Russia - threadbanned users in OP

It would seem they are fully concerned about optics at home. And people getting clued in as to whats going on.

I see Russians biggest talk show host akin to Stephen colbert or Jimmy fallen has fled the country with his family in toe.

Optics optics.

Joe Duffy I'd imagine

I dont think he is going to attack Poland but by moving the Iron Curtain to the Polish Ukrainian border it would be the normal Russian playbook that he will seek to provoke Poland by constantly flying into their airspace. He already plays these games with the RAF who had to scramble fighter jets several times west of Ireland to protect NATO airspace from Russian incursions. He plays similar games with the Swedish airforce too and also runs Russian subs through the English channel.

After the current war is over I could see a war of attrition between NATO and Russia lasting years with the Polish Ukrainian border being the main focal point but also that Ukraine gives him more new borders and the opportunity to try to provoke Romania, Hungary and Slovakia as well. Once Ukraine is under his control he has got four new EU countries that he has a border with so he will load up the other side of those borders in Ukraine with Russian military infrastructure. He will constantly be flying Russian jets along the Ukrainian border to test NATO airspace.

Strange..

As this invasion took shape, I was able to take some kind of comfort in the sanctions meted out to Russia, but in the last few days, I'm starting to question if they will be enough: perhaps I'm taking too much notice of Putin's brazenness in shrugging them off, but is there any substance to this notion of Fortress Russia ? The idea that somehow the Kremlin has a strategy in place to insulate the country from the corporate exodus. Will it get to the stage where there are no more sanctions to unleash ?

Different take, he might be right

There could be more to that story. Ivan Urgant spoke out against the invasion of Crimea in 2014 and his tv show was pulled from the schedule after the invasion of Ukraine.

Seems to have been confirmed now by the Ukrainian side. Will need to wait for the funeral or leaks on Telegram from Russian sources. So far all the top dogs that Ukraine claimed to have killed, have been confirmed dead.

Biden is in a precarious position as U.S. president. There's talk of how Biden lacks guts, but he has to manage his own political position against rising isolationism in the U.S.A. or 'bring the troops home' rhetoric used by U.S. presidents and those hoping to be president since Obama. I don't interpret his relatively reserved approach to the crisis as weakness as such, but much more as attempting to maintain a poker face. He's going to get a hammering from critics of one persuasion of another, anyway. The tightrope where everyone can agree his approach has been well-measured is nanometre thin.

Because intelligence is so important in any war, I'm more interested in what's being done, rather than said, and I have to think there's an awful lot being done in as much secrecy as possible, that isn't being discussed, because why would it be? It wouldn't surprise me if the scale of the U.S. 'black' operations on the ground in Ukraine are monumental.

Yeah, it looks like the majority of Russians are rallying behind Putin and the war. I guess a big reason for that is the relentless propaganda. The sanctions will create more animosity towards the west rather to where it should be directed at - Putin

Russia should know from their own history that pounding a city to smithereens doesn't actually conquer it. At some point after the bombardment, they still have to move tanks and infantry support into the city centre to try and take the city proper, and the defenders of Kyiv are sheltering and preparing for this eventuality, i.e. the street to street fighting where the Russians potentially have a gun trained on them from every shattered window and ruin they pass.