TF_Titan

If Russia's own army doesn't want to fight I think it's pretty safe to assume Belarus foot soldiers want no part of Putin's war.

This is exactly my point. Give Ukraine the damn weapons they need to fight the war and quit worrying about pissing Putin off.

They don't need to build new ones...they already have over 1,000. Ukraine has less than 200.

In a war of attrition Russia will absolutely win unless Ukraine can get re-supplied from the west...and that won't happen if they lose air superiority. In spite of their losses, Russia can replace the planes they lose. If Ukraine can't they'll eventually run out.

I think you're trying to put a positive spin on it. The fact is they may not have a couple of weeks if Russia gains air superiority.

Neville Chamberlain thinks that's a pussy move.

They've accomplished the exact opposite of every goal they set out to accomplish.

I'm at the point where I pretty much give zero fucks about what happens to Russian civilians. I get that Putin is the guy behind this, but the fact is that the majority of Russians support him. Some maybe because they're deluded by government propaganda (although a lot I think are "willfully deluded"). Some maybe because they're afraid of the consequences of coming out against the government. But whatever those consequences are pale in comparison to what the Ukrainian people are enduring now. So fuck 'em. Bring the hammer down.

This has always had as much to do with China as it has with Russia. It is as important that we start weaning ourselves off our dependency on China as it is Russia. This needs to start yesterday. Whatever pain that will cause now is minuscule compared to the pain if we wait until it's too late.

It's amazing how often this exact scenario plays out with totalitarian dictators. You'd think they'd start seeing the pattern.

It's true that a lot of people miscalculated Putin, but I'm not sure their rationale was completely wrong. If anything I think Putin was guilty of the most miscalculations. I don't think it was as much that he was not a rational actor as the article states, but more that he misjudged the ability of his own military, the ability and resolve of Ukraine, and the response from the West. I don't think there's any way he would have gone through with it had he known then what he knows now. To be sure he's now backed into a corner, so his actions at this point are becoming more and more irrational because I don't think he feels he has any choice but to push all his chips in.

Maybe they need to see if Syria has any pilots available.

If this is true it just confirms that Putin is looking for a way out that keeps as much of his reputation in tact as possible. Of course he's going to propose more than he thinks he'll get. That's how negotiations work. No way in hell they're letting Putin pick their PM. Every day that this drags on more leverage shifts to Zelensky.

How fucking embarrassing is that? Can you imagine if the US had to find soldiers from some third world country to fight because our own soldiers were less capable?

You don't fuck with a pissed off cat lady. It's hard to see Putin surviving this.

...not any more.

Russia's economy is only slightly larger than the state of Florida. The bottom line is there's no way for them to build one of the largest militaries in the world without cutting some corners somewhere. My guess is those corners cut included training and testing. Prior to WWII the U.S. designed some new fancy torpedoes, but never tested them because they were in a depression and torpedoes are expensive to build. They didn't want to "waste" them by destroying them in tests. It wasn't until they started using them in real combat that they found out they didn't work. We may be seeing something similar with some of the Russian equipment.

At this point I question how well trained the Russian pilots are…and honestly how good their planes are.

There you go....accusing @oldschool of being a communist again...

If anyone is depending on this thread (or Twitter, for that matter) for accurate news about Ukraine (or anything, really) they're at best naive. Anything posted on twitter...especially about rapidly unfolding events should be taken with a huge grain of salt regardless of the source. Most of us are adults and understand that. ...or maybe I'm just being optimistic.

I think if it's unexplained it's by definition at least a little suspicious...

For sure. Regardless of what happens to Ukraine, it's critical that we keep the hammer down or we'll send a very bad message to China.

I think it's pretty obvious Russia had no idea the response would be this strong. And frankly neither did the west at the time. They only grew a backbone when they realized Ukraine had one. That's just a fact. We all thought Ukraine would fold and this would be over in a few days. We did our obligatory sabre rattling, but we really didn't give Russia any reason to think our response would result in anything other than a short term inconvenience. (see Crimea) We talked about some sanctions, but nothing like what we're implementing now...and we never gave any indication we'd provide actual military support. Putin wasn't looking for a reason to invade Ukraine. He already had his reason. He was looking for a reason NOT to invade and the west didn't really give him one until after he had already pulled the trigger.

This is exactly why it was a mistake to wait until after the invasion before stepping up with strong support for Ukraine. The west thought that doing that would provoke the invasion, but in fact NOT doing that is what guaranteed the invasion. The reason they're "stunned" is because the west gave no indication they would react so strongly. They thought they were attacking a weakness. Now Putin is backed into a corner with no real options to save face.