Maciej Zwolinski

This was disingenuous on Lenin's part. At one time he declared that (together with the promise of land for the peasants who worked on them) just to undermine the Whites, but the Bolsheviks fully intended to get all those countries (and more) back in a short time during world revolution (which did not pan out, however the subjugation of former Tzarist colonies did)

If that was the point, it was a bad point. It referenced Eastern Europe, i.e. countries leaving the Communist regime in 1990s.  I know the Polish situation firsthand, but I will go out on the limb and assume that in other countries from behind the Iron Curtain the sentiment was similar as the conditions were substantially similar. Namely, we were fed Soviet propaganda about Germany being always thinking about invasion, German tanks being always ready near the border etc. and we assumed there was some truth in this - and most of the people loved the idea. Most people in the late 80's I knew were happy at the prospect of the mighty Bundeswehr in their Balkankreuze-marked Leopards, funded with US imperialist money, driving over the borders and crushing Soviet peace-loving workers and peasants  under the tracks. 
If there were any countries which wanted Germany "weak, divided and confused" that is probably the attitude of Western neighbours of FRG in the 1950s or 1960s. Not to mention the fact, that Eastern European attitudes had exactly zero influence over how Germany developed, as opposed to e.g. what the US, UK and France did in their occupation zones.  But given Aragorn2002's long displayed prejudices against Eastern Europe, facts are irrelevant vs the thesis, that it is always our fault.

It is the same phenomenon. The same things which make Putin a confusing enemy for the, let's say "contrarian populist right" make him the perfect villiain for the "liberal left". Militarist, homophobic,macho*, proponent of traditional values**, White, Christian***. He can be hated from the bottom of all the bleeding hearts without any remorse. For all supporters of the Ukraine, it looks like this time the tendency of the US to treat international politics as extension of its internal culture wars has worked for the good.
 
*Obviously in those shirtless photos he does not actually look macho. But it is the intent which counts. 
**In propaganda only. In fact Russia has extremely high abortion and divorce rates. 
***See above. Russian Orthodox Church looks like another branch of FSB.

MG 08/22? 

It is the same phenomenon. The same things which make Putin a confusing enemy for the, let's say "contrarian populist right" make him the perfect villiain for the "liberal left". Militarist, homophobic,macho*, proponent of traditional values**, White, Christian***. He can be hated from the bottom of all the bleeding hearts without any remorse. For all supporters of the Ukraine, it looks like this time the tendency of the US to treat international politics as extension of its internal culture wars has worked for the good.
 
*Obviously in those shirtless photos he does not actually look macho. But it is the intent which counts. 
**In propaganda only. In fact Russia has extremely high abortion and divorce rates. 
***See above. Russian Orthodox Church looks like another branch of FSB.

Come on, that is a huge stretch and totally inappropriate. That is like saying the contributors to a murder are the police because they have not caught the perpetrator on the way to the crime scene,the gynecologist who assisted at his birth and did not drop him on the floor - and the murderer's friend who gave him a gun and a car to use just before the act. Soviets allied with the Germans to invade Poland and intentionally sold the Germans war materials, without which Hitler would not be able to sustain the war with the West and would not have attacked. There would not have been a World War 2 as we know it without Soviet Union's prior pact with Germany, which makes it a conditio sine qua non. In legal terms, I would say it makes Soviets more than aiders and abettors, but co-perpetrators. The fact that that both bandits fought later and one of them turned King's evidence is neither here nor there.

Would you mind sharing it somehow?

That's the spirit! Molon labe!

No, we get secondary infections from the West.

Ukraine is not Cambodia or Angola, and will have to clean up their country anyway. Their own soil. On which their own people walk.  From Russian AP mines, no less. What Angola has to do with anything? Why not give them the choice between using land mines and risking collateral damage and losing military advantage and risking Russian occupation and attrocities?
OK, I give up - this must be a Western thing. I guess Russian agents did as good a job infiltrating humanitarian organisations in the West, as they did with the ones pushing unilateral nuclear disarmament and giving up  nuclear energy generation.

That is the crux of the problem. There are some core decisions, that everybody is afraid to give up to the popular vote of people who are likely to think differently . For Poland that may be security, perhaps immigration or intra-EU trade. For Germans I would guess interest rates, budget etc. We cannot reliably count on getting the majority in our favour, so a Polish governement which wants to have any influence over those has to push for unanimity/high qualified majority. It of course makes the decision process cumbersome and slower, but leaves the option of going it alone/in a coalition of the willing instead of being outvoted e.g. on border controls. Germany the affluent and influencial has more options to get a majority in its favour, so different things work for you.
 

Look at the Ukrainian war from that perspective. Poland, the Baltics, the Czech Republic - we moved immediately to help the Ukraine and against Russia because our individual national history and perspective made it an obvious choice. Should we wait until all EU countries come to the same conclusion? With the strongest country and at that time considered the leader of all things European expressing the opinion that Kiev will fall in 3 days and until this date putting up a show of resistance because that is what German voters expect? When would that pan-Eu action have started rollling, in May 2022?
That European identity thing is not likely to happen. We have just too diverging interests and worldviews. E.g.  when I hear that Spain does not have any tanks to spare because it needs tanks facing Morocco that is just an Arabian Nights Tale for me. I suppose the Spanish and Portuguese have a similar immediate reaction to the news from the Ukraine. When they hear Galicia, they think south Spain, and we think Lviv/Lwów/Lemberg.

Sure, whatever. I am shocked, shocked.
'Unrestricted submarine warfare' was also explicitly banned by the 1936 Naval Protocol.  War crime, Brits were all ready to string up Doenitz for it in 1946.  And then the US Navy CINCPAC awkwardly cleared its throat.... 1943 war of the Marus, anybody? 
To be more direct, since Russia is now regressing to its historical 'strong suit' as a dumb mass infantry force (flying in the face of its actual demography), it follows that Ukraine's surest path to victory is  measured in buckets of Russian blood.
....Secondarily, it is measured in beans and bullets *not* getting to their trenches, but that is a different kind of mines.
Look, we can afford to tut tut all we like on our keyboards, from the safety of our various gamer mancaves.  
But if cheap, plentiful AP mines kill and wound Russian skinheads by the bushel, and hinder them advancing to turn yet more Donbas towns into a moonscape, Zaluzhny's boys are absolutely gonna use them, whether the West goes tut tut or not. (And if they aren't effective then they won't use them).
Anyway, the postwar EOD clearing burden is already baked in; plenty of those 'legitimate' shells landing on the aforementioned moonscapes are duds.

Look at the Ukrainian war from that perspective. Poland, the Baltics, the Czech Republic - we moved immediately to help the Ukraine and against Russia because our individual national history and perspective made it an obvious choice. Should we wait until all EU countries come to the same conclusion? With the strongest country and at that time considered the leader of all things European expressing the opinion that Kiev will fall in 3 days and until this date putting up a show of resistance because that is what German voters expect? When would that pan-Eu action have started rollling, in May 2022?
That European identity thing is not likely to happen. We have just too diverging interests and worldviews. E.g.  when I hear that Spain does not have any tanks to spare because it needs tanks facing Morocco that is just an Arabian Nights Tale for me. I suppose the Spanish and Portuguese have a similar immediate reaction to the news from the Ukraine. When they hear Galicia, they think south Spain, and we think Lviv/Lwów/Lemberg.

Come on, that is a huge stretch and totally inappropriate. That is like saying the contributors to a murder are the police because they have not caught the perpetrator on the way to the crime scene,the gynecologist who assisted at his birth and did not drop him on the floor - and the murderer's friend who gave him a gun and a car to use just before the act. Soviets allied with the Germans to invade Poland and intentionally sold the Germans war materials, without which Hitler would not be able to sustain the war with the West and would not have attacked. There would not have been a World War 2 as we know it without Soviet Union's prior pact with Germany, which makes it a conditio sine qua non. In legal terms, I would say it makes Soviets more than aiders and abettors, but co-perpetrators. The fact that that both bandits fought later and one of them turned King's evidence is neither here nor there.

According to many experts, Grippen is ideal because it is made with a view to fighting in the conditions of Russian air superiority. It can use dispersed field airfields and stretches of highway instead of permanent air bases, with minimised logistic requirements

According to many experts, Grippen is ideal because it is made with a view to fighting in the conditions of Russian air superiority. It can use dispersed field airfields and stretches of highway instead of permanent air bases, with minimised logistic requirements

Swedes, not Finns

Come on, that is a huge stretch and totally inappropriate. That is like saying the contributors to a murder are the police because they have not caught the perpetrator on the way to the crime scene,the gynecologist who assisted at his birth and did not drop him on the floor - and the murderer's friend who gave him a gun and a car to use just before the act. Soviets allied with the Germans to invade Poland and intentionally sold the Germans war materials, without which Hitler would not be able to sustain the war with the West and would not have attacked. There would not have been a World War 2 as we know it without Soviet Union's prior pact with Germany, which makes it a conditio sine qua non. In legal terms, I would say it makes Soviets more than aiders and abettors, but co-perpetrators. The fact that that both bandits fought later and one of them turned King's evidence is neither here nor there.

Come on, that is a huge stretch and totally inappropriate. That is like saying the contributors to a murder are the police because they have not caught the perpetrator on the way to the crime scene,the gynecologist who assisted at his birth and did not drop him on the floor - and the murderer's friend who gave him a gun and a car to use just before the act. Soviets allied with the Germans to invade Poland and intentionally sold the Germans war materials, without which Hitler would not be able to sustain the war with the West and would not have attacked. There would not have been a World War 2 as we know it without Soviet Union's prior pact with Germany, which makes it a conditio sine qua non. In legal terms, I would say it makes Soviets more than aiders and abettors, but co-perpetrators. The fact that that both bandits fought later and one of them turned King's evidence is neither here nor there.

Well, that is the problem. UKR has to convince the average RUS soldier, that further resistance against UKR is worse than the threat of bullet in the back from Kadyrovtsy/Wagner barrier troops and your family getting bankrupted due to the military pension being denied to them. That is a steeper challenge.

Can their not-elites attack at all? If you look at the map, the only units attacking are VDV and MPR, and Wagner. Perhaps spotting Russian offensive maneuvers is just that easy. It is wherever VDV/Marines fight.
The other thing is that AFAIK the terrain before Vuhledar is relatively more open. So they may think more mechanised assets are necessary to cross the no man's land instead of the newly mobilised units, which tend to be more leg  infantry 
By the way, I do not consider Wagner's prisoner army to be a "cheaper" unit. They are fairly unique, because a normal mobik unit would not submit to that kind of treatment and let itself to be quietly slaughtered, even with the extreme passivity and apathy of Russian mobilised. So this is not an ordinary Orc Boyz unit, more like a specialised "Snotling horde with Orc minderz" to give the player unique capabilities. It might have been a very  fortituous thing that they were exhausted in Soledar, since there are problems with finding replacements in prisons and this special capability hopefully will not be replaced for long/ever.

Can their not-elites attack at all? If you look at the map, the only units attacking are VDV and MPR, and Wagner. Perhaps spotting Russian offensive maneuvers is just that easy. It is wherever VDV/Marines fight.
The other thing is that AFAIK the terrain before Vuhledar is relatively more open. So they may think more mechanised assets are necessary to cross the no man's land instead of the newly mobilised units, which tend to be more leg  infantry 
By the way, I do not consider Wagner's prisoner army to be a "cheaper" unit. They are fairly unique, because a normal mobik unit would not submit to that kind of treatment and let itself to be quietly slaughtered, even with the extreme passivity and apathy of Russian mobilised. So this is not an ordinary Orc Boyz unit, more like a specialised "Snotling horde with Orc minderz" to give the player unique capabilities. It might have been a very  fortituous thing that they were exhausted in Soledar, since there are problems with finding replacements in prisons and this special capability hopefully will not be replaced for long/ever.

Can you define or give an example of what you consider a bottom falling out event for Russia? I would like to make sure that we are not confusing an event which will damage the Russian economic growth prospects, competitiveness, standard of living etc. even for a long/indefinite time with an event which will cause Russia to drop out of the current war with the Ukraine . They are not the same.
For example, let's assume that Russia has a choice of A.  continuing war and incurring an economic crisis effectively regressing Russia to the 1980s Soviet Union planned economy and standard of living; or B. suing for peace and coming back to 23 Feb 2022 borders.  I see a distinct possibilty that Putin will take option A. because option B. carries a high risk of him being deposed and/or kliled and he prefers tanking the RUS economy to suicide. Therefore, I do not think that regressing to 1980 economy is the bottom falling out event for Russia. 
And what do you think?

I think he is a massive Poroshenko fan or some kind of libertarian, anyway he dislikes the current UKR government and gives off that "lions led by donkeys" vibe. If you correct for this, his front updates are quite useful. For the fighting in Kherson and the Izyum region he seemed to have the best information.
Also, he comes up with interesting tactical theories from time to time, like the Russian artillery being particularly effective due to close integration between artillery batteries and Orlan drone operators embedded at the battery level, or about Wagner fighting techniques.