rocketman

Briansk oil facilities, belonging to "Transneft" is not only storage, but the hub of oil distribution to Europe. On this map Брянск=Bryansk. Looks like this is Ukrainisn contribution to oil embargo %) 

Take it or Galeev it.
I spent a lot of time with Wallerstein back in uni (also Luttwak and Mearsheimer, but that's a different story).
 
 
(as always, the rest of the thread is thought provoking and informative).
I am of the view that should:
a.  the Russian army suffer a huge and undeniable battlefield defeat that includes their near total expulsion from the areas invaded in Feb, plus the forced (televised) surrender of some large units;
b. that will trigger a Colour Revolution (with a fair bit of shooting, sadly) in Minsk, and the ascent of a Western-facing democratic regime in Belarus, harking back to the traditions of the Novgorod republic.
c.  At that point, I could readily see some of the Russian regions reasserting autonomy, with their own armed forces (private armies with loose official status).  My own picks would be:
(1) Kuban, the Russian 'sunbelt'. Krasnodar is the third largest city and an export hub. In the event Crimea does not rejoin Ukraine postwar, it would align itself with this region. The commercial culture there seems to have a more 'Southern European' feel to it (define that how you like, but it doesn't bode at all well for Moscow holding on to it).
(2) The old Novgorod republic -- the Volkhov lake country east of the Baltics that culturally has a lot in common with the Balts, perhaps more than with the 'Mosculs'....
(3) Most painful of all for Moscow, the Kursk-Bryansk-Belgorod-middle Volga heartland region could stand up and demand rights to form commercial ties across its western frontiers!  Would VDV units largely home based in Tula-Ryazan obey orders to suppress brother Russians in these oblasts? Or join them?
(4) Predictably, everything east and south of the Urals other than a few military base towns like Vladivostok will renegotiate its relationship with Moscow; governors will become billionaire-warlords with active Chinese connivance. Putin's Moscow-St Petersburg oligarchs will no longer be able to extract gigantic rents off resource flows and their power and patronage will wither. 
The economies of Old Muscovy are utterly hollow once you drive away the IT technorati (who are already quickly voting with their feet and would happily move to Krasnodar).  It's basically 35 million retirees, the very people who have been keenest on this stupid war. Let them rust and rot.
....Would this mean these autonomous republics areas become independent nations? Probably not at once, but the 'Russian Federation' would surely become a lot more 'Federation' and a lot less 'Russian'. 
But the iron fist of Moscow could at last be broken for good.

At the risk of veering a bit off topic, it's also not widely known that for about 20 years, HALF of all the uranium we used in US nuclear power plants came from decommissioned Soviet nuclear warheads. That's roughly 10% of all the US electric power generated for 20 years. At an American Nuclear Society technical meeting years ago, a Russian nuclear engineer was describing the process. Someone asked a question about a step in the conversion/downblending process. Everyone had the same question because it made no technical sense.
"This? It's for political reasons only"
Took everyone a second but then it was "Ohhhhhhhh"  (disguising the actual original composition).
 
What better way to dispose of 10s of thousands of excess nuclear warheads?
Dave
PS -  Search for "Megatons to Megawatts"  - the name of the program
PPS - I should clarify - this is NOT the same 50% that we buy, although we did buy this. This program ended in 2013
 

Guess we’ll see…

Love this humour...
 
 

Well one could argue that the organization was marginalized long before this whole dance.  The US invasion of Iraq in 03 was definitely a nail in its coffin.  The global order that the UN was supposed to both represent and embody has been stressed and cracking for decades, this has likely just finished the job.
This is not good news.  As constipated and dysfunctional as the UN was it is better than the alternative, which is back to the old anarchy of nations with multipolar power arrangements largely ungovernable besides the rule of the gun.  That is where we were in 1914 except now we have nukes.  So yes Ukraine is bad but what could follow may be a lot worse if we don’t put this whole thing back in a box.
Putin’s sins in Ukraine are historic but if we don’t get our sh#t together collectively he is going to go down as a footnote, assuming there is anyone left to write it down. And if that wasn’t hilarious enough we have climate impacts coming straight at us.
 

Standard play is "somebody else's kids" so they will milk that cow until it bleats (already have).
As to 100k or even 200k.  In the west it takes us about 1-2 years to create a functioning basic infantry person.  That is basic and battle school, even our reserves here in Canada take at least a year.  These are totally inexperienced with no heavy weapons training, minimum fieldcraft and just enough skill not to shoot themselves or each other too often.  
But this rabble do not make a tactical unit.  You need NCOs, Officers, technical specialist etc.  A recce troop takes 3-5 years to make, a good NCO 5-10, a junior officer (if one waives a degree requirement) 2-3 years - more if they are in a technical trade. 
So yes, if they want kids standing in trenches holding a rifle they could technically "mobilize".  But they will not hold ground under pressure and forget anything complex like offense.  I mean if you want third world quality, sure Russia can mobilize but they will get crushed in days.  The UA is producing veterans at an alarming rate, to the point I would be concerned about taking them on with a western military right now.  They are on their home soil so no worries about motivation, and they are being equipped with some of the best weapon systems in human history.  But I am sure Russia will stick an 18 year old with strange holes and stains on his uniform, in a different country, no real support and an AK with one mag and call it a "Wall of Steel".   

I’m thinking onset of Parkinson. Gripping the table to hide tremors, which typically affect one hand in the first stages of the disease. 

I’m thinking onset of Parkinson. Gripping the table to hide tremors, which typically affect one hand in the first stages of the disease. 

Turkish body armor ceramic plate, soldier survived

1. Entirely biased source, but also entirely believable....
2. Also, this Chinese analyst does a rough calc of RU modern tank losses (using Oryx as of early April):
3.  I think this has been posted before (hundreds of pages back) but it's a good interactive map tool, mapping RA formation positions to regiment level.  Current to 18 April....
https://www.uawardata.com/
 
 

Hey, that’s an insult to garden gnomes.

Look at all the luxury SUVs we stole in Ukraine!
Anyways, I prefer this Kadyrov video:
 

Azov and marines breakthrough from Azovstal to the port and secured passing of UKR units (500 servicemen mostly of police and border guards) to their positions on the plant. Port group was cutted off and almost w/o ammunition
Article in Russian:
https://inforesist.org/smi-morpehi-i-azov-spasli-poltysyachi-bojczov-gpsu-i-naczpoliczii-iz-porta-mariupolya/
In Mariupol spotted vehicles with V marking, which participated in offensive on Kyiv

This is not regular AFU unit, this is "Hospitallers" volunteer medical unit, operating since July 2014 for medical support of VUC Right Sector fighters. The founder of battalion is 18-years old (in 2014) Yana Zinevych, which was heavy injured in 2015 in car accident. Tasks of this unit - first aid on battlefield, evacuation from combat zone, surgical. Their tac-med level, level of equipment and motivation are very high. During the war on Donbas this unit evacuated from battlefield 2750 wounded soldiers of VUC and army units. In 2017 "Hospitallers" had 60 of personnel and aout 100 of reserve.

So running from buildings that are being shelled is actually a RL thing ... Lots of people and threads on this forum  appear to have disagreed with this notion in the past ... 😉

I'm more mindful of that fact than any other an am glad that the US has an administration that appears to be handing events both prudently and pragmatically within the limits of US laws No chest thumping or any other false signals.
.
That is what makes war so difficult, learning to fight the enemy without becoming them. You're quite right, or at least I hope so, that there are still those who see what is happening but are powerless to stop it. If there is anyway out of this mess we will need them.

@The_Capt
you need to factor this into the information war.  
Tracking The Enemy: How Ukrainians Are Using Russian Troops’ Greed Against Them (msn.com)
🤣

Some frontline news:
Mariupol. After a time of next ultimatum has gone Russians hammered Azovstal with FAB-3000 from Tu-22M3 and heavy artillery (maybe 2S4 240 mm siege mortars too). Azov command made a statement the plant territory almost all ruined, they try to take out survived people, dead and wounded from ruins. Russians at this moment don't advance forward. About 1000 civilaians hide in plant undergrounds   
Zaporizhzhia axix: Russians throughout the day desparately attacked our troops in Huliaypole area to establish better conditions to the entering in the battle rest of forces, but hadn't sucess.
Velyka Novosilka axis (JTO south): Russians decided outflank our troops west from this settlement and to breakthrough between Huliaypole and Velyka Novosilka. They advanced from Liubymivka to the line of ponds and the dam near Temyrivka village
JTO: Russians could take Maryinka under own control, but our forces after regrouping counter-atatcked and retaken the settlement. In Rubizhne all attempts of enemy to move further where repelled. Now Russians and separs control about half of the city. Calshes around Kreminna.
Kherson oblast: Russians launched attack on the north of Kherson oblast to take back positions, lost in previuous weeks, but hadn't success
Kharkiv oblast: multiple attempts of small armored battlegroups to infiltrate through our positions and find the hole in our defense - no success.     

We have 2 million in Poland. On this field US involvement is and will remain negligible.

Really well done artwork. I can see some candidates for menu screen mod for BS.

Go Netherlands!
 

Slovakian artist Rado Javor, illustrator of Total War games series issiued two new artworks about the war in Ukraine. Recently he has drew series "seasons in Ukraine" about war of 2014-2015.
Seasons:
Spring in Ukraine (fighting around Sloviansk)

Summer in Ukraine (Ukrainian July offensive)

Autumn in Ukraine

Winter in Ukraine (Donetsk airport)

Also two other artworks
Sunflower fields (tank ram of sen.lt Abramovych 12th of August 2014)

Winter war (campaign of winter 2015)

And new arts:
The general

Moskva

More his arts on history, military, game, sci-fi tematics you can find here: https://www.deviantart.com/radojavor