Billy Ringo

Would it be possible to limit the name calling, "rural dimwits" "right wing looney's" and focus on the war in Ukraine? 
Thank you.

Would it be possible to limit the name calling, "rural dimwits" "right wing looney's" and focus on the war in Ukraine? 
Thank you.

Highly charged incident. 
I touched on this subject myself many pages ago,  about how/if the UOC or similar will affect the peace,  using the Catholic Church in Ireland,, after our civil war, as a parallel example. 
There does seem to be a strong social push against the Moscow backed church, but I'm not there. 
Any of our UKR friends able to elaborate? Or is it a too-tricky subject just now? 
 
 

Worth pointing out this means the Armenian government is 100% certain Putin is going to lose this war. Because otherwise they are all dead men walking. Not saying they know more than anybody else, but they just committed pretty much everything.

So nice work Putrid Putin. You've given NATO a clear line (if needed),into your 2nd largest city and probably most economically important one.
Your Baltic sea fleet is even more bottled up and will need run a literal gauntlet of sensors and fires to do more than just patrol their harbours.

Latest preliminary lessons from RUSI. Haven't read it yet but appears to about the intelligence and unconventional war
Preliminary Lessons from Russia's Unconventional Operations During the Russo-Ukrainian War, February 2022-February 2023 (rusi.org)

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

Trump's support continues to decline.  Those that never liked him--still don't like him.  And many who supported him, (or voted for him only because they thought he was the better of two bad choices) have turned away from him.  
There are still some ardent Trump supporters and they get more notice than they deserve.  But those are decreasing every day.  I'm a conservative who voted for him twice and I, like most people I know, just want him to go away.
He'll continue to bluster as long as it generates money and feeds his ego.  But in my strong opinion he will never be president again.
 
 

I disagree. NOBODY can predict what Trump would do w.r.t. to Ukraine if he would return to the White House.

Putin's peace proposal trial balloon via what is normally a TV lunatic:  F that, it's so absurd.  There is nothing for UKR to agree to even if they wanted to, which they don't.  Putin will agree to pay and never pay, or try to pay w worthless rubles his treasury prints up for just this purpose.  He certainly can't come up with hundreds of billions of $.  His economy is a wreck and he's lost much of RU's economically vibrant workers.  He could promise 10 years of free oil but he'd never deliver.  What could UKR do if he made a deal and didn't deliver?  NOTHING -- outside of starting a new war.  To summarize, this is ridiculous.

Personally I was unimpressed with that article. It's an intel officers view, but it's limited by his prior experience and personal biases (aren't all opinions, including mine). 
But he really gives Putin the benefit of the doubt. He fails to note how much Putin has backed himself in a maximallist corner, politically, and how much capital has been invested not just in the situation as-is but going forward.  He seems to view Putin's international behaviour separate from his domestic situation and internal power balancing.  On here we've often noted how so many of Putin's actions are internationally counter-productive yet maje sense domestically. 
This paragraph sums up the authors stumbling blocks, for me:
1. We're way past the point of Putin accepting any sort of blame,  guilt,  responsibility,  etc,  either personally or as "Russia". Putin has made Concessions for Peace not just anathema or even heresy,  they're worse -  a threat to his legitimacy. 
2. He's been risking that since 3 days in and hasn't budged an imperial inch. 
Also, UKR opinion and the trauma of the society seems irrelevant to this guy.  Not even a radar blip. Which begs the question,  does he really have a clue a out how Ukraine would negotiate? Because it sure as hell won't be done Mano e Mano  between Zelensky and Putin. 
Zelensky can only negotiate with Putin from a position of MAXIMUM Strength, not just from a weakened Russian Army. 
Nothing half-done wil do. The ZSU's Summer Offensive (I'm doubtful of a prong one) must either reconconquer the Donbass OR Crimea OR crush the AFRF to a point where the loss of either/both Ext year is blatantly inevitable. 
Anything less than an unbeatable ZSU overmatch in capablities, capacity and momentum will only invite Putin to "stay the course" and "outlast the West".  His own danger must be imminent and unavoidable for him to show any flexibility. 

The extreme differential between a drone's cost and effort to deploy compared to what it takes to defend against it still amazes me.  And in some ways it scares me.  Can any semblance of cost-effective drone countermeasures protect a target?  And what happens, not if but when, the target becomes a civilian airplane, critical structure, crowd, sporting event, school, etc. 
Can't imagine thousands of criminals with recent military training/experience being suddenly released into the general population.  This ain't gonna end well...

The extreme differential between a drone's cost and effort to deploy compared to what it takes to defend against it still amazes me.  And in some ways it scares me.  Can any semblance of cost-effective drone countermeasures protect a target?  And what happens, not if but when, the target becomes a civilian airplane, critical structure, crowd, sporting event, school, etc. 
Can't imagine thousands of criminals with recent military training/experience being suddenly released into the general population.  This ain't gonna end well...

Russian tank factories idling....due to lack of certain components/parts.
 

Russian tank factories idling....due to lack of certain components/parts.