TwinkleToes

Perhaps the "correct" way to view the collapse of Russia is like the Ottoman empire. The ottomans fell apart in stages over 300 years, gradually losing direct control and influence over the hinterlands, then suddenly in quick, sharp wars against their former vassals in Africa and the Balkans. Eventually, they end up with a relatively small rump state in Turkey. I think that's possibly the most likely outcome with Moscow/St. Petersburg retaining a much reduced ethnic russian rump state and nearly everything else breaking away. But - the point is - it happens slowly, in stages, and in response to losing wars. Longer than single human lifetimes, so it makes it harder to recognize and comprehend until it's all over.

The USSR had a shred of philosophical veneer. The kleptocratic petromafia slave “state “ that exists today is literally a nihilist barbarian horde. I like the sentiment and mental picture of your suggestions. Really speaks to the pointlessness of talking to these black hearted ghouls.

There is no hope communicating with these insane barbarians. Empathy, truth. shame and hypocrisy don't even exist. The entire society is based on brutality and brazen lies, you cannot trust anything they say. The only choice for a lasting peace for Ukraine is to keep fighting until the entire vile project of political russia collapses into something less malignant.

Makes you wonder what a lame duck Biden is apt to do that is different from if he had stayed in the race and had to run on the results. Maybe they'll be less cautious, especially if you factor in that Russia has literally been invaded, and still done nothing.

They seem to be feasting on Russia's ham fisted attempts to bring reinforcement columns along main roads. Russia was completely unprepared for this, and Ukraine obviously was. There is almost no mention of Russian air power operating in this area, and reports that Ukraine brought their own substantial AA assets in case they did. So - you have Russian infantry and armor moving along main roads, in slow convoys, being surveilled by Western satellites the entire time, getting slammed by drones and artillery before they can even get to Kursk.

Russia’s traditional war fighting MO has been “keep dying and surrendering in huge numbers until something major happens”.

Crimean War, Russo Japanese War, WW1, Polish-Soviet war, Winter War, WW2, Afghanistan, Chechnya 1.

If not for Lend/Lease giving Russia food, oil, guns, vehicles, bullets, boots and clothing, they would have been rolled back to middle Siberia. For all their hypermacho chest thumping, they’re shit at war.

Per childhood fairy tale monster Lavrov, it is time to acknowledge facts on the ground. The enemy must accept these realities.

Of course. How do you investigate harassment and identify site-killing lunatics without keyword searching.

It’s all stored and anyone who needs to see stuff their site hosts can get it. Plus - you’d be surprised how much criminal activity people are willing to discuss with strangers.

That there is already a good self deprecating joke. Don’t sell yourself short. Unless you ARE short, then may I recommend entering the priesthood

This is ancient, but still objectively correct. It also misses the point. Trump's appeal to his base is not about being good or any attribute he has. It's that he's an avatar of hate that gives them murky permission to be up front with their own prejudice and moronic ideas. He's made it a political position to be proudly uninformed, unapologetically racist, and irrationally intolerant about the lives of others that have zero actual impact on you. To hate immigrants, brown people, gays, electric cars, any talk of climate change, vaccines, democrats and democracy in general. It's all white grievance, all the time. Why should we change anything? We're not changing anything, we're white america, and we're the greatest because - reasons - and we don't need to change anything. We don't even need to have any ideas - you just have to hate The Other, and that's enough for 46% of the biggest clueless losers in the country who honestly think government doesn't do anything for them anyways, and thus vote against their own self interests, literally to their own personal destruction.

Also - for all the noice and bluster of this branding exercise that got WAY out of hand - he remains, ultimately, a fluke. He barely, barely, barely won in 2016 on the faintest of technical victories over a weak candidate with a bad strategy representing a two-term Democratic status quo position for a nation tired of politics as usual.

The same party almost never wins 3 terms in a row. He won not by being a good, virtuous person. He won by not being Hilary Clinton. And that's ALL he won. Despite his constant claims of greatness, his party and the candidates he endorses have underperformed in every election since 2016. He was, and remains, a one-time fluke. Period. A cautionary tale about what happens with low voter turnout.

Yes, that's exactly it. Their most advanced weaponry is being made and used instantly, as opposed to being drawn down from older stockpiles. This is suggestive that those initial stockplies are gone, and that they're having to use things as fast as they can make them.

It paints a picture that they are struggling to keep up, that they're not capable of further quick escalation, and that they'd be very sensitive to a disruption in the delivery of components required to make these things when they're using them as fast as they can build them.

Yep. no doubt. Imposssible to quantify, but reports at the time were at least a million men fled to Georgia, Kazakhstan, etc.

I make no claim that the 575k number is dead. Even UA says that's their estimate of dead and wounded. And to be extremely generous, let's say 30-40% of those wounded are probably so disabled, amputees or worse, that not only can they not fight anymore, but they can't work jobs at their full pre-invasion potential. That would still be hundreds of thousands of lost labor force participants in a country who relies massively on heavy industry and resource extraction manned by able bodied, if often drunk, raw manpower. They won't be shifting war amputees to service sectors desk jobs and call centers.

These newly disabled veterans will become burdens on a state that probably won't honor the support agreements to their full extent, making them worse than simply unproductive - it will make them bitter living testaments to the stupidity of this war and it's broken promises. In the cold caclulus of Russian brutality - these people are better off dead telling no tales and drawing no pension than they would be alive. Russia's interal ethnic cleansing and useless mouth disposal of their own people sometimes gets lost in the ocean of wickedness that this entire war has been.