kraze

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.

Apparently it's actually Hostomel, as corrected by our forces. Bucha is waving a Ukrainian flag since morning once again so makes sense. Also our parliament voted for a very special law today, 7120. It now allows every civilian to get arms from the state during martial law to defend the country, no strings attached. Granted it was like that for the past 7 days, but now it's not gray legal area anymore. Problem is we have more willing people than guns for days. I've checked.

All I know is that battles closest to Kyiv rage at Hostomel right now which means russians are back to where they were on day 1 in that direction. (The NW approach goes like so - Hostomel - Bucha - Irpin) There were no attacks from Vyshgorod direction for days (it's the N direction from which those rushing cross-dressed russians entered Obolon district days ago) Everything else isn't confirmed.

Oh I agree. I'm all for russian POWs as they bear really good gifts. One may say Russia is our primary weapon supplier at this point

Russian soldiers panic because they were fully expecting to come in here and start ethnic cleansing unopposed - but instead began suffering disproportional casualties. Make no mistake - every single russian soldier at a border knew he is coming to murder us. They literally signed papers stating just that, all 180k of them and more and more keep coming (and dying). They now feel bad because they couldn't.

Very well - I agree with you. It's Putin personally that serves in russian army (1.6 mln of his clones) and works to supply them with weapons and ammo (millions and millions of putins in a military sector) directly and all other putins through taxes indirectly. Most importantly it is putin himself, who, literally at this very moment, bombards apartment blocks in Sumy with cluster munitions. We are really lucky it is evils of just one man and not dozens of millions. But, sorry, getting back to the topic at hand: Meanwhile in Belarus many of their troops seem to refuse to invade and mass cancel their army contracts, chosing the disgraceful discharge over murder. Clearly they don't know that if they were to murder people here - they would just get a free pass as we would just all blame putin.

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

On topic of russian soldiers not knowing where they were going. A document where they agree to fight on foreign soil, 3 days before the invasion, from private to officer

"Liberal" russians too? See aforementioned Sobchak escaping Russia. Before the full scale war of 24.02 she fully supported the russian invasion, calling our government a "regime fighting its own people" and mentioning Crimea being a russian territory on multiple occasions. And now she's running because an iron curtain is falling. I have doubts that a well known "liberal" politician with a huge audience didn't know what was really going on and projected her far right position onto the masses because she listened to state propaganda.

They all knew what was about to happen because they were all told to use the "I was told I was going on a training exercise" legend in case of a capture. They literally repeat that word for word when captured meaning it's an order to lie in an organized way.

Most russians I see all around "being against the war" weren't against the war for 8 years (it didn't start last week after all), but now they are "against the war" when they cannot travel abroad anymore and their food prices have grown 2 times in just a week (and keep rising fast). Somehow "propaganda" doesn't prevent them from being "against the war" now, but prevented when everything was OK? That "propaganda" seems to have stopped working with a snap of two fingers.

Are they against the war or are they against not being able to buy an iphone anymore? That's the key difference.

We in Ukraine didn't like the constitutional coup staged by Yanukovich in 2010, that completely made him an illegitimate usurper of power, and all the gradually growing violence against people that fought the coup that came afterwards, so him being in power ended just 3 years later. Or we could just complain non-stop about how we are "just ordinary people that don't influence anything" with you yourself not being able to tell the difference between Ukraine and Russia as it was pre-2014. Just sayin'

USSR fell not because russians changed, but because Afghanistan (and other events like Chernobyl) has shown how weak and extremely corrupt russian occupiers are to occupied nations. And so this russian empire started gradually crumbling all over - from "GDR" to Russia itself. However russians themselves didn't welcome the change as evidenced by them outright supporting a much more hardline Yeltsin coming to power instead of a "weak" Gorbachev. Yeltsin was seen by russians as a guy that will save the empire - which he immediately proceeded to do by starting bloody wars in countries that opposed being occupied or forcing less resisting countries to accept russian military bases on their territory as a twisted "kill-switch" that would lead to eventual re-occupation and recreation of USSR (politically known as "CIS"). Yelstin didn't get to do it all due to age and health issues - so he transferred his power to putin, who simply continued rebuilding USSR. Note how not a single time russians tried to oppose anything since 1991.

Except Afghanistan brought zero change in attitudes of an everyday russian. When Yeltsin staged a coup to take power in Russia and ordered an invasion of Moldova, Georgia and Ichkeriya - russians couldn't care less.

Then people will get rid of that bad leader again. Only people are responsible for their life and people who they choose to lead them. A great recent historical proof of that is South Korea. It went through half a dozen extremely corrupt leaders, not much different from DPRK, before they got where they are - each time changing the bad leader. In fact learn the history of any developed country - it's always about people changing the bad leader until they got the better one. No change means no desire for change. Every russian must be held accountable or we'll repeat 1991 once again. If not 1939.

I'm sorry but no. If "ordinary people" aren't happy with someone in power - they get rid of that guy. If they don't - they are happy with the guy.

If russians are ordinary people and only top of the leadership of Russia is bad - then who are those 800k serving in russian army and another 800k in reserves? Is it putin firing Grads at apartment blocks? But most importantly - who lets putin stay in power for 22 years and all other bloodthirsty dictators before that? If russians are against the war - then why are they doing literally nothing? In Germany allies forced "ordinary" germans to bury all the people they murdered or at least forced them to come to concentration camps and stare at what they've done. While also forcing germans to pay reparations for decades to come. Not to mention that bastards felt at least some part of how it felt for their victims when allies entered Germany. If "ordinary russians" are not at fault - then how come they always pick the worst bastards to lead them for the past 300 years?

It has nothing to do with brainwashing or propaganda. It also has nothing to do with "siloviki" - look at countless videos showing 50 russian "protesters" running from 2-3 cops or 100 russian "protesters" idly filming 2 cops arresting 1 guy. Russians live by war, it's what makes them feel better, since they are incapable of fitting with the civilized world for whatever reason that doesn't matter really. It's why nobody should repeat the mistake of the '90s and help russians again. They do not treat that as good will, they will use that for another war again and again. It's very important to realize.

You mean Kherson did. Yeah they were zerg rushing it for 2 days straight, had to halt advances on Mariupol and Mykolaiv - I wonder how much of a pyrrhic victory that is

Corruption is not a top-down thing - it's always bottom-up. Leaders are always chosen by people - yes even dictators, as no dictator can exist without his people blindly supporting him - and if someone has a corrupt mindset - he would choose a similar person to lead him. However you are correct that putin & co. were completely sure that everything written on paper is true. The lack of doubt is what comes with an ever growing god complex.

This level of indoctrination has been going there for centuries. It remains unpunished and that's why you get outright bloody formations like USSR and Russian Federation. It's not just putin who indoctrinates russians - it's also their pa and ma. Also "fascist ideology driving other governments being subtle" is this funny first-world-problems thing. I'm sorry, but no, just no. There's only one country in the world that constantly starts genocidal wars, excusing them with own "chosen-oneness" to grab territories and force people into slavery (by any other name) People saying "omg omg US is fascist because they installed CCTV on my street" is downright ridiculous compared to a ballistic missile launched at the nursery to punish those "lowly pig farmers".

I think it's a lot more deeply rooted than that. Corruption. So basically russians were mass stealing money in every way they could, but reported back about their successes 'on paper'. Like - order: buy 2000 ratniks. They buy 500, the rest of the money is stolen and shared with someone above to look the other way - but on paper they still write "we bought 2000". It's the reason their artillery still uses rulers and calculators to plan a strike (on civilian targets). Hopefully it looks like the whole might of russian army is indeed predominantly only on paper.

That's another erroneous logic. Iraq was an unfinished, unpunished deed from early '90s. Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait and, ultimately, got almost no consequences for it. It was pushed back but it didn't change and was a constant threat to neighbors, incl US allies. US citizens do not have a fascist ideology driving them, unlike russians, and that's why most still don't make that important connection. Russians on the other hand, as people, are extremely far right, in the 90s they effectively replaced communist ideology with fascist. For US an invasion in Iraq caused much uproar. For Russia invasions into Moldova (not even a year passed since USSR fell), Georgia, Ichkeriya, Azerbaijan, Armenia (russian specops staged a coup by murdering the parliament), Yugoslavia, Ichkeriya again, Georgia again, Syria, Ukraine and Kazakhstan triggered NOTHING. Russians live and breathe the war. The failure to understand that is the reason you read the list of non-stop tragedies and crimes above.

I guess it's time to throw down all the arms then and stop murdering invaders.