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brickstser69
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mulbot
Another thing that's popping up in news reports from Russia are military police personnel being shot dead. I presume by soldiers back from the frontline or family members that have soldiers killed in Ukraine.
Or possibly people fighting back against drafting attempts. MPs are often used for that.
Vast tracts will never be rebuilt, sad to say but we have to be realistic; population is likely 20% below 2014 level already and demographics are very negative, similar to other Eastern European countries.
The pop of Romania is 20% lower than it was 25 years ago, Bulgaria worse. Entry into the EU would mean many who have not already fled would do so, particularly the young and better educated.
All is going to plan
Can't see russia being allowed to be a member of the EU.
Quite a few of the Russian shadow fleet are now parked waiting off the coast.
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:37.7/centery:44.5/zoom:9
Be a shame if one of the sea drones hit one by mistake
One of these is the Monte Ulia, flying the Portugese flag.
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:5891988/mmsi:255806025/imo:9803285/vessel:MONTE_ULIA#overview
And has in the past couple of months been to Turkey, Netherlands and Poland presumably offloading all that Russian oil.
Even if it's not illegal, why would Netherlands (MH17) and Poland (history) support Russian oil trading?
Would be awful all together if some Ukrainian drones accidently hit these ships
Should make the job of naval drones a lil bit easier
I agree the mulling over dubious maps, heavily edited clips and photos isn't incredibly useful. But the bigger picture is the problem for Ukraine. 2025 is the first year of the conflict that Ukraine has been unable to launch a major offensive. In 2022 they launched two major offensives. In 2023 they launched one major offensive. In 2024 they launched a smaller, but still significant offensive. In 2025 there is no significant Ukrainian offensives. The offensive potential of the Ukrainian army has seemingly been ground down.
In their 2022 offensives the Ukrainians were able to quickly mobilise and deploy a force many times larger than the Russian. In the intervening three years, that initial numerical advantage has been reversed. The Russian army fighting in Ukraine is estimated to be five times larger than the force they entered with in 2022, and it is widely acknowledged that they now outnumber the Ukrainians significantly at key points. Ukraine is reduced to kidnapping people from the streets to be deployed until those unwilling conscripts can find a way to desert their post and flee. Russia can still draw upon volunteers. Nobody knows what the exact casualty numbers are, but everything indicates the Ukrainians are the ones suffering far more casualties.
NATO promised a variety of wunderwaffen, but like their WW2 counterparts hugely underwhelmed in their actual performance on the battlefield. M777 howitzers, HIMARs, Abrams, Bradleys, Leopard 2s, Challenger , Patriot AD systems, F-16s, ATACMs, Storm Shadow/SCALP and countless other weapons and vehicles were all going to turn the tide. But the persistent issue is that whatever weapon system NATO can send, Russia has a weapon that is at least equivalent to it in performance and they have many more of them. So if long range cruise missile strikes are the war winning wunderwaffen, then that means the advantage is with Russia which has far more long range missiles.
Economically, Ukraine is effectively bankrupt already. The only thing keeping it afloat is massive transfers of money to Ukraine from its sponsors in Europe. And the signs there is the money is running out given France, the UK and Germany are all in dire economic straits. This is why the incredibly bad idea of stealing the Russian money in Euroclear is brought up. It is a sign of the desperation. Meanwhile, Russia has re-orientated its economy to Asia despite promises in 2022 that it wouldn't survive two weeks of sanctions. It should be very clear at this point that China is not going to allow a Russian defeat and does not care about US sanctions anymore so they'll provide whatever economic support is needed. Europe cant offer the same anymore. The US has already stopped.
It is the big picture analysis that underlines why Ukraine needs to open serious negotiations with Russia to end this pointless war as soon as possible. They should never have allowed themselves to be exploited in the way they were, but having done so they should have tried to exit in Q3 2022 at the latest when they had some momentum on their side. Their position has gotten worse and worse ever since and the deal the Russians will accept is going to get worse and worse for Ukraine. It is not in Ukraine's interests to be destroyed. Weirdly enough, Zelensky had a stopped clock moment in March 2022 during an interview with the Economist where he pointed it out himself:
There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives. This is definitely in the interests of some countries.
Your entire post genuinely looks as if it's straight from TASS, the amount of utter BS in it is baffling.
Anyone claiming Russia has weapons that are the equal of Western weapons is either a liar or an idiot. The main advantage Russia has is that is has more of everything. The fact their tanks and IFVs tend to blow up at the first hit from a drone when Leopards for example take several hits to be disabled (they don't get blown sky-high either) is telling enough. Western material is superior, the problem is that Ukraine isn't getting enough of it.
As for casualties: There is nothing to indicate Ukraine is taking more casualties than Russia, on the contrary: All numbers point that Russia is losing far more men than Ukraine, although they have more to use.
Ukraine has to kidnap people from the street ? More nonsense. Russia emptied its' prisons and sent its' poor people into this war with lies of money and freedom. You're making it sound as if Russians are lining up to volunteer to defend the motherland. In reality they are resorting to having to lie to people from abroad (poor people from Africa, for example) and then tricking them into contracts to fight in Ukraine.
Everyone knows Ukraine is on the backfoot and it's a defensive war for them, that doesn't change the fact Russia is suffering tremendously for only small gains,
I skimmed through it and didn't see anything interesting in it. Its just a series of assertions with no evidence
One of my favorite pieces of projection from @Sand. Seems appropriate to leave it here. The pure unadulterated irony is still somehow so satisfying and sad at the same time.
more wunderwaffle as per previous ‘concerned’ ‘analysis’ shown up by other posters on here.
No major offensive?? What is this… 1918?? You want non-stop storming of trenches??
You conveniently ignored the systematic destruction and targeting by UAF of Russian oil facilities, air defence and air attack that has the mighty Russia fighting like a rabble equipped by North Korea and enabled by Chinese economic assistance.
Spare us all the pseudo intellectualism. It’s very transparent
Fantastic.
He’s another fella for whom systematic rape and murder of civilians is just an aside judging by his consistent take on this war
I don’t even bother read their post. It is a load of sentences which are « their » opinion backed up with nothing at all.
“Wundervaffen”
Wundervaffen….but no Azov Battalion? Boo! I feel cheated.
Well Sandy old chap…since your fellow traveller won’t entertain us with an answer perhaps you will? Can you present an argument as to why it is ok for the Russians to bomb children in the homes, hospitals and schools?
Since you seem to be operating on the assumption that the Russian can sign an agreement that is worth at least the paper it is written on, perhaps you can explain how Ukraine can hope to to have anything even approaching an agreement with a people who will ignore a treaty they signed in exchange for Ukraine’s Soviet-era Nukes and then proceed to ignore every rule of War including the unregulated bombing of civilian areas?
Do get your head out of the old TASS-hole buddy. It’s not a healthy place to find one’s self. You’ll end up posting Cauldron reports and getting obsessed with Istanbul if you keep it up.
I'd argue that if the preservation of human life is the top priority, then clearly a negotiated peace is better than a continuation of the war. Ultimately those who oppose negotiations and prefer a continuation of the conflict have something that they consider a higher priority (the dubious concept of a NATO open door policy?) than the preservation of human life - Ukrainian or otherwise. I'm arguing that a negotiated settlement is in the best interests of Ukrainians rather than fighting on to the last Ukrainian. As I pointed out, Zelensky himself at one point recognised there are those who would be okay with seeing Ukraine destroyed and Ukrainians killed if it meant harming Russia. That is not my position.
As for the Budapest Memorandums (I presume you're pointing to them) I get it is a common NAFO propaganda trope, but it is fantasy. When Ukraine separated from the USSR, it declared itself a non-nuclear (and neutral) state. The nuclear weapons deployed on its territory were legacy Soviet deployments loyal to Moscow, same as the nukes in Belarus and Kazakhstan, and units in question all entirely transferred allegiance to Russia immediately. At no point were they Ukrainian nukes, and at no point did the Ukrainians have any control over the weapons.
The Budapest Memorandums were not international treaties, simply memos signed by Russia, UK and USA with Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan respectively. All the signatories (including the US and the UK) promised not to violate the political sovereignty of the states, or economically coerce them or use military force against them except in self defence or otherwise under UN charter. The US breached that promise when it passed economic sanctions against Belarus in 2006. When Belarus protested, the US said the Budapest Memorandums were worthless. The US and UK again breached the Budapest Memorandum when they backed a violent coup against the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2013-14. So by 2014 at the latest, the US and UK had already ripped up the Budapest memos.
Ironically, Russia may not actually be in technical breach of the Budapest Memo with Ukraine. It only promised not to use military force except in self defence, including collective self defence. This might explain why the Russians went to such weird efforts to in the space of 72 hours recognise the Donbass republics, sign a collective defence treaty with them, and then invoke collective self defence as the basis for their 2022 action. Just to try to somehow strictly maintain a position that the memo was not being breached in the letter, whatever about the spirit.
When Russia collapses most of the vassal states will leave and China will claim back lands in lieu of debts owning.
Looks like Pebbles has been struggling under the constant bombardment of truth in here and has send an sos back to Orwell Road for some backup and right on queue… dust arrives…
Anyways lads… can yea at least agree that killing sleeping babies is a bit of a sh1tty thing to do???
@Sand "The US and UK again breached the Budapest Memorandum when they backed a violent coup against the democratically elected government of Ukraine"
It was the Russians who were violent by interfering with Ukraine's sovereignty. Yanukovych was a traitor and it is ok to blast traitors out of the country. The rest is commentary.
No, whatever else might be said about Yanukovych he was the democratically elected leader of Ukraine, winning the election in 2010. And his democratically elected government was violently overthrown with - at the very least - US approval.
His 'democratically elected government' started murdering their own civilians who were protesting peacefully up to that point, with several disappearances as well. The violence was started by Berkut troops. They were already known for torture, violence, criminal behaviour and oppressing anti-Yanukovych sentiments and opponents.
I understand that the whole 'with US approval' means it's easy to play the victim for Russians and their fans, but the protests and following power switch was justified given what Yanukovych did to his people. Let's also not forget he got elected on promises to seek closer EU links and then made a 180 after pressure from Moscow, hence he betrayed his electorate's wishes.
One of the maddest things i've read on boards….and thats saying something
The ''Coup''.
What an awful lot of effort to frame the Russians as the reasonable party in all of this…right after I asked you about the Russian bombing of children in their beds. You do know that Zelensky isn’t manning the Russian artillery, don’t you? He’s got a different job that pays enough so that he doesn’t have to moonlight like that. (And the commute would be insane)
The Russians are bombing children, either by design or by ineptitude, and you are trying to excuse them. “Oh! Don’t you know…the Russians technically didn’t breach the Memo…so the war is legal!”
Sandy my Muscovite chum…your position lacks moral foundation. You support a regime that wants to eliminate their neighbour and you even go to the effort to defend them here. You can victim-blame the Ukrainians until the cows come home for their evening vodka, but until you deal with your moral bankruptcy your arguments will always be negated by it.
No major offenses by Ukraine? Didn't they actually invade Russia this year?
I see German Chancellor Merz has told Zelenskyy to stop the young Ukrainians leaving the country, I guess the Germans are wondering why they are expected to pay for the defence of the country if the younger population is not prepared to do so.
They don't necessarily have to end up in the front line as there must be plenty to do in logisitcs, infrastructure, munitions factories etc, same applies to those living in Ireland in fairness
Where did you see this?
How do you think you might know what Germans are wondering?
So many questions like how do you think you know more about Ukraine defending itself from putin's terrorist state than the Ukrainians themselves do?
I think your comment has very little to do with fairness and is just another effort by a putin fan boy to stir up ill feelings towards Ukraine and its struggle to deal with years of terrorist attack from putin's empire.
Ive heard one justification for the liberalisation of the emigration law is that this way, people may wait later to emigrate, as young men were emigrating illegally.
Of course at least 900,000 men emigrated from Russia during the first mobilisation so its not all one way. While 4.5 million Ukrainians are living in the EU, the context is different, as Russia is flattening entire cities, something Ukraine has never done including in the 2014 conflict in Donbass. The Donetsk stadium for example is still intact and has been shown during this war on social media.
Russia recently signed a deal with India to encourage labour migration to Russia. Thats a sure sign of labour shortages caused by the war. Deals like this are shameful. It means Russia can send its men to the invasion and occupation of Ukraine, while migrants replace their labour in the workplace.
India has zero interest in the concept of supporting democracy in foreign policy.
Breaking news. Russia makes a move into Myronohrad to try to separate the Ukrainian forces in the city North-South.
@Sand
You described the UK, German and French economies as being on the verge of collapse. How would you describe Russia's?
Anyone suggesting a negotiated settlement is even remotely possible at the moment is either a mendacious liar or an ignorant fool - neither would be worth engaging with.
