Russia - threadbanned users in OP

gandalf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841191#Comment_118841191

I have a feeling the May 9th Victory Parade (WW2) will be featuring a lot of WW2 equipment this year 😉

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118840478#Comment_118840478

He already has 'evidence' and has been getting along fine just making it up.

Being worried Putin gets more propaganda is like being worried Bezos will find a tenner on the ground.

At a certain point people need to stop tip toeing around statements about Putin and call a spade a spade.

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841326#Comment_118841326

Even though everyone thinks what Biden said it can't be the official US line. If Putin thinks he's going to be removed no matter when he withdraws there's no incentive to stop the war at all. He might also ramp up atrocities seen as theres an active campaign to have him removed. He knows that a coup with US support has a much higher chance of success.

Hes so deluded he probably sees himself back at a G7 a few months after this is wrapped up.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841326#Comment_118841326

One reason would be that Putin has a very fragile ego and might do something we don't want if he thought the US was aiming to Caeusescu him. Putin is unlikely to ever set foot near the Hague and he might well throw saome nasty toys out of his pram to prevent any move to get him there. It's the least likely outcome imaginable and no one in Russia is going to hand him over and no one outside has the wherewithal to go get him.

The best we can hope for is a coup of some kind but unfortunately I think it more likely he dies of whatever illness it is he has. Really evil people usually die on the job and live to an old age.

zv2

Sigh. I'm still waiting for nato to ship 500,000 tons of napalm to Ukraine and end this Russian nonsense.

Lawlesz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841249#Comment_118841249

I visited the KGB museum in Riga when living there, and it was absolutely mind blowing. A full room dedicated to the mass deportations. Pictures and mementos that felt like they were from another world, which in a sense they were I suppose

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841480#Comment_118841480

So essentially everyone is thinking it but it can't be said because it isn't politically correct.

Disappointed at the statement getting walked back.

Presumably Putin has spent several decades nervous of a US backed coup and if he is deluded enough to think this will be brushed under the rug in 5 months we'll then he will be deluded to think the policy would disappear after the war anyway.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841564#Comment_118841564

It may be Putin's greatest fear to end up the same way as Gaddafi, i.e. cowering in a pipe, hiding from rebels, and then being dragged out by them and summarily executed, with it all being captured on video. I don't know exactly how far he would go to in order to avoid that type of fate, but my rough guess would be, 'quite far indeed'.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841600#Comment_118841600

Dictators don't typically get to live into retirement with their grandkids on their knee, or get to go on book tours.

Either their generals, their people or the hangman gets them in the end.

It's one of those facts of life.

TheValeyard

I dont think there is any political way back for Putin. He has crossed and gone so far past the red line he is permanently stained by this needless war.

I'd say the knives are out from a lot of different directions. He made a lot of enemies in the past few years and there must be now be a smell of weakness from him where those who were patiently biding their time may now strike.

zv2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841691#Comment_118841691

Even the Russian army will go the way of the nazis.

Fiery mutant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841638#Comment_118841638

Would be a good buy. Battle proven, reliable.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841691#Comment_118841691

though I hope that is the case, and preferable sooner rather than later. I have a bad feeling Putin is gonna get away with this. How deep is the wests resolve to really make him pay this time.

brickster69

F***ing hell ! Hopefully Russia do not peg Fertilizer to Gold and demand payment in Roubles next

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841715#Comment_118841715

If Putin is the victim of an internal coup, then the West doesn't technically need to make him pay. Not directly, anyway. Just apply enough pressure on Russia to make Putin's domestic position untenable.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841719#Comment_118841719

Should we be saving up all our 💩? As the saying goes, there's money in dirt. And people used to sell their urine before. 😀

As for the Russian May Military parade, they might display real power weapons.... 🚜

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841484#Comment_118841484

Not all if many dictators live to a very old age…..? Hitler did a DIY job on himself in his 50’s….Mussolini got executed in his early 60’s….., Stalin was in his 70’s rumours now say he was poisoned…..could we be as lucky with the current version…..if Pooh-tin was assassinated/ decapitated/ poisoned…..would all his current ‘yes men’ and regime crumble and country could have a new beginning with some form of semi-sane leader or would it be just destined to revert back to megalomaniac type leader similar to this current ‘abomination of a human being’😡😡

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841741#Comment_118841741

I don't see how he's vulnerable to a coup, unfortunately. He has a state body, the FSO, that is apparently fiercly loyal to him and that personally guarantee his private security and maintains his homes, yachts, food and they number 20,000. He seems to literally waft along in a secure bubble.

https://www.grunge.com/493922/heres-how-intense-putins-private-security-is/

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841756#Comment_118841756

Good idea an ounce of **** might be worth an ounce of gold and then we will all be buying big yachts.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841756#Comment_118841756

Fertilizer looks like being out of supply or about 7 times the price of 18 months ago come may.

As is it's left any relevance to agri product prices.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841612#Comment_118841612

Actually quite the number of them do die of old age/natural causes. Mao of China, Chiang Kaishek of same, Leopold of Belgium, Franco of Spain, Amin of Uganda, Hirohito of Japan, Castro of Cuba, the Kims of North Korea, Pinochet of Chile, Pol Pot of Cambodia(though imprisoned, he avoided execution and died in his sleep from a heart attack) and of course Stalin of we know where. Lenin too. And that's just the last century

It can be easily argued that it's typically more the case that dictators, autocrats and mass murderers get away with it and that pricks like Hitler are the exceptions.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841691#Comment_118841691

We can but hope. On the other hand he has strong support in Russia and since the Russian propaganda narrative is one of them being victims of outside forces and never to blame themselves and any internal mistakes are down to fifth columns and traitors, he could spin his and his military's screwup to that end. Along the lines of "Look! My Russian brothers and sisters, I told you Western nazi forces were ranged against us in our glorious fight against facism!!" kinda thing.

Sure a goodly chunk of those under 30 won't buy it, but most of them have learned to say nada, because the risks are too high and the rewards too out of reach because of the Russian state's overwatch apparatus.

gandalf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841782#Comment_118841782

It's basically the Russian version of the US Secret Service. No matter the number it's still only people and they are all malleable.

How many have friends or relatives serving in the forces invading Ukraine?

How are their loyalties if those people they know or love die in a futile war?

I don't think "Poundshop Adolf" is very secure at all.

TheValeyard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841816#Comment_118841816

That's a fair point. It's definitely a mixed bag of living to old age or taken out.

Suppose the one difference here would be a lot of the upper class Russians got very used to the European lifestyle. They'd be furious to loose that. They might organise something.

As for the average Russian? You'd have to wonder if they have really benefited from Western shops, restaurants, businesses, etc. Particularly those rural Russians. They may never have seen any of the Western lifestyle. So might not be that affected and happy to keep going.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841840#Comment_118841840

They do get paid better by far than regular people. Will THEY be the elite in a regime change? That's their risk. It could be argued they would better control the situation if they led the change. But, it's rare the person that wields the dagger becomes the king.

Another factor is that, while better off than most, their pay is reduced relatively speaking outside Russia. They won't like that. And Russia will remain screwed while Putin is in place.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841850#Comment_118841850

If they benefited from western shops or western medicine or whatever, it doesn't matter.

What will bring the war into sharp focus for them is when 10s of 1000s of very young poor conscripts coming back in zinc coffins. all though zinc could be at premium so they might just get a letter.

Someone will call bullshít on all these "training accidents".

If you take the conservative figure of 10,000 in a month, with the Ukraine now going on the offensive, the number will get very high very fast, particularly if the west fulfil what they have promised weapons wise.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841763#Comment_118841763

They don't to badly on average:

Mussolini 62

Stalin 75

Hitler 56

Franco 82

Mao Zedong 82

Papa Doc 64

Kim Il Sung 82

Pinochet 92

Ceausescu 71

Idi Amin 80

Mugabe 95

King Faisal 68

Gaddafi 69

Sadat 63

Albert René 74

Marcos 72

Hussein 69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841913#Comment_118841913

Age wise. Some got brutal (no tears here) humiliating deaths.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841850#Comment_118841850

As for the average Russian? You'd have to wonder if they have really benefited from Western shops, restaurants, businesses, etc. Particularly those rural Russians. They may never have seen any of the Western lifestyle. So might not be that affected and happy to keep going.

Now this is just going on what Russians I've known have said to me and one client of mine who was in and out of the place in the 90's and made a few more visits a few years ago. For the average Russian in the decent sized urban areas, even in the far east of the country, times are noticably better for them today(well before this mess) than they were twenty years ago. The babushkas with the cow in the shed, an acre in veggies and chickens would have been the least affected, both by the bad times and the good, but even there they will have seen their kids and grandkids having a better go of it than them because they tend to leave to move to urban areas for education and careers. Way back in the thread I mentioned a Russian woman I knew living here who grew up in one such rural area and she told me moving as kid to urban Russia for her education was a much bigger culture shock for her than moving to Ireland.

Put it another way TV and look at us in Ireland. Compare our lives today with our lives in the 1970's. We got a massive injection of Western "stuff" and culture in the 1980's which in turn was one of the major factors for radical social changes in this country. If sanctions hit us like Russia and we had to go back to something like 1970's Ireland we'd be none too happy.

PrzemoF

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841892#Comment_118841892

Russian are not willing to collect bodies, so it will be a letter only. But if they really send the 17-18 y/o Putlerjugend to the front line and if the reports about paper industry problems are true then they might have problems even with letters.

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841913#Comment_118841913

Generally the ones that stayed within their borders and only persecuted their own managed to avoid being assassinated. The more adventurous ones who decided to attack foreign countries ended up being cut short which may point to foreign interference deciding the fate of alot of these despots.