Putin's invasion force on Ukrainian border

[Copernicus]

Right. Like their insistence on locating their country right next door to yours

No, starting a new war with rebel republics. You see, CNN does not report when Ukrainians do shit, only when Russia reacts to the provocation.
And since you don't watch anything other than your side you get into troubles of not recognizing prominent figures such as Zacharova. I am not a big fan, she is a little bit dumb (not as dumb as Psaki) but she have had few dumb incidents.

She is just another Kremlin apparatchik, but she would certainly be more familiar to people like you, who live in Russia and are familiar with prominent officials, especially those whose job it is to spout propaganda. I am not surprised that you see women like her and Psaki as "dumb". I'm sure that both women are highly intelligent, but I wouldn't say the same for your judgment of their abilities. I don't know why you think I should be spending every day watching Russian TV. I do monitor Russian media when there is an interesting story, but I am no more interested in wasting my remaining heartbeats on it than I am in wasting them on Fox News. Just because I know Russian, that doesn't mean I am interested in immersing myself in fake news stories in Russian. I concern myself with stories that cover topics I'm interested in when I am curious about how they are being handled in the Russian media.

That's just not true. I am quite a bit more familiar with CNN than you

Dude, I watch Anderson, Cuomo every fucking day, Lemon most of the time, and sometimes the rest like Smerkonish and simply news. CNN never, I repeat never offer alternative views when it comes to Russia and hence see to reason to retract. Why retract when nobody in US even knows that it needs to be retracted?
Has MSNBC retracted their Alfa Bank BS? Was incorrect translation of Putin words about interfering in US elections retracted? All I remember removing, not retracting.

I'm glad that you sometimes watch CNN and MSNBC, both of which issue retractions when they get stories wrong. I doubt that you watch as much of either as I do, but you wouldn't be as interested in the range of US news that I am. Nor would I expect you to know all of the details about the US, its government, or current events that I do.

 

[barbos]

Didn't I just say I have at least 2 hours of CNN EVERY day? Not sometimes, 2 hours a day.
So let's just say I am very familiar with US news.
Russian point of view has exactly zero representation in US. It's usually your "experts" (basically retired CIA neocons) and very rarely, russian opposition figures with their usual song "Putin blah, blah, Putin blah".
As I said I watch CNN, and don't watch russian TV, But I have seen russian shows and they do have Americans in it, on one of them they have the guy full time, defending your government. They have Ukrainians too, but they are mostly for "beating", not really serious.

 

[Copernicus]

Didn't I just say I have at least 2 hours of CNN EVERY day? Not sometimes, 2 hours a day.
So let's just say I am very familiar with US news.
Russian point of view has exactly zero representation in US. It's usually your "experts" (basically retired CIA neocons) and very rarely, russian opposition figures with their usual song "Putin blah, blah, Putin blah".
As I said I watch CNN, and don't watch russian TV, But I have seen russian shows and they do have Americans in it, on one of them they have the guy full time, defending your government. They have Ukrainians too, but they are mostly for "beating", not really serious.

Thank you for filling us in on the detail of your daily exposure to CNN, which is far from the only news network in the US. I'm glad that it fascinates you so much, and I will admit that you expose yourself to a lot more CNN than I could stomach these days. It is no longer my main source of news, but I do often monitor it to see what they think is trending.

Now back to the topic. This analysis from The Guardian explains how the next invasion from Russia could be different from the last: Ukraine still outgunned as Russia prepares for larger conflict. It appears that Putin will be able to attack from both the direction of Crimea and the east. Although the Ukrainian military is in better shape to defend itself now, Putin could be able to overwhelm the country within a few weeks of blitzkrieg attacks, which would include vastly superior air power. Ukraine has not modernized its military in the last four years, but it is better trained and equipped than when Russia first invaded. It is ludicrous to try to depict the outmanned, outgunned Ukraine as provoking Russia into invading, but that seems to be the official narrative that Moscow will go with. Nobody will be deceived, but I doubt that Putin really cares. Unlike with the first invasion, Putin wants people to know what he is doing, and the consequences will be more severe. If he tries to swallow Ukraine whole, then there will be a cost in terms of guerilla warfare and a potential that the war will spread beyond Ukraine.

 

[Copernicus]

Things are really heating up now, as Putin appears poised to attack Ukraine. Of course, he will claim that he was provoked, but we've seen the build-up on his side coming for a couple of weeks now. What may be driving this is the possible imminent death of Alexei Navalny in a prison camp designed for harsh treatment of political prisoners. Protests have been growing all over Russia now, and almost 2,000 protesters have reportedly been arrested in the past couple of days.

Putin warns the West as Russian police detain almost 1,800 Navalny protesters

It still seems unlikely that Putin is seriously threatened by the Navalny protests, which are mainly in urban centers across the country from Vladivostok to Moscow. Putin's recent state of the nation address has been overshadowed by these events. So it looks like there will be a strong domestic crackdown and quite possibly a strong incursion into Ukraine. The size of the military buildup is larger than it was during the first invasion into eastern Ukraine. It is hard to believe that he will try to simply occupy the entire country and install a puppet regime, but it seems unlikely that this huge buildup is just for show. Most likely, he intends to annex the Donbass and other areas of eastern Ukraine, using the military emergency as a pretense for a brutal crackdown in Russian cities, especially where his thinly-disguised fascist United Russia Party. The rest of the world can do little more than watch. The international blowback will be considerable, if it happens.

 

[Copernicus]

The good news today is that Putin has claimed he will draw down his troops on the border, beginning tomorrow. It is difficult to see what he gained by this exercise, but he is declaring success and dismantling it. Perhaps he realized that another major attack on Ukraine wasn't going to be a winning hand for him. The cost of the buildup must have been immense, and keeping all those troops in place was unsustainable, if their only purpose was just to terrorize Ukraine. That part of the strategy certainly worked, for all the good it did him.

Russia Orders Army Back From Ukraine Border, Easing Tensions

 

[scombrid]

Didn't I just say I have at least 2 hours of CNN EVERY day? Not sometimes, 2 hours a day.

Dude has some serious time on his hands. Two hours of CNN plus all the time posting here. Wish I had that luxury.

 

[Copernicus]

Didn't I just say I have at least 2 hours of CNN EVERY day? Not sometimes, 2 hours a day.

Dude has some serious time on his hands. Two hours of CNN plus all the time posting here. Wish I had that luxury.

It may not be leisure time for him. You couldn't pay me to spend 2 hours of every day watching CNN, but I have other options.

 

[Jayjay]

Didn't I just say I have at least 2 hours of CNN EVERY day? Not sometimes, 2 hours a day.

Dude has some serious time on his hands. Two hours of CNN plus all the time posting here. Wish I had that luxury.

Business travel would explain both.

 

[Rhea]

Didn't I just say I have at least 2 hours of CNN EVERY day? Not sometimes, 2 hours a day.

Dude has some serious time on his hands. Two hours of CNN plus all the time posting here. Wish I had that luxury.

Business travel would explain both.

LOL, or working for propaganda farm.
Not that I think Barbos is actually and employee of a propaganda farm, only that it would tidily explain watching CNN for 2 hours a day and posting on American message boards.

 

[Elixir]

Everyone always states that Putin is this 3level chess player master plaster man.

I think he is well past his prime in that regard.
Right now, Putin looks like a weak ruler operating from a place of weakness. And that's what's scary about him at the moment.

China is way ahead of everyone else as far as expansion. There's probably no catching them. They'll be in total control of the African continent before long. Trump ceding it as a collection of "shithole countries" helped them along, but 'Murka has shown little interest in investing there for decades.

 

[barbos]

Nothing to watch in Russia, so I watch CNN, of course I skip ads and often use it as background noise.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Everyone always states that Putin is this 3level chess player master plaster man.

I think he is well past his prime in that regard.
Right now, Putin looks like a weak ruler operating from a place of weakness. And that's what's scary about him at the moment.

China is way ahead of everyone else as far as expansion. There's probably no catching them. They'll be in total control of the African continent before long. Trump ceding it as a collection of "shithole countries" helped them along, but 'Murka has shown little interest in investing there for decades.

Agreed. He's further pushing Eastern Europe to the west. He forcing them to bind together. He's uniting Eastern Europe against Russia.

 

[barbos]

Everyone always states that Putin is this 3level chess player master plaster man.

I think he is well past his prime in that regard.

He has always being slightly above average as a manager. It's his luck and above average staying power which invokes this stupid 3D chess analogy.
But I agree, he is past his prime, not Brezhnev yet of course. Brezhnev had a stroke.
Term limits are a good thing. Chinese made a mistake abolishing limits for their boss.
I wonder what would have happened if US had prevented Saakashvili from starting a War with Russia and was in general less aggressive. Putin might have retired.

 

[barbos]

Everyone always states that Putin is this 3level chess player master plaster man.

I think he is well past his prime in that regard.
Right now, Putin looks like a weak ruler operating from a place of weakness. And that's what's scary about him at the moment.

China is way ahead of everyone else as far as expansion. There's probably no catching them. They'll be in total control of the African continent before long. Trump ceding it as a collection of "shithole countries" helped them along, but 'Murka has shown little interest in investing there for decades.

Agreed. He's further pushing Eastern Europe to the west. He forcing them to bind together. He's uniting Eastern Europe against Russia.

Yeah, this GRU shit is not helping at all. Putin has to understand that at some point these operations are simply counterproductive to say the least.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Agreed. He's further pushing Eastern Europe to the west. He forcing them to bind together. He's uniting Eastern Europe against Russia.

Yeah, this GRU shit is not helping at all. Putin has to understand that at some point these operations are simply counterproductive to say the least.

Well, I think the larger issue here is that the protestors in Russia are in a very dangerous spot. Putin is trying to find ways to defuse the protests, and clamping down hard on them is probably coming.

 

[Copernicus]

Agreed. He's further pushing Eastern Europe to the west. He forcing them to bind together. He's uniting Eastern Europe against Russia.

Yeah, this GRU shit is not helping at all. Putin has to understand that at some point these operations are simply counterproductive to say the least.

Well, I think the larger issue here is that the protestors in Russia are in a very dangerous spot. Putin is trying to find ways to defuse the protests, and clamping down hard on them is probably coming.

After today's news that Navalny is ending his hunger strike, tensions may settle down. It seems that the number of protesters across the country, although very large in some cities, was less than the 500,000 that organizers had predicted. Putin may find it in his best interest to let Navalny live a little longer and concentrate more on repairing his image at home and abroad. He has a long way to go on that.