Russia - threadbanned users in OP

I hate to say this, but the Baltics are probably somewhat "easier" from a military standpoint than Ukraine is. The three countries are at the very edge of NATOs supply line whilst at the same time being close enough to major Russian logistics & industrial centres that supplying the troops should be a lot easier than down in Ukraine. What's more, the three countries in question are not particularly large or particularly well defended, even with the current NATO presence there. In addition, there are exposed and prone to encirclements. A quick pincer move east from Kaliningrad and west from Belarus could easily cut off the only overland route for NATO to the Baltic states. A massive push west and south from St. Petersburg would then stand a good chance of eliminating the NATO forces in the area before the west is able to organise supply convoys up the Baltic Sea.

Having said that, I doubt that Russia will be able to pull that off whilst the majority of its forces are tied down in Ukraine either for combat or "pacifying" operations. Even once these forces become available, they'd probably have to rely on overwhelming force of numbers because I doubt that their field commanders have the necessary operational freedom for any type of manoeuvre warfare, something that is unlikely to change.

Can't help but suspect that the thousands of Mariupol residents being reportedly bussed into Russia are not being bussed there with their best interests in mind. Wonder how many of those will ever get to return. Could be something the Russians do more and more with territory they've captured - just deport the residents. Make the country servile by disappearing its population. Scatter them to Siberia if they're lucky. If they're not lucky....

Feels like there is no point where the West will directly intervene because whatever line exists for it moves incrementally as Putin's behaviour worsens incrementally. So long as NATO territory is not deliberately encroached, and even then I can't be one hundred percent confident.

The problem for NATO is that a steadfast resolve not to directly intervene in Ukraine could really damage its foundation going forward. NATO will just look like an organisation that picks and chooses its battles rather than standing up for what is right and the supremacy of democracy, and people will be asking some serious questions the next time NATO is looking to get stuck into some rebellion in the Middle East or Africa.

Russian Deputy Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Captain First Rank Andrey Nikolaevich Paliy, known as "Peter the Great", has been eliminated by Ukrainian Defence Forces while involved with Russian marine attacks near the port city of Mariupol. The first senior Russian naval official to be killed in the war so far. Paliy was born in Kyiv! Hope he sufferred.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukrainian-defense-forces-eliminated-the-deputy-commander-of-the-russian-black-sea-fleet/

Well, exactly. We collectively need to be prepared to suffer economic hardship, of having manufacturing grind to a halt, of having brown-outs and so on. We managed to survive the economic carnage of a global pandemic, remember.

Such sacrifice is a pittance in comparison to what those in Ukraine are dealing with, and it's embarrassing if we're not willing to even do that.

It's not surprising people want NATO to get involved Russia will have to suffer massive really massive military defeats to maybe change something .Ukraine with only their soldiers have little chance of achieving that .They can keep fighting away but not enough to win out and with Putin having a fair level if support at home it's really looking grim . I see some reports of the Russians starting as they would see it cleansing the country that is another worry .I am rapidly losing faith that any other country can step in and broker a deal which before thought there was a small chance .

This is coming from the same company whose CEO once said that water being a human right was 'extreme'. To be honest, if they were currently producing MREs for the Russian soldiers, I would not be at all surprised

Good piece here on Putin from the BBC:

"Mr Putin's initial military plan looked like something devised by a KGB officer, one Western intelligence official explains.

It had been created, they say, by a tight "conspiratorial cabal" with an emphasis on secrecy. But the result was chaos. Russian military commanders were not ready and some soldiers went over the border without knowing what they were doing."

"Western spies, through sources they will not discuss, knew more about those plans than many inside Russia's leadership. But now they face a new challenge - understanding what Russia's leader will do next. And that is not easy.

"The challenge of understanding the Kremlin's moves is that Putin is the single decision-maker in Moscow," explains John Sipher, who formerly ran the CIA's Russia operations. And even though his views are often made clear through public statements, knowing how he will act on them is difficult intelligence challenge.

"It is extremely hard in a system as well protected as Russia to have good intelligence on what's happening inside the head of the leader especially when so many of his own people do not know what is going on," Sir John Sawers, a former head of Britain's MI6, told the BBC."

The Russians are not using encrypted communications so with the right equipment (a radio) people can listen in.