Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Don't forget Russia is still running a deficit producing military equipment and state construction in order to keep the economy going, but a vast majority of the Russian economy is not looking good. People's living standards and investments are plummeting fast. They are keeping their economy afloat by pumping money into equipment that gets destroyed, importing electronics at a price well above market value to do so, and selling energy at below market value to China.

While their war machine are able to import just enough to keep the economy up, the rest of the Russian economy can't. That will shrink the Russian economy and make everything worse.

That isn't sustainable in the long run, especially if the energy prices drop as Europe's power network is expanded.
 
Carolina Red said:
Military intelligence is military intelligence. Our National Guard has been integrated into our regular military apparatus
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Yeah, fair enough. There needs to be a top down review of security protocols then, especially at the periphery of the intelligence community.
 
Navalny in critical condition now, what a shocker :rolleyes:

Only another Putin opposer who’s ailed by an unknown illness. For the 2nd time in Navalny’s case.
 
Dans said:
Absolutely agree. Brave, but stupid.
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He knew what to expect. Either he dies in prison as a martyr or he survives until Putin's regime collapses and then he would have a good chance of becoming the next president. He went all-in, literally.
 
Ragnar123 said:
He knew what to expect. Either he dies in prison as a martyr or he survives until Putin's regime collapses and then he would have a good chance of becoming the next president. He went all-in, literally.
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Like I said, brave, but stupid!
 
JJ12 said:
Navalny in critical condition now, what a shocker :rolleyes:

Only another Putin opposer who’s ailed by an unknown illness. For the 2nd time in Navalny’s case.
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Don't really understand why Putin has kept him around, it seems strange to me that anyone in Russia would be under any pretence anymore that they're not living in a dictatorship.
 
GazTheLegend said:
Don't really understand why Putin has kept him around, it seems strange to me that anyone in Russia would be under any pretence anymore that they're not living in a dictatorship.
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Because he doesn't want to deal with demonstrations that would surely happen if Navalny is perceived as having been martyred. He already has enough trouble on his hands to further stir the pot domestically. Not that Navalny won't die at some point simply because of the day to day life he is leading in prison.
 
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Dans said:
Like I said, brave, but stupid!
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Depends on the point of view. He knew what to expect and still went there, so it's not stupid in his opinion. He is willing to put his life on the line to reach his goals.
 
Random thought came to my mind that I haven't heard about Kadyrov for quite some time now, wonder how is his Tiktok army doing? Did Putin mute him or what happened to him?
 
Ragnar123 said:
Depends on the point of view. He knew what to expect and still went there, so it's not stupid in his opinion. He is willing to put his life on the line to reach his goals.
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The point is surely, that it's now looking very unlikely that he'll meet his goals and frankly, as soon as he got on the plane home, the odds were massively stacked against him. A fatal miscalculation potentially.
 
Dans said:
The point is surely, that it's now looking very unlikely that he'll meet his goals and frankly, as soon as he got on the plane home, the odds were massively stacked against him. A fatal miscalculation potentially.
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You just have to calculate the amount of people that have been muted - via death - to understand the likely outcome.

But as others have said, he could very well have been in a die-die situation wherever he ended up. So going back to Russia may remove all doubt of the ‘we didn’t do it’ nonsense that some may have lapped up.
 
Raoul said:
Because he doesn't want to deal with demonstrations that would surely happen if Navalny is perceived as having beeb martyred. He already has enough trouble on his hands to further stir the pot domestically. Not that Navalny won't die at some point simply because of the day to day life he is leading in prison.
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We've already seen what happens to demonstrators over there. I believe personally it's to protect his narcissistic image at this point: he "needs" some competitor still breathing to beat. He doesn't want a LEGITIMATE competitor. As long as Navalny is alive, in Putin's own mind I expect he's "winning" these sham elections of his.
 
Some of Ukraine’s European allies are increasingly skeptical its military will be able to make a decisive breakthrough this year because Russia’s defenses have had time to dig in ahead of the looming offensive.

The mood among Western officials marks a sharp departure from late last year, when Kyiv surprised its allies - as well as Russia - with a pair of successful counteroffensives that recaptured large swathes of occupied land.
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The Kremlin better not bitch and moan when shit will hit the fan in Crimea, especially Sevastopol after the way Ukrainian cities got hit.
 
Once a dictatorship is established, it is extremely hard to overthrow it. Putin has exterminated all the opposition. In theory, Russia has elections, in practice it is a dictatorship.

There is a vast difference between a democracy and a dictatorship and we need to protect our democracies. We should not forget that most people in the world today live under dictatorships. And dictators do not like democracies in other countries, and some of them pay a lot of money to destabilize them.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...a-murza-for-25-years-for-opposing-ukraine-war

Moscow jails activist for 25 years for opposing Ukraine war

Vladimir Kara-Murza’s harsh sentence is the longest yet given to political opponent of Vladimir Putin

A court in Moscow has sentenced the opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison, in one of the most high-profile cases to date of a Russian dissident being jailed for opposing the invasion of Ukraine.

Kara-Murza, who holds Russian and British citizenship and studied at the University of Cambridge, was detained in April 2022 and charged with spreading false information about the Russian army in Ukraine. He was later also charged with high treason over a series of public speeches he made that criticised Kremlin policies and the war in Ukraine.
 
More horseshit from the Pentagon.



I wish someone can explain to me the level of mental deficiency plaguing Western governments these days. Why the hell should we care about what happens to Russia if their armies are defeated swiftly? That's a whole different topic; que sera sera. As a consequence of a Russian defeat, Putin...

 
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Ragnar123 said:
Only public pressure can keep greedy ceos in line.
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Completely agree, but as a ceo (not one myself) - not selling vodka to Russia is like iron bru not selling it to the Scots - share price and revenue would drop hugely

Joking aside, it might be a great thing for absolute as people might but it knowing they refuse to sell to Russia and I for one would buy it for that reason alone over another brand if I drank vodka
 
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