Russia - threadbanned users in OP

As usual, the answer is more weapons. Also, Hungary and Turkey need to straighten their moral compass.

is this a case of Schrodinger's Putin? all knowing super villain who can tap your brain but at the same time couldnt read the room internally or externally concerning major events in the last few years.

Its funny you mention China, the country that literally has a brain interface in to the western public via TiikTok ,where they can force trend points of view that they want amplified.

Submarine appears to be under tow heading for Sevastopol.

A large drone attack on Crimea last night with 40 drones reported by the Russians.

Reports of military installations hit in vicinity of Kerch.

And they must be thinking if and when China decide to invade Taiwan it’s much better that Russia is crippled as a military force.

I've no idea what point you're trying to make.

The west is slowly getting rolling. Germany has announced that it will double it's output for this year for example. Most European countries understand that this is not just about Ukraine. Poland have absolutely zero interest in having a Russia controlled Ukraine on their East.

And the Baltics simply cannot afford the current Russian empires full attention in its current state. That isn't going to change.

The only ..... stress the only hope that Russia get to maintain the territory that they've stolen is that America becomes bored and isolated or votes in another Trump. But even that isn't a guaranteed loss. Nobody really knows what he'd do. There's lots of der jerbs and contracts tied to this war across the southern Americans states now.

Keeping in mind that America stayed in Afghanistan for years without popular support and despite a plethora of negative press. Politics centered around military affairs do , to a large degree, operate independently of the public support and clickbait negative news headlines.

I still believe strongly this vote will be called to supply Ukraine for 2024. But it's probably gonna be an ugly few weeks politically in Congress. As Johnson tries to walk the line of getting Israel aid separately and Ukraine lumped in with border security without getting the McCarthy treatment from the radical Republicans. How much money will be voted on and how soon is the question. Any significant delays could cost Ukraine territory and lives.

How the war goes next year is pure guesswork and anyone who tells you otherwise is talking shite. Who would've guessed that Ukraine would even last the first few weeks against the Russian behemoth? Who'd have guessed that Ukraine would blitz back large chunks of its territory in Luhansk. Or that the black sea fleet would be cowering from a few suicide drone boats and storm shadows? Or that Prigozhin would enact a full blown mutiny on Moscow? How about Russias primary rail artery to China and N. Korea crippled for the near future?

How long can Russia reliably throw 1k men per day to their deaths for a tiny suburb of Donetsk for example? Don't you think Putin would call for another mobilization in a heartbeat if he could? Why hasn't he? Perhaps he knows that support for this war back home is more brittle than it appears?

There's so many variables and potential surprises and to date few of the biggest surprises have been in Russia's favor.

It's not certain but I really don't think Ukraine is doomed to be hung out to dry.

No. That wasn't my point at all. Again with the over-simplification of things. I've no intention of wasting my time with reductionist arguments... "Ukraine pure... Russians evil... USA mighty... Russia puny".

You are arguing that Putin could alter politics in Ireland and elsewhere, how is that not painting him as a far bigger figure than he really is?

Putin has had a relative impact on foreign politics, discourse and elections as part of Russian doctrine (troll factories, meddling, sowing division, etc).

You only have to look at this site to see how many posters in these threads prior to invasion were systematically promoting Kremlin propaganda and talking points. Crimea, Donbas, Syria, "NATO encirclement", "Russia is not a threat" and so on..

Putin has achieved population decline, currency devaluation and the elimination of a competitive advantage with easy gas and oil sales into Europe. Add on significant military decline as well. If the trend continues Russia’s main trading partner by the end of this decade will be China. Russia will have a whole new set of problems if that happens. Not sure what negotiations mean in the context of Putin.

You’d argue with your toenails. What I stated is fact, and directly related to the post I quoted where you either got it wrong, or deliberately exaggerated. It is exactly 1 year, 9 months, and 11 days (12 if including today).

thats different, any conflict will generate 2 sets of opinions, thats not the same as the Russians causing general mayhem in the west across several political topics.

Putin uses a variety of methods to impact international elections, politics and meddle in other countries.

One of those methods is various forms of propaganda. I was highlighting one microcosm of that as an example of the impact of propaganda (Boards.ie). It wasn't hard to notice the uptick here. The fringe left and far right are incredibly easy groups to manipulate, they are also very vocal online.

Russia lost some wind in its sails