kraze

during the "coup" Prig was getting support and approval from russians that putin was getting in '00s. I don't think what oligarchs think even matters at this point. 1917 happened because Nikolai II lost the war so russians put in power those that would not lose again. And this wasn't 1917 - yet what we saw was that there is a high chance that a bunch of zeks could've taken Moscow and looted Rubliovka. if anything oligarchs will be the first to get killed once russians take to the streets because the war was lost. Not their first time.

The difference is that when russia'll do it - all the "human rights" organizations will take a soul-crushingly neutral stance with "let's not get ahead of ourselves". Just like they (heck, even some Western governments) did with the Kakhovka dam. But if Ukraine will do it in retaliation - you'll see every "human rights" defender blaming us for being horrible genocidal terrorists that are absolutely evil and must be stopped at all costs - and taking away all the Western support will be a good start. I mean you don't have to go far back in history (or too far in geolocation, just across a sea and then some) for a similar example. I've been told in this very thread that I shouldn't bring Israel up because they are absolute evil since they retaliated in kind on several occasions. So nah. Pretty sure we will be told right away "no retaliation or else", since we want to win the war and liberate our gloriously acute radiation syndrome inducing, lands.

Let me be cynical (realistic) here and say there will be no response and blowing up NPP will be heavily downplayed with arguments like "we need to investigate first to determine who is responsible based on facts" and "ambient radiation in Romania increased only by 3.6 roentgens, not great not terrible". After all most of the nuclear fallout will remain on a Ukrainian soil since this isn't RBMK and you can't turn it into a proper nuclear bomb like in Chernobyl - but you can turn it into a dirty bomb with a fairly limited radius. I think after russians do it and there will be no consequences* for them - the only question that will remain is "tactical nukes when". *sanctions aren't consequences, russians are broke and live in wooden barracks. They don't care if they get no iPhone, can't afford it anyway.

I don't think potential war crime trials 10-20 years down the line help much with irradiated lands and the general course of the war now. And that's what LFP means.

Ah but T62 is a 4 seater tank because it has no auto loader. Only 3 crewmen exited. So either a commander or a gunner got killed.

Except they aren't requesting the same from Russia.

because "human rights" organizations don't give an F about human rights. They are getting millions of USD of funding for pretending they care and it's obvious they don't want to upset one of the primary cash providers. Which isn't Ukraine in this war. Can't buy another cool SUV if nobody is paying for it, am I right? HRW, Red Cross, Amnesty, OSCE, whatever other trash. It's all the same. Old people who simply post words on the internet.

Because for heads to get rolling - they would need to admit they are losing to Ukrainians. But since they are winning the war against whole NATO - no need to replace anyone.

Ugh no. If there was some deepfake legit enough - the target of it would've been up in arms about it defending themselves trying to disprove it. But nah. Uncanny valley is something Hollywood with its budgets has been battling for decades now - ironically the only "deepfake" that came closest was Rachel in BR2049 and even that one looked really off. We are talking visual artists that are absolute best on the planet. After all "AI" (in reality it's just a glorified finite state machine) can only iterate on what humans do.

Yes but you don't need deepfakes for that, just headlines. It's the lack of long attention span that gets exploited. Since they aren't reading anything past headlines anyway - no need to put any extra effort. In fact I'd bet making a quality deepfake that looks believable enough for the masses is already far beyond where it gets into diminished results territory. After all russians tried to do a deepfake of Zelenskyy back in February of 2022 if you remember - it looked horribly uncanny and we are talking government with enough budget that has militarized IT.

Deepfake scare has been going on for at least a decade now, but I haven't seen a single deepfake video that looked legit. And if so called "professionals with a budget" would be able to do something with all of it - they would. In any case this particular video looked as if someone took a still Freeman image and simply animated it by stretching and squishing parts of the photo which is what made it look so unreal.

Nah, it's horribly uncanny valley.

Unless it's Bakhmut.

Easy. Chechens are basically the only putin's personal terrorist army left. They are to terrorize civilians, they are the only ones willing to do it in Russia* and they have no military training to fight somebody armed with a gun. Every russian is afraid of Chechens because they managed to defeat russian army twice over the course of just 5 years - so they kinda have that default "+2 to intimidation" skill by just being Chechen. Irony is that I have no idea how anyone even thought they will be ever to battle Wagner, the armed guys. *like actually terrorize, e.g. by stuffing a bottle up their asshole - actually happened, none of that pussy OMOH that can only beat some chicks and arrest a few old ladies, but instantly disperses come some resistance.

Another thing this Prig mess has exposed is how BS the argument of russian "opposition" about "state propaganda" is - that they use to excuse their terminal impotency. Putin called Prig a terrorist and a criminal. State media was trashing him all day. And yet in Rostov crowds were greeting him as a warhero and making selfies en masse, with a guy that cuts heads off - in a state, where you are supposedly arrested for retweets. No russian cares about "state propaganda" - they all know how things really are, they know about the genocide of Ukrainians just like they know that Russia is losing the war and they blame putin for it. Which is how Prig happened in the first place. So when you repost Khodorkovsky, Navalny, Kasparov or any other cuckold from their crowd - remember this.

Well apart from 13 pilots dead as of now, which is admittedly a superb result for a single day, this "coup" resulted in two other casualties among "good russians". Sobchak openly supported putin. Khodorkovsky openly supported Prig. Wonder how either of these "liberals" feels now? Probably wtf'ing over blowing their load prematurely and nullifying any credibility certain wishful thinkers provided them with.

Nah, you are being too rational. Whole Prig's action was exactly because he believes Ukraine isn't conquered because the top is infested with Soviet idiots. And I mean he's right about the latter part. Conquering Ukraine and eliminating the nation is a cornerstone of Russian empire existing. Anything else but total victory is the end. It's literally why they keep pursuing maximalist targets despite not having a chance.

Except Belarus has no russian military apart from a skeleton training crew. Tikhanovskaya is also that person that demanded Ukraine to "liberate" (e.g. forcibly put her in power) Belarus. She's rotten.

If putin caved in that means he's willing to give military reigns to prig instead of losing all reigns. So he most likely will be a talking head that will keep telling us prig's today's salary review application was part of the SMO plan, while military may as well may be under prig. The stakes were highest since 1917. Prig is not dumb to get just faces replaced out of it.

Something to soften the bitter pill. Let's hope it will just have some internal consequences for russians. Problem is - they will most likely replace shoigu and gerasimov with Wagner guys. And those are far more competent.

Sigh. Well at least some russians died. What a disappointing "coup".

Or maybe putin bet everything on not trying to lose this war, after all OMON was moved to Ukraine as well to suppress rebellions on occupied territories - which in turn simply left the gates wide open for Prig. I bet putin trusted his personal cook so much - he would not think his bff will ever backstab him. But this is Russia. An emperor can never show weakness. And losing wars is showing the worst possible weakness. Somebody would have to exploit the once in a lifetime opportunity. Especially a guy that was gifted a whole personal army to. It was supposed to be putin's private army though.

All 11 of them

I think there's simply no army left in Russia to stop them. Remember the disgraceful "Victory Day" with a single T34? It's that simple.

Wonder why can't they just send actual soldiers. Oh right.