Russia

[McGinnis]

mm-mmm Putin's dick tastes so good. Mmm mmm.

>everyone who tells me what I don't want to hear must be a Putinist shill

That is pretty pathetic for a nation with the man power and a military stock hold. I'm afraid Putin may go scorched earth to save himself from embarrassment if what you say is true.

Problem is that it isn't, the story is bogus.

Putin isn't even using a full quarter of the forces available to him. Why would he need to go, hat in hand, to Xi to beg for more weapons? In addition, the Russians still have good supply lines. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, are completely cut off from reinforcement or escape, and their supply lines are dwindling. This is why they keep asking for NATO to send them MiG-29s or to set up a No Fly Zone.

What that story is is a blatant attempt to get the Chinese to say publicly that they are not supplying the Russians with weapons, in effect disavowing them.

Russia being struggling to capturing even the east part of the Ukraine is a little suspect.

Because their goal isn't to capture territory.




This retired US Army Colonel explains the Russian strategy pretty well - much to the annoyance of the Fox News neocons.

The US, for its own part, knows the Ukrainians are pretty much beaten. But they will continue to send them weapons because their goal here is to 'sacrifice' Ukraine to draw out the conflict and deplete Russian resources. Basically what the CIA did in the Soviet-Afghanistan war

[RAPEMAN]

OK. Please enlighten me what Putin is trying to accomplish, Dimetry, because he's done a lot of damage so far.

[McGinnis]

OK. Please enlighten me what Putin is trying to accomplish, Dimetry, because he's done a lot of damage so far.

I've just told you. He's trying to encircle the Ukrainian forces.

[Le Redditeur]

There's little doubt that Russia is asking for economic aid from China. Their economy is the size of Italy's and they have been almost entirely cut from world commerce, so that's hardly surprising. Military aid is another thing entirely and I'll only believe in that when we start seeing Chinese materiel among Russian troops.

OK. Please enlighten me what Putin is trying to accomplish, Dimetry, because he's done a lot of damage so far.

No one in the West can say they know for sure what Putin's.objectives are, and anyone claiming otherwise is lying and trying to pass an educated guess as truth. Surely it at least involves recognition of Crimea's annexation, plus the two separatist republics, plus Ukraine's relinquishing NATO/EU membership since they stated those goals already, but no one outside Russia can really know if that's all or if he wants more (all the Ukraine? Moldova? Transnistria? Formally annexing Belarus? Nuclear annihilation?)

[RAPEMAN]

OK. Please enlighten me what Putin is trying to accomplish, Dimetry, because he's done a lot of damage so far.

I've just told you. He's trying to encircle the Ukrainian forces.

OK then?

No one in the West can say they know for sure what Putin's.objectives are, and anyone claiming otherwise is lying and trying to pass an educated guess as truth.

Oh, I can agree with that. I doubt the Russian population knows the entire truth.

[McGinnis]

but no one outside Russia can really know if that's all or if he wants more (all the Ukraine? Moldova? Transnistria? Formally annexing Belarus? Nuclear annihilation?)

You can, because as I said before, if Putin has set his sights on further conquest of Europe, he would not be fighting the war in Ukraine the way he's been fighting it. If you wanted to use Ukraine as a staging area to set up further conquests, you wouldn't bother to encircle Kiev and lay siege to it. You'd just raze it, and the entire country, to the ground. Secure the borders (to stop foreign weapons from coming in) and mop up what's left, i.e exactly the way the Americans do it. He cannot afford to waste forces if his goals are beyond Ukraine's borders.

Truth is that the Russian army and the Russian economy is too small to risk direct confrontation with NATO, or to recapture former Soviet territory. They certainly couldn't hold that territory, for the same reason the Soviet Union collapsed in the first place. You're talking about an economy roughly the size of Texas', trying to hold territory made up of largely non-Russians, who don't want to be Russian and are violently against the idea. Putin is many things but stupid is not one of them

[Le Redditeur]

Maybe, but it wouldn't be the first time in hstory when an autocrat decides to over-extend to pursuit unachievable goals. The more probable outcome is that he tries to settle only for those already mentioned goals, specially because the invasion is taking longer than it was expected (Kiev is a 3 hour drive from the Belarus border; in no way the Russians can justify that they were planning to take so long to conquer it despite having access to such a great springboard for their initial attack). But can we be sure that is the case? Only when they finally settle the matter we will know for sure (and even so, the truth may be hidden under a lot of coping, seething and propaganda)

[McGinnis]

Maybe, but it wouldn't be the first time in hstory when an autocrat decides to over-extend to pursuit unachievable goals.

Maybe but Putin is not stupid. He's never lost a war and he's not going to start now by over-extending his ability and getting into a red hot war with NATO that he cannot win. That's something the foreign policy hawks have attributed to him because they want war with Russia, they are stupid enough to think they could win and therefore it should be tried, they are insane enough to argue a nuclear war would be survivable.

[rabidtictac]

Yeah, I'm going to have to believe the Russia shill here. Ukraine is doomed and has been doomed from the moment Putin attacked. The media are trying to carry water for them and act like they have a chance, but there is no chance. If Putin stretched out with the full might of the Russian military, Ukraine would be gone.

I don't know what Putin's goals are and I don't believe his stated goals. But Ukraine aren't going to win this. While the media falls over themselves to congratulate Ukraine for shooting down a few tanks, they happily ignore Russia's total control over Ukraine's skies and vastly larger war engine. Ukraine should have given up when Russia rolled in. That would have been the smart move, to save as many people as can be saved. The greatest good for the greatest number. Yes, it's bullshit that the best move is to be a coward sometimes.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Russia being struggling to capturing even the east part of the Ukraine is a little suspect.

Should've focused on that east part instead.

Maybe, but it wouldn't be the first time in hstory when an autocrat decides to over-extend to pursuit unachievable goals.

He's been longer in charge than German chancellorette Merkel. That's not a good sign.

Oh, I can agree with that. I doubt the Russian population knows the entire truth.

Neither do most of the soldiers. Doesn't help that the two "main" goals of demilitarization and denazifiaction are bit vague.