How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

I wouldn't call it a sham election either...because I wouldn't call it an election. It was a propaganda exercise. As to fair, well...

Exactly.  What I think our Ukrainian friends are pointing out is that Putin genuinely has a large base of support that approve of him being President.  That is absolutely the case, therefore if there had been an election and he didn't kill off his opposition he might still have been elected President.

However, to say this was an election is absolutely wrong on every single factual basis imaginable.  As has already been stated, this was a predetermined propaganda exercise.  The appearance of it being an election are deliberate, just as plastic fruit in a bowel is designed to look like real fruit.

Steve

[billbindc]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Exactly.  What I think our Ukrainian friends are pointing out is that Putin genuinely has a large base of support that approve of him being President.  That is absolutely the case, therefore if there had been an election and he didn't kill off his opposition he might still have been elected President.

However, to say this was an election is absolutely wrong on every single factual basis imaginable.  As has already been stated, this was a predetermined propaganda exercise.  The appearance of it being an election are deliberate, just as plastic fruit in a bowel is designed to look like real fruit.

Steve

Does Putin have a base of support?

Sure.

So did Saddam and any number of other dictators but it's precisely wrong to imagine the show they just put on reflects what it is. A pre-secured 85% vote isn't a reflection of strength, it's an obvious attempt to tighten the lid on a pressure cooker. I mean seriously folks...if Putin had a large majority of natural voters who would vote for him do you really think he'd pass on the legitimacy that sort of result represents? Of course not. 

I know it's tempting to point and say "See...Russians are intrinsically bad and that's what this vote shows us" but if you do, be aware you are indulging in the kind of thinking that you hate when you see it on the other side. 

[Kinophile]

He really gets it. 

 

[Offshoot]

47 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

 The appearance of it being an election are deliberate, just as plastic fruit in a bowel is designed to look like real fruit.

Ironically (and aptly), plastic fruit in a bowel would look more like real fruit than actual fruit by that stage, but would still stink nonetheless.

[The_Capt]

29 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Exactly.  What I think our Ukrainian friends are pointing out is that Putin genuinely has a large base of support that approve of him being President.  That is absolutely the case, therefore if there had been an election and he didn't kill off his opposition he might still have been elected President.

However, to say this was an election is absolutely wrong on every single factual basis imaginable.  As has already been stated, this was a predetermined propaganda exercise.  The appearance of it being an election are deliberate, just as plastic fruit in a bowel is designed to look like real fruit.

Steve

We actually have no idea what Putin’s real base of genuine support is or is not.  First off he controls any and all “polls” either directly or indirectly so trying to gauge who really supports him, who is pretending simply to avoid trouble and who opposes but is afraid to say anything, in real terms is basically impossible to do inside Russia, let alone outside looking in.  “Look a bunch of people lined up to support him” is not a viable basis for deductions.

Second problem is that support, in a functioning democracy, is founded on a basis of “informed decision”.  This means that all sides can spin, argue and slant but in the end the news media and objective journalism is supposed to provide a voter with a range of diverging viewpoints and facts.  Voters can then decide who to support, or not support based on their own personal perception and understanding.  This is damned hard to do in a functioning liberal democracy; however, in Russia it is likely impossible.  Putin controls the mainstream media - we have heard endless stories of dissenters being arrested or charged, hell he passed laws making criticism of this war illegal.  He also has a lot of control within social media, suppressing sites and flooding the RUSNet with stooges.  We have seen enough outright lies and insane claims out of Russian media in the last two years to know that the average Russian simply is not able to access much beyond what Putin wants them to see and hear.  Under these conditions “real support” is nearly impossible because no alternative facts, ideas or even options are ever presented.

Finally, as our Ukrainian friends like to point out continually, the average Russian is poorly educated, poor wealth and largely ignorant…this is why they keep signing up for this war.  To now accuse these people of “knowingly supporting Putin” as if they have access to alternatives is short-sighted at best.  Further, Kraze’s continued insistence to call every living Russian on the planet as vicious war loving murders is not only disingenuous, it treads dangerously close to genocidal narratives that have no place on what is supposed to be a rational objective forum.  We know Russians opposed this war, a few hundred thousand ran away.  Others are resisting passively.  We also know that many really do not even understand what this war is or is not because Putin is preventing them from seeing any truth but his own.  We also know some Russians also buy into this war and Putin fully even knowing the reality.  In the end we are going to have to deal with all of them in some form or another because as much as some people are acting out emotionally here, we are not going to wipe Russia off the face of the earth and salt the ground on their mass graves.

So be pissed off, but do not come here and promote outright disinformation in some sort of weird attempt to get us to all buy into some “every Russian is evil and must die” nonsense.  There are all sorts of sites on the internet where people on both sides can engage in that emotional orgy, but it should not be here.  The second this forum becomes one of those places, I for one, am out.

 

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

I mean seriously folks...if Putin had a large majority of natural voters who would vote for him do you really think he'd pass on the legitimacy that sort of result represents? Of course not. 

Yes, I think he would.

Putin's regime crack on democracy, like Luka's, Kazakh etc. are products of progressive uncertainty on part of aparatus of power, which includes a lot of fears (real or token), irrational decisions, systemic inertia and lack of real data available to ruler. In some ways, this process it is like with decision of invading Ukraine- regime is drawn into certain types of behaviour the more it is in this mud. Except the process lasts much longer here. To organize these mock elections is simpler and cheaper solution for Putin, not necessarly a proof that he would loose the real ones. Much less it is the evidence that more Russians silently opppose his regime now than in the past (like significant part of emigre liberals like to explain it).

       Real democratic processess are a lot, like throwing a coin for Kremlin- even if they would secure the vote anyway, they instinctively push away this idea. Especially in times of war, globals struggles, villain NATO barking on the corner. Even meagre democracy also needs some debates, tiresome compaigns, talking to some peasants in villages lost in Syberia...a lot of hassle, costing tonns of money and effort that should be beyond Tsar dignity *. Strange, awkward and ulitimatelly hollow ritual, good for Western hypocrites, where financial oligarchy rules anyway (at least from Kremlin perspective). Add that Putin is genuinly convinced that Americans and CIA are puting their fingers into every election around him, so- like milions of citizens remembering USSR firmly believe- people can be simply communally programmed into being "nazis" and traitors just like that.

      We will never know, but personally I had little doubt that Putin would most probably win every major election in recent Russian history even without murders and authoritarian propaganda (he would have problems with changing constitution, though)- in some scenarios, he could even rule like Orban in Hungary, just by buying media by friendly oligarchs and controlling judiciary, if not for the militaristic needs of Russian state. But it would cost a lot of effort and always bring some risk, so why even bother? There was always little to no alternatives to Putin in minds of Russians in last 20 years anyway; probably even Navalny was just a phenomena, representing some resentments against corruption but not being taken seriously enough as statesman figure in muscovite sense. So, here we are.

*Probably clips of Buffallo Man on January 4th were like a cold shower for elites of many non-democratic states on this planet; a visible confirmation what can happen if you let the mob to stick their heads too high.

Edited March 19 by Beleg85

[Kraft]

If anyone here has knowledge and is interested in technical info on Radio, EW, missile, and drones, frequencies, developments in the FPV arms race, etc, I have this channel to share. Sadly its content surpasses my knowledge on the matter.

Edited March 19 by Kraft

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

We actually have no idea what Putin’s real base of genuine support is or is not.  First off he controls any and all “polls” either directly or indirectly so trying to gauge who really supports him, who is pretending simply to avoid trouble and who opposes but is afraid to say anything, in real terms is basically impossible to do inside Russia, let alone outside looking in.  “Look a bunch of people lined up to support him” is not a viable basis for deductions.

Second problem is that support, in a functioning democracy, is founded on a basis of “informed decision”.  This means that all sides can spin, argue and slant but in the end the news media and objective journalism is supposed to provide a voter with a range of diverging viewpoints and facts.  Voters can then decide who to support, or not support based on their own personal perception and understanding.  This is damned hard to do in a functioning liberal democracy; however, in Russia it is likely impossible.  Putin controls the mainstream media - we have heard endless stories of dissenters being arrested or charged, hell he passed laws making criticism of this war illegal.  He also has a lot of control within social media, suppressing sites and flooding the RUSNet with stooges.  We have seen enough outright lies and insane claims out of Russian media in the last two years to know that the average Russian simply is not able to access much beyond what Putin wants them to see and hear.  Under these conditions “real support” is nearly impossible because no alternative facts, ideas or even options are ever presented.

Finally, as our Ukrainian friends like to point out continually, the average Russian is poorly educated, poor wealth and largely ignorant…this is why they keep signing up for this war.  To now accuse these people of “knowingly supporting Putin” as if they have access to alternatives is short-sighted at best.  Further, Kraze’s continued insistence to call every living Russian on the planet as vicious war loving murders is not only disingenuous, it treads dangerously close to genocidal narratives that have no place on what is supposed to be a rational objective forum.  We know Russians opposed this war, a few hundred thousand ran away.  Others are resisting passively.  We also know that many really do not even understand what this war is or is not because Putin is preventing them from seeing any truth but his own.  We also know some Russians also buy into this war and Putin fully even knowing the reality.  In the end we are going to have to deal with all of them in some form or another because as much as some people are acting out emotionally here, we are not going to wipe Russia off the face of the earth and salt the ground on their mass graves.

So be pissed off, but do not come here and promote outright disinformation in some sort of weird attempt to get us to all buy into some “every Russian is evil and must die” nonsense.  There are all sorts of sites on the internet where people on both sides can engage in that emotional orgy, but it should not be here.  The second this forum becomes one of those places, I for one, am out.

 

All of this is true.  There can be no free vote without a free society.  Period. 

I know we've said this many times already, but Russians are very akin to the "battered wife syndrome" in that they accept their fate because they think they deserve it, don't know it could be otherwise, think it could be worse, etc.  Whatever the rationalizations are, the end result is the same... people who are conditioned to support something that objectively isn't worthy of their support.

And every time we have this discussion I remind people that even in the most free, open, and old democracies there are people who exactly the same as the Russian electorate.  A strong indication that biology plays a very strong role in extremist culture.  Add societal apathy and selfishness to the mix and the numbers of people willing to support an authoritarian leader goes up considerably.

Russians have never known democratic values, therefore they can't possibly understand their benefits.  Which is one reason, perhaps THE reason, that Russia is waging war on Ukraine with such viciousness.  Ukrainians, on the whole, "get it".  The last thing Putin needs is them showing Russians a new way to live.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:

Yes, I think he would.

Yup, he definitely would.  Just like I believe that if Crimeans were given a free and fair choice of joining Russia or staying with Ukraine they would have chosen Russia by a pretty good margin.  But Putin's not one to take a chance of it turning out differently, nor will he be satisfied with a "mandate" of 51%.  So yeah, he makes sure things are faked because he's not only assured of the outcome, but also it being overwhelming.

 

1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:

We will never know, but personally I had little doubt that Putin would most probably win every major election in recent Russian history even without murders and authoritarian propaganda (he would have problems with changing constitution, though)- in some scenarios, he could even rule like Orban in Hungary, just by buying media by friendly oligarchs and controlling judiciary, if not for the militaristic needs of Russian state. But it would cost a lot of effort and always bring some risk, so why even bother? There was always little to no alternatives to Putin in minds of Russians in last 20 years anyway; probably even Navalny was just a phenomena, representing some resentments against corruption but not being taken seriously enough as statesman figure in muscovite sense. So, here we are.

Absolutely.  As The_Capt just wrote, democracy is a lot more than just ballots that are properly counted.  If countries with some tradition of democracy and maintain free/fair elections have trouble keeping autocrats from seizing power, then a country without any such history or institution doesn't stand a chance.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Any who now will say about "innocent peaceful Russians, who are just hostages of Putin's dictatorship" -

One can understand Russians today are the product of generations of abuse and ignorance, yet still agree with this:

4 hours ago, Haiduk said:

So, I wish Russia to burn in flame, collapse and croack in agony. In order our planet at last get rid of this stinky sh...t spot on the map.    

There is no reasonable way to expect anything different from Russia, or Russians, without a complete change of their political and societal institutions.  Realistically, the only way that will happen is if the entirety of Russia ceases to exist as we know it.  It must break itself into pieces and those pieces must be humbled into understanding their place in this world is not as everybody's master.

This is the primary reason the West should be helping Ukraine defeat Russia.  Not just because Ukraine needs help, but because Russia needs to be defeated for the rest of the world's sake.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

 

 

Cool!  This is the sort of "knock on effect" that I've been waiting to see since sanctions went into effect.  Russia's economy, for the most part, is based on free market principles.  The tools of the government to manipulate those forces are big and powerful, but ultimately it's someone in the Kremlin swinging a hammer to kill ants.  There are so, so, so many ways for the economy to fail and Russia is going to show us a lot of new ones.

Trucking is the heart of all modern economies, including Russia's.  The more stress on them the more stress on the economy on the whole.   The economy can adapt to strains on transportation, but the threshold for higher costs is crossed quickly.  Costs can only increase so much before there's damage to services.  There's only so much damage to services before there's real harm.

As always, there's non way to gauge how long it will take for Russia's economy to collapse, but it's signs like this that indicate we're a little closer now than we were before.  All progress should be welcomed.

Steve

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Cool!  This is the sort of "knock on effect" that I've been waiting to see since sanctions went into effect.  Russia's economy, for the most part, is based on free market principles.  The tools of the government to manipulate those forces are big and powerful, but ultimately it's someone in the Kremlin swinging a hammer to kill ants.  There are so, so, so many ways for the economy to fail and Russia is going to show us a lot of new ones.

Trucking is the heart of all modern economies, including Russia's.  The more stress on them the more stress on the economy on the whole.   The economy can adapt to strains on transportation, but the threshold for higher costs is crossed quickly.  Costs can only increase so much before there's damage to services.  There's only so much damage to services before there's real harm.

As always, there's non way to gauge how long it will take for Russia's economy to collapse, but it's signs like this that indicate we're a little closer now than we were before.  All progress should be welcomed.

Steve

The amazing percentage of taxes on higher incomes that comes from Moscow is even more impressive when you figure how much tax cheating goes on. Furthermore it is probably exponential with income since people with increasing levels of political power probably pay ever less in taxes.

[kimbosbread]

5 hours ago, dan/california said:

Among other things it seems like longer range drones could move "back" to the terrain following guidance the U.S. used for its cruise missiles before GPS, with image recognition for the last bit.

Porque no los dos?

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Trucking is the heart of all modern economies, including Russia's.  The more stress on them the more stress on the economy on the whole.   The economy can adapt to strains on transportation, but the threshold for higher costs is crossed quickly.  Costs can only increase so much before there's damage to services.  There's only so much damage to services before there's real harm.

Yeah, it’s multiplier effect. The US is around 30% of freight on rail by ton-miles; I assume Russia is higher due to the yuge-ness and sparse-ness of the country, but all the last mile will still be truck.

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Porque no los dos?

GPS jamming seems to be reaching a degree of severity where I would expect to not work in more places than it does, at least in places you might want to shoot cruise missiles at. You could obviously have the drone/missile use GPS as well, but I would expect you would want to tell it to always believe the terrain following system in stead of GPS if they diverged. You would need GPS over water obviously. How to deal with GPS jamming over water is an interesting question actually. I mean obviously you still have inertial guidance, but it is plan B for a reason. And of course there are all the questions with classified answers regarding the actual effectiveness of jamming, counter measures, and counter counter measures.

Historically I think creating the pathing/guidance info for the non GPS guidance system was very labor intensive, but that seems like something computers would be a lot better at now.

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Yeah, it’s multiplier effect. The US is around 30% of freight on rail by ton-miles; I assume Russia is higher due to the yuge-ness and sparse-ness of the country, but all the last mile will still be truck.

Correct.  "Last Mile/KM" logistics are just as important as first mile and everything inbetween.  If someone goes to a store to get something (especially an essential good, like food) and is told that what they are looking for isn't there, they really won't care that it made it 999km to a rail depot.  They only care about the last 1km because that determines if they get it or not.

Steve

[dan/california]

They love it of course. Five round per edit:second  of forty millimeter seems like it would utterly wreck anything except and MBT, actually I suspect it do for quite of a few of those, too. And it has a built in cooker!

Whether or not IFVs are about to be obsolete is a completely different question.

Edited March 19 by dan/california

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

GPS jamming seems to be reaching a degree of severity where I would expect to not work in more places than it does, at least in places you might want to shoot cruise missiles at. You could obviously have the drone/missile use GPS as well, but I would expect you would want to tell it to always believe the terrain following system in stead of GPS if they diverged. You would need GPS over water obviously. How to deal with GPS jamming over water is an interesting question actually. I mean obviously you still have inertial guidance, but it is plan B for a reason. And of course there are all the questions with classified answers regarding the actual effectiveness of jamming, counter measures, and counter counter measures.

Historically I think creating the pathing/guidance info for the non GPS guidance system was very labor intensive, but that seems like something computers would be a lot better at now.

On a clear night you don't need GPS over water - you can use stars.  It's a little trickier to do with the amount of extra optics you might want to put on a drone (vs a ship, a plane, or a cruise missile), but detectors with lots of pixels are cheap, and if you're a quadcopter you can pause periodically to stare at the stars and orient yourself.  

Terrain relative nav has to be much easier now than the early days of cruise missiles - both space imaging of the earth's surface and the quality of image sensors for mobile devices have gotten orders of magnitude better.  Along with *way* faster computers for doing the matching.  The recent Mars landers do terrain relative nav from a couple miles up *on another planet* and they're using a computer that's equivalent performance to a 1998 low-end mac laptop. A couple models down from the one I started playing the CM:BO demo on.  More modern cell phone processors with dedicated image processing can do *way* better at still very low power.

Edited March 19 by chrisl

[Battlefront.com]

Things in Africa continue to evolve based on the war in Ukraine.  Niger was unhappy with the US' concerns about the coup government becoming closer to Russia and Iran.  This then led to Niger saying all 1000 US troops based there have to leave the country.  Hmm... I wonder who made that decision?

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4539830-niger-ends-us-military-deal/

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Another article from The Hill that is Ukraine related.  This is an OpEd piece by a Rutgers professor who is saying many of the same things I (and others) said a few pages ago about time NOT being on Russia's side.  In particular he made the point that the side with the most stuff is not predestined to win.  I mean, the US has the most stuff on planet Earth and is allied with the rest of the top countries, yet who governs Afghanistan now?

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4538381-why-time-is-not-on-russias-side/

Steve

[Aragorn2002]

8 hours ago, poesel said:

Actually, he got 105%. But, as the modest person he is, Putin reduced it to 85% to show some respect for the other puppets candidates.

[Kinophile]

Quote

In the mind of a non-expert, a refinery full of highly flammable liquids can easily turn into a huge fireball. The reality is different. Russian construction codes—a relic of the Cold War—make refineries resilient against traditional air bombing. And they usually have plenty of firefighting equipment available. This means drones cannot destroy a whole refinery. They can, however, create a fire. And if they are lucky, managing to hit a gas fractionation unit, they may even be able to cause a bigger explosion.

After both the recent attacks, resulting fires were extinguished within a few hours, and the damage was successfully contained. It’s likely that the Ust-Luga and Tuapse refineries will be able to immediately resume operations, albeit with reduced throughput and limited product slate. Under normal circumstances, a full repair would be expected to take no more than a couple of months.

However, the circumstances in which the Russian refining sector finds itself at the moment are far from normal. When Russia began rebuilding its industrial base in the early 2000s, the country largely used imported equipment. As it gradually integrated into the global economy, Russia was able to purchase many different kinds of machines—far more than the limited selection produced in the Soviet Union. This came to an abrupt end in 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine destroyed the globally integrated model.

 

Edited March 19 by Kinophile

[Battlefront.com]

Quote

However, the circumstances in which the Russian refining sector finds itself at the moment are far from normal. When Russia began rebuilding its industrial base in the early 2000s, the country largely used imported equipment. As it gradually integrated into the global economy, Russia was able to purchase many different kinds of machines—far more than the limited selection produced in the Soviet Union. This came to an abrupt end in 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine destroyed the globally integrated model.

I've been waiting for confirmation about Russia's reliance upon things it can no longer rely upon.  Early in the war it was pointed out by many Russian economic experts that Russia had lost significant manufacturing capacity and capability because old Soviet factories were shut down in favor of much cheaper, quicker, and oddly enough superior quality substitutes from abroad.  New oil field exploration and exploitation was pointed to as being almost exclusively done by Western partnerships, for example.

This reminds me of the post WW2 historical analysis of Germany's bungling of the war against the Soviets.  An example that stands out is there was a single power plant producing most of the electricity used for tank production.  There were no spare turbines in the Soviet Union or pretty much anywhere else.  IIRC the estimate was that if the United States worked around the clock it could have replacements to the Soviet Union in about a year.  Historians pointed out that would also mean one year of severely hampered tank production.  That could have been fatal to the Soviet war effort.

Technically, Russia could lose a huge amount of its refining capacity and still keep the war going.  Realistically?  It's still Russia's main source of income and every drop of fuel taken away from the civilian market for the war will be cumulatively noticed.

As with everything... who knows when such attacks will impact something severely enough for us to see.  We also don't know what it will do to the war effort.  But at the rate Ukraine is striking these blows, I have a feeling it is "not too long" and "significant".

Steve

[TheVulture]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

All of this is true.  There can be no free vote without a free society.  Period. 

I know we've said this many times already, but Russians are very akin to the "battered wife syndrome" in that they accept their fate because they think they deserve it, don't know it could be otherwise, think it could be worse, etc.  Whatever the rationalizations are, the end result is the same... people who are conditioned to support something that objectively isn't worthy of their support.

And every time we have this discussion I remind people that even in the most free, open, and old democracies there are people who exactly the same as the Russian electorate.  A strong indication that biology plays a very strong role in extremist culture.  Add societal apathy and selfishness to the mix and the numbers of people willing to support an authoritarian leader goes up considerably.

Russians have never known democratic values, therefore they can't possibly understand their benefits.  Which is one reason, perhaps THE reason, that Russia is waging war on Ukraine with such viciousness.  Ukrainians, on the whole, "get it".  The last thing Putin needs is them showing Russians a new way to live.

Steve

I read an interesting discussion with a Russian guy who had grown up in the USSR, with him being unable to understand how anyone would ever vote against whoever was in power. His thinking was that the president could order people to vote for him, and not doing so would be insubordination and get punished. And this worked all the way down the chain: officials at various levels, police, judiciary, election organisers, all follow their orders because not doing so would lead to punishment from above.

People tried to explain that in an established democracy it doesn't work like that. The fundamental difference is that (almost) everyone believes in the the rule of law. There are laws around how to hold fair elections, and anyone violating the laws to try and fix the result is very likely to face punishment. His counter was always "but why wouldn't the authorities just order people not to punish the rule breaking and punish the people trying to do things 'fairly'".  He couldn't seem to wrap his head around the idea that once there is a critical mass of people who follow the rule of law, anyone trying to break the law to fix an election is very much taking a big risk and on their own Anyone who might shield them from consequences becomes liable to consequences from higher up, up to an including the supreme court (or equivalent) and police who aren't under the power of politicians and protected from the consequences of following the law rather than the whims of the head of state.

So in an established democracy, enough people believe in the rule of law, following the law shields you from punishment, and anyone trying to subvert that is knowingly taking a risk that might well get them punished - even the people tyring to subvert the rule of law work on the assumption that the rule of law holds sway and that they are violating societal norms.

In Russia, from what this guy is saying, enough people believe that following orders from above  is what shields you from punishment, and following what the law says rather than what you are told to do is going to get you punished. Trying to follow the law and disobey the wishes of the president is what is violating societal norms, and is the same kind of conspiratorial risk-taking in Russia that trying to steal an election would be in an established democracy.

It was an interesting insight into his mindset that he just couldn't make the mental leap to understand how a society might function where everyone (or close enough to everyone to count) valued following the law more than following orders, and that was what protected people. He always fell back on "but what if someone punished them for that".

So yeah, democracy does kind of require a society built on the foundation  that democracy works and the rule of law reigns, and it is a self-sustaining system that functions very differently to the culture that the USSR and Russia had (and probably had before the USSR as well form what I gather)

 

[kraze]

13 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Completely agree. Of course, there were ballot papers throwings, but I doubt it were on 30 % level, as claimed some analysts. I've seen screenshots of Russian social media, where members of polling stations committees with visible scare tell each other that on their stations weren't any throwings, but Putin has won with overhelming margin.  We all could see queues of Russian citizen in European countries, which demonstratively said they come to vote for Putin, in Germany they openly demontsrated DNR flags, and "St.Georgian stripes" - "out of spite to the whole world"

Yes, on some foreign polling stations Davankov has won - "liberal" and "anti-war" candidate of "New peoples" party, for which called to vote many of Navalnyi followers 

But here is Davankov today have a meeting with Putin - his words is just "loyal oaths"

 "I congratulate you with a confident victory! I want to say that these actions of Kievan regime has no excusses. I was in 29 regions during my election campaign and I can say in all regions people work for our victory. You absolutely said right that our common goal to win in SMO. It's very important do not remain this confrontation for our next generations. It have to be solved by our. And many people came to me on my meetings and say "Only Vladimir Putin capable to win in this conflict, I will vote for him"

Other Russian influent "liberal" from "libertarian wing" of Navalnyi team - Mikhail Svetov, who now migrated to Argentina said that vicotry of Russia will be profitable for Russian "relocants" (swaggering Russians hate the "political refugees" word concerning themeselve), because this will rise authotity of Russia and will force West to cancel sanctions, which in many things affect Russians abroad.

One more influent "liberal" blames Ukrainians that Putin again came to power (!!!)

Nobody did so much for promoting of current president of Russia, as Ukrainians. Those Russians who tired of 25 years of dictatorship in Russia - do not forget to give thanks brothery Ukrainain people for more 6 years under the thumb of regime

He meant Ukrainains with own "unjustified rusophobia" and mockery over impotent Russian opposition forced liberals to vote for Putin. They are all clynic idiots, sicking with chauvinism.  

Any who now will say about "innocent peaceful Russians, who are just hostages of Putin's dictatorship" - go to hell and damn you! They just voteed for a war and loyality to Putin's policy. Only one type of real good Russians exists - those, who openly say that Russia is a rashist  state, who stand for Ukraine victory, support UKR army, recognize collective responsibility and agree that Russia have to pay reparations, who consider Russian soldiers are not "our poor boys", but invaders, murderers and rapers, which went at war just for money, Rashist ideology or just for opportunity to kill, who sit in jails for own position, who at last fight with a weapon in free-Russia units or make diversions inside Russia. 

So, I wish Russia to burn in flame, collapse and croack in agony. In order our planet at last get rid of this stinky sh...t spot on the map.    

Exactly.
All those excuses about "fear" and "brainwashing" don't quite survive when faced with the reality of russians voting for putin en masse in Europe.
They all know full well what they are doing and why - and quite willingly so.

[Holien]

20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Realistically?  It's still Russia's main source of income and every drop of fuel taken away from the civilian market for the war will be cumulatively noticed.

This struck me at the start of the article..

 

Quote

On one hand, the additional income Russia receives from exporting the products made by its refineries instead of the oil they are made from, is relatively insignificant compared to what it makes from selling the crude oil. Ironically, Russia’s tax system means that the state loses money if energy companies export oil products instead of crude oil.

So they make more from the crude and Ukraine is not targeting that production.

Certainly Russia is going to see more fuel shortages for its internal market but it is not clear cut that the drone attacks will do enough to shut down the energy market for Russia.

As the author says (he wrote article I guess before the 26th Jan) we will have to see how effective the repairs are.

 

Quote

If we are seeing the beginning of a wave of attacks on western Russia’s oil refineries, the consequences will be serious. Either way, Russia’s reserves of resilience and ingenuity look set to be severely tested. The speed and quality of the repairs at Kstovo, Ust-Luga, and Tuapse will be key indicators of Moscow’s readiness.

I am hoping they are not as effective as Ukraine was in recovering from the attacks on their power grid.

It could be the smartest use of drones by Ukraine so far and perhaps have the biggest payback. (And Ukraine is already at genius level for use with the ships sunk...)

Fingers Crossed...