hope so. a bit back they blew one of their fighters out of the sky so zero ****s given. The Turks have the biggest standing army in NATO thanks to conscription. Not to be ****ed with.
the interesting thing here is that they seem to be out of fuel. It suggests supply lines are getting stretched which means they expected the invasion to be over quicker. Good news all round and it will ultimately slow down the advance.
The more I see and read about this war, the more I think Putin expected his forced to simply drive straight through Ukraine with minimal resistance. The giveaway for me was his speech on Friday when he spoke directly to Ukranian troops and asked them to change sides and overthrow their government. I think he genuinely expected the troops to be welcomed as liberating heroes and only very sporadic resisitence. The problem with becoming a lunatic who is out of touch with reality is that you get rid of anyone around you who wants to bring you back to reality, and you start believing your own bullshit.
As if a ****ing Tory minister tweeted that Ukrainian refugees can apply for seasonal worker visas. ****s.
Their armed forces just isnt that good. UK armed forces is 180k personnel with a $71b budget. Russian one is 600k personnel with $65b budget. Its just not enough, its a bloated mess
their Air Force is full of rickety old planes with missing parts too. He’s running his forces on a shoe string. his 600k badly equipped troops would get swatted by the 3.2m NATO troops with state of the art kit. And he knows it. even nato giving modern weapons to Ukraine is making a massive difference. if there is an occupation, we’ve shown in WW2 we can aid and supply any resistance quite easily. If he thought the occupation of Afghanistan was bad for him.. he ain’t seen nothing yet…
It's starting to look a lot like that! It does make you wonder how much of our fear of Russia's military might is based on fact and how much is based on reputation. I have no doubt that their elite forces are extremely capable and dangerous, but as soon as you get beyond that I wonder how much they have to offer other than numbers. There are pictures coming out of Ukraine showing some of the captured tanks and armoured vehicles in very poor condition. Great to install fear when part of a moving convoy rolling west, but not so good for fighting against genuine resistance. How many times do we hear stories about our own forces having sub standard equipment and supplies? And that stuff is relatively new. It looks like a lot of Russia's equipment is old. Some of it will be 50-60 years old when they were spending billions in the arms race. Putin could come out of this having not only destroyed Russia's international reputation, but also it's military reputation.
If this is true then it shows just how determined the Ukranians are to stand up to the Russians. No weapons, just a bunch of old blokes and a bike, and they walk a tank away from their village by forming a human shield. Putting a lot of trust in the soldiers in the tank to not want to be killing fellow Slav civilians!! This lot don't look that different than we would look on a not606 meet up. Just ordinary people caught up in a ****show!
Difference being that for him, if he keeps standing up to Russian tanks, 'Hung, Drawn and Quartered' is a possible future rather than a username!
I think we underestimate how proud and patriotic people are in these newly independent countries. Unless something dramatic happens I suspect Putin will achieve his initial objectives in Ukraine but I suspect his problems will then just be beginning. I am sure the West will be happy to fund, and supply arms, to pro-Independence Groups.
Yeah. As difficult as the Russians appear to be finding it, invasion is the easy part. Occupation is a much more challenging prospect - as we and our allies have found out elsewhere.
I was watching the interview with the women making Molotov cocktails in the park of one of the Cities. It was almost like an instructional video. If it was the UK our women would only be good for providing the empty bottles.
