MacGyver is second on the list..!
nice one
So other than PUTIN who else is on the ballot?
AL JAZEERA have a live page on this event:
Yeah they might difficult to move… there is always a chance of sudden change but putin seems to have murdered an /or arrested everyone…..
Just noticed the camera on the soldiers helmet too. So authorities are watching and recording everything in the vote centre.
The state is like a tightly screwed shut pickle jar. Which begs the question - Why bother with the sham elections at this stage?
They've gone a long way from what would be considered normal behaviour and legalised behaviour in a vote centre such as a country like Ireland where pictures are prohibited inside and posters have to be a certain distance from a centre.
No wonder Donald Trump loves Putin and his way of running a country. Any gobdaw with paid for guns and muscle can rule a country indefinitely then.
The Fascists always loved a big spectacle. The election doesn't mean anything, but Putin's victory parade will be a useful propaganda tool.
Just as a total, slightly unrelated aside in light of Macron's change in approach and language: all this talk about the potential for French troops intervening in Ukraine had me curious... just how large was the French Armed Forces in the first place?
So a quick google later and the answer was: just shy of 200,000 active personnel, with ~120,000 in the army alone - the largest in the EU and about parity with the UK. Germany totalling about 183,000 and the UK itself about 200k. Poland a bit back with 120,000; none of those totals include reserve troops I should add.
In any case, that's insane: so in having only managed to invade a mere 20% of the entire country, Russia has seen the deaths of approx. 400,000 and the combined total of the EU's 2 largest armies; Wikipedia says Russia has 1.3 million (active vs. ~2 million reserve) so clearly their well is much deeper than Europe's but if this keeps up Putin will have sacrificed 50% of his country's active military personnel.
Sure, I get those numbers don't tell the deeper stories from country to country, but it also does put things into perspective at the same time. 400,000 was a gigantic number in the first place before stacked against comparable militaries.
"Wikipedia says Russia has 1.3 million (active vs. ~2 million reserve)" - the problem is, it was ruSSkies who submitted these numbers to Wikipedia. And can anyone in their sane mind believe what ruSSians are saying?
As regards the French, to be blunt the Foreign Legion provides a degree of flexibility to the country. Compared to the casualty aversion of other Western countries. Considering recent withdrawals of the French from parts of Western Africa, imagine they would be the unit of choice for any intervention.
In terms of Russian losses, think the number is less than 400,000. Still unimaginable for the Twenty first century. There's also the matter of materials. The Russia is going to run out of x by month blank articles are fairly careless journalism. The Russian are feeling the strain none the less. Attacking positions with Chinese golf carts and 1960s era armour is certainly not a good sign from their perspective.
Well I do say the numbers alone don't tell the deeper story (apparently the German military is in a bit of a shambles, even with such a high personnel number), but if we assume the numbers are exaggerated like you say, then it makes the 400k of deaths even more insane, not less. The 2 million reservists itself feels kinda ludicrous, and maybe they're just counting any able-bodied man from 18-25 or something silly like that. And certainly we've seen how Putin has struggled to mobilise the country without a mass exodus or dipping into the middle class and urban centres.
2M reservists figure was dreamt up by Konoshenkov, Shoigu, or maybe Solovyev. 400k casualities are reported by Ukraine but a number not that far off confirmed by other sources.
The Russian fiasco summed up in one video.
If Russia has 1.3m or whatever it is in the army, plus reserves, where the hell are they and why the hell were they sending prisoners, Napalese, Indians, auld lads, etc to Ukraine?
Any decent sources for the latest Russian casualties?
When you compare this 'special operation' to any other war in recent decades, the numbers are off the scale - whether it's 200k/ 300k/ 400k (which I find hard to believe tbh)... the fact that you could have such a wide range - and that the range itself encompasses such massive losses - is unbelievable. Is there any war in living memory that has produced such numbers? Leaving aside that it's 'only' been two years.
A quick look at Wiki suggests the US and its allies 'only' suffered 282k casualties in 10 years in Vietnam.
1.3 million what? Vodka drinking untrained people with an AK47 , the 2 million reserve would probably get their 2 weeks ak47 training before been dumped in a field somewhere.
id say a lot of the older generation would be capable or have experience, not the younger.
the first foreigners I saw come to Ireland was probably back in 2000, about 10 Ukrainian men were brought in the factory.
some of them were in Afghanistan , one was a mig mechanic, and all of them had driven tanks or some sort of vehicle and had been trained/ experience with weapons. I don’t imagine it’s like that nowadays.
Western armies , have lower numbers but are professional, have much better training , equipment and morale.
way to go McGyver! no John Wicks though :(
Worth remembering that it's only a fraction of the armed forces who are actually at the front line at any one time. There's also a huge logistical operation behind that which needs manning. Think of all the things that those on the front line might need and then think that none of that stuff spontaneously happens.
As for the Nepalese, Indians, auld lads etc., it's long appeared to be Putin's strategy to toss 'expendables' at the guns first and foremost, as their loss won't be so bitterly felt by the ordinary Russian people. I don't know precisely what state Russia's professional force is in, but it's got to have taken a battering over the last few years. They'll be looking to preserve whatever's left of that, plus keep the political backlash against the war to a minimum by not sacrificing the young men of the urban centres until no choice is left.
any sources that it isn't 400k? Real numbers will be known after war, but probably will never be known, since, again, it will be Ukraine counting dead nazi orcs on their land and ruSSia will be telling that nobody died there. they did the same with Afghanistan, way more people died and got injured than SU reported. Human lives mean absolutely nothing to rotten scum which is today's ruSSian society. Never did, never will.
again - in theory. Prigozhin's drive to Moscow indicated it could not be the case. Easy boarder crossings into ruSSia suggest the same. Remember - everything the world knows about 'mighty ruSSian army' is what they showed us in a form of cartoon drawings. 😁
Some of the variation in casualty figures is also down to what is the basis for 'Russian' losses... does it include Wagner group and the like, the Donbas ethnic Russian militia etc.
Citizens giving their votes in this sham
Most of the mighty Russian army is in Ukraine, number one. Number two, are there any significant defensive fortifications in Russia proper? If not, it's much less of a mystery how Prigozhin's merry men were able to make a lightning drive into Russia, busting across the border and zooming towards Moscow. Not that this would have been successful because it got stopped about halfway along by hasty negotiation.
Pretty much this. I do get the impression that what we see in Ukraine is the bulk of what military the Russians can actually put on the field.
They theoretically can put out a million reservists too, but that won’t do them much good if they can’t arm or equip that many troops. They are still gutting their 70’ era Soviet stockpiles and relying on sub par gear from Iran, China & North Korea.
They likely have token forces on Ukraine’s northern border, making it porous to partisans, and nothing much left in the interior. If Prigohzin hadn’t mysteriously stopped his march onto Moscow I firmly believe that there was really nothing left of the Russian military to actually stop him unless they were willing to pull troops from the front line. He would have rolled onto the Kremlin, and that is an important takeaway. If the Russians lose in Ukraine, that’s it, there’s likely nothing much left of their military and they are finished as a military power. Putin likely knows this and is fatalistically keeping the war going in the hope that time or a friendly GOP government will give him the win he very desperately needs.
With respect to the last line, I was assigned to the French division headquarters in Warfighter 21-4 a couple of years ago. I assure you, that was exactly the sort of scenario which was being exercised.
That said, I’m in Paris right now, and there was a headline on one of the magazine fronts on the shelf today, asking if the French Army was actually in a condition to fight. Doctrine and HQs obviously don’t automatically imply working troops on ground. It’s a fair question, but I suspect it’s more a matter of excessive commitments than lack of resources like Germany.
The West took a gamble. It bet that Ukraine could defend itself with a bit of help, but not risk own troops or escalation. If faced with a fallen Ukraine, however, they may end up forced to intervene themselves and do what they in hindsight should have done two years ago except after years more suffering. Either that or have a victorious Russia on their border.
What will happen after the demise / removal of Putin is the same as what happens when rats are locked in a barrel, or other enclosed space without food or water. They will fight each other, until only the strongest rat remains. And that's one of the reasons why there's so many private militias' in Russia.
Putin allows the elections because, first, they're no real threat to him, and secondly, it gives a patina of democracy to his presidency, and he cannot be accused of being a dictator internationally.
Putin doing a great job of speeding up demographic collapse. A true mastermind sending hundreds of thousands of men to their deaths and causing over a million to leave the country.
Russian opposition are calling for the west not to recognize the election as fair and legal. That would have a lot of ramifications if they denounce the elections.
Ah ah ah ah ah ah (*laughter in French*)
Yes, but when you add the differences in "quality" (training and equipment etc. to the equation) that has a levelling up effect. Western armies are professional by and large, and not conscripted.
Dont forget in ye're numbers - the Rosgvardiya or the The National Guard of the Russian Federation ( Putins personal army pretty much ).
Manpower - 340,000 or so
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