Russia - threadbanned users in OP

You gave 3 hypothesis on how the war could end but you excluded one possibility. The west and the rest of Eastern Europe especially Poland has alot riding on this war and the defeat of Russia. If it was likely that ukraine was about to collapse surely an intervention by poland to prevent that would be a possibility. Obviously then it becomes a wider war, but would China enter in order to bail out putin, I doubt it. Obviously the US would be extremely wary of an intervention by poland so massive aid to ukraine in order to prevent the collapse of ukraine. The west and Europe have alot riding on this war too. They cannot allow putin to succeed in ukraine. Poland is now one of the biggest military powers in Europe, I doubt Russia would be in a position to take on a fresh European army in ukraine

Insurance in Russia??? The way the insurance "industry" works in Russia, if you don't have it, for sure your business will go up in smoke. Thats a certainty, but what's not so certain is that even with having insurance, and your business goe's up in smoke, that you will be covered. Its the Russian Way.

Nor that the Handmaid's Tale was originally written as a thought exercise "What if the Islamic Revolution that happened in Iran was a Christian Revolution that occurred in the US?" i.e. it is based on events which happened in the real world rather than just as a thought experiment in Atwood's imagination.

I had considered considered it, and discounted in on the basis of the old refrain that soldiers win battles while logistics win wars and NATO is out of ammunition. This was one of the scenarios hypothesized during the nuclear scares of the 1980s, that both sides would quickly run out of conventional munitions and resort to firing nukes if one side or other made a break through. Since the 1980s, European manufacturing has been off-shored and switched to just in time with extended supply lines, the West does not have the ability to scale weapons production for that scale of offense. To date Europe has not been able to scale production to meet demand. Western politicians, did not think this war through and are now learning a brutal lesson in logistics, manufacturing, sourcing materials and production planning. How long can can a NATO army be supplied in the field?

Germany has been crippled by shutting off fuel and mineral supplies, it is the funding nation for the EU project. I expect an economic collapse of Germany (and through it the EU). I reckon that crisis is likely 2 to 4 years out. Politics across the West are at the moment trending towards nationalism, there is no common cause uniting EU countries against Russia and a switch to a war economy. Across the board in Western Europe, inflation especially cost of accommodation, mass migration and energy policy (i.e. climate) have been creating political instability

There are other maneuvers underway on the financial side: Why China & Saudi Arabia Have Signed A $6.9 Billion Currency Swap Deal

The Saudis need $80 oil to meet their domestic budgets and "the West" wants low oil prices, especially to hurt Russian budgets.

The Chinese government are replacing their trade partners' US treasury holdings with Peoples Bank of China treasuries, this will give countries an option to mitigate financial restrictions imposed US government policy.

If has already been mentioned several times on the thread that "Europe" has not been able to deliver the ammunition their politicians promised. It has not been explained why this failure has happened.

When discussing the scenario that NATO gets involved in face to face fighting with the Russians, the logistics of the campaign will need to be organised. In that scenario Belarus becomes actively involved and that is at least another 300,000 men called up on the Russian side. NATO will need to move their armies 600 KM from the Polish borders to the Dniper river for starters and further to the Russian borders, that requires transport and fuel. Weapons and munitions will be needed, how much can European industry supply for this operation? It's not possible to take half measures and do it cheap, the population has to be behind the governments and taxes must be raised. There are quite large protests over the goings on in Israel, what do you expect to happen if you want to send NATO armies into Ukraine?

we know the saudis want to keep oil above $80, but China is getting russian oil much cheaper than that so russian budgets are being hurt and China not helping Putin it will take the cheap oil thank you very much. The twitter thread you posted doesn't make a whole lot of sense because foreign reserves are much more valuable to a country than your own currency. Therefore if China is lending dollars to other countries but demanding chinese currency as payment that is just plain stupid because China can print its own currency but not dollars, how does that country get chinese yuan, by selling goods to China. Therefore China acting like a charity its giving poor countries dollars for which they can buy US and western goods, it gets paid in chinese yuan but must buy produce from that poorer country in order to facilitate this. Therefore the balance of payments of that country aswell as the West improves but it disimproves for China because it is losing foreign reserves and importing rather than exporting goods. Also the whole fantasy of Putin that the chinese yuan would rival the dollar falls down because chinese yuan are not being held as reserves but are just used for transactions. In this example the poor country does not hold onto yuan but china exchanges its US dollars for its own currency, therefore the only countries holding large reserves of yuan are China itself and probably Russia as it is locked out of everything else

Turn on the English subtitles, the interview is in Ukranian. There is now a "terrible shortage" of artillery shells and "huge shortage" of mines and military personnel on frontline. The person giving the interview heard "scary numbers" that average age in some brigades is 54 & that 3 people remain in some companies out of 110 at start of the war. They are not allowed to report certain numbers.

General Zaluzhny may be relieved of command over the course of the next month.

Zaluzhny did not provide a plan for war 2024 and must leave - people's deputy from Servant of the People

PResident Zelensky has had to come out and disavow the above claim, but she is sticking to it.

Zelensky disowned People's Deputy Bezugla's accusations against the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny

Plus if all that is not bad enough there is the truckers strike on the Polish border which is creating logistics problems.

Are you a RuZZian sympathiser? Just for the record, I hate RuZZians!

Actually I live beside the largest polish Ukraine border.

All trucks transporting food, medical,fuel ,military and humanitarian aid is Actually fast tracked true daily

None essential imports are restricted and quite a lot.ywo trucks every hour.

To be honest the border dispute doesn't really affect military transport as most is transported by rail or the polish military.

Are you still wondering?! 🤣