Russia - threadbanned users in OP

So that's another no you can't ,.

So you cannot counter anything he's said typical low level account stuff

This is where I think there's a shift in the German attitude. It looks to me like the serious players in the German economy have moved beyond the question of "what's the cost of having Ukraine as a failed state?" to "how much profit can we make in having Ukraine as a successful European state?"

This is not something that particularly concerns the USA, so they have no reason to make it happen any faster than might be the "natural" course of events. But if Big Business in Germany (and other parts of the EU) has decided that it is to Europe's advantage to have access to Ukraine's natural, agricultura and human resources, over and above any inconvenience of pissing off the Russians, then Europe still has the clout to make that happen.

With memories of the Covid disruption to Asian supply chains on the one side, and the threat of Trumpian isolationism on the other side, this is a very good time for Europe to invest in "local" projects. Sure, there's money to be made in producing and selling arms to armies of varying colours, but there's a hell of a lot more money to be made in re-building a country and an economy like Ukraine.

If that decision has been made, private capital will make it happen faster than any amount of Congress-dependent drip-fed aid packages.

Thats an interesting take,,,Russia wants Trump, but the Chinese don't.... fun times ahead !! 😂

Putin has been attacking the West, the US, Australia, in fact anyone or Country he deems an "enemy" for many years ( inc NATO, actually especially NATO) . Not openly though, all deniable stuff. Massive hacking operations worldwide, using submarines to map undersea communications and oil / gas pipes, (and possibly planting remote controlled explosives on them) pumping cash into radical groups to de-stabilize democratic Countries, mass propaganda to interfere wilt elections. It's a long list of possibilities, and Putin ticks all the boxes. He's the original bad apple in the box that rots the rest of them.

I don't see it now.

I do see probability of a Russian test of NATO increasing in a situation where you have (post the collapse of US/EU will to support Ukraine + this resulting in some kind of Russian "success" there, I suppose size of this success determines the danger level...):

• Team MAGA running USA (into the ground)
• EU hamstrung, members at each others throats (i.e. dumbfuck far right governments in most countries or even just a few key ones) and
• Key EU member states (and UK I suppose) have also failed to rearm at all (arguments of what-a-bout the budget, what-a-bout spending it on better things than stuff to kill people and blow things up win the day).

So a fair few stars probably have to align for it, as said a low likelyhood event with a very high cost. Safer to support Ukraine and rearm imo.

What do you think he's been doing for the last 10 or more years , assasinations , "accidents", buying politicans and radicals , left and right , destabilizing states, sure its a long game, but you wait for the opportunity,

2014 crimea and donbass ,was decades of work leading to an opportunity,

oh but ukraine has a security pact with uk and US,and their neutral , - fat lot of good that did them ,

But he's not going to Chance a NATO state,

There is one of two weak links in the alliance but the moment Russian forces Cross into NATO territory they will be wiped out in a few days, they don't have either the man power or logistics to attempt it now , even worse they have no air superiority....

Been rumoured since last night still no confirmation from any source we've seen this happen 3/4 times previously where it's been claimed a particular Russian was killed only to turn out to be a false claim

There's massive bounties available to Russians if they inform the Ukrainian military of gatherings of troops or high ranking officials.

It's wait and see.

Maybe Priogzhin isn't really dead:)

No, they don't, but they may have even worse weapons... Propaganda, they have taken this form of warfare to previously unknown heights. Back a few years ago, when propaganda was not considered to be anything like what it is today, Russians were already using it with great effect. Something that they are still doing today.

The genius of the Russian strategy has been to prop up both sides of the political divide, and because freedom of speech is such an enshrined thing in Western democracies and social media companies have seen profits soar due to user engagement, there isn't the political will to stop it.

There's no quick fix. There needs to be early education on critical thinking, but that'll take time to have a real effect, and some countries are maybe too far gone, like the US, to accept this type of education, regarding it as brainwashing.

They couldn't roll the Ukrainian military that barely existed two years ago,that had no numbers of advanced weapons no advanced radars and intelligence networks ,or and modern aircraft both fighters and helicopters,

NATO has satellites , intelligence gathering aircraft, naval superiority,air superiority, ground superiority,man power superiority, the ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands of well trained and well equipped professional soldiers in days ,

Currently Russia has none of the above,

One or two weak links but they are well covered currently 300,000 NATO troops are already prepared across several Baltic states,

This might be one of those very few times I'm wrong but I absolutely can't see it ever happening,