dan/california

Their are some frankly genocidal country songs from WW2, we sobered up when the shooting stopped.

Capt if Kraze was a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry you would be right to be concerned. But Zelensky is all but promising Russian soldiers who surrender a nice holiday in Odessa, and a Ukrainian passport. The official Ukrainian position could not be more opposed to Kraze's, well except for Russian soldiers in Ukraine who don't have the sense to give up, those guys deserve whats coming to them. For the rest of Kraze's ranting you are perhaps feeding the guy whose very pseudonym announces he is a troll with a bit too much of your valuable time and attention . Very respectfully, value every post you write.

Not exactly the worlds most credible source, but if true it is a sign of REAL opposition. I am not sure Russia can afford for this to break out very widely.

Did she say that because she is unaware that Solovyov is a pedophile and a pervert, or because she IS aware of it. This contest to be the last rat in the cage is beyond hilarious. The onion is out of business, beyond parody!

So does Ukraine stop and dig in for mud season, or can advance past a couple of the smaller rivers while the Russians try and fail to reorganize?

The chaos is part of the charm...

Was going to say about 90 things, someone else got o most of them first. We are sort of stuck off topic, or at least on the uppermost political level of the topic. Even with very interesting tactical, and operational developments. Steve needs to go for the last option to bring things back into line. Release real info about the new game. So we can all tell him he is doing it wrong, while we frantically pre order it. I suggest he double the price and send the proceeds, and a complementary copy, to the Ukrainian MOD. It solves about five problems at once. It isn't a cold hearted attempt to take advantage, its a fundraiser!

The U.N. is all but worthless, and yet necessary. It is useful to have a place where countries that really don't like each other can confer somewhat easily. And it has some capacity to make things better in parts of the that are so poor no one cares about the specifics, or the interests of all the big powers happen to align. We would probably have to reinvent it if we shut it down. BUT... NATO, Five Eyes plus a South Korea, Japan, and maybe on the down low Taiwan, need to start talking about a world wide club/alliance with standards. How to do this is sort of beyond the scope of this thread and the current war in Ukraine. But it is time to think about a world wide alliance of the decent. If the same drawing power the EU exerts could be crafted it might help a lot of countries climb the development ladder without detouring into unpleasant authoritarianism. It is hard to overstate how much the attraction of joining the EU has helped and shaped Ukraine.

They have paid the highest price since South Korea for the privilege of joining the Western world, A lot of parallels actually, The way both wars started because of insufficiently clear, or poorly chosen redlines and did/are going to end without the unconditional surrender the bad side deserves. And even the South Koreans didn't have to do all their own fighting, even if they did most of the dying. It is my fondest hope we give the Ukrainians the help to bloom into a jewel of the modern world the way the South Koreans have. They have earned it TEN X, paid in blood and tears.

The AFU are racing the rain as much as the Russians. Although the same rain is also going to freeze the gains they already have. I don't see Russian mobiks with literally no training taking back much ground when things mud out.

Part of a plan to shoot ALL the generals and blame it on them? The generals might want to consider that...

Putin having a very special cup of tea would be heck of start though.

Dagestan still lively. Also a report the governor had a "heart attack".

If you sabotage the railroads they will have a much harder time shipping you to Ukraine, oh, and you might get away with it.

More like erased...

I meant myself. Glad see you still think I am coherent, even if my writing is lousy. Just hoping we have any choices besides very and never mind.

Unfortunately the only form of communication Russia responds too is trains full of zinc coffins, and the prospect of even more. There is nothing for it but send as many as we can, as fast as we can, until they quit. It is the only thing we control on the Russian side.

Heavy is the price. Peace to their families Glory to Ukraine Napalm to the Russian Ba%%##%ds Unfortunate, but it is sort of amazing that Russia is only striking such an obvious target 7 months in. Are the Iranian drones involved somewhere?

Anxious to see if we can get any confirmation of this one. Has there been anymore about the Iranian drone trainers?

We have only had a twenty year, several trillion dollar lesson that countries can't really be changed, or assembled, to order. There is an inherent tension between the short and long term. The best longterm scenario is Russia broken into ten-ish parts with all of those giving up their nukes in return for various financial incentives and security guarantees. That happy ending requires the hardest and riskiest path in the short term, complete with the loose nuke round up. The lowest risk path is a relatively clean coup in Moscow that lets us negotiate an acceptable short to medium term arrangement regarding withdraw from all of Ukraine, return of all forcibly deported Ukrainians and, and. I don't think any regime that still controls most of Russia will denuclearize, so there is a permanent risk of it resorting to less reasonable management. I also think we are fooling ourselves about how much control we will have when this nine time zone Jenga tower goes over. It is an inherently chaotic process.

It really is a contest to see what part of the regime falls apart first. I will die laughing if his conscription papers were at the bottom of the pile of paperwork. Ok, and this is NOT from he sanest member of this forum, let focus on Socks and IFVs. In addition to arguing ourselves in circles while changing no ones mind, we are also counting chickens before they are hatched. Everybody, and by everybody I mean the entire NATO alliance and friends, needs to take a deep breadth and concentrate on what Ukraine need to break this first wave of conscripts utterly, and be ready for second one. If enough pressure can be applied to the Russian government to achieve effective regime collapse the process is likely going to be very chaotic, and only minimally subject to outside influence at least for a while. The relevant three letter agencies need to have literally a dozen scenarios all planned out. None of them will be right but hopefully one of them is close enough to get a head start on the insanity to come. Just to ease tempers on the forum a bit we should start talking in terms of scenarios, regime failure mode A, regime failure mode B, ect. Someone should make a list. I mean the end of civilization is worth getting worked up over. but getting worked up doesn't help. Neither does scotch, unfortunately. Plans, scenarios, being one step ahead of any of nine different ways this can break down completely might, maybe, if we are lucky...

The most interesting thing about that video, and there are a lot of interesting things about that video, is the racial make up of the women. There are some some very Russian looking ones, and some very not Russian looking ones. They seem very, and equally unenthusiastic about Putin's plans.

Early report, fantastic if true.

If you are going to panic, panic early. I hope he comes out ok!

Hopefully the LPR guys will have an attack of sense and decide to spend the winter in a nice warm POW camp instead of a freezing trench with pieces of their friends. Edit: it sounds like the weather is getting bad enough to concentrate peoples thinking. If that is a psyop it is a good one.