Everyone talking about Russian invasion and the war, but I am looking at the direct cause which is Putin. There speculation/rumors that he's been held up in his palace after Covid began. Apparently he is super paranoid about getting sick too...hence his pictures/videos show him maintain a big distance from his generals/cabinet.
I'm thinking him being holed up in his palace has made him stir crazy. At this point, don't know what to expect from this guy. Either that or his age is getting to him. I am not sure if other Russia govt officials have the balls to stand up to him. Curious if there are any Russians here or those with Russian roots. Is there support for the war or are people wanting Putin to be removed?
That's a good question I haven't seen anyone ask yet. Haven't seen any mention or murmurs about his health, physical or mental. I figured all those pics of him sitting on the other end of the ridiculously long tables were just for ego stroking. For going stir crazy, you'd think a man who runs such a large country would be able to find a way to duck out to one of his yachts or villas spread around places like the med.
For support, supposedly he just hit really high approval ratings. But as all things "news" these days, I'd take it with a grain of salt.
Now you got me wondering if maybe he is acting out of health fears? Edit: Sequoia said what I was thinking re: acting out of fear of not much time left.
No idea. Given how Ukraine hasn't fallen yet, seems he's really overplayed his hand. But maybe not, if the capital falls within the month then he may have achieved his objectives but if it drags longer than that I think domestically it'll be really hard for him to justify to his people
It's a crazy situation. Even China isn't comfortable endorsing it as they're still biding their time over there but Russia probably rushed into it. My guess is Putin saw these crazy inflationary pressures in U.S., saw the weakness of Biden and realized that at nearly 70yrs old he doesn't have much time left to cement his legacy. Who knows how this plays out from here
The armed convoy heading for the capital will take it in due time sadly. Russia is trying to win this with as little bloodshed as possible. Yes, their view on the world stage has been gutted but they know brazen war crimes (aka thousands of civilians dead) is something that might not be tolerated.
Think you are right where he saw the opening with Biden. For better or for worse, Trump was close enough with him that there was somewhat of an allyship there, that's gone out the window. Also believe that nations are more reliant on Russia now than in the last 10-20 years for energy, so he has much of europe by the balls. He saw an opening and is taking it - and unfortunately will be successful. The question then comes are other former soviet territories next. What are the long term consequences of these actions. Do the hard hitting economic sanctions destabilize Russia further, and push Putin into a corner where more options are on the table. Never a good thing when nukes are involved. No doubt China is also watching closely in regards to eventually seizing Taiwan.
I think another important question is will the EU accept Ukraine and if so does that have any material impact for Ukraine's current situation? Some believe that if Russia successfully overtakes Ukraine, he will continue to move West and that Poland will be next.
If Putin follows the Syria playbook, god help Ukraine. It's gonna be a bloodbath.
Exactly. "Bro Russia sending like 40,000 troops and a small assortment of transports in a country with almost 50 million people and a fighting force of 800,000 (including reserves)!!! Russia hasn't taken the capital which is like 800km away yet and its already been almost 6 whole days, Russia must be incompetent!!! The totally real Ghost of Kiev has already shot down like a bajillion dumb commie fighters!!"
The US invasion began March 20th, and the US had air superiority day 1 and a city with 500k people in four days. Putin doesn't have air superiority or any population centers.
Mentioned this in another comment, but no I don't think so. Like you said, he's incredibly paranoid about covid. I agree with what you said that being holed up may have taken a mental toll on him. I don't think right now was the best time to launch an invasion. Back in 2019, Macron said NATO was brain dead. Trump even floated leaving NATO. There's a decent chance there could be a President in 2025 that's more Kremlin friendly. Putin could have waited a few years and NATO would have been even more disjointed.
Always thought Putin was a very calculating and rational guy. I think something changed and he did not fully think through what he did.
he must've been overworked due to 90 hours. someone send him a peloton and "pRoTecteD sAtuRdaYs"
In the German media, they recently did a psychological analysis of him and one of the guys said something interesting; he said “Putin is an incredibly rational human being and he still acts rationally according to his views and perspectives.”
The thing is that his views and perspectives are completely twisted, and maybe that’s because of COVID. From our point of view, we know that the West just wants to live in peace and never showed an aggression towards anybody.
But consider his point of view: the US remains the dominant force in geopolitics while Russia isn’t doing too well. Remember, that’s a man who has lived and breathed the Soviet Union. He sees the West as the enemy who Russia can’t keep up with and he has to watch Ukraine turn towards the West and NATO. What will the Russian people and his allies think when they see the benefits of the Western lifestyle in Ukraine? Plus, he considers Selenskyi and the current Ukraine to be an extended arm of his enemy, the West, which has demonstrated its willingness to fight Russia during the on-going border wars in Eastern Ukraine. So he waits until the West is weak and attacks Ukraine to establish his power.
In his twisted world, that’s super rational. The question is, what will happen next? The Western sanctions are working really well, 50% of the Russian population are against the war and the Russian elite is bleeding. The war is taking longer than he anticipated and that’s costing him billions of dollars every day. He may annex Ukraine over the coming weeks, but the pressure on him will continue to build, both in Ukraine, where the people will never accept a pro-Russian government, and in Russia, where the people will be cut off from the rest of the world. Unfortunately, I don’t see him just pulling off his troops without a bang. But at least, this continued rationality makes me hopeful that he won’t start a nuclear war. After all, he is the one who has to fear a nuclear war if he fears for his safety and wants Russian dominance; both he and Russia would be obliterated by Western nukes and even though severely damaged (maybe irreparably damaged), the West would survive, not Russia. If he throws an atomic bomb on NATO territory, the US will destroy Moscow and St. Petersburg within minutes. And that’s when the whole of Russia will be 100% against him too; assuming he survives the bombs, US intelligence should be able to locate him within a 20km radius.
So my prediction is: within the next weeks, he will annex the Ukraine but will have severe political pressure in Russia and unrests in Ukraine. He will blame the West. When he sees no other choice, he might send an Atomic bomb into the Atlantic or the North Sea to scare away the west. But he wouldn’t start a full-blown nuclear war. After a couple of months, he will slowly and quietly retreat from Ukraine and sanctions will be lifted. International courts and Europeans might shame him but he’ll just remember them that he has nuclear weapons a couple of times more and that plus the fact that the West will be relieved as well will lead to there being very few repercussions for Russia. And then he’ll just wait for his next opportunity.
seems people on here are really buying in to the subversive press. Putin is perfectly sane and much smarter than anyone on this forum.
The man did permanent damage to the economy and reputation of Russia, and probably the military too since it's pretty clear the invasion is not going as planned. All to stop a country that didn't have a chance to join NATO in the first place.
He murdered his own citizens before he started murdering Ukrainians. So no, he's never been of sound mind.
Hey where is your liberal outrage when Poland denied non-white people entrance but welcomed white Ukrainians without checking their documents?
"Hey why didn't you respond to this completely separate argument about a news event that isn't in anyway related to your comment?!"
Putin's state of mind is vastly greater than Bidens. He is articulate, cognisant, and still firmly in charge of a country where coups/power struggles should not be ruled out.
what people are mistaking for an improper state of mind is actually a lack of awareness/understanding as to the causes that created this conflict.
Now the above is not to say i support this conflict or think it was a good idea. What i am saying is that there were clear articulable reasons/justifications in Putin's mind other than "i want to be in history books" - imo he already ranks way up there, not that there is much competition in people like Yeltsin, Gorbachev or the early mass murderers (of their own soviet / russian people) Bolshevik leaders . The military success or lack there off can as pointed out above either be attributed to a slow and steady time pace of the operation or a combination of unanticipated resistance / poor logistics / actual army units - but that doesn't point to lack of proper state of mind. Perhaps rather an intelligence service that was afraid to tell the truth / an Army chief of staff that didnt want to admit that all the budget money allocated to modernization was probably stolen/grafted away.
Personally i have no idea what he wants to realistically achieve other than regime change. He would never want to annex all of Ukraine. Id say perhaps the cemeting of the two seperatists republics as independent entities...perhaps an additional one based around Kharkov and maybe another one that cuts off Ukraine from Black Sea. Maybe even just a split down the middle type situation and create a new "union of states" based around the "Novaja Rossija" concept which would strongly follow demographic / ethnic self determination that the west is so fond of when it suits their own interests (like in Kosovo etc) and has a basis in history...that i would say would be the maximum extent.
More realistically perhaps much greater autonomy for the two regions within Ukraine - i do not know a good example, perhaps Quebec in Canada? but doubt hed go back on his recognition of them so id say as a minimum his expected outcome would be their independence and a treaty / (perhaps even constitution change) cementing Ukraine's status as independent of EU / Nato.
Here is Biden's quoted response today, unscripted, to a reporter's question re: what he is able to say publicly after an off the record meeting with press. Did you ever hear Trump put together this many syllables in one coherent thought that wasn't written down on paper for him to read? I'll grant you that no 70+ year olds should be running the country, but the GOP talking point that Biden is a senile nursing home patient is massive gaslighting.
"The only thing that I think is important that I’m going to talk about -- that I can talk with you because I’ve talked about it before; it’s not news -- is my determination to see to it that the EU, NATO, all of our allies are on the same exact page…in terms of sanctions against Russia and how we deal with the invasion -- and it is an invasion -- of Ukraine. Because that’s the one thing that gives us power to impose severe consequences on Putin for what he’s done and one of the few things that I’m confident he's going to have think twice about, long term, as this continues to bite. So, it’s the unity of NATO and the West.”
sorry, perhaps its my fault for including Biden in this conversation so i cant really reprimand you for bringing up your obsession Trump into the conversation other than saying that Trump is now for all intents and purposes is irrelevant as he is not a sitting President anymore.
whether there is a gaslighting going on about Biden or not is questionable...i can certainly sit through endless reels of his gafs and old age senilism creeping through. perhaps it is the tightly controlled media circus around Putin but i dont recall seeing one video of that for him (other than hearing a mention of him slipping up whilst on an ice hockey rink).
but i agree its bizarre that people like most of the users on this forum will probably have to worry about employment at 60 (assuming not everyone ends up a BSD MD / Partner who can retire at 40/50) when we have complete geriatrics running the country at 70/80+
Russia tried to strong arm a poor country into not signing a trade deal with EU, an economy 10x that of Russia. And unsurprisingly that did not go well.
There were 18 civilian casualties in the war in Ukraine in 2021, and that includes deaths by pro-Ukraine militias, pro-Russia ones, as well as accidents and crossfire. There are no genocides being carried out by Nazis right now and even if they were, Putin is going far beyond the areas those militias are operating in and is taking over the entire country.
There were barely any NATO troops in Eastern or Central Europe until after 2014. It was basically a joke. But Putin's creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Launching aggressive military actions is just going to make countries support the idea of joining a military alliance more. After this war there will be missiles and tanks sold like crazy to every Eastern NATO member.
Now Putin's basically given up everything. His economy is in shambles. Oligarchs and low-level politicians are speaking out about it, something unheard of. His buddies both in the West (Trump, Tucker, etc.) and internationally, like China are not willing to side with him over this. He's lost the war of opinions so badly that fucking Sweden is even arming Ukraine. And his invasion is going far worse than expected, since the shit Ukrainian air force still controls the skies and he has not taken a single population center. When the drafted 18 year olds hit the front lines it will get even worse.
If Putin had a clear state of mind he should have taken a long hard look at the pros and cons of the situation. Invading a country controlled by a perpetrator of genocide for "WMDs" damaged US reputation to this day. (See the people comparing this to Iraq) Putin's invading a much more well liked country for a much stupider reason. The cost of this will be insurmountable.
Drumpfy, Russia has not targeted civilians even though NATO and the actor President sent arms to Ukraine and encouraged Ukrainians to fight back. Remember any Ukrainian men aged 18-60 are not allowed to leave the country so that they can fight the Russian troops.
Just today Russian gave out warnings to Ukrainians about a incoming bombing of a propaganda center so that they can evacuate beforehand, but ironically the propaganda center, the NATO media, did absolutely nothing to warn the civilians. Their own people.
The Ukrainian people who are fighting back are brave, they have my respect and my hearts are with them. But do you think the Ukrainian president and NATO really care about them? Is it the best idea to give untrained civilians arms for them to fight back?
And of course traditional allies like China and India are not outright backing Putin. It's an invasion. Who would come out and support an invasion (except for NATO when the US does it maybe). For China and India, not publicly condemning Russia is already the best Putin hoped for.
You are also deranged if you want to compare the reputation of US and Russia among the "international community". Propaganda works.
None of those reasons explain why he should be invading Ukraine. Also phrasing - "Nato's encroachment" kinda clear on side.
Completely agree with Drumpfy. Russia was in bad shape before this, and seems like a nail in the coffin. Maybe was a last ditch effort of some kind by Putin? But seems unlikely because of how unlikely it was to succeed. You have to believe he knew it would be unsuccessful. So not really sure why he proceeded. Does remind me of Hitler attacking Russia in WWII for that reason. Will be very interesting to figure out why Putin undertook the invasion once there's been time to assess, if we'll ever know.
There are just so many ways the West can devastate an already reeling Russia economically. He had to be aware of this.
We no longer live in the unipolar world of 1999 and I don't think the U.S. gov't has realized that. Nato's positioning in eastern Europe has pushed Putin into a corner. If America wants to continue existing as the world's hegemon, it needs to do so by constructing an international framework that allows a reasonable guarantee of security for all countries. It has failed to do so with Russia. I think we all need to think deeply about exactly what conflict with Russia means.
NATO was a fucking joke until Putin invaded the first time in 2014. Something like 11% of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO in 2011. Putin brought it all upon himself. Aggressive military action bolsters support for a military alliance.
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Calling a foreign head of state "mad" and "deluded" is a tactic as old as time.
People who genuinely believe that a person, for all intents and purposes is the emperor of a country that makes up 13% of the world's landmass is not razor sharp, are simply brainwashed by jew media.
Taking Ukraine would increase Russia's population by nearly 40%, and all of Ukraine's people can be easily assimilated and integrated into the Russian Empire. Such a move, even if not stunningly successful, would embolden the powers that be in the East to annex and conquer their own enemies, assured that NATO would be impotent against their might.
If the Russians decide that taking an intact Ukraine is too expensive and bothersome, they shall simply barrage Ukraine to high heaven with casualties in the low 8 digits if they wish.
Furthermore, you must remember that the current emperor of the Russian Empire was born and raised in a more civilized era, when the Soviet Union was a hegemon with military and nuclear might that far surpassed the US. The fact that he is not going full conventional conquest style (massive scorching, bombarding, raping, looting, genociding) speaks to ulterior motives beyond simple conquest of Ukraine. Perhaps the Russian Empire is conspiring with Great Qing to draw out any experimental and secretive next-generation vehicles and weapons that NATO may test in Ukraine, or have formed a coalition with statesmen in the ivory towers of Whitehall, Brussels or Washington in a global plot.
"brainwashed by Jew media"
It's hilarious how many anti-Semites and other far right creeps are supporting a guy who destroyed an entire country to "denazify" it. No policies nor logic, just doing the opposite of what libs say
I am not a nazi (I am a supporter of many of their beliefs and ideologies, however). Putin's goals and morals may not fit perfectly with my own, but he is by far the lesser of two evils when we're talking about modern-day traditional and authoritarian regimes (Russia, China) versus the filthy, avaricious and vain capitalist countries.
Does Nixon and Saddam get the same covid pass too? I am pretty sure both those dudes experienced house arrest and couldn't travel freely for a while too.
There is lots of information out there about who Putin is and what he has always transpired to be. Russian media shows him talking to his staff all the time guy literally tells people to stfu and cuts them off, he televises this stuff to show how his democracy is run.
I get the west does not like or think our current leadership is capable but really not sure how we can compare them to the other side of the world.
Issue is if you ask a regular Russian and they will say Putin was the guy who stabilized their economy and brought back the oligarchs into power. Lots of places in the world lack democracy and look other way if their leaders give them economic progress.
Russia's been stagnating economically since 2014 when his little Ukraine obsession took center stage and the first invasion happened. It's been almost ten years since any improvements, and the Russian people are starting to forget about the good years.
A lot of seeming Putin sympathizers and rationalizers here. Very sad. He's clearly in a deteriorated state of mind and grossly miscalculated. And yes, he is losing.
He’s always been like this. Other parts of the world have different cultures, especially when you were apart of the kgb. In the west we’ve been lucky (if you’re younger) to not have to experience any REAL conflict. The worst thing we had in the usa was 9/11 (but most of us were too young to care or see it). Throughout history war has been common and normal. Even war for the sake of wanting power was normal throughout history and in some parts of the world. We as westerners are just lucky to never experience something like that, however that doesn’t mean Putin is crazy. He just comes from a whole different mindset and culture.
Now of course I disagree with his Ukraine invasion and I think it’s very wrong of him, however he has always been like this. I think he’s just been wanting to re-establish the soviet countries since that’s the only way he can make russia “better” since his economic and social policies don’t help the countries much. However, all he needed was an excuse to fully invade Ukraine (NATO) since he thought that would make the outside world think his invasion was a “defense”. This clearly has worked in some cases, China is willingly backing putin, along with a few other countries. But the countries with a backbone saw through the BS and crippled the Russian economy in response. I’m interested to see how this plays out
What nonsense is this. War isn't part of a society's culture - it's a tactic used by deranged elite to gain power and control at the cost of the working class. Revolutions are of course different, but I do not think you are alluding to those.
War has been common and normal because state led propaganda worked extremely well, before the age of social media. Now we have access to on the ground footage of injustices that are committed a few minutes after they happen. Social media has humanized the other side, something that state media has to achieve the opposite of, in order to motivate the common man to take up arms and potentially lose his life. Russians and Ukranians alike realize that the common folk across the border are just like them. They have families, go to work, laugh, cry, have hobbies, and in every sense are just normal human beings. And it's not just Russia and Ukraine. It's almost every country in the world at this point.
You're acting like war is justified. Apart from revolutions, wars are not justified. Extreme economic sanctions and the like are required to stop the elites. Money speaks better than blood to these elites as they have no soul and could care less for their fellow countrymen.
Are you claiming that the USSR was better for the common man than the modern day bloc of Eastern European countries and Russia? More power and money for the elites perhaps, but no freedoms and economic opportunities for the common man.
I think he's saying that instead of improving the state of life for people Russia, he's physically expanding it to include the old Soviet republics.
ok....
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