It’s now been almost one week since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Since then, the Kremlin has failed to take the country’s two biggest cities, Kyiv and Kharkiv. Both have faced assaults from Russian troops invading from the nearest borders, 20 miles away in the case of Kharkiv and roughly 60 miles away from the Belarusian border, in the case of Kyiv.
Putin will be fine bleeding his own army. Nothing the Ukrainians can do will change his course. And, for good reasons, we cannot provide any more military support aside from weapons and whatever we can give without triggering open conflict. The only thing that will end this is the Russian people.
I am truly worried that he is truly mentally unbalanced, and would in fact begin a nuclear war. I don’t think we’re near that stage yet, but the possibility alone is terrifying. I’m sure he’s quickly learning that the Ukrainians will fight back. 10-20 years of war? I sure hope not.
Latest BBC coverage mentions that Dozhd and Ekho Moskvy, pretty much the last independent broadcast media voices left in Putin’s Russia, have been suppressed.
Which is absolutely how the winning side acts, when things are going really well.
I wonder if there’s any intelligence about the likelihood of a coup against Putin
Wow. Russian primary school kids arrested by police because they were demonstrating for peace.
“It seems that my logic and the logic of the Russian leadership do not completely coincide, because I find it very difficult to consider any benefits that Russia can possibly get out of this operation,” Kortunov said.
Kortunov sounds like he is hedging, but it is a brave thing to say, given how honestly is often repaid with Novichok.
That only works as long as Russia can maintain a supply chain to its military. There are already plenty of signs that Russia’s supply chain is faltering. Once that fails, troops starve and guns no longer have bullets to fire. This is why Putin is so desperate right now. If he doesn’t win this very soon, he’ll likely lose catastrophically.
Must have been studying that CRT.
Hedging is a positive sign from connected people like that. Means that there’s a very good chance that what’s happening on the inside is genuinely fractured and there isn’t unanimous support of the party line. And the longer they’re mired down without real victories, the worse those splits will get.
Can someone just please put a fucking bullet in vlad’s head already.
CRT as in “Crazy Russian Tyrant” in this case. Da.
Don’t forget to take off his belt. Hard to run with your pants falling down.
I hope the Ukrainians turn the tables and take out Putin.
Ron DeSantis announces parallel statewide lesson on how teachers expressing anti-war sentiments can offend students and infringe on their rights.
I hope the Russian people take out Putin. As @grack wrote above, they may be the only ones who can stop him.
So far this week the Russian attack has stalled and it has sort of devolved to expressions of rage, where they make random assaults on civilian areas, hospitals, universities and historic sites. It’s all war crimes level stuff. The Ukranian army seems to be picking and choosing its spots to hit convoys, resupply lines and ID weak spots to go after. I don’t think Putin has unlimited time to achieve objectives. His economy has crashed and his country is persona non grata. Just gotta hope that UKR can continue to survive Russia’s brute force tactics.
Yeah. It’s a baby Hitler question. Some people just have to go.
But I’ll say something else and it isn’t very nice, but all the times I looked on, not so much callously as less engaged, I feel a certain guilt about now because these people aren’t just admirable, they’re more relatable. They look like us, they live like us, their politics, technology, lots of things are similar to us. And now they’re suffering and I feel it more. Maybe the only Syrian we cared as much about, empathized with as much, was that dazed little boy sitting in that ambo. Him, and the Kurds. Admirable, dashing people as well. I wish I had cared more about those more different ones, cared as much as I do about these. I feel bad about it. I felt bad then, but a bit more bloodlessly. I just subconsciously didn’t imagine myself in their situation. But they suffered just as much. It was just as wrong. And I feel bad about it now. Shit.
For going on 77 years no nuclear weapon has been used against a populace. The results of the two used in '45 were so horrific that none has been used since. The tactical nuclear weapons in Russia’s and our stockpiles are “small” in that they yield roughly the equivalent used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those are the small ones. If in the event Putin does order the use of nuclear weapons, we must hope his generals will do the right thing. Once one nuke is launched, there is no telling where this will go.
