Then again, we’ve been through two years of having foreign bioresearch labs receiving international aid funding being touted as “evidence” of some nefarious ploy. So not new.
Meanwhile if I were the Mongolians I’d be becoming worried about the successor state to the guarantor of my independence becoming indebted to the power that has historically claimed me.
A boxer can have a black eye and a split lip and still be winning the fight.
That’s why I don’t understand Peace Talks.
The war is totally one sided. Ukraine hasn’t launched one missle towards Russia. All the fighting and destruction is in Ukraine.
Imagine 8 hours of “please leave our country” response “No”.
There’s not much bargaining room. Unless Ukraine wants to lose more territory. That’s no solution. Putin will be back in a few years to grab more.
“You occupy Ukraine, we occupy you” 
Maybe Ukrainians who support Russia? They made a choice of dying or living under occupation.
Guardian live blog
“President Xi came up to President Lukashenko with tears in his eyes and said ‘Sir…’”
If you’re a mercenary from Syria, and Russia offers you a job, I imagine you’d ask to be paid in dollars, or pounds, or euros, or basically anything other than worthless rubles.
Christo Grosev of Bellingcat is not optimistic about the talks:
Russia’s negotiator Slutsky says there’s been “significant progress in the negotiations” and he expects there may be a signed deal in the next 2 to 3 days.
This is a notable development in light of the growing awareness at the Kremlin of the decrepit state of the RU army & the blunders of the pre-invasion intel. If confirmed by UA side, this would likely mean a truce on Zelenskys’ terms.
The more I think about this, the worse of a feeling I get. As is clear since he arrested the FSB general(s), he is no longer in denial of the failure of his Ukrane plan, thus he can either withdraw or go out with a bang.
But there’s no workable compromise that Ukraine can agree to that will not result in Putin being disgraced domestically. So what’s the mythical agreement RU says they are close to? Sounds implausible.
Hoping for the best, but the “two or three days till agreement” that RU introduced into the equation sounds more and more like a threat.
If Ukraine says they will not join NATO, Putin can try to paint that as a win. Since he pretty much controls the narrative in mainstream Russian media he can convince the people. His real problem is the political classes in Russia who will see him as a liability to the Russian economy.
So expect a purge - one that has in fact already begun. If you want to know how Putin will act imagine what a Mafia boss would do.
The other possibility (we can hope) is that the generals and security establishment chiefs who now feel threatened by Putin will purge him instead.
I wonder how long it takes to manufacture Javelins, Stingers and the like. If it’s months, then there’s nothing the West can do but just deplete its existing stockpiles via donations to Ukraine; by the time the new missiles arrived the war may be over.
Unless we’re looking at a years-long insurgency.
I’ve just looked it up. During the Polish invasion during WWII, Nazi Germany started September 1st and Soviet Russia the 16th. The conquest was finished by October 6th and it was the Germans who took Warsaw, with about 15 times the Russian casualties.
Not knowing that 90% of the Wehrmacht’s forces were committed in Poland, the French and British responses were tepid, the former making a small incursion into Saarland, and the BEF had not even gotten the bulk of its forces into France until September 27th.
Wiki
So, poor Vlad doesn’t have an ally handy to take the brunt of the fighting this time around.
Pretty sure the West can produce Javelins at a higher rate than Russia can produce T-72s.
Yes but the T-72s are already there, the Javs may be needed for other targets, not every Javelin will hit or be delivered where it needs to be, and Ukraine could always use a stockpile on hand.
At any rate, if we’re in a stalemate situation right now - things have ground to a halt - then Russia is screwed. The outside volunteers, weapons, supplies will just keep flowing in from Poland.
Unless Putin figures he’ll just hit bases in Poland with nukes and the west will just crumble. He’s fucked up every other decision in this, so why assume he’ll change course now? I’m afraid the result of this may well be a strike against Moscow, and any location where Putin might be.
In Googling, I found this cite:
Today, the Javelin production line may merit reinvigoration. Production cuts have been substantial over the past decade: between FY 1999 and FY 2001, the U.S. procured some 9,848 Javelins, while, in the most recent three-year period (between FY 2020 and FY 2022), missile procurement shrank to a total of 2,037.
So it seem the US currently produces about 2,000 per year. It’s not clear how much they could increase that in a short time frame.
ETA: that should be about 700 per year, the number above is for a three year period, I misread that line. So it’s even worse than that.
heck, even a Nescafé coupon goes a longer way than the ruble now in Russia 
That’s the problem in being the Arsenal of Democracy – it takes a while to spool up. Today’s wars are come-as-you-are.
when was the last time we saw Mr. P. “live”?
Yeah, I just made the same point in another thread.