or predicted by some but certainly more than it appeared a month ago. There's been a giddiness about the progress from some people here over the last week which is quite similar to this time last year, and we're back to predictions of Crimea soon being retaken, etc. I suspect this is over optimism. However it's certainly not the total stalemate it appeared a month ago and there is a sign that things are shifting significantly. I'd say let's see where things are in November when winter is setting in:

They already have, but Putin won each time. Challenging Putin one by one they were easier to subdue. That's not to say that they didn't give Putin headaches, because they did, many times, especially Chechnya. To this day, there's an anti-Kadyrov movement in Chechnya. He has never been forgiven for changing sides turning from an anti-Russian to pro Russian stance. When they killed his father Akhmad ( they placed a bomb under a stand that was being built for him for him to review the Victory Day parade.) All of Chechnya rejoiced. Ramzan Kadyrov has 6 sons ( 2 adopted) and 6 daughter's and 3 wives. And to the best of my knowledge, they are all alive and well. And only for the support Putin gave Kadyrov, he'd be long gone too. As soon as Putin goes, I'd say that there will be big changes in the Federation. In each case, Putin managed to install a pro Putin government. Even today, this is very evident in Georgia, where there has resurfaced a protest movement to remove the pro Putin Prime Minister, who is seen to lean more towards Putin than European which the majority of Georgians favor. (shades of Maiden protests in 2014) For Armenia, I'm not too sure as I haven't ever been directly involved there, but I presume that its standard Putin operation, either start a separatist movement if there isn't one, or aggravate an existing one. Ensuring that the outcome is favorable to Russia.