Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Or to go even further, why 'ordinary Germans' didn't rise up against Hitler.

Like I say, ordinary Russians are an irrelevance when it comes to factors that could end this war. It's very hard to see any scenario where there is some kind of Russian Arab Spring.

They were protesting against covid restrictions, not a change of power.

They were not afraid to protest. Same for Iran. If Russians, Chinese and Iranians all face similar punishment (Iranians far far more), but only the Chinese and Iranians choose to start mass protests, what does that make Russians? Easy to surmise the vast majority just don't care beyond their borders.

That’s not the point here.

The protests worked as in they effected change at the top of government by forcing a policy change on Covid.

I don’t think mass protests in Russia would necessarily get rid of Putin but they could change the outcome of the war for the better.

Well the (initial) plan was/is to change those minds, by fcking up their economy, so badly that they eventually wake up and associate that azhole leader with gradual personal impoverishment and suffering, and increased chaos.

Its a difficult play. To fck up the average Russians life in such a way that theyll finally pick up their own personal pitchfork from their shed, rather than a state issued kalashnikov from a barracks.

The idea is to have Vlad fall out of a window one night, while we also get to avoid having a massive war.

Thats why economic sanctions are the key weapon, even though the nerdlingers and armchair lieutenants like to deride them as the old 'strongly worded letter' trope.

Unfortunately it looks like the thing most likely to end the war is 'military defeat' rather than 'popular uprising'.

Anyone hoping for the latter, based on history to date, could charitably be described as optimistic. Maybe that will change over time and we may have a new Russian Revolution, although I wouldn't bet on it personally.

Even if you did have an uprising, there is no obvious alternative. The most likely replacement would be someone from the same power vertical that Putin has constructed.

Every society in this situation, even ordinary Russians, have their tipping point.

Clearly the Kremlin consider as carefully as they can, how they can prosecute this war, without pushing their citizens into revolt.

'The West' and concerned ex pat Russian and internal Russian citizens can do their bit, by sharing the harsh realities of this conflict.

With a view to either complete withdrawal from Ukraine or revolt.

There is an underground. B.O.A.K is their name/acronym/whatever (iirc). So at least 1 group.

I posted a video about them a few pages back.

Just takes 1 well placed bullet.

His power base aside, there must be 100s of thousands of people fcking furious with him. Each one is a chance.

Ides of March situation hopefully.

As with Goodfellas, on the surface everything seemed fine.

The F-16 is not inherently difficult to fly.

That link contains the considered opinion of an F-16 instructor that it would take 69 days to train experienced Ukrainian pilots to fly and operate an F-16.

AMRAAMS have been in service in Ukraine for months now, so that one didn't even get airborne:

The F-16s main drawback in terms of being operated by Ukraine is it’s undercarriage is not a good fit for their soviet era runways.

It has even been stated that Ukraine is already working to upgrade certain airfields to accommodate the less hardy Western fighter types in anticipation of getting some.

However, there is a solution to this - F-18s - Australia has some that have recently been retired. Though the F-18 is a navalised aircraft intended for carrier based operations, Australia operated them purely on land and from excellent airfields, so they never suffered the corrosion their US counterparts did and their ruggedised landing gear were babied by comparison. They stopped the scheduled maintenance procedure of replacing the central fuselage, as ordained from US experience, because no corrosion was found.

https://global.espreso.tv/f-18-aircraft-can-operate-from-ukrainian-airfields-without-their-reconstruction-aviation-expert-romanenko

Your opinion that Ukraine should not receive western fighters is not shared by many experienced military people.

Do you think Zelensky, Zuluzhnyi, Reznikov and all the other Ukrainians calling for western fighters are idiots? That they are naive and don't know what's needed to fight a war with Russia?

General Ben Hodges ret. doesn't agree with you:

Would anyone argue that Ukraine would be better off without the Mig-29s and Su-27s it currently have? Obviously not, so arguing against having more and better is equally ridiculous. The west have vast resources and training Ukrainian pilots and technicians isn't hard, it's incredibly routine, given there's a war going on, you extract the digit and accelerate the process.

How about a former NATO commander in Europe?

https://ukranews.com/en/news/908393-west-should-hand-over-combat-aircraft-to-ukraine-ex-nato-commander

He's a former Admiral.

The current Supreme commander of NATO in Europe, General Christopher G. Cavoli, says the same thing:

So basically, your views are not widely held by millitary experts.

Why isn't the US, Ukraine and NATO trying to make a deal with Russia? That they'll allow them to retreat and leave peacefully, and sign an agreement never to attack Russia, which shouldn't be difficult considering no one on the planet wants anything to do with that shi t hole.

Very true.

But where I think the analogy falls down somewhat is that in 1917 there was no shortage of putative alternatives to the Tsar (Social Revolutionaries, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks etc). As we all know, the Bolsheviks ended up winning that particular power struggle.

Today, there is nothing.

That has always been on the table. Russia has no interest in that.

But Putin keeps pushing the narrative that the West is out to destroy Russian, planning to attack, why not call that bluff and make it public that the West want to do a deal, never to attack Russia. Wht could Putin possible say then, he'd have no more lies to spin.

He'll just invent a new lie.

Russia has already re-deployed the bulk of its ground forces previously stationed on NATO borders to Ukraine. It obviously would not do that if it thought NATO was going to invade.

Anyone paying attention already knows it is BS.

Anyone already fooled will just get fooled by the next lie.