Russian warship, go f**k yourself!

Does anyone see how the war will end , military wise russia are a world power, they have weapons that hopefully won't be used . I beginning to feel sanctions are our best weapon in the long run , low oil prices will help but there's plenty of countries that like higher oil prices including US oil producers. Usually conflicts end with one side defeated and looking for peace, hard to see this happening any time soon

Maybe if a focal point / person emerged, someone who people could rally around, then yes, I believe that the Russian people would revolt. Problem is, anything / anyone that even remotely looks like opposition is promptly jailed, fall's out of windows, is involved in a fatal road accident, is novichoked or suffers any one of several other unfortunate "accidents".

The opposition to Putin is either (A) Dead, (B) in Prison or (C) living far from Russia. So, no focal point , no revolution. Maybe, just maybe, this next ( we are told) mobilization of an additional 700'000 conscripts might just be the straw to break the camels back. In all the Country's you mentioned, there was the possibility and more important, the will to form an opposition, even an underground one. In Iran presently you have a revolution in progress started by women. It does not have any recognized leadership or form, but its ranks are swelling daily, and protesters number in their hundreds of thousands, despite being shot at, arrested and sentenced to death. Also its activities, with strikes, blockading roads with slow moving traffic, are bringing citys to a standstill and general civil disobedience making the Country ungovernable. This marks the beginning of the end for the Ayatollah and his Mullahs. When Russian women tried protesting, police visited their homes and took away their menfolk for Ukraine. End of that form of protest. Russians do not willingly choose to become fertilizer in Ukrainian fields. Who in their right minds would? But Putin's Russia is like a modern automatic production line.....the raw materials ( manpower ) is fed in at one end, and emerges at the other end as the finished product, an ORC. In this process they have no choice. No more than you would if the police / military came banging at your door at 06:00 hrs on a Sunday morning and told you to pack your bags, you are in the army now. I know cases where they have done this by the way, or at a checkpoint removing male passengers, or even on the street's where they would have a prison van, complete with barred windows parked discreetly while they checked the documents or military age ( or not) men. So much for choice.

It will take some event like what happened in Iran to trigger a mass mobilization of Russians, thousands and thousands of them marching on the Kremlin, blocking the streets so that Putins thugs are powerless to stop them. But there are glimpses of opposition showing through Putins oppression. These are the increasing Nr of explosive attacks in Russia itself,,,,mysterious fires in supermarkets, and other places, railway lines being sabotaged, recruitment offices being attacked. The next 6 mths will tell a lot.

Russian oil is currently trading at circa 35 dollars a barrel basically break-even price , Gazprom exports have halved in 2022 and prices are back to pre war levels present day so high priced gas can't cushion the decrease in volume, 23 billion dollar deficit for 22 in a record breaking year for oil and gas prices...

Once the hard cash dries up to keep the war machine humming you'd imagen the general population out of desperation more than having a sudden moral enlightenment will push back

The reason the revolution is working in Iran is that after many years ( since 1979) Iranians have been suffering under several different Religious dictatorships. But finally they have had enough, and one single incident , the death of a young woman because she was wearing her scarf incorrectly, broke the logjam.

Now we await the log jam breaking incident in Russia for change to come about, and give Russians real choices.

Or do you have any suggestions as to how change in Russia might come about?

And who will have control of the nukes

I don't understand your statement, "Giving Russia a free pass because it's Russia". I guess you mean that if you are born in Russia, and grow up within the system, that's it? You automatically get a free pass because of being Russian automatically. how does this work in actual life? The free pass part I mean?

As for what happens in a post Putin world, that's the million dollar question, and to make it even more complicated, you have the infamous Nukes to think about. Already in the background you have the military and the oligarchs jostling for position. This is exemplified by Putin's recent re-shuffling of the top military, (primarily for his own protection and security). Scary to think that Putin could be replaced with some one even worse and more hardline than himself.

But say that Russia will be in dire economic straights ( as it will be) after Putins departure, with famine threatening the population, causing unrest and demands for elections throughout all the Republics. And they are duly held, and a new government emerges. So the World ( EU, UK, US , World Bank etc) offers help, but only if verifiable reforms are carried out, and all Nuclear Weapons are destroyed. Would be the ideal solution, but most likely wishful thinking.

Could also be what you suggest as the ideal solution...complete break up of Russia into its constituent Republics. If this happens, there will be many mini-wars as different ethnic groups fight for dominance in their own areas, from tensions that always existed but were kept in check by the Kremlin.

We will see how it goes in 2023. Its early days yet.

There's thousands of Russians who thought exactly like your saying, there either dead , in hiding or prison and won't see the light of day for many years. That's how a dictatorship works . Saw a programme recently which said Putin has 40000 police/ army members, all paid extra to ensure he stays in power . Most Russians are not feeling the effects of sanctions yet , but when more and more funds gets diverted to army coffers, then they'll start feeling the effects . And not wanting to dismay you further, I'd expect there will be no final settlement until Most sanctions are lifted. My other fear is when it near over , Putin will step down and a new face with a desire for " world peace " will put in the Kremlin to rebuild relations

Yes, but unfortunately some or many Russians also seems to believe the hype - that the west is out to get them....and of course Putin and the mob capitalise and play on this nationalism, and the people's desire for a strong Russia.

Many/most Irish have a (irrational?) reluctance to inform - say on a neighhbour or local wrongdoing; and we knowingly elect corrupt "local" and even national polititians.

Russia may need to be humbled to the point of Germany/Japan after WW2 before they understand - and the West needs "Bass Reves / Don Corelone"'s dark side ( https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120100860/#Comment_120100860). That said there's no need to invade but we should give Ukraine everything they need and more to send the Russians running home.

Watching a documentary one night on why North Korea and its population are the way they are https://www.vox.com/2015/8/3/9089913/north-korea-us-war-crime

What Putins doing in Ukraine re missle strikes etc on the civilian population and infrastructure is miniscule to what America inflicted on North Korea and to this day kids from school age are indoctrinated and thought/shown what took place at the time

How can anyone talk of potential famines affecting Russia?

Their farming is both productive and profitable without subsidies and private companies are well established, a much stronger position to where it was 40 years ago.

Seems to be far to much focus on Russia after all of this. How Europe and Ukraine weather it is much more pressing.

Record temperatures across Europe along with big industry slashing use is keeping things afloat for now. But we are continuing to double down on making ourselves increasingly uncompetitive. The economy is kept going for now off supports and the remains of COVID stimulus, but in the medium to long term we can't keep it up.

The prosperity that we've come to expect as standard will not be part of our future.

For Ukraine, how do they ever get back on their feet. Probably need 2 trillion to get to where they were with infrastructure etc (no doubt the EU will be expected to cough up half). That assumes businesses just reopen and seamlessly reintegrate to the wider economy while there is no issues getting citizens back from Europe which seems a bit unlikely.

If a couple of hundred thousand armed men who've spent over a year fighting can't be rapidly reintegrated into jobs, there is a large risk that things do not end well for Ukraine, no matter how things finish with Russia.

Famine issue. Throughout its history Russia has been prone to famines, and has has had several post USSR, especially from 2010 -2015, which were bad draught years. But now the war and sanctions will affect every level of Life in Russia, and that includes farming, so what was happening in previous years cannot be used as a yardstick in 2023. One reason Russian crops were so successful in recent years was because of western farming methods and machinery, under the communists, harvesting methods were very primitive compared to today. Just look at the communist emblem, its a Hammer and Sickle. They took a massive leap forward when they started to follow western technology, Business and farming methods. Now they have modern western farming machinery, which is ultra efficient, but also ultra complicated electronically, so when it breaks down, its a problem. This was proved when in the beginning of the invasion, they stole millions and millions worth of tractors, trailers, combine harvesters etc, but when they got it back to Russia, they could not get it to work. The owners were able to track them down to actual farm they were on, ( in Chechnya ) and disable the computerized systems. This can be done for all modern computerized farm machinery in any part of Russia, or any part of the world. So good luck with trying to by-pass the system, after several failed attempts, it will fry itself beyond repair. So just wait until Ivan has a bumper crop, but his combine refuses to budge, and he cannot ask the masses as he did in years gone by to turn up with their sickles for the harvest. And this same scenario is being enacted across all sectors in Russia now at this moment, Aircraft, Car Production, automatic assembly lines, In fact anything that was built to and dependent on western technology is affected. Then there is the skilled manpower issue. Many apartment blocks in Russia had no heating at the start of winter this year because the maintenance men had been conscripted.This is only one sector out of many.

Second, how the West / Ukraine will weather the storm Putins war has caused. We in the west will adapt and survive, for sure. Had Ukraine not stopped Putin in his tracks, just imagine what the storm would have been like??? It would have been a full scale war in Europe, give the scale of Putins ambitions to return all the former USSR states to Moscows control....from West Germany to Alaska.

Russia can expect to pay reparations for the destruction they caused in Ukraine. Plus, we had the Marshall plan in the second world war, so I'm pretty sure that a similar plan can be put in place for Ukraine, if its needed. Russia will have to find its own way out of the mess Putin has created.

For the repatriation issue, with Ukrainians having left home, and how many will stay in their host Country's. You may remember the big influx of Polish people to Ireland when Poland joined the EU. Quite a large % of those have now returned home because the standard of living in Poland has risen. I would expect eventually, the same thing will happen with Ukraine. But most will go as soon as its safe to do so.

Hundreds of thousands of battle hardened men returning home to Ukraine..if they lose the war, what will they be returning home to? Will be more interesting to see how Putin handles the survivors of his madness who return... The Gulags, most likely. How he will cope with a destroyed economy will be something else.

If Russia was winning this war the way they planned the Russian population would have no problem with what's going on in Ukraine. Even now the Russian army couldn't be doing what they're doing without their soldiers been well motivated Reports today that Ukraine withdrawing from Soledar and they're not giving up that ground easily.