Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Buying or not, it's what he and his government have stated repeatedly is their intention

Putin has said that Russia has no borders. That's tantamount to a declaration of war whether he is serious about it or not.

The NATO alliance has never actually been tested in a major way, and the reelection of Trump would raise serious doubts about the alliance's stability, because we know where Trump and his acolytes stand on it.

Putin knows full well that the Russian military would stand less than zero chance against a NATO force in a conventional fight, but his plan is to undermine it by sowing political discord in the constituent countries. A bit like Fred Dibnah felling an old chimney stack - light some well-placed fires at the base, and watch with satisfaction as the whole thing comes crumbling down...

Not sure how a stalemate favours Putin, exactly. He has himself said that his war aims remain unchanged, so whatever public pronouncements he may make about the tide of war turning, he will be attempting to mask a deep frustration with the situation, and that is that his forces are bogged down on a static front line.

Russia failed to achieve their aims in the opening phase of the war when rapid advancement was possible and being partially achieved. How does Putin expect to do that now when there are many static defences in place and Russia has never established air control at any point in the war? Where is their ability to advance going to come from and force Ukraine to surrender if not be subsumed completely? Is there any more detailed answer to this question than 'Russia is big. Has many men.'?

Putin has been at war with the west for many years, but it has been a hidden war. Interference in elections, financing disruptive groups etc. Putin has invested many millions in his undercover wars worldwide..

There's a name I'd never thought I see mentioned on here , only talking about the legend of Fred Dibnah recently

The genius of the Russian strategy has been not only to sow discord, but to publicly spread the idea that they're behind it. It makes people suspect that Russia are behind everything, which deepens cynicism and political polarisation, and this in turn leads to further destabilisation. Kind of the geopolitical equivalent of a panopticon. Figuring out a way to counteract that will be critical to pushing back on Putin's ambitions for Russia.

Europe will not abandon Ukraine. She will be the source of our gas, oil, lithium and cobalt and aluminium in the future.

Were moving away from oil and gas

aiming to be carbon neutral, does not mean we are moving completely away from oil and gas. it means we are aiming to be carbon neutral.

Now the only thing is I can say is that Russia hasn't ejected Ukrainian forces from the east bank so Ukraine does have toe hold there. Russia should of really have ejected Ukraine from there but either can't or are happy to have the Ukrainian marines pumping personell and material there and just been tied to that small area and not been used elsewhere in Ukraine. Been bled dry as such. Could be actually what they want to do for once.

“Russia won’t invade another country after Ukraine”

Maybe these posters need to google countries Russia has invaded and then come back to us.

Well, that's what they have been doing for quite some time, using troll farms to heighten existing social and political tensions in western countries.

There are two main ways to combat this which I can see:- one is to clamp down on freedom of speech so that people cannot so easily repeat the disinformation being spread online, but this would essentially mean becoming more authoritarian like Russia, and pushback against this would only lead to more internal conflict, which plays into Russia's hands, so its not a goer.

The second way is to meaningfully address the issues giving rise to the social and political divisions in the first place, but this means making hard decisions in the interest of the common people, not private companies who are profiting well from the status quo.

It seems like the undoing of any system is an overload of tension generated by a consistent failure to address the problems within it. Authoritarianism seems strong, but is often brittle and suffers from a constant problem of information flow. Basically the leaders within this system are isolated and get bad information due to a reticence to speak truth to power, leading to ill-informed actions. Liberal democracy suffers from sort of the reverse problem where the leaders are afraid to speak truth to the people, which makes fertile ground for disinformation on the part of rogue actors attempting to usurp the system for themselves.

The attack on our own HSE being a good example.