kraze

I meant Mearshmier & co position, just misworded the argument. Kotkin is right of course

So basically the greatest russian expert is completely clueless and if true - that explains why the West was literally blind for so many years. Before NATO even accepted any single new member after USSR dissolution - Russia attacked Moldova in 1992, Azerbaijan in 1992, Georgia in 1993 and Ichkeriya in 1994. That's FOUR wars russia started in just its first three years past USSR. So, naturally, when future NATO members saw what Russia does to its formerly occupied territories - they rushed to join NATO - which is damn hard as it is. You have to work your ass to be accepted into NATO, it takes almost a decade for an average country. So that "scholar" is either blind or stupid.

I didn't watch the video because of one single statement - "NATO expansion". That's how you know it's a complete and utter BS. NATO doesn't expand. It is joined willingly.

Without watching some stupid video on YouTube that tries to excuse russian wars and warcrimes let me post a list of countries Russia invaded in the past 30 years: Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Yugoslavia, Ichkeriya, Syria, Ukraine, Kazakhstan. None of these countries were in NATO. Some of these countries were in ODKB. Gee, I wonder why countries join a defensive alliance called NATO that never invaded a single country and never ever fought in a single war? And most importantly why Russia is so upset about countries getting protection? Can you help me with that?

Probably ambushing another convoy and then sniper-picking dismounts - nice

Random City People's Republic™ Original work do not steal or we smash food with our tractors.

Are we going on about this **** again? Do you even know how medical research works? Does your country have medicine or just pours snake oil over open wounds? That's before you actually read an article you posted yourself.

It really doesn't matter what russians lie about. Like at all. It works only for russians and various kinds of nutjobs abroad that made up their mind about their love for USSR long time ago.

It wouldn't really matter where they hit to disable the launcher - but it was of absolute importance to kill human filth that crewed it.

It's not just putin, putin is a mere representation of his people. It absolutely doesn't matter who russians put in power - every single leader of theirs is an absolutely violent maniac. Unless russians themselves suffer the consequences of this (and many other) war they started - nothing will change. So the most realistic progression of this war will be AFU gradually grinding through russian army until the most combat hardened BTG are replaced with (shadow-)mobilized nobodies while at the same time russian people suffer from maximum poverty until Russia collapses sooner or later - and then - the most important part - the West must not repeat the mistake of 1991 when it ran head over heels saving russians from consequences - as they brought an absolutely insane dictator Yeltsin into power, who immediately started wars all around Russia. Somebody mentioned Iran as an example of surviving similar economical pressure - but Iran is culturally monolithic, it doesn't consist of 20-30 ethnicities that despise each other and it isn't fighting several very expensive wars, while trying to keep several of its regions tame through applying constant force and terror (for example Chechnya is in a state of a permanent "counter terrorist operation" since 2000).

russians won't stop until Ukraine is no more. Any "cease fire" and "concessions" mean they will just come back later. So yes - it's either us or them. Russians made it very clear. As for "anything resembling a genocide" - just look at what they do to cities they aren't in - but better yet - look at what they did in captured regions of Donbass: Mass deportations, mass killings, mass graves (that they themselves filmed trying to pretend like they were done by "neonazis" and then russians just "discovered" them) - and that's just in the "compliant" regions. Where they had an overwhelming support and no resistance. Furthermore - just look at what they were doing in Chechnya, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Syria, as well at what they were doing in Yugoslavia before the West intervened militarily to see what happens when "concessions are made".

Unlike a fascist country like Russia, where people look up to their dear leader and follow him unconditionally while all his bros are permanently in butt-kissing mode - in Ukraine Zelenskyy can't just decide to call a "cease fire", there's been (and will be) too much blood spilled - neither military nor people will ever agree to see russians come back again and continue what they've started - while doing a full scale genocide on the territories they've grabbed. Again you mistakenly think that it's about grabbing some territories for putin. While it's certainly an objective - his main objective is to get rid of Ukrainians as people.

Problem is - Russia has attacked Belarus - and belarusians themselves are doing nothing about it. Rest is unimportant.

Who exactly is going to call that cease fire? Oh no no. You probably don't yet understand what russians did. This is out of politicians' hands now. This won't end until Russia ends.

We are talking russians here. They will just drop chem/bio weapons onto some children's hospital and claim evil Ukrainian neonazis blew up the biolab to cover it all up but something went bad. Because they don't really care about the reality - in their fantasy world they only need to look good to themselves. I mean - this whole war is based on delusions, incl occupying whole country in 3 days tops, so why not another one.

Wait till you learn that an actual wording was something like 'CIA stealing slavic russian genes'. But BBC decided to avoid mentioning that since Russia is already channeling Mr. Adolf too hard for press comfort.

As stated before - it's very much a soviet army with a soviet C2. So basically throw bodies at the problem until it's solved and use your big guys to herd those bodies at a said problem. Literally like orcs in most fantasy works.

Of course western companies that invested in Russia are suffering financially - but not because Russia is going to take their stuff. Because most of that stuff is already worthless. It is what I'm saying.

North (let's put both Kyiv and Kharkiv in here) was a priority target for russians - because in their imagination taking Kyiv or taking the "capital" of the original faux "people's republic" russians created in 1918 and bringing back Yanukovich would heavily demoralize and break whatever small pockets of resistance there would be, while mobilizing those imaginary millions of pro-russian collaborators waiting for Russia to come and save them. Hence the North was chosen to be the most heavily defended and rightfully so - most elite russian troops died there. So because of it being the most defended - russians are regularly routed in there. In Donbass region army was to hold off an attack, which it did generally well. South is mostly steppe, no forests, very hard to defend and was not a top priority - mostly national guard and territorial defense was there, not so much an army - even then russians won only pyrrhic victories - as a result their push to Odessa failed and seems to be off the table atm and they ran out of breath at Mariupol as well when they encountered a veteran army for the first time (Azov) - where they hope to just break it by going fully genocidal. Kherson thus far is the only regional center they gained any control of (out of 21, Luhansk and Donetsk being obvious excluded) - even so - the local populace refuses to accept them and it's a very "light" occupation right now, they don't have enough holding force there. So I'd say take an overall strategic picture into consideration - was it worth taking Kherson by losing 5000-6000 men dead, 15-18k wounded, half a hundred combat planes, hundreds of tanks, more than a thousand APCs and either broken or heavily fatigued invasion force in most directions, as well as economical and political disaster? Also going by western stats they basically lost 12%-15% of the whole invasion force in two weeks, vast majority of losses are the best units they had. Traded for a city that holds no political value.

It didn't. Whatever number russians announce it's worth is irrelevant. Why? Because russian government forbid banks from selling dollars to population. Every USD account is in faux dollars now that will be forcibly converted into rubles at 110 rubles a piece when trying to withdraw. No russian can buy dollars (or euros) legally anymore. And on black market the real money, paper dollar is already being sold as high as 1000 rub in Moscow with Haiduk's mentioned 350 being the best deal you can get. Ruble is over.

The number of high ranking command stuff they lost in two weeks would make any western president / top ranked military guy retire 10 times over

It's not like western companies didn't lose all that already when they left. It's already de facto, just not de jure yet. So what russians will be left with is a bunch of empty buildings nobody will even be able to rent, what's with one dollar already selling for 1000 rubles right now.

I fail to see how seizing empty space will compensate most financial losses. Because of corruption and paper reports over solving problems Russia has no scientists, no engineers, no experts in any field. I mean - they import the damn cashier check tape ffs. And they are running out of it. It's not like their drunken Ivan from Tula will suddenly produce a MarxBook if you put him inside an empty Apple store

There are more territorial defence volunteers than arms available for them so everything is possible. Incl. legit using that gun. Our army is 250k standing plus about the same number of reservists (who all rushed to join in the fight) and another 100k joined territorial defence (that's a week old data) There's a shortage of small firearms because of that, just way way too many people.

That moment when you have to replace your "strongest army in the world" with nobodies from the middle east