Russia - threadbanned users in OP

But...but...but I thought Johnson was a Russian "asset"

Terrible English, should have reorganised the sentence thus:

The Biden administration and European Union are expected to announce a major initiative during the US president’s visit to Brussels this week to direct shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe, according to US officials familiar with the plan.

Unless all these shipments are genuinely going to be carried out this week, in which case, as you were.

The problem with making statements like "we aren't being given the whole picture" is technically accurate; but more often than not used by people to take one of those "both sides" stances. It's also used by people who are indeed supporters of Russia to imply the West is lying or being deliberately deceptive or whatever else they want to claim.

The reality is that much of what is being reported in the Western media is fairly accurate; or at least is an accurate reporting of what various defence and intelligence officials are saying. Is it often biased to some degree? I mean sure; because for just about anyone without an anti-US or anti-Western viewpoint there are a number of truths about the current situation which are fairly self evident and it is clear the West is broadly supportive of Ukraine. Hardly anything overly surprising there.

We're also getting a fairly accurate picture of the types of things being broadcast by Russian state media to its citizens. Plenty of clips can be found which corroborate that.

So which exact part of the picture are you claiming we're not being given?

I'm not assuming that but Tomalak was positing a situation of all-out (but short of nuclear) war between NATO and Russia, however things escalated to that point, and talking about Russian military planners preparing for tanks rolling east across the steppes in that scenario. I was pointing out that would not be such a war would unfold, and the Russian generals know this.

To be fair it's also possible it was a self-inflicted wound; none of the footage is really consistent with a ballistic missile strike.

Ukraine unfortunately have very little control of the air, land, or sea in the south.

The new UKraine.

I suppose Boris did compare Brexit with the situation in Ukraine, perhaps some common ground to base the amalgamation talks on.

I was at the Farnborough air show some years ago and got a close-up look at an Su-25 Frogfoot, and was shocked at the rough finish compared to western aircraft. For example fuselage panels not meeting properly and even with edges not parallel to each other i.e. a wider gap at one end that the other.

It still managed to look tough, though.

Russia went with easy and cheap to build military vehicles which can be mass produced and easy to maintain in the field much like WW2 doctrine for Western military vehicles,

They were designed and built to drive across the fulda gap unopposed because Nato would run away ,the same vehicles and designed were used in the 50's to afghanistan to the Chechen wars with the exact same outcome mobile coffins ,

The most resent design is the Terminator IFV (infantry fighting vehicle) claimed to be near unstoppable , because it can fire several rockets and comes with twin 30 mm canons when everyone uses one 30mm + canons ,it's neither perfect or unstoppable ,the same with their new armata super tank ,a few were tested on photo ops in Syria and one was already destroyed , despite spending hundreds of millions on less than ten tanks that aren't even in production,

It's all great on paper but in the real world it actually has to work and be produced to be decent

It's also possible that was an IED or anti-tank mine; they've become more prevalent lately and are often very destructive.

To your point about the design though: I've seen a guy who claimed to be a tank engineer (as in someone who built/repaired tanks) saying that a lot of the steel which seemed to be used in the Russian tanks was of terrible quality, and the welds too appeared in most cases to be of poor quality.

Another possible outcome is that reportedly experienced by British tankers in the Western Desert: crews attacked by German "88's" (link if needed) baling out after the 88's first shot that missed, because they knew the second one wouldn't.

The New York Times released a good investigation video yesterday of Russian radio intercepts from the battlefield. They have radio comms of Russian tanks in the middle of battle running out of fuel and screaming to get topped up then another of a Russian soldier who sounds on the verge of tears shouting down the radio for air support as his unit is getting pounded but the air support he desperately needs doesnt arrive.

The Russian radio systems are so rudimentary that people around the world are listening in and some people are jamming the signals with recordings of a man whistling so the soldiers in the middle of battle cannot hear each other. At one point a Ukrainian comes on to the Russian radio and is outright trolling the Russian soldiers and telling them to go home.

There is no paywall, 9 minutes long and a good watch

At a guess, I'd say you haven't seen the roll of honour in the first post.

True but the Dniper river is an excellent natural fortification; and there are two other rivers in the North which could offer a similar sort of natural barrier. I could see them aiming for something like the below potentially; I think they would have wanted Kharkiv but that's probably a bridge too far at this point.

This also means they retain control over the nuclear power plant and the Donbass area.

And as for a heavily militarised border I suspect Russia knows exactly what everyone else knows: nobody is going to be invading Russia. It just isn't going to happen. Insurgency is a different thing I suppose but since Russia couldn't give two **** about their citizens anyway it's all the one to them whether people die. In fact it might be precisely what they're hoping for: another enemy of Russia to keep people compliant.

Fair play to the UK for the financial and military aid. Hopefully their anti-air missiles will make a difference too.

I suspect much of his personal motivation is trying to remain relevant in European and World affairs in a post-Brexit world; but still, fair play.

And I'm pretty sure the general consensus is that Johnson was an unwitting or de facto Russian asset; since clearly Brexit was a way to weaken the EU and UK (a large and founding NATO nation) in one fell swoop. I don't think anyone believed he was actually taking orders from Putin or anything.