Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Not how I remember it.

I recall it being suggested that Russia would be well advised against a full invasion as it was a big country and well up for resisting .

The question seemed to be whether they would create a land corridor to Crimea plus take the Dombass and other regions near the border or whether they would go for Kiev.

As far as I remember it was not seriously thought that they would try to take the whole country but (if they took Kiev) they would seek to leave a Western rump .

When they went for the jugular it was a very unwelcome surprise but as you say expected to be very quickly accomplished and a puppet regime installed in Kiev but with resistance around the country and a heartland in the West.

I think the West/Nato expected a quick capitulation in Kiev (hence the offer of the chopper) but that this move by Moscow would turn out to be a dreadful strategic mistake as the whole country would be impossible to take.

When Moscow pounced there were questions as to Putin's mental health. Not a rational play.

(He seems to be bad not mad now)

"A geriatric with one foot in the grave"

He's the same age as my partners mother, and if someone used that kind of language to describe her they would recieve a well deserved punch to the face.😡

There are people of that age who read this site, and I know of at least one regular poster who is also around that age, get a Fuc*ing grip.

Biden is definitely a bad candidate from the perspective of looking and sounding old as fucckk, but has he and is administration done a bad job ? Seems like they have turned the economy around, managed to get some deals done with an insane Republican Party in order to stop the shutdown(s) and have helped Ukraine/reaffirmed their membership of NATO… though I would fear he has a game changing senior moment during the election

Biden has created the instability because he hasn't groomed a successor. If anything incapacitates Biden Kamala will lose to Trump.

Kamala was a race card Biden was a VP and as a presidential canidate he should have known better.

Probably didn't expect DT again but hoping for a dark horse

There shouldn't be an obvious successor but given Biden's age, you would expect the VP to be able to fight & win an election. The Democrats have left themselves very vulnerable. By choosing Hilary they gave Trump a big opportunity. Now it's the same with Kamala & the strange thing is how she has faded, or been pushed, into the distance. Ukraine need to pray that Biden stays healthy.

In all your posts Danzy you refer to them as the Red army. Why?

They're the Russian army not the Red army.

The Red army died with the USSR. Plus there's nothing communist about current Russia. It's controlled by mafioso led by Putin who are the furthest thing from communist.

The last remaining country in the USSR was Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan deserves the title of Red more than Russia does.

Interesting that (I think it was) one of Ukraine's top military men now saying that winter should not have too much bearing on the Ukrainian operations as they have been relying more on small (15 men?) groups than motorized units/tanks to advance through Russian lines.

So no winter break for the Russians.

Also thought I would mention for the long term how important it is for Europe to have no need for Russia's petroleum fix this ,or any winter from now on.

Nice to see movement in Robotyne-Verbove area.

Recent gains. (from NoelReports map. https://noelreports.com/ )

Pretty accurate summary 😅

I suspect that the real reason western support for Ukraine is in dribs and drabs is they are wary of smashing Russia apart and what the end result will be.

Perhaps they want the slow boil and hope that regime change will come from internally in Russia, rather than chaos opening the door to even more nuts people grabbing power.

When Prigozhyn was bawling that the reasons for the war (feels like an awful long time ago) were illegitimate, briefly I thought that may be the start of a turn, depose Putin, blame him and withdraw, but it wasn't to be.

Some of the Youtube people I follow, Military Lab I think, had a good piece on the progress of the counter offensive, basically he was saying in the length of the frontline, breaking through is useless, the only way to win is to bleed out your opponent. If Ukraine breakthrough straight to the Azov sea, they have a tactical advantage but a longer frontline to defend, a bigger salient for Russia to try and flank. His argument was that the constant degradation of the Russian ability to fight through attacking logistics, absorbing counter attacks et. is the way to win.

One other note, in recent days reporting is suggesting that the Russians supply of equipment is obviously diminishing, in Verbove they only had long range artillery to counter the Ukrainian advance, hence Ukraine could use Bradley's etc more freely in their attacks.

Yes, and then add in that some ( if not all ) republics still have very clannish systems in place, Chechnya being the most obvious one. But they all have one thing in common, and that's the level of control the Kremlin has on them. Something that's kind of inbred at this stage, which goes some way to explain why Putin can kill and abuse thousands of them, and still remain in power.

I saw a recent video from Natasha’s adventures ( young Russian woman from the far east) she was in montonegro and she remarked about the anti domestic violence posters on display in that country. She said the same posters do not exist in Russia as being anti domestic violence would lead to one being deemed a foreign agent and arrested.