Where Do Things End With Vlad? (h/t romad1)

[Tigerbomb13]

 

[oblong]

 

[buddha]

4 hours ago, romad1 said:

About half through this thread

 

he's a great follow.

so is @warinthefuture

suffice to say, the russians have had some issues but the stuff you see on twitter is a lot of ukranian propaganda.  the russians havent even gotten their airforce really involved yet or deployed most of their huge artillery.

theyre closer to shutting ukraine off from its sea ports completely, are about to completely surround kiev, and are moving toward cutting ukraine down the middle.

thoughts of an easy early victory were dashed by unexpected ukrainian chutzpah and kiev's failure to surrender, but the russians, unfortunately, have not yet begun to fight.  pray for ukrainians cause things are about to get very bad.

the dumbest idea is a us enforced "no fly zone."  come on people, we are not shooting down russian planes.  were pushing the envelope with total economic warfare, were not going to full def con.

[gehringer_2]

45 minutes ago, buddha said:

the russians havent even gotten their airforce really involved yet

this has been curious. There was video of Russian helos buzzing around the first day, but not much else. 

The other thing that is a little off is there is a difference to your average Russian between Chechnya and/or Syria and Ukraine. They probably didn't give a fig about how what was left standing by the Russian army in either of those places but if they destroy Ukraine to take it, even Putin has to have a sense that becomes a Pyrrhic victory. At this point we are pretty much writing him off as irrational so we have sort of stopped talking about whether things make sense I guess.

[mtutiger]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

this has been curious. There was video of Russian helos buzzing around the first day, but not much else. 

The other thing that is a little off is there is a difference to your average Russian between Chechnya and/or Syria and Ukraine. They probably didn't give a fig about how what was left standing by the Russian army in either of those places but if they destroy Ukraine to take it, even Putin has to have a sense that becomes a Pyrrhic victory. At this point we are pretty much writing him off as irrational so we have sort of stopped talking about whether things make sense I guess.

At a minimum, assuming they do ultimately take the country, they will have to conduct a long term and costly occupation to support whatever puppet government they install... because the moment they leave, that government is at risk of falling.

I really don't get why this was such a hard thing to grasp ahead of this invasion. What percentage speak Russian, or even whether they have voted for Pro-Russian candidates in the past, isn't necessarily synonymous with the percentage who would support their country being invaded by Russia. Or be supportive of a Russian puppet leadership.

Putin clearly got high off his own supply in this regard. But a lot of outside observers did as well.

Edited March 1, 2022 by mtutiger

[romad1]

JUST heard the blurb on my Morning Joe that Belarus won't send in its army.  That's decisive to save Ukraine.  They won't create new stresses on the forces in Western Ukraine. 

[romad1]

I also pumped my fist when I saw this.  (it gets noisy)

 

[romad1]

seems reasonably accurate.

[romad1]

Zelensky getting a standing ovation at EU parliament

[mtutiger]

Yet another reminder of how much different the world looks one week on.

[Tigeraholic1]

51 minutes ago, romad1 said:

JUST heard the blurb on my Morning Joe that Belarus won't send in its army.  That's decisive to save Ukraine.  They won't create new stresses on the forces in Western Ukraine. 

 

[romad1]

1 hour ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

 

Good news overall for European stability.  If he was willing to allow Putin to use his army it would have raised the spectre of Vladdie making a grab for a corridor to Kaliningrad

[Tigerbomb13]

This seems pretty dire right now, and it feels so helpless. 

[pfife]

6 minutes ago, Tigerbomb13 said:

This seems pretty dire right now, and it feels so helpless. 

I'm really worried.   I feel like it's the first quarter of a UofM/OSU game, where Michigan is playin hard, up 7-0, but the game ends up 42-13 OSU.   I really hope I'm wrong.

[romad1]

 

[romad1]

1 minute ago, pfife said:

I'm really worried.   I feel like it's the first quarter of a UofM/OSU game, where Michigan is playin hard, up 7-0, but the game ends up 42-13 OSU.   I really hope I'm wrong.

The whole world wasn't condemning OSU's blatant recruiting violations and hand-wave approach to academics. 

The problem will be if the Michigan Football program drags the Baltimore Ravens into the game because of its natural sympathies and that leads to a larger game. 

Edited March 1, 2022 by romad1

[Tigeraholic1]

6 minutes ago, pfife said:

I'm really worried.   I feel like it's the first quarter of a UofM/OSU game, where Michigan is playin hard, up 7-0, but the game ends up 42-13 OSU.   I really hope I'm wrong.

Zelenskyy is no Khaki pants wearing Harbaugh. He is a leader of men like Knute Rockne.

[romad1]

The west is throwing a lot of hardware into Eastern Europe and we may be entering Hunt for Red October levels of dangerous intermingling.   

[romad1]

17 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Zelenskyy is no Khaki pants wearing Harbaugh. He is a leader of men like Knute Rockne.

Zelensky won't be hurt if someone throws a tent peg into the turf. 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

Good news overall for European stability.  If he was willing to allow Putin to use his army it would have raised the spectre of Vladdie making a grab for a corridor to Kaliningrad

Rats jumping off a sinking ship? 

[romad1]

8 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Rats jumping off a sinking ship? 

He's really threading a needle since he owes his regime survival to Putin. 

[romad1]

Just now, romad1 said:

He's really threading a needle since he owes his regime survival to Putin. 

 

9 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Rats jumping off a sinking ship? 

The aha moment here is that he is trying to avoid sanctions on behalf of Putin's croneys so they can funnel their cash, their fuel etc. 

[mtutiger]

👀

[Tigerbomb13]

36 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

👀

This could be huge 

[romad1]

This is how wars have a dynamic all their own.  

If Ukraine were to be infected with corrupt and craven leaders (still) like the Afghans and there were not people standing in the breech like Z and leaders in the West like Biden who sees the bullying for what it is, then the Ukrainian resistance would be limited and sad.