Russia - threadbanned users in OP

It wouldn't be a case of a facist regime "growing" next door and the UK losing it's marbles, but the nation losing it's marbles and a facist regime "growing".

In other words not only far fetched but a "marbleless" hypothesis.

The suggestion of a comparison with Russia and Ukraine is ludicrous.

The war of the looters.

Sadly a deeper look shows Russia is winning and today was a bad day for the Ukraine army.

Twitter, Reddit etc.

A good browse on twitter past the headline grabbing tweets shows the true situation, plus Zelensky for the first time admitting today they are taking huge losses.

Latest Russian prisoner swap tactics, and the barbaric tortures they've inflicted on civilian prisoners who they kidnapped.

22:17

Russia attempts to trade civilians for military prisoners - Ukraine

Joel Gunter

Reporting from Kyiv

Moscow has attempted to trade Ukrainian civilians for Russian military prisoners, according to Ukraine’s deputy prime minister - a move forbidden by the Geneva Convention.

Iryna Vereshchuk told the BBC that her office, which is responsible for negotiating prisoner swaps, declined and instructed Russia to send back Ukrainian civilians it had taken.

There is growing evidence that Russia has forcibly deported large numbers of civilians across the border since it invaded the country in February.

Ms Vereshchuk said they were being used as hostages.“That's why they captured all these hostages - civilians, women, employees of local councils, to try and use them," she said.

“We know there are more than a thousand hostages there - including almost 500 women,” she said. “We know they are in prisons and pre-trial detention centres in Kursk, in Briansk, in Riazan, in Rostov."

She said Russia had also dragged its feet in sending back women civilians. “We are extracting women almost with pliers,” she said. “Now we refuse to hold an exchange with no women in the list. That is how we try to somehow rescue our women and civilians.”

In the most recent exchange, nine civilians were sent back with severe injuries, including amputations performed in Russia.

“There were badly injured people in this exchange - amputated limbs, sepsis, other severe injuries," Ms Vereshchuk said.

“There were clear signs of torture," she said. "The stories they told us are terrible."

Nobody knows the true loses of course but I still think Putin has the numbers especially as he doesn't care about his own soldiers and will keep sending them in .I would love to see them pushed back and out but that is still an outside bet I think.I would think Putin could still go for something either chemical or nuke rather than face a very public and humiliating defeat .We all know he is a very dangerous and capable of anything to keep face as he would see it .

Has this not being explained over and over again?

NATO would need to shoot down any and all planes over Ukraine, including Ukranian ones.

A lot of cruise missiles are being air launched within Russian airspace, so NATO would need to take those planes out (in Russian airspace).

Take out SAM sites within Russia also. The Black Sea fleet would also need to be sunk by NATO including the subs there.

Sure none of that would be seen as a massive escalation from the Russian POV would it?

This is how the Russians are raising morale at a military base near the border with Ukraine

The plaques will be used to display photos of soldiers of the Russian Federation. The first photo shows a blackboard with a gray background resembling clouds of smoke. The inscription on it reads: "They betrayed their comrades by escaping from the battlefield", underneath there are 15 empty fields. According to the journalist, this plaque "will hang portraits of those who refuse to go to war against Ukraine".

In the second photo there is a plaque with the inscription: "They heroically carry out tasks, defending their homeland". There are also 15 fields here, probably for photos. The plaque is red, with a five-pointed star - a symbol of the armed forces of Russia - and an image of a soldier in combat equipment.

Russia cares naught for the rules of the world and the global consensus organisations they signed up for

They are more aligned with the Nazi's than anything else at this point and any organisation that has not thrown them out by this point should be ashamed of themselves and any business still dealing with them should be immediately boycotted

Germans would do well to think every time they boil a kettle of water on their gas stove they are funding the killing and torture of innocent people

It's really incredulous to think there is a war waging in Europe again and it's like every man for themselves (this is how world wars start) - this war could be stopped in an heartbeat if the sentiment was there. The US seem to be the only one doing anything of note to help them along with a few other countries who fear they are next, and that would likely be the reality if Ukraine falls.

One voice from all the civilised countries in the world telling Russia to immediately retreat or face the retributions would solve this in an instant instead of spending billions to just drip feed ammunitions etc to Ukraine to try and defend itself. Germany in WWII was allowed the same grace to just keep pushing and pushing with no retaliation until they were at the point they had gone too far making it even harder to stop them.

Who compiled that map?

I didn't post the map, so I don't know why you're asking me.

I'll bet 100% it's not a Russian map source. Maybe you have another map that shows the gains by Russia in the past 24hrs?

Or what major towns or cities have been taken by the Russians in the past 24 hours?

Same as that. Even the Ukrainians use UA.

It has the same intimidation level as a 1970's Kiwi Hakka.