Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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Would love to know the thoughts of the other 6%
You could say the same things about Russia and Ukraine.
Oh, wait! Actually, that's exactly what Germany was saying for many years! Russia is providing us with a lot of stuff, what does Ukraine actually do for us at the moment?
It seems that Germans still love fascist governments... can barely hide it. Erdogan, Putin ... the best friends a German can find.
They apparently will, but training on apparently such takes a minimum of many months (six iirc).
So then what is the end game in your eyes? The way you frame it, honestly, the only end seems to be a Russian victory which frankly can now only be achieved the way no one wants.
My guess would be that the only way out which doesn't involve Nukes is to continue to thoroughly destroy Ukraine with an emphasis now on Kiev before an eventual retreat justified internally by having rendered Ukraine economically destroyed and reliant on the west for massive funding for the next decade thereby weakening Russia's foes to the point where relations will possibly be restored at least for the purposes of buying cheap Russian energy 5 years down the line when "all is forgotten" (as it obviously won't but will be).
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You've really got us figured out. How did you get such deep insights?
The end game is Russia pushed out of Ukraine, a stalemate at the border where Russia for a good while has nothing to do but civilian terror with long range rockets, but at least takes a much smaller toll on the Ukraine than the present situation.
This will be even more evident as terror in those circumstances, at which point even China distances itself from Russia. Then Putin is eventually defenestrated.
It's a long drawn out end game.
Droll and intellectually lazy.
That's exactly the type of end game I think Raoul cannot see happening - too much face lost. I tend to agree. I also do not think that if Putin is gone it will get any better - they are all blood thirsty, mad and suffer from delusions of grandeur based on the fact that they have a huge land mass and more importantly, nukes.
That is the end game of a Russia in denial of face lost. Actually suing for peace while putin remains in power is what I consider unacceptable to Russia due to loss of face.
As for what happens inside Russia when putin dies, I consider that completely unpredictable at this stage. But I would say that the war is only likely to continue if someone who already has a strong stake in the war takes over. Worth remembering there can also plenty of opportunistic reasons for a new Russian leader to end the war in play when the house of cards tumbles.
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The air defense is nearly perfect now thanks to the additional deliveries of Patriot and IRIS-T systems. And don't forget Russia sent 35 cheap drones the night before to locate and overwhelm the air defense systems, so their missiles can avoid them later. I just hope they don't need to shoot those cheap Iranian drones with Patriot missiles and use mostly Gepards for them.
And today is another big victory for Ukraine. Despite Russia turning Bakhmut into an even greater hell in the last couple of days to force and present the city for their parade, Ukraine still holds. Putin's goal was definitely to present this "victory" to his people on this day.
We (the west) certainly have the capability to push Russia out of Ukraine but I don't think we have a will to do it for various reasons. We still have a lot of leaders who are afraid of escalations or humiliating Putin too much. We hope that Russia will crumble economically or politically but it's more of a blind hope than anything. A lot will of course depend on that counteroffensive but I fear that our expectations are too high for it.
Anyone else getting deja vu? Again?
I missed frostbite's anti german rants to be fair.
And after the march, off to Ukraine for a "holiday". Bring your own food and tampons. And rifle. And ammo, come to think of it.
Watching his speech now - he's so paranaoid and full of shit
Didn’t look like a speech of someone pivoting or looking for a way out but some western “leaders” are deluding themselves up to this day. Only total Ukrainian victory can end this terror once and for all.
Former KGB people are all the same. Their whole purpose in life is to fight and win against the west. Like a dog that is chasing a mailman and wouldn't know what to do when he finally catched up with him. That's their whole attitude and the only reason Putin was more or less europe friendly in the last decade was only for trading reasons. The USSR was piss poor and that's also a reason they didn't make it. In everything else, he is completely the same.
I get angry every time some fool politician wants to talk to Putin to find a peaceful solution. You have to destroy him and his thug friends, like Hitler was destroyed. Or create a scenario, where his own people will riot. There is simply no other way for a peaceful future.
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The Prigozhin show continues.
One T-34 as the LONE tank in the parade. 
Putin's salt level right now:
Putin's salt level right now:
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Of course. We always prefer a reliable and thankful dictator over lazy and treacherous democracies that just hate on us.
One T-34 as the LONE tank in the parade.
Putin's salt level right now:
Maybe its some kind of elaborate ruse to appear weaker than they really are (its probably not) but thats a pretty pathetic showing
At this rate next year they'll have paper vehicles, armor and thanks on show.
This soap opera is genuinely confusing.
It's probably just to shorten the parade, because the bunker tsar isn't comfortable to be in the open. If they really wanted, they'd have found a few dozen tanks. They still have enough ressources to lose 5-10 tanks a day for the forseeable future sadly, otherwise we'd hear different tunes out of the Kremlin by now.
Thats probably true, but at the same time this was a perfect opportunity to project strength to the their own people and wheeling out some WW2 artifact isnt going to do that. I am no expert in military logistics, but i cant imagine it would be too much of a logistical problem to get some more vehicles and troops in there.
If the illusion about Russian supremacy dies then the idea they are fighting a losing war might spread and thats a huge problem for them.
I don't know how likely is that to happen when they control 100% of media. Their propagandists will sell that parade as an unprecedented show of strength with that WW2 tank obviously having installed some sort of state of the art tech. And people will believe it, why wouldn't you.
I think this is Putin's greatest threat. The perception of being a loser, particularly to the ultranationalist crowd. This is late stage dictatorship at its finest.
The single T-34 is purely symbolic (and as an actual artefact, quite cool). Putin doesn’t need to sell anything anymore, it’s totally illegal to question anything anyway. Fact is this parade has been slimmed down massively due to necessity and I imagine they’ll just ignore the fact they have obliterated their own army.
Just get those weird talking heads that love wanking themselves off at the thought of nuclear war to cream over whatever missile barrage happens in the next couple days. Job done.
Wonder if those T-14s have been deployed to Ukraine… Their absence assumes so.
Or they could simply get the vehicle that are on parade to go around the block again
Days of our Lies could be a fitting title.
I wonder how they spin this in the Russian media. Not that it's going to matter, but still.
Probably with the original driver steering it.