SGR

I'm just saying that jwb is dreaming if he thinks we'll be repaid financially (it'd be nice, but aint happening any time soon) - What is your highest concern right now?

jwb

You aren't any kind of profiteer.

jwb

We won't be repaid because the Ukrainian people don't respect the cucked commander in chief Joe Biden

The Batlord

Do you really think America would give a hobo a nickel if they didn't expect a blowjob? If all goes "well" Ukraine is just trading Russian hard power for American soft power.

Neither are you. And stop pussyfooting around with these bull**** jokes and be open about your two bit conservative talking points you got from Fox or Glenn Greenwald or your dad or whoever. And you accuse me of hiding behind memes.

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jwb

What serious point did you expect I'm making? Lol. I'm trying to troll as blatantly as possible and somehow you still go for the bait.

SGR

I was asking what your highest concern was - which might be a separate question as to what you think America wants in return. Just because America expects something in return doesn't mean they'll get it (foreign policy blunders abound).

Keep this talk of blowjobs and hard power to a minimum please, or you're gonna make me blush.

The Batlord

Yes you troll always as a right winger cause you're not dumb enough to fully commit to that **** but you don't believe in anything else so you still kinda act like one anyway. I mean deep down you really want to be unironically into Trump and Alex Jones don't you?

I want Russian troops out of Ukraine and concern trolling over "who's going to pay for it" is a psyop.

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Ayn Marx

If, as I suspect, Putin was a law unto himself when this insane war started, few other than Putin knew what they were getting into. We can only hope a relatively sane group of top Russian military remove Putin from his seat of power. If they don’t this psychopath will start WWIII.

rubber soul

There is speculation that Putin may order a nuclear strike but the generals will refuse to follow his orders and maybe even overthrow him. Could be wishful thinking.

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SGR

Y'know this brings up another idea - could it be that Russian generals and military brass are slow-rolling this thing because Putin is more sick/ill than we know?

E.g. Putin asks them why they haven't sieged and taken over this place or that place and they respond: "Oh, well we need this and we need that and as soon as you get those to us, we'll get right on it" - they then get the requested supplies - "Oh, thanks but the shipment was slightly wrong, you sent this instead of that..." etc.

In circumstances where they know they'd lose their own life if they didn't sacrafice a third of their men in a war operation, they might not hesitate, but if they know Putin is on his way out soon, and is losing his grip on power, perhaps slow-rolling the operation and waiting it out appears a more sane alternative than sacraficing a third of their unit in a messy military operation.

Or perhaps it's just incompetence and poor planning.

The Putin of old seemed to be a cold calculating bastard. The idea that he'd green light this without getting his military advisors deeply involved would seem strange to me. To your point, it's possible that he's surrounded by so many yes-men that they wouldn't tell him the truth if it's a truth he wouldn't like - even if that's the case though, I suppose Putin wouldn't really know what they were getting into. I know that the Kremlin controls the domestic information/propaganda pretty tightly, but you'd think even still, word would spread in whispers about his failing health, and that would do anything but instill confidence in the operation among the military.

Fair enough - it's more and more looking like that's what is going to happen, though it's hard to know what news sources to rely on. But if I had to place a bet, I don't think Russia is winning this thing. Putin's most face-saving out at this point might be to try and maintain control of the limited areas they have and try to spin that domestically as a "Great Russian Victory"