Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Did the Chinese give him a polonium stir fry?

Hopefully it's true, I know if I had delusions of grandeur to make Russia great again and it failed that badly I wouldn't be sleeping to well the past two years and at his age stress is a killer.

There is some level of spin going on with regard to America's time in Afghanistan. Yes, in any conventional battle or military engagement America wins, so they won in Afghanistan in that regard, but in terms of achieving a geo political objective they failed as Afghanistan is now run by a regime not in tune with American interests. An insurrectionist movement like the Taliban do not have to win against a conventional force, they merely have to survive, the Taliban not only survived but they grew powerful enough to eventually take over the country from the US puppet regime. So they achieved their main political objective, therefore they won.

I wouldn't be concerned if I were the Russians, sure they have loads of spare Putins

True that was the original aim and it was achieved. Why then stay so long after the initial aim was achieved and pump billions into the country if that was the only objective though. It seems to me they were also trying to ensure the Taliban would never be in a position to come back into power. They clearly failed in that objective as the Afghans were too tribal and corrupt.

Reports on twitter:

Sweden's NATO Accession Protocol was signed by Erdoğan on 23 October 2023 and submitted to the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

Couple of sources posted this

Going to be busy times for Viktor Orban, who has said Hungary won't be the last country to ratify Sweden's membership.

As m2-browning said, the US came to Afghanistan in the search for Bin Laden and other like minded operatives. They came when they decided, and left when they decided. While they were there, they did their best to modernize Afghanistan and bring it into the 20th century. In many ways they were successful. It's unbelievable the change's they made, and all for the better. Quite the opposite to what the Russians did in their 10 year tenure, which left Afghanistan in a ruined state. Only for Pakistan, the Taliban would be history by now, and maybe Afghanistan would be on the path to prosperity, and stability, but they would definitely be in a better place than under the Taliban in any case. No blame attaches to the US for the present situation. I've said this before, but its worth repeating, the US kicked the Taliban out of Afghanistan in a matter days, and they could do the same thing again now, and that's taking into account a better armed Taliban.

According to reports Russia is expanding their assaults today with 90 different skirmishes being reported along the front from Avdiivka to marinka

Fresh ammo deliveries from China and North Korea?

Seems that Russia is making a little progress near Andeevka. Hopefully this doesn't become the next Bakhmut but they'll be determined to keep going so it's not a total loss on their end.

So quite possibly heading towards some sort of “peace deal” or at least “talks”. ?

Most people have lost interest in the Russian invasion. The Hamas attack, the rugby world cup etc has sucked the media coverage from the invasion which means less discussion about it among the general public. Also the failure of the Ukrainian offensive has disappointed many people. Now we have reports of a potential Russian offensive. I, Personally I don't have a clue where things go from here.

At the expense of sounding like it’s some sort of morbid “entertainment” , yes I agree. Whilst I had my doubts about the Ukrainian offensive earlier this year I really was hoping that they would make inroads. My guess now unfortunately is that Russia will play the long game and just literally throw men at this conflict, maintain a stalemate of sorts but very slowly make inroads overall.

I think the international community will also adopt a different approach and may push for some form of talks to take place - Israel has taken the no1 spot for attention in terms of western nations- I don’t think this will end well for Ukraine and after all their spirit and hard work.