Russia - threadbanned users in OP

The death of Russian soldiers is a NECESSARY evil because they are the core driving force of Putins effort to take over UKr. There are no ifs or buts about Ru dead soldiers. These are the actual people that are advancing into UKr/shooting UKr soldiers /Ukr civilians. So the more the merrier as the saying goes. The way to reduce Ru soldiers deaths is for them to immediately move back to the Ru |Ukr boarder pre 1991 - end of.

BUT if there was a more humane way of getting Ru to move back to the pre 1991 border- I would be definately on for that

No, it is not quite the only group that matters. No sign of Russia stopping right now whatever words might come out of Putin's mouth, if the Ukrainian military fails, everyone gets the joy of being occupied by the Russian military in regions they capture.

Your idea of people bravely resisting that and Russia being somehow forced out any time soon by costs imposed by an occupation, when they seem undeterred by ruinous costs they are incurring in this war is a pipedream. For someone who likes to call other people "rubes", it seems idealistic and naive to me. Even if they do get forced out, it will be long after they have done horrible damage.

Technology heavily favours the occupying power now if you have no qualms or morals at all and are willing to be as brutal as the SS, which the Russian military certainly is on evidence of their behaviour. You think it's like the US in Iraq or even Vietnam or something, it is really not.

They will use the information to have to weed out anyone remaining in regions they occupy who might resist, and extended families + they will all be cowed, end up in a Russian prison or dead. Thanks to the IT revolution, they will be very efficient at that.

It is why we are seeing so few dictatorships get toppled these days imo, they don't need many functionaries, propagandists and goons and secret police any more to keep a firm boot on the neck of a large (by comparison) population.

Piers Morgan is a strange one. When Russia large scale invaded Ukraine in 2022 he was calling for the west to respond militarily. Now he’s tweeting Trump is right, why should America automatically help nato members. Pay up or pay the price. London oligarchs gave him a Christmas present?

Meanwhile Norway's intelligence service, quite likely better informed, takes a very different view:

Russia

You don't need to make a hypothetical equivalence. There's a real one. We did give away a significant fraction of our territory to an invader.

The Americans, Canadians, and Ukrainians destroyed 22 Russians at the stronghold. 08/23/2023

Amazing HD footage

Must have been on the Moscow version of RIP so, I missed it!!! 😂

Hopefully, but Europe being Europe, it will take until 2026, 2 years into a potential Trump presidency before something gets some actual motion in place when they realise they actually have to, when it's too late.

MEP's in general seem to attract the fringe extremists from every country, the ones who won't win at home, but are a bit weird and mad enough to take the "we'll stick it to Europe on your behalf" vote, because in General people think of Europe as this potential overlord that they don't want.

This results in a non conducive situation the Taoiseach et al arguing one side, with our democratically elected MEP's who are meant to be our European voice, arguing the polar opposite. Multiply that by 30 odd states and you have a clusterfuck.