Yes he will. Hoping that Norman Vincent Peale was right about the power of positive thinking.
I wonder if Maria Vladimirovna Romanov is by her phone waiting for “the call”.
I can’t imagine they’re too happy about how badly the war has gone, either. A year ago, we all knew the Russian military was less capable than NATO - poorer training, worse equipment, older technology. But we had no idea how much worse it was. We figured they’d at least give a good accounting of themselves in a conflict with NATO, even if they ultimately lost.
But now? Who is afraid of Russia? Who respects Russia? Even their satellite states like Georgia are starting to talk shit about them. This has just been a massive loss of prestige for the Russian military, and that’s something all the generals will care about.
ultimately it is/was THEM who were in charge and it is their responsibility… so you think they will starting to accuse themselves? … and blame it on all the stolen assets, if it was them who stole a significant part of it…
I think one of the reasons that putin is still around is that he made so many others complices in his dirty game, so nobody can raise the voice/hand/weapon, b/c they all know that they are part of the game/problem and they all hope they can cling on to their comfy lifestyle.
Yeah, but this gives them an out on that.
“Hey, I was here doing my job, and Putin and his cronies (who shall remain nameless, natch) went out and stole everything! I tried to make Russia strong, and give our Brave Warriors everything they needed to win a war, but those lying thieving Putinistas stole everything that wasn’t nailed down! We would have won if it wasn’t for the culture of corruption in the Kremlin!”
A lot of the Russians would buy this, and the generals walk away clean.
And you, General Horatius, how do you explain your 2021 Lexus SUV, your kids studying in England and the nice Dachia in the Hamptons, from a General’s wage (roughly U$3,000.00) …???
If you sit in a glasshouse you dont throw stones … you just sit and shut up 
I would have said (and did say, I think) they’d do it. c.f. Crimea. I was wrong.
I just saw on the news (CBC or CNN, I can’t remember which) the same number. So I do wonder if that, versus my first WAG of 10,000, will approach a “tipping point” critical mass that could cause Putin’s downfall.
Interesting and scary times.
Oh, if you’d asked me nine months ago, I’d say that they were either engaged in the most silly and wasteful exercise Russia had yet engaged in, or they were really going to try to grab a land bridge to Crimea. I didn’t think they really had the people to do the latter, but it’s what I thought they were most likely to try.
Then the idiots went and tried to grab the whole enchilada. I really felt their whole endeavor was (fortunately) doomed once it was apparent that was their aim. Even if they somehow moved a million troops into Ukraine, it probably wouldn’t be enough to take and hold the whole country. I thought it would have taken longer to make that clear if they had a million troops on hand and a well supplied and equipped army. It would take a lot longer if that was the case, and I would have expected the Dnieper River to be the place where Russia was stopped. But the numbers seemed clear to me, and their abilities are not in line with their numbers. From the get-go, even with the inflated estimation of the Russian army’s effectiveness, they never had the military oomph to accomplish what they set out to do, and they probably never will. The US wouldn’t be able to take and hold Ukraine with 200K troops, and the Russians were foolish to think they could.
quoted for quantitative relevancy
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quoted for the good belly-laugh that cought me off guard
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Gifts, given to me by my grateful subordinates! Would you have me turn down the gifts of heroes? You Fiend!
Well, that’s the problem with starting a war under false pretences. I’m pretty sure the land bridge to Crimea, and maybe, if possible, the whole of the Black Sea coast (to deny Ukraine any ports there) were their real goals all along. But, because they drummed up the whole “Ukraine is Nazi!” excuse for the war, they had to at least look like they were trying to take Kyiv, in order to put in a new government.
extremely graphical tweet on what men in russia are doing to avoid being sent to ukr.
(I hope I managed to get the tweet not to auto-load)
comment: breaking their own legs
https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1574772811268333569)[/spoiler]
Makes Ted Nugent look like a piker.
I wish I hadn’t looked. With my knee injuries, that sort of thing is hard to see,
I managed to stop the Vid. just right when I got the overall idea of what would go on … Having had a severely fractured (double digit fractures) lower leg, i puckerd up like nobody’s business…
but damn - that is some resolve right there (assuming they did what I think they might do).
On a more macro level … this means that relevant russian people DO have a fairly clear idea of what is going to await them in Ukr.
Update: Putin is annexing 4 more Ukrainian provinces tomorrow. Kherson, Zhaporizia, Donetsk and Luhansk are to join Crimea in the Russian Federation after illegal and sham referenda.
He wants to freeze the conflict there and justify all the Russian losses with these gains, and I assume he is gambling that he’ll keep Ukraine from retaking them by threatening to use nukes to defend this brand new piece of homeland from Ukraine or some such.
He’s definitely all in…