dan/california

This is quite bit more truth telling than I would expect. Unless cracks are starting to show.

The annexation of Belarus does get little attention, but is for the West as worrying as the invasion of Ukraine.

Because empires either expand or crumble.
And in putin's case it was also about his ultimate history-making action - he just finished taking Belarus with zero resistance (Lukashenko is just his talking head at this point), many other ex-Soviet republics have been beaten into submission one way or the other, so it was time to cement the recreation of USSR by grabbing Ukraine too.
But, naturally, he forgot to ask Ukrainians.

Well, they do now. But they don't have any money anymore. This war has proven that without good APS tanks are not worth the logistics tail to keep them running. It is a damed good thing Putin is not a CMBS fan. He could have learned this lesson for $50, instead of several trillion.

Elon has some screws that need their torque adjusted, at a minimum. SpaceEx though is a thing of beauty almost beyond compare.  That side by side landing is the kind of thing we OUGHT to be working on.

Well, they do now. But they don't have any money anymore. This war has proven that without good APS tanks are not worth the logistics tail to keep them running. It is a damed good thing Putin is not a CMBS fan. He could have learned this lesson for $50, instead of several trillion.

For anybody wanting a succinct crash course on everything from the roots of the current war back to Putin's rise to power back to the Khanate of the Golden Horde, Kamil Galeev has done some superb work here, very readable:
Relevant sample:
A lot has changed [since 2014]. First, Ukraine has had six drafts. Men were drafted and sent to Donbass. Then most demobilised and returned to civilian life. This Donbass contingent was around 60 thousand soldiers and constantly rotated. So now Ukraine has 400 000+ veterans of Donbass war 
Many of them were in combat. Thus Ukraine has huge number of veterans with combat experience. Probably more than Russia.
Yes, Russia has been fighting in Syria. It never published the size of its force but it's estimated to be 2-3 thousand. Most Russian soldiers have not seen war. Furthermore, combat they've seen is different.
Finally, Ukraine created a new type of troops - the troops of territorial defence, whose number is estimated in 60 000. It's a copy of the Polish troop type. These are civilians who get military training and can be mobilised in a day to fight only in their own town and region.
Equipment-wise this war took Ukrainian army half-resupplied. It developed many innovative weaponry of its own, but almost none of it was produced on large scale.
[Russian] troops pushed forward leaving many non-destroyed Ukrainian regulars and levy behind. In a proper Blitzkrieg, a second and third echelon would have come to finish Ukrainian defenders. But these additional echelons didn't exist. Which immediately created the supply and replenishment problem.... supply convoys are being attacked by the regulars and territorial defence troops left behind.

In the history of bad ideas, shelling a nuclear plant must rank near the top.

Well, they do now. But they don't have any money anymore. This war has proven that without good APS tanks are not worth the logistics tail to keep them running. It is a damed good thing Putin is not a CMBS fan. He could have learned this lesson for $50, instead of several trillion.

It seems the parade may be a bit smaller this year.

You don’t think there is chance that this happens in the Russian Army, as well?  There are certainly signs of cracks forming.  What if they start forcing conscripts to fight in large numbers?  This is not Afghanistan or Chechnya where the average conscript would be afraid to simply walk away from his unit to surrender or desert because of the near certainty that he would be murdered, thus creating cohesion even if coerced externally.  
Ukraine’s strategy of taking prisoners, treating them well and letting them call their moms is Grade A propaganda and subversion of enemy morale.  Way more effective than tough talk about murdering everyone that is basically tailor made for Russian propaganda to re-use. It’s also the right thing to do and buys enormous good will outside of Ukraine (maybe even in Russia), even if it seems soft to those suffering.

What did Steve offer?
 

dock workers closing loopholes in sanctions.  We should crowdfund these guys some pints
Tanker of Russian gas diverted after Kent dockers refuse to unload it (msn.com)

As I was going through militaristic russian social network channels to report and hopefully shutdown - I found that the narrative now shifts towards the following, quoting one example:
"it's now obvious that a special military operation won't be a quick one to even the most stubborn of us - so we must prepare to shift our peaceful economics to a full wartime mode and prepare to mobilize all our resources to bring peace to Ukraine"
So that martial law and possible mobilization rumour looks to be less and less of a rumour

note to Kraze -- nice posts, please keep it coming.

Absolutely agree. The reality is that an innocent country is being raped, partly because of our indifference and inactivity, that we are military and economically completly unprepared for the new Cold War we're head diving into, that our leaders try to sooth their conscience by sanctions and big words and that the Ukrainian cities are bombed into rubble while we speak.
The hope for a 'democratic Russia' is too ridiculous for words. A country that never brought their innumerous war criminals, who murdered and slaughtered their way through history from Lenin to Putin, to court and never brought anything else than misery to it's neighbours, is beyond hope.
All this talk about the end of Putin and a new future is complete nonsense. Putin can now take his time to occupy Ukraine, take some time to recover (or not!) and make his next move. And  there's nothing we can do about it, because we're a bunch of naive idiots. It was the division in the US and Europe and the weakness of NATO that brought this war over the Ukraine. Nothing else. A country like Russia has to be cleaned, like Germany after WW2, it will never to do that voluntarily, so it will never be a normal country, but a source of aggression and war for years and years to come. So let's stop talking as if everything is going our way, it's not. Let's support Ukraine with all we have and let's prepare for another (hopefully) Cold War.
 

This is the single most useful piece of information I have seen all week.  Really informative, his whole feed is excellent. We need to get a copy of the game.

This is the single most useful piece of information I have seen all week.  Really informative, his whole feed is excellent. We need to get a copy of the game.

Can't let the best be the enemy of the good. Nalvany is NOT perfect, we aren't going to get perfect. But Nalvany has many acceptable positions, and he has some semblance of a power base that is not based in the military or the security forces. He would obviously have to make certain guarantees to get full western support. He is anti corruption and pro rule of law, that isn't nothing. 

Freely admit I'm no expert but he's definitely managed to galvanize much of the population to aspire for democratic ideals. Imho, certainly better than anyone in Putin's immediate sphere that could just as easily or forcefully take control (i.e. Medvedev etc.)

This is the single most useful piece of information I have seen all week.  Really informative, his whole feed is excellent. We need to get a copy of the game.

Personally, I don’t agree that he continues to have considerable support. What you are hearing in Oz mainly comes from a media here the demonizes him and his supporters while exulting the other side. He is indeed an egomaniac, and totally out of touch with reality. The problem is that he is in touch with the heart strings of a population of people who feel disenfranchised by the ultra liberal left-leaning politicians giving everything to Noncitizens and minorities, while they see their own being eroded. In the main, these are not bad people, but he is able to mobilize their support with speeches that are taken right out of Mien Kampf. Even his Vice President refused to go along with his ridiculous claims and performed according to his Oath of Office. Everyone has their village idiot. Unfortunately, ours was elected leader. At the same time, both of our major political parties are being controlled by their extremist elements, ad actually, I blame them for plowing the ground that allowed the flowering idiot to get elected.
This should serve as a warning, and an object lesson to all Democracies that have the honor of selecting their own leaders. We might blow it and elect one, but that doesn’t mean it has to happen twice. If it does, they deserve what they get

Officer at border.  "What is this some kind of joke?  No one could be this inept."

I think we aren't giving suicide drone/loitering munitions enough credit, if the insurgents have enough of those a fire base is just a killing field in the absence of some way to defend against them. 

Can't seem to get back to it,  but I just saw a credible post, if you can use that term in this enviroment, that Ukrainian Special forces were going to change how the treated Russian artillerymen. Their mothers are going to get a different kind of phone call.