Russia Invades Ukraine

Cackalacky2.0

Cackalacky2.0

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Anyone heard about Roman Abromovich and two Ukranians being poisoned at the peace talks recently (within last few weeks)? Weird story. Reports are that the only thing they ate were chocolates and water and all three had same symptoms ( loss of skin on face and hands, red painful teary eyes among others). Ukrainians and other sources saying it was poisoning. Un-named US sources saying it was "environmental issues".
 
GowerND11

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Cackalacky2.0 said:
Anyone heard about Roman Abromovich and two Ukranians being poisoned at the peace talks recently (within last few weeks)? Weird story. Reports are that the only thing they ate were chocolates and water and all three had same symptoms ( loss of skin on face and hands, red painful teary eyes among others). Ukrainians and other sources saying it was poisoning. Un-named US sources saying it was "environmental issues".
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Yeah, it really is an odd story.
 
IrishLax

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Crazy to see relative to their propaganda piece that was mistakenly auto-published a month ago assuming things had gone to original plan:


In short:
1. Russia is not able to conquer Ukraine without unsustainable losses. Therefor, they will continue to haphazardly target civilians with rockets and artillery while concentrating military action on the eastern part of the country.
2. Russia is out of supplies. Intelligence sources estimated that they had no more than ~3 weeks of supplies when they started the invasion and would run dry if they could not find a sustainable way to resupply (e.g. a forward airfield).
3. Putin is likely to gamble on being able to sustain their economy longer than Ukraine will want to hold out against constant shelling and missile attacks, and his goal he is likely to settle for is Donbas + Crimea + lifted sanctions.
 
Cackalacky2.0

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RE #3 I'd hope that Ukraine would not cede the eastern areas so easily. Now they are in a war with Russia I'd propose that they make holding those eastern areas as hard and difficult as possible on Putin. Putin wants all the Black sea access points. Id expect Ukraine to fight like hell over those.
 
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Vlad's mediocre "Sagarin Ranking"

1. Ukrainian Freedom Fighters regular army
2. Ukrainian Freedom Fighting militias/guerrilas
3. Vladirmir Putin's Military
4. Ukrainian Women
5. Ukrainian Children


Vlad's lads can beat up on the low ranking women and children.

But the Rooskies get their ass kicked each time they "play" the Ukrainian regulars or militiamen

Weak sauce Vlad,
 
Old Man Mike

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No one's going to plan it this way, but I wonder if the most peaceful life-saving route is to "apparently" go along with some awkward conditions to get a true ceasefire, let that hang for a couple of months, then just kill the bastard when he peeks his head out finally. The Turks, Israelis and even the French seem to be willing to go along with strengthening and actually fighting in Eastern Europe for this security cause. (Forgive me, Lord, for these "uncharitable thoughts", but this damned asshole needs to be "terminated with extreme prejudice" as the old CIA might say.)

The other route is, of course, support the Ukrainian army with gradually increasing weaponry and the Ukrainian people with massive food and medicine supplies, until the Russians truly run out of materials of all sorts. If the Turks, Israelis, and French (the three peoples named in the NATO comments about strengthening Eastern Europe vs the Russian Imperialism) would really step up, we could back their plays with about ANY level of technology lendable and then those countries could create the de facto no fly zone with all the tank-killers anyone could want.

But what do I know? ... maybe just a cruise missile down his airvent in the Urals. ... but I'm just venting to stay sane, so forget all that.
 
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Russia wants to control the Sea of Azov and Russian speaking areas of Ukraine - the Russian Riviera. Kiev is secondary.

Ukraine needs to counter attack and split the Russian assault in 3 and simply make like painful for them - they have Russia outnumbered. Ukraine needs to destroy the bridge to Crimea from Russia, sink a bunch of ships with the newly provided anti-ship missiles, continue disrupting supplies including ammo dumps and bridges. Moldova needs to declare a no fly zone over Transnistria and Ukraine ban flights (when fighting is over) with EU support.

The Russian heart is not in it except for the Oligarchs looking for a place to park their boats.
 
Irish#1

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Cackalacky2.0 said:
Anyone heard about Roman Abromovich and two Ukranians being poisoned at the peace talks recently (within last few weeks)? Weird story. Reports are that the only thing they ate were chocolates and water and all three had same symptoms ( loss of skin on face and hands, red painful teary eyes among others). Ukrainians and other sources saying it was poisoning. Un-named US sources saying it was "environmental issues".
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Post 2026

Putin is a sneaky bastard when it comes to poisoning.
 
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Cackalacky2.0 said:
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In terms of risk assessment and probabilistic forecasting,

WWIII must be rated as more than a 0% possibility.

It may be Vlad saber rattling.

The art (and the skill of espionage and spycraft) would be to create many more brushfires,
economic
political
loyalty

inside Russia to keep Putin pissed and occupied so he could dial down the foreign saber-or nuke-rattling.

The more visible and voluble his domestic headaches become, the less likely he is to focus abroad.
 
Irish#1

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Heard on the news that morale is really low and many Russian soldiers are refusing orders.
 
Irish#1

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Also from NBC News

Declassified U.S. intelligence has claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin's senior advisers have been "too afraid to tell him the truth" about Russia's failures on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the head of British intelligence agency GCHQ said it appears Putin "has massively misjudged the situation" in Ukraine and that his backup plan will be more attacks on civilian areas.
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Cackalacky2.0

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Sea Turtle

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Cackalacky2.0 said:
That was released by a Russian based poll company 👍👍👍👍😂😂

Levada Center - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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ReputationEdit​

In 2022 an LSE blog said "The most reputable public opinion data available in Russia are from the Levada Center, a non-governmental research organisation conducting regular surveys since 1988."[30]

And the first article isn't a poll.
 
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Cackalacky2.0

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Sea Turtle said:

ReputationEdit​

In 2022 an LSE blog said "The most reputable public opinion data available in Russia are from the Levada Center, a non-governmental research organisation conducting regular surveys since 1988."[30]

And the first article isn't a poll.
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Im not questioning their methods as they appear to be disavowed by the Russian goverment so yay on that but Im saying how accurate is their polling if they are polling Russian citizens? What answers would you give if you knew you were subject to reprisals as a citizen.
I mean to say just how honest are these numbers? Like how accurate is an independent poll of Sudan or North Korea going to be?
 
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Sea Turtle

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Cackalacky2.0 said:
Im not questioning their methods as they appear to be disavowed by the Russian goverment so yay on that but Im saying how accurate is their polling if they are polling Russian citizens? What answers would you give if you knew you were subject to reprisals as a citizen.
I mean to say just how honest are these numbers? Like how accurate is an independent poll of Sudan or North Korea going to be?
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I get what you're saying but this isn't the killing fields of Cambodia under Pol Pot.

They aren't taking names and publishing their responses. It's a generic poll of random people on the street. People who are protesting are only being tossed in jail for a night or two so I doubt some random person thinks they are getting shot in the back of the head over an independent poll question.

One thing is for sure. There isn't some mass righteous indignation from the people demanding Putin stop. A few, sure. More like the majority feels that Putin is restoring national pride.
 
Irish4life

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Sea Turtle said:
I get what you're saying but this isn't the killing fields of Cambodia under Pol Pot.

They aren't taking names and publishing their responses. It's a generic poll of random people on the street. People who are protesting are only being tossed in jail for a night or two so I doubt some random person thinks they are getting shot in the back of the head over an independent poll question.

One thing is for sure. There isn't some mass righteous indignation from the people demanding Putin stop. A few, sure. More like the majority feels that Putin is restoring national pride.
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Because they've been fed propaganda by Russia's Kremlin owned state news.
 
Sea Turtle

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Irish4life said:
Because they've been fed propaganda by Russia's Kremlin owned state news.
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Right. They would all turn if they would only learn the truth.
They are being fed what they want to hear.

The Russian people know that they have invaded Ukraine. And they are ok with that.
 
Irish4life

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Sea Turtle said:
Right. They would all turn if they would only learn the truth.
They are being fed what they want to hear.

The Russian people know that they have invaded Ukraine. And they are ok with that.
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The propaganda goes beyond that. "Special military operation" BS is the tip of the iceberg.
 
IrishLax

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This is a good explainer from The Hill on his poll numbers after the invasion of Ukraine:
How is a kleptomaniacal dictator, who plunged his country into a cruel and deadly war of choice, able to retain the support of his constituents?

First, in a police state like Russia, we must consider the possibility that what appears in the polls is simply deceptive — either because citizens are afraid to answer honestly and/or because pollsters fear reporting accurately.

Telling the truth in Putin’s Russia has been ruled a crime, which carries severe penalties. The reticence of respondents and pollsters alike to report their truths is understandable under such circumstances.

But some of those who have produced surveys recently are fine people with excellent reputations for integrity, and it would seem some of them believe their surveys are producing real and useful information.

One of the things they’re finding is support for Putin’s war, at least in its early days.

Noted American pollster Gary Langer helped bring to public attention a survey conducted by serious Russian researchers in the early days of the war; it found 58 percent of their countrymen approved of the invasion, 46 percent strongly so. Only about 23 percent opposed the war.

Other surveys put support for war as high as 68 percent among Russians, though the pollsters note that many respondents expressed reticence about being open and honest.

The Russian researchers compared support for the attack on Ukraine to that on Chechnya some 20 years ago, noting that initial support for that war fell from 61 percent to 38 percent in six months.

But conflict with Ukraine has in the past buoyed Putin’s numbers, which rose after his annexation of Crimea and inched further upward after the West sanctioned Russia for that annexation.

Going to war has not been Putin’s only move, however. Putin uses the Kremlin-controlled mass media to continuously burnish his image. He’s been named Russia’s most handsome man, was allowed to score eight goals in an all-star amateur hockey match, shot polar bears, and “found” archaeological treasures buried in the sea, among many other feats of daring. His name even brands vodka and food products.

In short, he controls a fawning media that expends considerable effort building his image of “greatness.”

Fear, awe, and control of the media can all help prop up a dictator’s image.

But at the end of the day, performance can still matter. There was a point when clear majorities held Putin responsible for the country’s problems and “only” 49 percent were prepared to vote for him.
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Basically, shouldn't read too much into polls now, and the ones that really matter will be months from now. Regardless, they are nowhere close to regime change driven by the citizenry... they are much closer to that driven by oligarchs, which is why he has made the strategic moves he has recently. Putin's best exit strategy is to get a ceasefire with Ukraine that he can branded as a "win" that also includes removing sanctions. An extended military campaign or extended sanctions is likely to backfire on him over time as propaganda has a shelf life. For example, things like an extended absence of Russia from FIFA will grate on people. As will economic collapse, loss of jobs, loss of food, loss of American tech, etc. Taking the long view, if people look back at Russia pre-invasion and then contrast it to Russia post-invasion no amount of propaganda will be able to whitewash that things relatively suck and they will put the blame on Putin.
 
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