Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

So the Ruble is back to pre invasion levels, what's up with the sanctions ?

My guess would be they are propping it up by dumping all their foreign fx reserves and forcing his oligarchs and other worldwide assets to buy rubles, while blocking sales. Currencies can be manipulated, for example the Swiss only stopped capping theirs in 2015.
 
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It may be overly optimistic, but I'm getting the sense that the Russian troops in Ukraine may not be far - maybe another 10 days or so - from a total collapse.
 
If there are really 15,000+ dead Russian soldiers then that represents more than 0.01% of their entire population - men, women and children. Staggering number really in just over a month. I'd be defecting and running over any officers that came near me if I were them.
 
I have no idea what it takes to convert a home or machine from natural gas to electric, but a massive program to divest of the need for natural gas, which Europe relies on Russia for more than oil, could be important.

Surely it's time to open fields that were closed in an effort to convert to green energy, at least in the short term.

And where do Saudi Arabia get off being anything but the US's b*tch? They need to get their priorities in order. US puppets that go off script do not have a high success rate.
 
I had seen somewhere of reports that Russian conscripts were given Mosin-Nagant rifles. Designed in 1891.

20220307_143038.jpg
It has now beaten the Brown Bess for longevity of service.
 
I had seen somewhere of reports that Russian conscripts were given Mosin-Nagant rifles. Designed in 1891.

20220307_143038.jpg

So strange to see those antiques in the hands of a soldier in full combat uniform in 2022. As much as the design is still great for what it can do, that is not what you would want against a properly armed Ukrainian, be it a marksman or a regular grunt. Even if a few US soldiers own Garands and Thompsons at home, I don't think they'd want to carry those in a conflict zone.

I also saw photos of Russians using PM M1910 machine guns, which are directly drived from the 1884 Maxim machine gun. Whaaaaaaat?
 
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Does the vast majority of Russians support Putin today? The answer seems to be yes. For me, that's probably the biggest surprise in this war. I expected that the average Russian will abandon Putin, it hasn't happened.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...084cf1022fe172#block-6244826c8f084cf1022fe172

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings surged in March to levels not seen in five years as the war in Ukraine enters its second month, according to an independent survey published Wednesday.

According to the Levada Center, which is Russia’s main independent pollster, Putin’s job approval grew to 83% in March from 71% in February. The last time Putin reached similar approval ratings was in 2017, prior to the introduction of an unpopular pension reform that raised the country’s retirement age.

The past month also saw increases in Russians’ trust for the country’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and the country’s ruling party United Russia, the pollster said.

The share of those who said Russia is moving in the right direction has also grown to 69%, a jump of 17% from the month before.

Independent sociologists have questioned the logic of polling public opinion in a country where information about the war is carefully curated by state television which has portrayed the country’s invasion of Ukraine as a defensive “special military operation” aimed at “de-nazifying” Kyiv. Sociologists have also said respondents in the country could be afraid to tell pollsters they are opposed to the war. Russia’s parliament earlier this month passed a far-reaching law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military.

Still, the latest Levada polling appears to indicate that the Kremlin has so far managed to galvanize support for its invasion of the country.

The Levada Centre has not released a poll of public opinion specifically on the war since the conflict began. Plans to publish results of an earlier poll were scrapped by the centre’s employees because of concerns that their results would promote the intensification of the conflict. State-run opinion polls have indicated that around 70% support the country’s actions in Ukraine.
 
Does the vast majority of Russians support Putin today? The answer seems to be yes. For me, that's probably the biggest surprise in this war. I expected that the average Russian will abandon Putin, it hasn't happened ...

I reckon it's too early to draw firm conclusions about this. First, most Russians are not aware of the huge military losses their troops are suffering, but these can't be hidden forever. If, for example, they have 50,000 troops out of action already (dead, wounded, captured, surrendered or deserted ), and if each one of those has, say, 10 close friends and/or family members, that's already half a million Russians who will eventually find out what happened, and each of these will in turn talk to other Russians in a snowball effect.

Second, it will take time for the real effects of the economic sanctions to work their way into the system, not least because there's a limit as to how long the government can artificially shield away these effects. But when GDP eventually shrinks by a third (let's say), when inflation hits 30%, when unemployment triples, when shortages in the shops accelerates, when spare parts for repairing all sort of things become unavailable etc etc etc ... then we shall see.

Third, most Russians are unware of the devastation being wrought in their name inside Ukraine. OK, many may well never know, assuming that Russia's internet shut-off remains permanent ... but that's a big assumption.
 
I reckon it's too early to draw firm conclusions about this. First, most Russians are not aware of the huge military losses their troops are suffering, but these can't be hidden forever. If, for example, they have 50,000 troops out of action already (dead, wounded, captured, surrendered or deserted ), and if each one of those has, say, 10 close friends and/or family members, that's already half a million Russians who will eventually find out what happened, and each of these will in turn talk to other Russians in a snowball effect.

Second, it will take time for the real effects of the economic sanctions to work their way into the system, not least because there's a limit as to how long the government can artificially shield away these effects. But when GDP eventually shrinks by a third (let's say), when inflation hits 30%, when unemployment triples, when shortages in the shops accelerates, when spare parts for repairing all sort of things become unavailable etc etc etc ... then we shall see.

Third, most Russians are unware of the devastation being wrought in their name inside Ukraine. OK, many may well never know, assuming that Russia's internet shut-off remains permanent ... but that's a big assumption.
I wouldn’t be so sure their families and friends will find out what happened. They are pretty good at controlling spread of information, under threat.
 
I wouldn’t be so sure their families and friends will find out what happened. They are pretty good at controlling spread of information, under threat.
Well when their husbands and sons don’t come back or come back missing things, it’ll be tough to hide
 
I wouldn’t be so sure their families and friends will find out what happened. They are pretty good at controlling spread of information, under threat.

How can they not find out eventually? I don't imagine that all those Russian families and friends affected are simply going to accept the permanent and sudden disappearance, without explanation, of the many thousands who have died (and the more who will die), or just accept that the thousands of troops returning with missing limbs (etc) all got them in a car accidents. And eventually the returning soldiers themselves will tell their friends and families what really happened. Even Putin can't keep a lid on such things forever.
 
In the middle of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have this. Anyone still think that Trump is not a Russian intelligence asset?



Remember when some in this thread were arguing that Trump was tougher on Russia than other presidents? Or that supposedly the faux actions his administration took to oppose Russia were stronger than any words he had on the subject?
 
Remember when some in this thread were arguing that Trump was tougher on Russia than other presidents? Or that supposedly the faux actions his administration took to oppose Russia were stronger than any words he had on the subject?

He was so tough on the Russians that's why they didn't dare to attack Ukraine during the Trump reign. They were petrified of his retaliations.

They have been emboldened by the weakness of Uncle Joe.






:) Trumplets can rationalise the world any way they see fit.
 
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I reckon it's too early to draw firm conclusions about this. First, most Russians are not aware of the huge military losses their troops are suffering, but these can't be hidden forever. If, for example, they have 50,000 troops out of action already (dead, wounded, captured, surrendered or deserted ), and if each one of those has, say, 10 close friends and/or family members, that's already half a million Russians who will eventually find out what happened, and each of these will in turn talk to other Russians in a snowball effect.

Second, it will take time for the real effects of the economic sanctions to work their way into the system, not least because there's a limit as to how long the government can artificially shield away these effects. But when GDP eventually shrinks by a third (let's say), when inflation hits 30%, when unemployment triples, when shortages in the shops accelerates, when spare parts for repairing all sort of things become unavailable etc etc etc ... then we shall see.

Third, most Russians are unware of the devastation being wrought in their name inside Ukraine. OK, many may well never know, assuming that Russia's internet shut-off remains permanent ... but that's a big assumption.

Absolutely all of this has happened in Serbia in the 1990s and it took more than 9 years after the start of the war + a NATO bombing during this time in order for Milosevic to go down.

You underestimate the importance of independent media. You and all the posters who claimed that the Russians are collectively reaponsible for this, since they support Putin. Yes, the average Russian will notice that his life has turned to shit, but will blame the dirty West rather than his president.
 
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Absolutely all of this has happened in Serbia in the 1990s and it took more than 9 years after the start of the war + a NATO bombing during this time in order for Milosevic to go down.

You underestimate the importance of independent media. You and all the posters who claimed that the Russians are collectively reaponsible for this, since they support Putin. Yes, the average Russian will notice that his life has turned to shit, but will blame the dirty West rather than his president.

I have said no such thing.

You may be right that most Russians will be propagandised into blaming the West for all the ills headed their way. But it'll be a hard sell to explain why mighty Russia failed to defeat Ukraine when not a single NATO soldier took part in the fight. And it'll be hard to sweep under the carpet what might eventually be - if this goes on for another several weeks - 100,000 dead or wounded Russian troops.
 
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P

Absolutely all of this has happened in Serbia in the 1990s and it took more than 9 years after the start of the war + a NATO bombing during this time in order for Milosevic to go down.

You underestimate the importance of independent media. You and all the posters who claimed that the Russians are collectively reaponsible for this, since they support Putin. Yes, the average Russian will notice that his life has turned to shit, but will blame the dirty West rather than his president.

If Slobo had nukes red button would have been pressed.
 
Good video on the latest situation. Doesn't seem to get bogged down with propaganda (like so much other analysis of this war).

 
More like a sociopathic person who doesn’t experience any empathy towards different people and uses literally anything for his individual advantage.

An enemy of the state. Or enema. Either or.
 
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Fresh on MSNBC's YouTube page. Putin learned all wrong lessons in past military disasters.



That throwback to the Chechen Wars, damn.
 
If Slobo had nukes red button would have been pressed.
Nah, NATO would have just not intervened. Bosna and Kosovo had shit armies in comparison to Serbia even without nukes, so they would have been easy defeated, and their population be exiled without foreign intervention.

Croatia on the other hand, that would have been interesting.
 


:lol: Military Superpower, tHeY are sAvInG tHe gOoD stuff!

Well, to be honest a Toyota 4 x 4 is probably a better choice. Reliable, tough and you can get spare parts in every nook and cranny of world without relying on threatened Russian supply lines.
 
Nah, NATO would have just not intervened. Bosna and Kosovo had shit armies in comparison to Serbia even without nukes, so they would have been easy defeated, and their population be exiled without foreign intervention.

Croatia on the other hand, that would have been interesting.

This might be a technicality, but I just want to point out that the Serbian army (as in, the army of Serbia as in JNA) did not intervene in Bosnia. They were supplying the Bosnian Serbs with weapons and helping with intel, but the army as such was not deployed.
 
Reading about the war in recent days is arguably more grim than it has ever been. Footage of the territory liberated by Ukrainians shows that the Russians were killing civilians and leaving their bodies to rot where they fell. More and more intercepts of audio are released with Russians bragging about rape and torture. Survivor testimonies from those that fell into occupation are utterly tragic.

Ultimately 50% of this could shown to be falsified or misleading, and it would still be absolutely damning.
 
Not sure whose reputation has fallen further. The Russian military’s in general, or specifically the Kadyrovites’:



The top content is “Vanilla ISIS”.
 
Not sure whose reputation has fallen further. The Russian military’s in general, or specifically the Kadyrovites’:



The top content is “Vanilla ISIS”.

Look like fecking amateurs. No discipline.
 
Nah, NATO would have just not intervened. Bosna and Kosovo had shit armies in comparison to Serbia even without nukes, so they would have been easy defeated, and their population be exiled without foreign intervention.

Croatia on the other hand, that would have been interesting.

Completely and utterly wrong. You do know the the war raged for almost 9 years in Bosnia before NATO intervened? Yugoslavia (Serbia) did not defeat Bosnia nor the other way around. Control of areas changed hands almost weekly for years, it was a no win for both sides.
 
Completely and utterly wrong. You do know the the war raged for almost 9 years in Bosnia before NATO intervened? Yugoslavia (Serbia) did not defeat Bosnia nor the other way around. Control of areas changed hands almost weekly for years, it was a no win for both sides.

Whaaat? You are mixing up Croatian and Bosnian independence war with Kosovo war. Nato did not intervene in Bosnia or Croatia (except in an advisory role, towards the end).

In fact with Dayton treaty of 1995 the war in Bosnia was concluded. Shortly before that the war in Croatia was finished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton_Agreement

The conflict in Kosovo is completely unrelated with those two wars, except that one of the involved party (aggressor) was again Serbia/Yugoslavia.