Fear the mad man will take the embarrassment of being caught by suprise to new levels, he's not the type and simply can't lose face, let's hope for the millions of innocent civilians he doesn't go off the scale in retaliation.
Genius move to take over Russia land. 1) Makes Putin look weak. 2) Makes Russia have to spread their troops out thinner. 3) Hopefully make the natives more anti Putin.
The "natives" didn't understand why Ukraine would invade. After all, they don't know anything about what was happening there.
Russia is a huge mess and I just find it sad that we've got such shítty neighbours. Perhaps I'm a naïve fool, but I really can't understand how anyone would want to start a war over some piece of land, and how do these madmen get so many people to follow them. Then I realise how there have been warning signs hanging over us for a long time (Trump and his MAGA cult for example, or the rise of the far right globally) but I guess I've simply refused to accept that my fellow humans can be such horrible idiots. I feel a bit sorry for the "ordinary" Russians (whatever that means!) but then again they can only blame themselves for their mess. And it's their job to do the cleaning up. I sadly can't see any light at the end of the tunnel for Russia, but I can only hope that they don't bring the rest of us back to the Dark Ages.
As well as its going now for the Ukrainians it's a huge risk, they've committed some of their best units and equipment. The mass evacuations tells its own story in Putins thinking, could be the best of the best soldiers but unfortunately no match for thermo bombs
I think they’ve been flooded by state propaganda, but that doesn’t work so well on the younger end of the population. Loads of Russians have left the country to avoid being drafted into the forces and there has been quite a bit of dissent in the streets over the last few years.
The propaganda is unreal. My neighbour a few years ago was a Russian who has moved to Estonia as a teenager without his family to earn money as there was no work. Slowly but surely he integrated with the west and ended up living in the UK. When he'd saved enough money he brought his family over to visit (they all still live in Russia)... And they were all literally in tears in the airport. They were from an extremely poor village and still believed capitalism had failed... That we're all scrapping for food and living in similar poverty to them. That's what the regime still tells them. I don't know how you fight that.
Yep, it's very sad, and what the Russian leaders are doing is just pure evil. I suspect that quite a lot of people see Putin as some kind of a saint, and those who don't will keep their mouth shut so that they won't get in trouble. We've seen what propaganda can do to people in fairly open western countries, so the effect must be much stronger in a vacuum like Russia. But quite often people don't even want to see the truth, just like me in my previous post I suppose. At least in Finland not many people took the Russian threat very seriously until 2022, even though all the warning signs definitely were there, and history has shown that Russia just doesn't do peace. And us Finns should know that very well! So what can you do? What can anyone do? The Western countries can't just go in guns blazing to "save the world" again, unless Putin crosses the line and invades Poland or something. I sincerely hope that that's not going to happen... The only other choice is that Russians themselves stand up and fight, but it's getting more and more difficulty every day, when so many people accidentally fall out of windows and die.
I can't see Putin invading anywhere new for the foreseeable future. As the joke goes...2021 the Russian army, second strongest army in the world...2023 second strongest army in Europe...2024 second strongest army in Russia.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13844069/vladimir-putin-war-russia-missiles-ukraine.html What's going to happen tomorrow? I fear with the Starmer trip to the White House he's going to agree with USA for Ukraine to use long term missiles however they want and it's going to push us closer to World War 3.
Idle threats for me, imagine at the beginning of WW2 if the then neutral Americans said to the Brits they could only use some of the supplied weapons in Britain to fight the Germans
It's a worry how the west keep escalating the situation. First it was Ukraine can defend themselves on their soil. Then it was changes to being OK to invade Russia. Now it could be allowing long range missiles to hit Russia. Putin only cares about himself and the more threatened he feels, the more dangerous he will be.
He’s peddled that line for 2 years now, I don’t believe a word of it. He doesn’t want direct US conflict when they’re already having g a real tough time on their own borders. The only worry for me is that I don’t see a clean path out for him, and that’s dangerous. If he fears loss or embarrassment as much as I think he does, maybe he could hit that big red button. However, I’d be gobsmacked if he was to target the US in any such way.
I don’t think the oligarchs will let Putin start a mass scale war with NATO, they have more to lose than Putin does. There is also the fact that over the last 2 years his military has struggled against Ukrainian forces so I’m not sure that they would want a conflict with NATO.
That's my worry too. If he feels he's got nothing to lose, he becomes really dangerous and can decide to end the world. Starmer sounds like he's going to allow long range missiles....... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...e-started-ukraine-war-and-can-end-it-any-time I don't see how this can end. Russian people aren't trying to overthrow him. I thought the billionaires with sanctions would have wanted to work at getting them lifted. In the meantime support for Ukraine is weakening all the time. I don't know how he can be toppled in a safe way.
The thing is now the Ukrainians have brought the war to Russia, Putins properganda machine is weakening the Russian people can see now its not just a special military operation within Ukraine. The use of long range weapons within Russia will further turn up the pressure leaving Ukraine in a stronger position around the negotiation table providing it holds onto Russian territory. Its also not without coincidence the west is turning up the heat before U.S elections.
Unless Putin can see no wait out so nukes the world before killing himself like Hitler did. Our only hope appears to be he backs down to end the war, but he wouldn't want to look "weak" by doing so.
You literally called it a "genius move" in tis exact thread. Now it was the west "escalating the situation"