Maybe it's my confirmation bias desperately looking for good news, but when you go through all the twitter feeds of Russian hardware left unoccupied and abandoned, it really does look like nobody really wants this war except Putin and Lukaschenko. Wonder how long it is going to take till someone takes them out.
anything is possible, but i doubt that they will come to their senses and stop the invasion anytime soon
the coming occupation will be brutal and costly to all involved
pretty sure putin and lukastinko are censoring their media and internet as much as possible
they say sunlight is a good disinfectant and this is why they shield their actions in that controlled information darkness
the blowback from this destruction and killing spree will hopefully lead to their retirement
How long before Putin makes a claim that Canada & USA are actively recruiting and sending men to fight in Ukraine's International force and that this is no different than having to engage with Canadian & US military troops directly and lead to an escalation of this conflict?
I could easily see this being given the spin treatment to try and justify escalating hostilities against the US and other countries.
I bet that there is financial incentive for Russian troops to find and capture (alive) foreign fighters for propaganda fodder. How long do you think it will it take for a captured untrained volunteer foreign fighter to succumb to Russian physical and mental torture as to be coerced into saying (on video) that their own country/government/military forced them to join the Ukraine resistance? Answer: not very.
P.S. And if you happen to be an unlucky American volunteer caught by the Russians in this conflict... you better hope and pray that you are able to free yourself or the Ukrainians are able to save your bacon. There isn't going to be any Special Ops arriving in Blackhawks coming to liberate you.
take a good look at the posture and expression on these faces...
Maybe it's my confirmation bias desperately looking for good news, but when you go through all the twitter feeds of Russian hardware left unoccupied and abandoned, it really does look like nobody really wants this war except Putin and Lukaschenko. Wonder how long it is going to take till someone takes them out.
How long before Putin makes a claim that Canada & USA are actively recruiting and sending men to fight in Ukraine's International force and that this is no different than having to engage with Canadian & US military troops directly and lead to an escalation of this conflict?
I could easily see this being given the spin treatment to try and justify escalating hostilities against the US and other countries.
I bet that there is financial incentive for Russian troops to find and capture (alive) foreign fighters for propaganda fodder. How long do you think it will it take for a captured untrained volunteer foreign fighter to succumb to Russian physical and mental torture as to be coerced into saying (on video) that their own country/government/military forced them to join the Ukraine resistance? Answer: not very.
P.S. And if you happen to be an unlucky American volunteer caught by the Russians in this conflict... you better hope and pray that you are able to free yourself or the Ukrainians are able to save your bacon. There isn't going to be any Special Ops in Blackhawks coming to liberate you.
on this note, I guess it bears thinking about what could go wrong with western strategy.
Assuming the Russian economy tanks (as it surely must), to what extent can Putin turn the narrative into a "this is a WWII type attack on the Russian people", getting them to mobilise against an incipient invasion? Would there then be enough support for some hot-heads/idiots/patriotic imbeciles to hit the nuclear option?
Seems to me there might be a need to broadcast the message to the Russian people that these economic sanctions are not aimed at them.
Fiona Hill: "We are already in the middle of a third World War, whether we’ve fully grasped it or not. Sadly, we are treading back through old historical patterns that we said that we would never permit to happen again. Those old historical patterns include Western businesses who fail to see how they help build a tyrant’s war chest, admirers enamored of an autocrat’s “strength” and politicians’ tendency to point fingers inward for political gain instead of working together for their nation’s security." (Politico)
Some truth in it I guess, but there is an enormous difference between modern-day Russia and Nazi Germany in 1939. The Russian's appear to be pretty ambivalent about this war whereas under the Nazis the entire country was pretty much electrified by the turn-around in their fortunes.
There is no way the German Wehrmacht would have stalled due to logistics problems in the middle of an initial blitzkrieg. Putin is about to realise real power lies in the ability to excite the dreams and desires of people, not his ability to oppress any dissent. On this metric, Zelenskyy is streaks ahead.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see an increasing number of unexplained logistics failures in the Russian army in the days/weeks ahead. Their hearts are just not in this war. Understandably so.
It's certainly worth reading. The gist is already in the Guardian article. What binds human societies together and make them tick is a shared set of beliefs - basically stories and legends - which might or might not be rooted in reality - he discusses religion, credit, rights, etc.