Russia - threadbanned users in OP

I was reading that senior people within the elite and the military were shocked when Putin decided to go for broke and invade all of Ukraine. They had assumed he would go for a very limited military operation in the Donbass i.e. Crimea 2.0. Very hard to assess what opinion is really like amid all the lies and propaganda - certainly those in the know are aware that Russia is in a dark place and has taken the most almighty gamble.

I thinks it's a mix. There are lots of people against the war and they are justifiably scared of protesting.

But I spent quite a long time in Russia in more peaceful times during the noughties and even then found particularly Russian men were incredibly chauvinistic and nationalistic and I expect a lot of them are very supportive of Putins war.

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It would be idiotic for NATO to attack Russia in Ukraine or directly. NATO is a defensive alliance first and foremost. You pick your battles when it comes to a potential nuclear war.

There are enough countries within NATO in Russia's crosshairs and NATO's resolve/unity will have been strengthened by the Russian invasion. NATO are also learning a huge amount about Russia's military capability. If anything, the invasion of Ukraine has protected Eastern Europe and the Baltic states like never before. Russia knows now that NATO will not be passive when it comes to defending one of it's members. Putin wont dare.

IMHO what we learned from Putin's television appearance seems to be:

1. Troops are demoralised and disillusioned. Putin throwing money at them and saying they will be looked after if they are injured is a clear sign that there is a significant problem in the military. It seems to be pretty rare to see a world leader having to publicly offer pay rises to troops that are achieving their objectives and withstanding attacks.
2. Things are not going to plan, there was a clear sense of 'protesting too much'.
3. Putin seems to have an 'out' while saving face. You can't lose a war that never happened. He claims what they are doing is 'regime change', not occupation. Since the ds-Nazification angle is bullshit to begin with, there is no tangible way to show this has or has not been completed. Once the leader of the country is different from the previous one, Putin can claim victory as an operation purely as regime change.
4. Public opinion and public mood must be managed. There is a real risk of public anger and disobedience legitimising an internal revolt within Putin's government.
5. There is a very low risk of a nuclear strike. There is no public appetite for it and it would shatter the 'peacekeeping' illusion that they have gone to such massive lengths to enforce.
6. The discontent in the military is working its way back to Putin. The people around him are not yet so intimidated that they fear bringing bad news and asking for immediate action on it.

Yeah, I have heard stories like that too.

More romantic fondness of the "gold old days" than anything anchored to reality IMO.

She may get a chance to revisit those days in the next few years, you can ask her then how she getting on.

No they were not ... If they wanted it destroyed the place would have been levelled. Just think about it, what benefit would russia gain from creating Chernobyl x10 so close to Crimea ?

The Russians will certainly survive the current sanctions as we're still buying their oil & gas. As we've seen with Iran, a country can still operate even under full sanctions. Iran still has enough funds to operate dozens of proxies in various countries including operating Hezbollah which costs hundreds of millions of dollars annually. There's a huge black market in Iran with its own currency. They manage to smuggle oil to Syria and other nations. Russia will be no different. Especially given that China will still buy from them. Even if we stop importing their oil & gas, Russia's economy will tank but reach a sustainable rock bottom. Meaning that the country will not enter some sort of dystopian anarchy of hungry people wandering the streets.

And don't underestimate the Russian people's ability to sustain hardship. They will survive a tanked economy for many years.

FFS, no surprises here:-

The oil and gas is still flowing, but the astronomical investment already made in building Nordstream 1 and 2 will take a long time to recoup.

No, Europe appears to have learned a lesson the hard way that Russia is it's enemy and they can no longer line it's pockets and enable it to grow in strength. Unfortunately it seems it might take 3 years for Germany to fully wean off Russian gas, but that process has started. I think they announced 3 new LNG terminals to be built to facillitate all this, but it's going to take time.

Talk about the absolute worst time ever to have the German Green party stupids sharing power and trying to stop all the necessary things that need to be done, like restarting all the nuclear power stations and extending the life of the existing ones instead of shutting them down.

Of course the Greens in this country are also covering themselves in glory by currently trying to field legislation making LNG terminals in this country illegal. Instead we should be going full tilt on exploiting all of Irelands gas reserves instead. Locking them away is crazy. First the diesel is better than petrol disaster of 2007/8 and now this. Will this country ever learn not to vote for these utter morons?

Time to ratchet sanctions up another level.

Europe stop buying Russian gas NOW!

We can survive without it.

You make some interesting points, but could he really withdraw from Ukraine without it widely being perceived as an absolute PR catastrophe for him? Without going all Godwin, he strikes me as a Hitler type figure who cannot withdraw from anywhere.....the Fuhrer practically banned the words 'withdraw' and 'retreat'.