Russia - threadbanned users in OP

That's great thanks.

That's pretty pathetic. But wasn't there an issue with the ex-DDR Strela (aka SA-7) missiles which Ukraine requested, that they had been in storage for too long to be usable?

Still looks a bleak enough end to this invasion Ukraine are fighting great but the chances of them pushing Russia back and out seem remote .I tune in each morning hopeing something has stirred against Putin but that seems wishful thinking .

Go out to feed the ewes for 10 minutes and come back to find 2 more Russian Generals dead.

what are the chances of revolt in some of the southern/ South eastern republics. Chechnya, Kazakhstan, Georgia etc. With the main army stretched in Ukraine they may never have a better opportunity to strike a blow. Hard to credit that Russia is able to maintain such a huge landmass with such a decrepit military. There must be areas of Russia that are wide open to invasion at this moment in time.

You can be damn sure that if the Americans are sharing intel, and publicly announcing it, it's no accident. Its deliberate and planned, its meant to have an effect, like a msg to Putin,,,, See Vladimir, what we know? Now guess how we know????

True, things look bleak and Russia has the advantage in any war of attrition, so on the face of it, you're right. However, that is not the whole story here. Russia needs to get Ukraine under its control to succeed, meaning defeating the Ukrainian army and installing a regime of occupation that would likely be internationally isolated and faced with an ongoing and vicious guerrilla campaign. Its present army does not seem to be capable of achieving that goal, both because of intense defensive efforts by Ukraine and their ongoing morale and discipline issues. In previous conflicts, an attacking army would have paused, consolidated their logistics and regrouped, and have adapted their battle plan to reflect the new situation. The Red Army did this numerous times in WW2 when fighting the Germans. However, given the strict hierarchical nature of the Russian Army, the peacetime rot, corruption and nepotism in its command structure and the dominance of Kremlin-connected yes men in the senior command staff, I have my doubts whether Russia will be able to pull this off. This is all the more true in a hostile environment where roaming infantry and anti-tank squads present an ever present risk to supply lines and where seemingly every tree has a camera-equipped smartphone that reports movements back to Ukrainian authorities.

Contrast that with Ukraine. They reformed their military post 2014, emphasising operational autonomy in the field, meaning that unit commanders don't need to check every potential move with HQ. The eight year brushfire war in the Donbas has produced a large cadre of battle-hardened soldiers, offices & NCOs, quite a few of which have worked their way up the ranks since then. Their supply chains are secure, they have excellent battlefield awareness thanks to their access to US satellite imagery, air-search & ground surveillance radar provided by US & NATO E-3 AWACS & E-8 Joint STARS aircraft, NATO ELINT & SIGINT assets, not to mention an extremely well orchestrated information warfare campaign that utilises amongst other things social media chat bots that allow citizens to send photo & video straight to the military. Their Air Force, whilst somewhat degraded in capability, is still operational on a daily basis and significant parts of the Ukrainian air defence net are also still operational.

For Ukraine to "win", it simply needs to survive long enough for Russia to bleed itself dry to such a degree that additional reinforcements would require mobilisation (likely not going to be popular and a potential flashpoint for the Russian Populace), or withdrawing forces from other regions (Caucasus, Central Asia, Far East) to a point were said areas were no longer secure from local uprisings or even vulnerable to invasion. That means selling every kilometre of ground as dearly as possible for the Russians, whilst minimising their own military casualties. I know this sounds callous, but that is, in my eyes at least, the current big picture situation. Ukraine has a long, bloody uphill struggle ahead of it, but I do believe that there is a slim, but realistic chance that they might "win" this.

I've watched a few of their videos and the one thing that strikes me is they seem to mostly be done at the gates to some Moscow University or other; and with people who look suspiciously like students.

Out of all the Russian demographics I would fully expect Moscow-based University students to be the most likely to have the least favourable views on the war: not sure it could be considered at all reflective of wider Russia. And even at that there are still quite a few who very pointedly won't speak out about politics whatsoever or who express some kind of support for the "special operation".

I agree it will be very difficult for Russia to really keep control of the entire country its just the loss of life and destrution to the country has me very concerned as to what the outcome will be .

I guess if you think about the US or EU: different parts of these entities can have very different views on the world and how things should be done. Just look at voting and polling in the likes of Texas versus California or Massachusetts. Likewise Ireland versus Italy or Poland etc.

It just so happens that an authoritarian leadership is able to steer the whole in the one direction without having to moderate itself because certain parts of the whole don't agree; whereas the EU has to take a more softly softly approach and the US flip-flops between the Democrats and the Republicans with its core focus on the business of not-quite capitalism.

Presumably airlines and pilots are also routinely changing their regular flight planning to avoid Ukraine wherever practical: I imagine they don't particularly want to be flying through airspace more likely to contain silent drones, cruise missiles, active anti-aircraft radar zones etc.

I think the Russian approach to civil disobedience is just to nip any large gatherings in the bud and disperse them as soon as possible: they don't actually want to have prisons full of people who have to be watched and fed. The leadership and more prominent figures are the ones who get sent to the Siberian gulags.

Has anyone else seen this about the railway being sabotaged in Belarus?