DavidFields

Yes I agree that is the big question. How do the people react? I think there are two segments of the Russian Federation that will hold the ball in their hands; the young/open-minded/want to be more western types and the "minorities". I think the minorities are the biggest threat and they could also cause a domino effect not only in the other minority states but could be a catalyst for the non-slavophile/super-race/ultranationalist wannabe Soviets again crowd. 
There has to be a lot of "rebels" in Chechnya and Georgia and other places watching this war very closely and looking at their odds of success increasing every day with the losses to the RA. Especially the gutting of the VDV and other units that were used heavily for oppression. Seems there has to be a point when they decide their chances for independence are significantly greater than 3 months ago. I don't think their chance of success has peaked yet but it will and then at some point the chances will start to lower again. Hopefully somewhere in that bell curve they will pull the trigger.
If a couple rebellions would kick off while the RA is still heavily engaged and has all it's resources committed in Ukraine it would be horribly destabilizing for the Kremlin. The reports say most of the RA comes from the poorer non-Russian states so if those states were to rebel what does that do to the RA? If nothing else it cuts off their primary source of politically safe conscripts. This results in having to conscript heavily from actual Russian areas. Which in turn causes more destabilization as it seems most Russians are willing to fight to the last Uzbek but aren't lining up at the recruiting stations to fill the billets themselves. It also immediately changes the view of the people in those Russian areas which undermines the ability of the Kremlin to continue it's lies and propaganda. Which further, well, you see the slippery slope that the internal problems could quickly spiral into. 
So that brings us back to Beria. I don't think Putin or the Kremlin are always stupid. They might be very stupid in their decision to invade Ukraine but they seem to be pretty politically astute when it comes to managing to stay in power. They have to recognize these same possibilities and therefore are looking to what worked for Putin's hero Stalin. Their only chance to stay in power if anything goes sideways is a crushing state apparatus the likes of which the Soviets had in their early years. Probably be even more important now since there are quite a few Russians that have had a taste of the good life and won't happily go back to the Soviet era bread lines.
The fate of their nation is in the hands of the people, like all other nations. We'll have to wait and see if the Russian people decide they are ready for something new or not. 

I think you’re right…time for all of us to agree to drop the ACW topic.

deleted

ROFL, no, no one has the right to rape and pillage as retaliation. That's the same sort of effed up logic we are seeing the Russians use right now in Ukraine.
C'mon, get your head on straight.

Steve, 
May I suggest that you need a  button?

Corregidor is way bigger than Snake Island, the island is only useful if you can contest or control the naval waters around it. 

I expect that if us Canadians went ahead and initiated an unjust, illegal and war-crime-filled attack on, er . . . Greenland(?).  Then I wouldn't be surprised if Canadian War Memorials throughout the world (Holland, Hong Kong, Korea etc.) were defaced with Polar Bear graffiti.

just ignore him, he clearly has no idea what he's talking about and has a head full of propaganda.  I've seen enough that I hit the ignore button.  If I want to see that kind of stuff I can just go straight to qanon & cut out the middleman.
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

You are all taking DMS way too seriously. He is Russian. His problem with NATO is that it prevents his soldiers from raping Poles and Lithuanians, not that it "expands" per se.
He is mad about Belgrade because Serbs had to pay for genocide they did instead of being admired as heroes like Russians treat their criminal grandfathers. If Serbs paid - that means Russians may pay too and he can't have that.
Because he knows what NATO is. It's a threat to him. But it's a threat not because it will attack Russians but because it will attack Russians when they will try to rape some woman in some NATO country.
He has no problem with a "day of a sledgehammer" (that video of a warcrime filmed by Russian soldiers themselves, where they murder a Syrian civilian with a sledgehammer) - because it's something Russians treat as a heroic deed.  To him his soldiers murder a Syrian Nazi, aka "the enemy". He will never get what's wrong with it, no matter how much you will try to explain it to him.
So don't try to think like a European when trying to argue with Russian.

These maps always scare me at first, then I remember the scale we are talking about.  That's is a kilometer or less.  And   RU still nowhere near getting to Slovyansk.  Hopefully a few weeks from now we'll be talking about RU forces being cut off in this area. 

FIFY  Apart from that, I agree wholeheartedly, that's how everyone is feeling round this parts.

The whole NATO expansion argument has this exact energy. "If you just listened to me and did what I told you we would have been okay. But you had to run off to the other guy, now I have to teach Ukraine a lesson." Its really important when discussing NATO expansion to consider that A) Russia did not want to let Eastern Europe go politically and economically during the collapse of the USSR. Eastern Europe forced Russia out by threatening them with the prospect of a civil war (let us go or start killing us in the streets, or, let us go or repeat 53/68 yet again). B ) During the collapse of Russia's periphery it started a half dozen wars and invaded several of former republics. Conflicts which continue to this day in Transnistra and Georgia. This is just to say again that this argument about the USSR/RusFed coming back and trying to reestablish some sphere of influence in Eastern Europe wasn't a theoretical concern, it wasn't a concern blown up by western propagandists, rather it was a realistic concern held by people who had already spent most of their lives trying to rid themselves of the USSR. Russian behavior from 1945 to 1995 created the push for NATO expansion. And in the hypothetical, had NATO not expanded I think we would have seen other regional and continental security arrangements grow up in place. Perhaps the EU would have become far more militarized than it currently is as a result. 
If Russians are so upset at NATO expansion they should ask themselves why its former allies ran so quickly to the other side. Its not like Eastern Europe has been buying that much western surplus, until fairly recently Poland was still armed with domestically upgraded Soviet surplus! These countries are not the free riders most Americans complain about, but rather people who are armed for their own defense. Because they see real risk emanating from their neighbor. Because the Russian government has spent the last 80 years trying to colonize eastern & central Europe for their own ends. You dont see Canada running of to join an EU anti-American alliance, but then the US and Canada have (despite ups and downs) maintained a rather stable and respectful relationship for the last 200 or so years. 

Russian angst about its place in the world has a funny way of looking exactly like the depredations of an inept, hegemonic kleptocracy:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-russians-retreat-ukrainian-residents-trickle-back-to-devastated-villages-near-kharkiv-11651839798?st=veyqqz0eavhq17o&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
 

Not true. DMS knows full well that NATO is a defensive alliance. And he knows full well how things really are because he has an access to the internet. He is here of all places. On a forum where people scrutinize claims and try to prove things.
And even in USSR people knew full well that every russian war was a war of aggression. Word of mouth isn't something you can stop if somebody wants to listen to it. "Protesting in the kitchen" aka whining about state evils at the family table, but silently - was a soviet meme.
What DMS does is a russian version of taqiya - lying to infidels to drive his own agenda. Remember - if DMS was just "fooled" by propaganda (which is, again, impossible in an age of information) - he'd still think that killing Ukrainians and stealing our land would be a bad thing. But what he does is excuses the crime. He is in full support of the war.

Lol 12??? Doesn't make sens. The training will take a while and then they have the next logistical strain on them. Is there any purpose other then Germany showed its good will and a combat test on a larger scale?
Wouldn't it make more sense to search for stored M109's, buy them and silently send them to Ukraine?
 

I can't remember what book it was in now, but something about the Cold War the Able Archer exercise where the world came close to becoming ash. Caspar Weinberger and other defense officials under Reagan were astounded to learn that the Soviets were extremely apprehensive of the NATO war-games, which simulated a heightened nuclear alert as well. The Soviets were 99% positive that Able Archer was the prelude to an invasion of the Warsaw Pact by NATO. Soviet reasoning was that it was EXACTLY what the USSR would do and then roll right into West Germany from the exercises. 
The US officials were dumbfounded to find this out, because they could not understand how the USSR would believe that. The reason: NATO would NEVER attack the Soviet Union, and they didn't understand how they could think that NATO would. They had NO idea of the Soviet mentality about this.
Blinders.
NATO practiced DEFENDING Western Europe from Soviet invasion. We never practiced an invasion of the Warsaw Pact, only local defensive counterattacks.
NATO will not attack Russia. It seem @DMS is under the same mis-apprehension that the Soviets were 34 years ago.
Dave

Well to be frank, your dilemma between "radicals" is because the Russian public did nothing as all opposition that was otherwise was suppressed and eventually choked out.  There was a time when public action could have preserved your ability to chose, but as you say, that time has passed.  This means you are at more difficult choices but anything right now is better than nothing.
As to the "golden bridge to retreat", hey man, that is on you guys and it can be filed under "Things to Consider Before Invading Another Nation for Zero Reasons".  I did not see Russia moving to lend a hand with our extraction from Afghanistan either.  This is big-boy pants time, you break it you buy it and clean up your own messes. 
I have no doubt the Russian people don't know what we know...that is because the same jerks that pulled you into this mess control your media - which in hindsight was another bad idea and we in the west should take note.
As to how Russia is losing, we have literally written pages on this.  Russia is losing this war by just about every metric I can think of to be honest - Tactically thru Strategic.  The biggest proof of this is that gong show up at Kyiv, one does not burn 20-30% of ones ready field force in a "feint", then recruit every three-legged one eyed dog and merc you can find (seriously, Ethiopians?!), stuff them together with broken units in three weeks and send them out for another doomed offensive in the Donbas.  These are not the signs of "minor setbacks". 
My bet is the Russian political level is going to move the strategic goalposts again.  I suspect they will declare victory and liberation, followed by "free and fair elections" because the Crimea playbook.  And then dig in and cry crocodile tears as the UA with western help attacks them, justifying whatever crazy comes next.  This is assuming that the whole Russian Army doesn't simply collapse under its own weight in a couple weeks.  Then there will be a very loud popping sound when those sanctions finally break the Russian economy.
 

violence won't do it, sorry but you guys are gonna have to do this yourselves if you hope for Russia to rejoin the family of nations as anything other than a pariah state.

Can't find the meme picture now, but the idea was roughly
(Russia, knocking on door) "Let me in"
(Finland) "Why?"
(Russia) "I'm going to protect you"
(Finland) "Protect me from what?"
(Russia) "From what I'm going to do to you if you don't let me in"

busy night (day for y'all) it seems.  I'd say the validity of the various phone calls, texts, etc of atrocities are utterly irrelevant at this point.  Mass murder by Russian troops is beyond any reasonable or even unreasonable doubt.  The implications of the murders are many:  Putin is radioactive globally; nations that were 50-50 are now more pro-Ukraine or at least less pro-Putin; Ukrainians have even more to fight for; and countries supplying aid to UKR have much more justification in doing even more; and a bunch of innocent people are very much dead by purposeful, violent murder.  Do the anecdotal bits about individual soldiers even matter at this point?  And I didn't even mention the looting.
The mass murders are equal opportunity atrocities -- arguing about Russian mindset, Muslim ethics, blah blah blah, it's all f--ing noise.  Soldiers of many backgrounds are doing horrible things w one thing in common -- they are all in the Russian army.
Meanwhile, the battlefield seems to be a mixed bag.  W UKR making gains and Russia making small gains.  But can the UKR counterattacks really unhinge things?  What matters is unhinging Russian forces such that there's local collapse or at least major reshuffling of RU combat power to thwart UKR advances, taking the heat off other areas.  We'll see, the question is whether this becomes WW1 stalemate or not. 

I don't think so. If Russians are defending Russia is one thing, defending Ukrainian objectives not so much, especially with all the firepower that can be brought to bear on them. Add that to the fact that the Russian officers themselves at all levels don't really now what they are doing, a complete lack of professionalism from top to bottom, trashed/incompetent logistics. Russia spent the past ten years building the wrong military to fight this war. 

Some scholars define denial as the final stage of a genocidal process. Richard G. Hovannisian states, "Complete annihilation of a people requires the banishment of recollection and suffocation of remembrance. Falsification, deception and half-truths reduce what was to what might have been or perhaps what was not at all."
Crisis actors, Jewish Nazi soldiers, Mi-6 planted bodies, Chechens sending pics of dead sons that were captured alive on TikTok, countless cases of at best complete disregard for human life and at worst openly hunting civilians on video,..
but yes, as we have already seen with your Bucha comments every video is a fake, every picture constructed, every testemony read from script, I am sure there are also explanations about all the mass graves verified by countless international observers
The glorious Russian soldier does no wrong, as has been proven time and time again in history. Take care not to overdose on the copium.

So many of the failures between 2014 and 2/24/2022 were due to profound misjudgments about both the Ukrainian and Russian governments/states. Pre 2/24 the EU and Nato really did  not believe the Ukrainian government was a dependable partner, and that if they were admitted to the various Western clubs the best case scenario would have been a less functional, but more expensive Hungary. Like wise pre 2/24 everyone thought the people running Russia were sane, and had some grasp on objective reality, and what we think of as their long term national interests. Both of these delusions have been shattered utterly. The coherence of the Ukrainian state and nation has been tested and found match the very best quality super alloy made. Russia has proven itself to be profoundly dangerous and untrustworthy. Given the limitations of Nato/EU decision making processes we have done a mostly decent job of reacting to this new reality once we were slapped in the face with, at least SO FAR. There is great deal that can yet go wrong, but so far so good.

I get what you are saying but I think the analogy of brothers doesn't really fit. Russia is more like the psychotic ex-girlfriend who decides "If I can't have him than no one can!" and "If I can just get him chained up in the basement I could make him love me again."