Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Да, да товарищ. Мы слышали все это раньше от Добби Путина.

Никто не покупает то, что вы продаете.

If you break into someone's house with a gun, it doesn't matter what your justification is, you should be killed as soon as possible, you weren't invited and you are threatening violence. You have no rights. If NATO or Ukraine had invaded Russia, I would say the same.

The development with Chernobyl losing power is very worrying

"Ukraine’s foreign minister has called for a ceasefire to allow repairs to be carried out to restore the electricity supply to Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Ukraine’s state power operator earlier said Russian forces have disconnected the nuclear power plant from the grid, Reuters reported.

Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-run nuclear company, warned the situation could lead to the release of radioactive substances from the plant.

It warned in a Telegram post:

The wind can transfer the radioactive cloud to other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Europe.

If the situation continued, “all personnel there will receive a dangerous dose of radiation”, it continued.

Work to repair the connection and restore power to the plant, which has been occupied by Russian troops, has not been possible because fighting is under way, it said.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said reserve diesel generators at Chernobyl nuclear power plant have a 48-hour capacity.

After that, cooling systems of the storage facility for spent nuclear fuel will stop, making radiation leaks imminent."

More good news, so far these weapons have been very effective

Again, this is all just speculation, but Russia "may" be pivoting from it's original plan to invade Ukraine/install a puppet government, and instead focus on something achievable like secure LDNR and Crimea. If true (or vaguely true) might mean some sort of peace deal could be doable.

Yes but that should be the sort of threat that comes as last resort. By throwing it into the ring early on, Putin has shot his bolt a bit. You can make it once and people sit up, take notice and go high alert.

Fair points, I would also add it is easy for him to have an opinion and we have no way of testing it. If NATO had not expanded we might well be looking at a situation where Russia had already taken over the baltics and other areas. It isn't like we can run a controlled experiment to test his theory.

They are big losses but they are not game changing ones. And this 5% is just the equipment they have brought in, not the equipment that they have at their disposal. The tide hasn't turned.

We need to be realistic here, as horrific as the Russians have been here, they are holding back force and still gaining ground. I still maintain, though valiant the Ukrainian effort has been, the country will fall in the next two weeks.

No pleasure in saying that, but it remains the likely outcome here.

Yes. That is why we see Russia have drafted in a world war 2 train into the situation and other trains carrying 1950s and 1960s equipment from eastern Russia across the the western front. Coupled with Russian troops being transported in actual bin lorries....

Yet they are 'holding back' equipment. It's utter nonsense. They're holding back nothing. Their military might has been exposed for the disease ridden corruption that has left the military thread bare. Whether it's maintenance or tyres or fuel. It all seems to have had a price and many many people are taking a cut. Snip snip left right and center.

Russian might appears to only exist in the dreams of random Twitter accounts and useful fools who follow them on here.

Stolen from a screenshot on Twitter! Nice.

What anti-Putin messages did he tweet?

He said in this interview he didn't want to say anything due to his family in Russia

and the statements he is making are the usual "both sides" kind of cop outs.

I hope they are not put under pressure or made to feel like they have to take it.

I think we can see in Ukraine what Russian culture really is. And I'd prefer if they kept it within their own borders.