I noticed, in a photo with William, that Harry’s suit was a lighter shade of black. I envisaged a Mail headline, along the lines of “Harry’s suit not as black as his wife.”
Vin I have been thinking about your post a lot today. This is indeed good news. I wonder if you had listened to the interview on Radio 4 this evening with the former American ambassador to Moscow? He underscored how catasthrophic the defear was for Putin yet felt that this would not precipitate his downfall. Unfortunately, there is a bigger picture. Recuitment within Russia is starting to be ramped up and some of the broadsheets were reporting yesterday about Belurus's military opening up another front in Ukraine's west. From what I know about Belurus, I feel that any deployment of troops in Ukraine could be likely to be counter-productive and there is already a sizeable disident community in that country. What the former ambassador was suggesting was that the reversal was an extreme embarrassment for Putin and, regardless of how poorly his current army has performed, the Russian army will likely to swell considerably as conscription becomes compulsory. I also fear that any change in fortune for his army would precipitate Putin using more devastating tactics to force a result. Whilst the news over the weekend is encouraging, I just feel that it is premature to propose that this might be the beginning of the end for Putin. If he cannot vanquish Ukraine with boots on the ground, I feel that he would employ similar measures used to facilitate the demise of opposition forces in Syria. As long as he is able to retain control and credibility in Russia, there is no way I can see Putin relenting.
Disturbing to see that a woman protesting against the monarchy has been arrested. It might not be the best time to make this protest but clearly the Tories desire to stop all types of protest is taking effect. Further proof that the country is descending into fascist state.
He's very unlikely to relent, but I'm pleased to see that you've moved on from the tactic of restoring the USSR to keep him happy. The threat of tactical nukes etc is very real, and sadly that's what happens when a mad dictator get embarrassed. But it would be a major, major escalation on his part, and I think there'd be huge resistance internally to taking that step. Conscription won't work. He already has an incredibly demoralised army. As soon as he starts conscripting undertrained, under-enthused young men, and the body bags start floating back to their mothers - that really will be the beginning of the end. As was the case from the start, we can only hope and believe that these reversals in fortune for him stir up an internal response to depose him.
I do not believe that this was the case with Mark Duggan. From recollection he had picked up a replica gun in a shoe box at the time he was shot but he made no attempt to use a fire arm against the police. There was also the suspicion of a police cover-up in this incident which was highlighted on a TV documentary and was also corroborated by a work colleague whose wife was friendly with someone in the legal profession who was involved in the case. The Kaba incident is likely to be more straight forward . The office involved in the shooting has been suspended for gross professional misconduct and it transpires that , rather that disable Kaba who was trying to evade arrest, he was shot in the head at point blank range. Regardless of what you believe to understand to be the case with someone involved in criminal activity and whether they should be accountable, the solution is not one of extra-judicial killing. In the circumstances, fleeing arrest would have been totally understandable. I do not feel the actions of the police in these circumstances can be condoned in any instance.
This argument is all well and good, yet the war has huge , patriotic support in Russia. I think loads of Russians with nothing to lose will foolishly join up.
It does have support. I'm not sure 'huge' is the right adjective, particularly amongst the young and more educated classes there. They may well join up, but this is (and was always likely to be) an incremental failure. It won't happen overnight, but the sands are running.
The war is starting to have less support in Russia. This is a pretty remarkable bit of reality to find on Russian television.
Also, Russia's big failings right now are logistical. They struggle to get fuel and ammunition to units, and when equipment breaks down it tends to remain broken down; the 4th Tank Guards is one of their elite units, and rather than blunting the Ukrainian attack, it just abandoned a dozen or more tanks in the retreat. Even good units can't really be of use if they aren't properly supported, and dumping tens of thousands of raw conscripts into the theatre wouldn't make that any better.
Russian military history is a tale as long as your arm of logistical cock-ups. Which they cover over by force of numbers. Always. That's what they do. (I know you know this, btw, Schad. Am just reiterating). Seems on this occasion (and in this form of warfare), sheer numbers ain't gonna do the job though (much like in Afghanistan).
Yeah, and the throughline of when they succeed/fail is whether their opponent's logistical situation is even more dire. Here it most definitely is not; Ukraine is on home turf, has spent a couple months relentlessly targeting Russia's logistics hubs, and just severed the rail link from Belgorod that was providing a lot of Russia's supply capacity. I'm under no illusions that Ukraine is going to simply sweep Russian forces out of the country tomorrow, but Russia's leadership has made it clear that there is no negotiated settlement to be had except for the utter capitulation of the Ukrainian government...something they reiterated yesterday: The only thing that will change that is sustained Ukrainian success, and increased domestic pressure on Putin.
I'm continually astonished by people's willingness to tell others what they believe Russia want or will settle for, despite the Russian leadership being pretty clear about precisely what that was from day one. By...y'know...telling everyone. As Maya Angelou said, "when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time" - they haven't just shown us (a lot) but have also gone to the trouble of spelling it out. It's about time people actually believed them.
I feel terrible for the common Russian soldiers, who are poorly trained, poorly equipped, barely fed, and have little desire to fight this war. But at the same time, they should also be aware of how little their lives matter to their leadership, and how increasingly pointless their mission is. And there has always been an option available for common soldiers in such a situation...
It seems like time for some oligarchs with diminishing wealth and influence to arrange for an `accident` for Putin.
