Besides offering the Russians money to desert, the Ukrainians should also start pointing out to these folks that they’re not going to get their pay check when they get home.
And, when they do go home, they’re likely to be told to point their guns at their fellow Russians.
Sure, surround a city of civilians and starve them.
Another war crime. Filmed for the entire world to see. On the news daily.
That is not going to work out very well for the Russians.
If this article is accurate, well, let’s just say the troops aren’t quite on board with the Kremlin.
I was just going to post that. Not much more in the article than in the headline; but I like hearing stories of demoralised Russians.
I do sympathize with the everyday Russian (even these young rank-and-file soldiers) who have little to no power over the situation, but it is good news for the Ukranians, whom I whole-heartedly support, that this is NOT going the way Czar Dobby wanted it to.
The Ukrainians aren’t the only people who need to eat if they’re surrounded. Putin has to feed his soldiers and fuel and restock their equipment.
It’s one thing to blow things up. It’s another to control millions of people. That’s why the Soviet Union broke up. It takes people to control people.
I feel sorry for the Russian rank and file. I really do. (What is the equivalent generic for a Russian soldier anyway?) But all I can think of is Patton, and hope that the poor bastards die for Russia and don’t win.
How many people are still there? We’ve all been watching the women and children leaving, I’d have to guess that at least a million of those folks are gone now.
I really don’t think the world will let them starve. Food will start arriving by various means, they might get a little hungry but I honestly doubt anyone will starve. Please pray that I am right.
They don’t want to kill their cousins or have a sunflower babushka curse them. The only one getting anything out of this is Putin and I think his thrills stopped a few days ago.
The Russians have lived in that environment for hundreds of years. I’m sure they’ve figured out ways to deal with it.
An assassination attempt on Zelenskyy, to have been carried out by a Chechan special forces squad, has been foiled after the Ukrainians were tipped off by the FSB.
If even the KGB itself is acting against Putin now, then his time in office is probably drawing to a close.
They have to figure out how to pay for it first. Once you’re done blowing stuff up you have to occupy the country.
Considering Putin sent his family members to Siberia he might have some things at home to worry about.
He might suffer a 7.62 mm brain haemorrhage.
prob. 4-8 weeks, incl. reserves that the individual homes have …
once stuff runs out, you prob. have another 4-8 weeks before people start to die (old and sick, prob. first)
(that is assuming you get zero foodstuff in) …
what might be more pressing, if the .ru manage to compromise water supply …
This is one part of the whole war I don’t understand. Why are Chechens so eager to fight for Putin? Didn’t Russia commit atrocities against the Chechen people in the recent past? To use a WWII analogy, wouldn’t this be like Hitler sending a squad of Polish soldiers to try to assassinate Churchill?
Well…how, is the question. If the Russkies surround the whole city, then foreign food-laden vehicles aren’t going to get in, and airdropped food (ie Berlin Airlift) isn’t going to work either.
The ruble is worth less than one cent now. And Putin is terrified that money is leaving the country, so he has banned more than $10,000 from being taken out of the country.
This story really pegs my BS meter. If this was true, why would Ukraine implicate allies in the FSB?
To readers that don’t know the typical exchange value of the ruble, it was trading at about 1.2-1.3 cents before the invasion and is now at 0.9 cents. So a significant enough drop. (I just say that because “worth less than one cent” doesn’t really mean anything to me without knowing what it was worth before, which was just over one cent.)
To show that there’s dissension in the ranks and not all Russians are as evil as their president?
On January 1 there were 74.789 rubles to the dollar. Today it’s 108.49 rubles per dollar.