T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
I think you are being overly optimistic. Putin is Stalin.
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Russian Invasion of Ukraine - tactics and logistics
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bilby
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Shaka, when the walls fell.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
My feeble take is that Putin has just as much state control as did Stalin. Is there any evidence to the contrary? Putin has cemented his position using the same tactics as did Stalin, only on a smaller scale. If Putin had to resort to more murderous methods I have no doubt he would, and that no one of any significance within Russia would be able to do anything about it.
crazyfingers
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Elixir
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It’s interesting … Putin appears to be delusional due to having controlled his immediate environment, to an extent that renders his reality into what amounts to a simulation. Maybe it’s just a matter of breaking into that simulation and adjusting a few parameters …
Jimmy Higgins
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Gawd help me for getting that.
Jimmy Higgins
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So Russia allegedly asking China for help. Jebus, if they ally this ends Ukraine.
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Would they risk alienating their biggest trading partners? There's a lot of USAians that don't like China already.
Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
However, Stalin was never deposed. He was always able to outmaneuver real and imagined enemies. Everyone around him lived in terror, because he was a ruthless murderer. I hate to say it, but I've met not a few Russians who seem to think that someone who rules like that is a good thing for Russia and that it isn't really possible for anyone to rule the country who is not absolutely ruthless. Not everyone thinks that way, but there is something about ruthless dictators that always seems to make them popular with a significant segment of a country's population. Human beings are social animals and prone to self-organizing along dominance-submission hierarchies, so maybe it is something of a genetic predisposition. In the end, Stalin was deposed by old age. He apparently died of a massive stroke, and I don't think that there were a lot of mourners in the upper echelons.
Putin has not shown the same level of paranoia and brutality that Stalin did, but he is clearly not afraid to murder people that he considers his enemies. And he also shows a tendency not to really care about the deaths of large numbers of soldiers or civilians. What he is doing in Ukraine is no different from what he had his troops do in Syria or Chechnya, but Ukraine resonates more strongly with us, because Americans feel a stronger cultural and ethnic affinity with white Europeans. Putin is still working on achieving Stalin or Hitler class status as a monster. He could end up murdering more human beings than any past monster, if he chooses to deploy nuclear weapons, but he has already earned himself at least a dishonorable mention in the history books.
bilby
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I strongly suspect that this movie provides a more accurate account of the events than any non-humour history.
Ford
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I was listening to the morning news from the BBC on the way home from work a couple hours ago. Sounds like Russia is encircling a few key cities and Putin is planning to remind the world that civilian casualties are not really something he's terribly worked up about. I heard a report that there's something like 75% of Russia's forces massed in and around Ukraine., and it seems he's going "all in" on this.
Jimmy Higgins
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The US has very little leverage on China.
You could do another trade war. I heard the last one went swimmingly.
Elixir
Made in America
Maybe a good time to snatch Kaliningrad from him.
Jimmy Higgins
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Yeah, tariffs tariffs tariffs.
Meanwhile:
Putin: We will take Ukraine and China will finance it!
Well, they'd need to want to leave. No one else (wanted) wants it.
Elixir
Made in America
Really? Never been there, but the pictures aren't that bad. I do note the cooling towers in the BG... Nuke?
Mainly though, it would be great to seize Pootey's Baltic fleet before he gets any more bright ideas.
SLD
Contributor
Here’s a good article that is very critical of Russia’s military capabilities. It predicts that at some point they will crack and revolt. This may take a while, but could also happen rather suddenly and seemingly unexpectedly.
smallwarsjournal.com
The Beginning of the End of Putin? Why the Russian Army May (and Should) Revolt | Small Wars Journal
After well over a year of isolation induced by the COVD-19 pandemic, it seems Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has become so detached from reality with his wild Ukraine gamble that he may finally have adventured too far, stumbling into a trap entirely of his own making. Surprising...