Russia - threadbanned users in OP

The Ukrainians don't necessarily have to "defeat" the Russian military. They can make it untenable for those forces to stay in Ukraine. Demoralise enemy soldiers (many of whom don't seem too keen on this), Russian vehicles and armor suffer attrition (many videos of them breaking down and running out of fuel). Ukraine is receiving thousands of anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft missiles and light arms, enough to support a constant resistance. Also it's one of the largest European countries, very difficult for the Russians to hold such a land mass, very difficult without taking the cities. Even if they take a city, then what? if there is constant attacks and resistance it will be impossible to administrate it. Also the Ukrainians will never support any puppet control.

The whole time this is happening, Russia itself is under massive economic pressure, the deaths and casualties and images from this filtering through the censors and reach Russians themselves. Internal dissent could form against Putin. Mass protests could erupt.

It's a very tough position, but Russia by no means "has this in the bag" at all.

Yes but it will take months of attrition, massive loss of life.

If 150k Russia troop go in to Kiev it is too few to hold a city of 3 million for any period of time.

Of course, we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that they're always right. But considering that US intelligence was warning of an imminent Russian invasion while even the Ukrainians were denying it and saying the comments were "unhelpful", it would certainly be a big mistake to not give a lot of weight to what the US is saying.

I get the feeling that Russia has made the mistake of believing a lot of its own propaganda. They've spent a decade funding lies about the EU being a big bumbling, bureaucratic nightmare. Inefficient, over-reaching, fractured, undemocratic. Culminating in the Russian success of Brexit. None of it is true. It may have been, 20 years ago. But the EU has been continuously reforming since Lisbon to become a more efficient institution. The response we've seen from the EU over the last week isn't some massive departure from normal business, or violation of its own processes. It's a level of efficiency that has been built into the EU over a decade. It responded with speed and efficiency for Covid. Not fast enough for some maybe, but 27 independently sovereign countries moving in lockstep takes some doing.

Putin has underestimated the EU, partially because he believed the bullsh1t he was spreading about it.

He doesn't have an out, which is what makes this very dangerous. If he pulls back, then domestically he is fvcked. He will have to tighten down the bolts even harder to avoid losing everything. His only "out" at this stage is a win in Ukraine, whatever it takes. He may not be willing to drop nukes to get there, but nothing else will be off-limits. And it needs to be fast, because his country is only weeks away from an uprising if nobody can get paid or buy food.

Define "defeat".

Attached to your post is a picture (also on the RTE website main page today) of the 65 km Russian convoy approaching Kyiv. Vehicles are closely packed together and sometime side-by-side along the road. They look very vulnerable to attack, even (or especially?) from RPGs, Javelins etc. I really hope the Ukrainians take advantage of this.

A pity they can't get some A10s.

Ukraine could well end up turning into an Afghanistan or Vietnam for Russia.

Alongside Russia being turned into a massive, isolated, North Korea.

Putin is a headbanger. He wouldn't be allowed to stay in power indefinitely by those around him.

Yep. I only thought of the google translate late last night. Also , ‘google images’ connected to those businesses with some inserted translated hard hitting text could be uploaded for maximum effect. (Maybe even more impactful) , the more that are awakened the better.

just choose any big multinational business and type their name and “Moscow” in google and if they’ve a location there it’ll show in the search results under business listings. Click their business listing and it’ll display their reviews. Then click to leave your “review’.