Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

The only reason putin wants this 3 day ceasefire is their afraid of Ukraine landing a missile or drone in the middle of their 80th anniversary of ww2 in red square, Ukraine should refuse and fire away .

Yes call his bluff ,would make a show of him in front the real people that run the kremlin, then goodnight sweetheart.

Although I agree, I think the issue is a US component that gives them a veto on it. The SPD also appear to be sceptical - though Boris Pistorius says there are arguments on both sides of whether to send it or not.

Russia never abides by these "ceasefires" anyway.

Didn't someone post a link to the Russian playbook some weeks back? I've lost that link, can said individual post again, please?

Australia is delaying the transfer of promised M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine as part of a $245 million military aid package due to resistance from the United States, which does not authorize the shipment of armored vehicles.

Australia needs to just hand the tanks over and see if the US have an answer to that.

Putin is likely in survival-mode, and probably has been since 2022. Grabbing Ukraine was about keeping himself in power, and since his gamble to Kiev quickly failed, the continued conflict is also about keeping him in power.

Putin simply has nowhere to go. If he relents and withdraws from Ukraine without a tangible win, his own people will destroy him. There will be nowhere he could realisticaly flee to. At the same time, he is expending the very apparatus he needs to protect himself in order to keep the war going. So practically everything the Russian Federation has done over the past few years from killing soldiers, horribly abusing the Ukrainian people, and bombing sleeping children in their beds, has been about one single goal: Keeping Putin and his close circle in power and safe from consequence.

History has taught us, that this approach only lasts so long…until it doesn't. Should the Russian Federation fail in the war, Putin will likely know well that his fate could mirror the likes of Gaddaffi, or Ceaușescu, or maybe even find himself decorating a petrol station forecourt like Mussollini.

His only real hope is some kind of BS "Peace" settlement ala Donnie. A pause in the fighting, and maybe even some more chunks of "Forever Russia" could buy him time. If he has any hope of dying in office from old age…this is what he needs, and he needs it soon.

If he relents and withdraws from Ukraine without a tangible win

Should the Russian Federation fail in the war,

But how are you defining winning/losing in the war? I think if Putin cashed in his chips now (as Trump is offering the opportunity to do now at minimal cost), with Russia occupying about 20% of pre-2014 Russian territory, I think most Russians bar the ultra-hawks would see that as a decent result…

Putin thinks he has this war won albeit one million dead or whatever figure has it.

He's calling for the ceasefire for his big victory day parade in Moscow. He'll be wanting as large and as strong a parade as possible like the old days to show Trump and Vance. And most likely Trump and Vance are telling him to put on a big show to not show themselves up that they are bigging him up to everyone else.

Absolutely nothing to do with peace or promises. Element alright of getting Ukraine to kowtow and being seen to do so to Putin via Trump and Vance. But it's mostly so Putin's parade in Moscow is not as crap as it was the last few years. The vain cnut he and they are.

That's a bit a variable, and I'm thinking will depend on what Putin & Co can spin as a "win" and what Russia as a whole will also accept as a "win".

His original goal was clearly an attempt to retake all of Ukraine and possibly turn it into another "Republic" of the Russian Federation. Either that, or relegate Ukraine to the same soverignty limbo that Belarus finds itself it in. That goal is essentially gone, so he has to settle for something smaller now.

Getting the current line of control & Crimea officially in Russian hands might be spinable as a win….for a while. The Donbas is a war-ridden wasteland that won't deliver much of value for a good few decades, while Crimea is returning to a desert state thanks to the Kherson dam getting blown up. Perhaps the naval base is of value…but I'm not certain that alone would be enough. He would certainly need the lifting of sanctions and return to a sense of "normality" in order to sell any "win" to Russia at large. Far too many Russian families have been destroyed by this war, so he'll really need to sell whatever gain he would get in this scenario.

The nightmare situation for him is a collapse of the frontline and the loss of any of the oblasts that Russia had already declared as part of the country. Russian maps printed since that time already mark these as Russia, so it'll be a hard reality to retcon in that situation. I don't think he'd be able to spin that loss to save himself, and if such losses were to ever include Crimea…then he'd better have his personal jet ready to make a run for it, because the knives would likely be out for him.

The nightmare situation for him is a collapse of the frontline and the loss of any of the oblasts that Russia had already declared as part of the country.

But again why not grab Trump's deal with both hands then?

Surely this

Getting the current line of control & Crimea officially in Russian hands might be spinable as a win….for a while.

has to be good enough for a man with his back against the wall as you claim

Time is not on Russia's side, they must finish this war soon

My proposed resolution to this connundrum is that Russia's miliary position is significantly stronger than you assert, both in Putin's mind and in reality, and he has realistic hopes of major further gains on the battlefield

Indulging in fantasy here… but all that military equipment has to be driven from somewhere to Red Square… it has to be gathered somewhere the day/ days before… would be terrible if some drones fell out of a window onto them. Completely accidentally like. Maybe they could parade the scramblers and golf carts instead then?

And yet here we are with Zelensky cap in hand to Trump while europe buys more energy from Russia than it sends military aid to Ukraine.

Any European army knows if they try to unseat Russia they will face the same problems any other army face since the dawn of AI drone warfare.

Putin had the lols showing the chinese premier his handywork.

Remember when news of Bucha first came out and there were irish russian defenders in disbelief. I wonder do they still support the russians now and have accepted that this is the way and changed their stance on how to fight a war. Has the support washed away their sense of what is to be human. But deep down now know their support now means that this is the new way of treatment that could befall themselves and their own family for accepting thus.

I was thinking if Putin moved all AA to Moscow then that means rest of country is unprotected

We haven’t seen Ukrainians attack energy infrastructure yet, what good is having a parade if a chunk of European Russia can’t watch it