Latest Ukraine/Russia Thread

[Hayato]

What do you think about this clip from the show "Madam Secretary" from 2015?

 

Predictive programming, or what?

 

 

[Lyubov]

https://meduza.io/amp/en/feature/2025/10/09/putin-admits-russian-air-defenses-downed-azerbaijan-airlines-flight-last-year-killing-38
 

Pay attention: some of you were parroting typical brain rot conspiracy theory reasoning about how the West is responsible for whatever Russia does that’s cruel and awful. Typical brain rot denial about reasonable assumptions because it serves your stage blue right wing fear based biases. 

Putin has admitted his military downed that plane from last year. Probably because he doesn’t have as much geopolitical sway these days due to his country being weakened by the war he started. He needs to be far more diplomatic with his neighbors because he’s burned through a lot of trust and good will.  
 

Learn from this, next time you try to reach for a made up defense like a Fox News anchor 

Edited October 9 by Lyubov

[zazen]

Looks innocent on the surface but can have major implications

“A Tomahawk missile is dual-use capable — meaning that while the U.S. versions being sent are conventionally armed, Russia can’t easily tell that from radar alone. From their perspective, when a Tomahawk is inbound, they have no way to distinguish whether it carries a nuclear or conventional warhead.

That uncertainty matters because:

Flight profiles look similar. Tomahawks fly low, slow, and stealthy, and can approach targets from unpredictable directions — the same as a nuclear-armed variant.

Radar warning times are minimal. By the time Russian systems detect a launch, there may be only minutes to decide if it’s a nuclear strike. That compresses decision time and increases the risk of miscalculation or panic escalation.

Command nerves. Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows nuclear use if it perceives a “decapitating” attack on leadership or command-and-control infrastructure. A deep-strike cruise missile attack could easily look like that.

Historical precedent. This mirrors Cold War fears during the Pershing II deployments in the 1980s — short warning times + nuclear ambiguity nearly triggered preemptive doctrines.

So yes — even a single conventional Tomahawk fired into Russian territory could trigger worst-case assumptions inside Moscow. That’s why many strategists call this a “stability-destroying” weapon in this theater: not because of its power per se, but because of the ambiguity it creates.

In essence, the danger isn’t the weapon itself — it’s how it’s perceived under pressure.“

[BlueOak]

China has called for banning all rare metal exports to western countries.
 

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/10/chinas-new-restrictions-rare-earth-exports-send-stark-warning-west

There are plenty of stories and POV's on it if anyone needs more.

This is why its always been incredibly stupid to give China as much leverage as it's received over our economies. I have said so for a very long time now.  It's like we want to make life hard for ourselves, or rather, money is always more important than regulation far too often. Meanwhile, America has called for 100% tariffs on China, after they started all of this mess.

In Russian the economy still keeps tanking, four day work weeks are being normalised. Transport connections are failing, people can't get gas, and truck lines are queuing up. A true remake of the USSR's fall. 
 

 

I saw a great statement.
If a snail had started at the border of Russia when this war started, it'd be in Poland by now.

Edited October 11 by BlueOak

[Lyubov]

These new longe range missiles could maybe make Putin reconsider some of his objectives. He should have accepted Trump’s off ramp deal. We have been in this state of unknown since the beginning of this invasion and no one really knows how it’s going to end. I think at this point both sides see themselves fighting for a couple more years, then based on what they each have will agree to a deal. I don’t think these missiles will be some massive game change but they could maybe make Moscow take a peace deal more seriously. Really I doubt the line on the map will move much. It’s really a matter of getting Moscow to agree to a ceasefire with what they have and Ukraine getting security guarantees. 

[BlueOak]

Both Ukraine and Russia will be very cold this winter.

Kyiv lost its power.
So now, as promised, Moscow has lost its power. Just for a few hours, but Belgorod wasn't so lucky again.
 

Will the Russians learn to stop firing at power plants? Probably not.

Edited October 12 by BlueOak

[BlueOak]

Update on the two moronic Russian encirclements of their propaganda push, looks like the third group held (sort of) but the drones are still stopping any movement. They've tried over many days/weeks to reach these forces now and just keep getting vehicles ripped to shreds by drones. So they've resorted to sending out suicide squads crawling over the ground to try to reach the cut-off units.
 

It wasn't the most costly encirclement of the war, but its turning into it, by them just keeping sending old-styled armored columns, trying to ignore the drones.
 

*This video helps expand the understanding of how drones shape the battlefield control.

I can't remember the video now but up in Sumy these tactics are being exploited.

Russia will not withdraw from terrain they set foot in, so Ukraine bypasses them and just hits their supplies, over and over and over. They are getting destroyed up there too, and some say routed, because everyone knows what they will do. Rush to a settlement, jump off light bikes or cars, and then try to dig in, with nothing much but small arms. No supplies to speak of.

Edited October 16 by BlueOak

[Raze]

 

[Aaron p]

Tomahawk missiles? Trump turning a corner?

...trump being forced to turn a corner.....?

[zazen]

“Ukraine cannot win its war with Russia and should negotiate peace terms with the Kremlin, according to Britain’s most senior army officer.

Reflecting on Ukraine’s chances of success against Russia, he said: “My view is that they would not win.”

“Could not win, even with the right resources?” he was asked.

“No,” he replied.

Pressed further by The Independent, he was asked: “ Even with the right resources?”

“No, they haven’t got the manpower,” the former commando said.

In his first long-form podcast interview, Lord Richards, the only British officer to have commanded massed US troops at war since 1945, said the outlook for Ukraine was not good.

“Unless we were to go in with them – which we won’t do because Ukraine is not an existential issue for us. It clearly is for the Russians, by the way,” he said on World of Trouble.

“We’ve decided because it’s not an existential issue, we will not go to war."
 

Sobering truth from 36min - 50min from UK’s top army officer.

Another good one:

 

[Basman]

32 minutes ago, zazen said:

“Ukraine cannot win its war with Russia and should negotiate peace terms with the Kremlin, according to Britain’s most senior army officer.

It's worthless to negotiate any kind of peace without security guarantees. Russia can easily just breach those guarantees at a later date. This has been argued for extensively already.

Certain Europeans are going to be biased towards sacrificing Ukraine to Russia to get it over with because they can't effectively mobilize against Russia due to political incapability. But Russia is at war with Europe as well through hybrid warfare, trying to undermine democracy, so it is in the interest of Europeans to fight back as well. 

This is why I think Ukraine might go nuclear in the near future. 

[BlueOak]

Putins going bankrupt, his country is falling apart, and now he's desperate.

So he's back to rolling out his cronies to try and save him with the old tired lines. Ukraine can't win.

Well they are doing, and he's never been closer to being replaced. I've never seen Putin panic but I am doing now. I've never seen so much damage to them internally, and its happened in less than 3 months.

I've never said that I am certain he's going bankrupt unless he gets bailed out, but I am doing now.

Here is a microcosm for you:

This is what's happening to the west of Russia not just Crimea. They won't have power or fuel for generators in the west of Russia. The Occupied territories are toast, but Moscow is going to be squeezed, as Ukraine is hitting anything going into Moscow. Its hit 19 refineries repeatedly, oil depots, gas lines, power plants all surrounding Russia, its starting to starve the capital of fuel.

All while their imports dry up as they can't get in, they can't get around in cars, their main transport lines fall to half capacity. 

So Yeah Russia is toast. All they've got left is rhetoric and a grinding advance that depletes all their youth for hardly any land. I'm going to say Putin's already dead, unless someone like Trump bails him out, which is possible. All they've got left to look forward to is worse and worse conditions in their country, and it can't be fixed because they've put themselves so far in the hole.

*To amend this China and India can pick up more of the tab, but all that does is delay the inevitable resolution (Which IMHO will be the death of Putin, unless he settles in negotiaton, which is unlikely.)

Should add: Ukraine's missile and drone production are way up and only increasing. This is 2.5 months of it, wait till 6 months. There will be nothing of that country left.
 

 

Edited Monday at 11:28 AM by BlueOak

[Ajay0]

On 10/20/2025 at 1:09 AM, Basman said:

It's worthless to negotiate any kind of peace without security guarantees. Russia can easily just breach those guarantees at a later date. This has been argued for extensively already.

Certain Europeans are going to be biased towards sacrificing Ukraine to Russia to get it over with because they can't effectively mobilize against Russia due to political incapability. But Russia is at war with Europe as well through hybrid warfare, trying to undermine democracy, so it is in the interest of Europeans to fight back as well. 

This is why I think Ukraine might go nuclear in the near future. 

A nuclear war can wipe out the US, Europe, Ukraine and Russia from existence, and make a radioactive wasteland of these countries .

Other countries like India can sent rescue personnel and logistical resources under UN command to evacuate survivors as in the elderly, women and children from the US, Europe and Russia and bring them to safer zones. However such rescue missions will be highly risky and dangerous with many variables involved.

The alternative is to engage in diplomacy, negotiatians and bring about a ceasefire and peace. 

The two world wars which originated in europe killing over a hundred million people, were said to have arose due to failures in diplomacy.  The europeans should learn from past lessons in history instead of foolishly repeating them .

[Basman]

2 hours ago, Ajay0 said:

The two world wars which originated in europe killing over a hundred million people, were said to have arose due to failures in diplomacy.  The europeans should learn from past lessons in history instead of foolishly repeating them .

Russia doesn't want peace and isn't interested in diplomacy unless it is sufficiently destructive for Ukraine's governability. This is why Trump's negotiations fail. He thinks Putin will be happy with a "good deal" of material substance, but Putin doesn't want peace.

Russia can only be prevented from further escalation by being stonewalled military. Ukranians themselves are going to rely less on western countries when there's a lack of support.

It doesn't help that Trump is ideologically allies with Putin. It's an unfortunate development if Ukraine goes nuclear.

[zazen]

On 10/19/2025 at 8:39 PM, Basman said:

It's worthless to negotiate any kind of peace without security guarantees. Russia can easily just breach those guarantees at a later date. This has been argued for extensively already.

Certain Europeans are going to be biased towards sacrificing Ukraine to Russia to get it over with because they can't effectively mobilize against Russia due to political incapability. But Russia is at war with Europe as well through hybrid warfare, trying to undermine democracy, so it is in the interest of Europeans to fight back as well. 

This is why I think Ukraine might go nuclear in the near future. 

I agree - it requires an inclusive security architecture of “indivisible security” as they say. The problem is a security guarantee is as good as NATO article 5 which is a large factor of this war to begin with - hence it needs to be made to include Russia rather than exclude them.

All this hybrid warfare exists because when two powers are too strong to go directly at each other - things go ghost protocol and grey zone tactics instead. Countries (mainly powers) engage in these things  all the time (welcome to geopolitics) but Russia’s engagement is intensified and shadowy due to the larger geopolitical struggle and stakes at play.

Israel literally spies on its allies and they aren’t even rivals. Russia’s intelligence services are as active as the CIA, MI6 or Mossad. They differ in style, visibility and intensity. Western agencies can influence via NGOs, media and “democracy promotion”.  Lobbying in the West is basically legalised influence which Russia is locked out of. So Israel, Saudi Arabia, or European allies / US corporates can “influence” each other officially while Russia uses unofficial means.

The bottom line in reducing all those tensions (and hybrid antics which will never go away but can only ever be managed in the world of politics) is normalisation of ties and a proper security architecture that resolves the underlying tension between Russia’s relationship with the West.

Write this in another thread but it’s worth a read (including the Glen Diesen Substack):

On 8/22/2025 at 7:41 PM, zazen said:

Speaking of the Turkey-Istanbul deal and comparing it to today’s supposed deal in the making.

The reason this situation is referred to as a security dilemma is because a security guarantee requires a strong enough guarantor. But then that means two strong rivals who today have nukes could come head to head which is very high risk. It’s essentially tripwire Armageddon.

Having the guarantees be exclusively under a Western alliance is functionally NATO-lite. Your chained to whoever underwrites your security - so it being a bloc of Western powers means it can still be used as a pawn in a larger geopolitical game.

If the guarantees are multi-lateral or multi-polar - they dilute unilateral dominance and bloc logic. That way it also avoids Ukraine becoming anyone’s vassal and everyone has a stake in peace.

Post-WWII Austria followed that model. Austria was guaranteed by the US, USSR, Britain, and France. No one could absorb it without triggering the others, and it’s been neutral and stable till today.

A older but good Substack article from Glenn Dieseen going over this and the end game as the title of the thread says.

Post-WWII Austria proves the model can work. Austrian security was guaranteed by the US, USSR, Britain, and France. No one could absorb it without triggering the others, and it’s been neutral and stable since.

A older but good Substack article from Glenn Diesen going over the Istanbul deal and the endgame of all this.

https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/sabotage-of-the-istanbul-peace-agreement

Sabotage of the Istanbul Peace Agreement 

The Making of a Proxy War & the Unavoidable Istanbul+ Endgame

“In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine to impose a settlement after some NATO countries had undermined the Minsk-2 peace agreement for 7 years. On the first day after the invasion, Zelensky confirmed that Moscow contacted him to discuss negotiations based on restoring Ukraine’s neutrality.[1] On the third day after the invasion, Russia and Ukraine agreed to start negotiations on a peace based on Russian military withdrawal in return for Ukrainian neutrality.[2] Zelensky responded favourably to this condition, and he even called for a “collective security agreement” to include Russia to mitigate the security competition that had sparked the war.[3]

The negotiations that followed are referred to as the Istanbul negotiations, in which Russia and Ukraine were close to an agreement before the US and the UK sabotaged it.

Washington Rejects Negotiations Without Preconditions

In Washington, there were great incentives to use the large proxy army it had built in Ukraine to weaken Russia as a strategic rival, rather than accepting a neutral Ukraine. On the first day after the Russian invasion, when Zelensky responded favourably to start negotiations without preconditions, the US spokesperson rejected peace talks without preconditions as Russia would first have to withdraw all its forces from Ukraine:

“Now we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy take place at the barrel of a gun or as Moscow’s rockets, mortars, artillery target the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy… If President Putin is serious about diplomacy, he knows what he can do. He should immediately stop the bombing campaign against civilians, order the withdrawal of his forces from Ukraine, and indicate very clearly, unambiguously to the world, that Moscow is prepared to de-escalate”.[4]

This was a demand for capitulation as the Russian military presence in Ukraine was Russia’s bargaining chip to achieve the objective of restoring Ukraine’s neutrality. Less than a month later, the same US spokesperson was asked if Washington would support Zelensky’s negotiations with Moscow, in which he replied negatively as the conflict was part of a larger struggle:

“This is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine…. The key point is that there are principles that are at stake here that have universal applicability everywhere, whether in Europe, whether in the Indo-Pacific, anywhere in between”.[5]

The US and UK Demand a Long War: Fighting Russia with Ukrainians

In late March 2022, Zelensky revealed in an interview with the Economist that “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.[6]

The Israeli and Turkish mediators confirmed that Ukraine and Russia were both eager to make a compromise to end the war before the US and the UK intervened to prevent peace from breaking out.

Zelensky had contacted former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to mediate the peace negotiations with Moscow. Bennett noted that Putin was willing to make “huge concessions” if Ukraine would restore its neutrality to end NATO expansion. Zelensky accepted this condition and “both sides very much wanted a ceasefire”. However, Bennett argued that the US and UK then intervened and “blocked” the peace agreement as they favoured a long war. With a powerful Ukrainian military at its disposal, the West rejected the Istanbul peace agreement and there was a “decision by the West to keep striking Putin” instead of pursuing peace.[7]

The Turkish negotiators reached the same conclusion: Russia and Ukraine agreed to resolve the conflict by restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, but NATO decided to fight Russia with Ukrainians as a proxy. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu argued some NATO states wanted to extend the war to bleed Russia:

“After the talks in Istanbul, we did not think that the war would take this long.… But following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, I had the impression that there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue—let the war continue and Russia gets weaker. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine”.[8]

Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s political party, confirmed that Zelensky was ready to sign the peace agreement before the US intervened:

“This war is not between Russia and Ukraine, it is a war between Russia and the West. By supporting Ukraine, the United States and some countries in Europe are beginning a process of prolonging this war. What we want is an end to this war. Someone is trying not to end the war. The U.S. sees the prolongation of the war as its interest”.[9]

Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Chalyi, who participated in peace talks with Russia, confirms Putin “tried everything” to reach a peace agreement and they were able “to find a very real compromise”.[10] Davyd Arakhamia, a Ukrainian parliamentary representative and head of Zelensky’s political party, argued Russia’s key demand was Ukrainian neutrality: “They were ready to end the war if we, like Finland once did, would accept neutrality and pledge not to join NATO. In fact, that was the main point. All the rest are cosmetic and political ‘additions’”.[11] Oleksiy Arestovych, the former advisor of Zelensky, also confirmed that Russia was mainly preoccupied with restoring Ukraine’s neutrality.

The main obstacle to peace was thus overcome as Zelensky offered neutrality in the negotiations.[12] The tentative peace agreement was confirmed by Fiona Hill, a former official at the US National Security Council, and Angela Stent, a former National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia. Hill and Stent penned an article in Foreign Affairsin which they outlined the main terms of the agreement:

“Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries”.[13]

Boris Johnson Goes to Kiev

What happened to the Istanbul peace agreement? On 9 April 2022, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Kiev in a rush to sabotage the agreement and cited the killings in Bucha as the excuse. Ukrainian media reported that Johnson came to Kiev with two messages:

“The first is that Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they [the UK and US] are not”.[14]

In June 2022, Johnson told the G7 and NATO that the solution to the war was “strategic endurance” and “now is not the time to settle and encourage the Ukrainians to settle for a bad peace”.[15] Johnson also published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing against any negotiations: “The war in Ukraine can end only with Vladimir Putin’s defeat”.[16] Before Boris Johnson’s trip to Kiev, Niall Ferguson had interviewed several American and British leaders, who confirmed that a decision had been made for “the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin” as “the only end game now is the end of Putin regime”.[17]

Retired German General Harald Kujat, the former head of the German Bundeswehr and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, confirmed that Johnson had sabotaged the peace negotiations. Kujat argued: “Ukraine had pledged to renounce NATO membership and not to allow any foreign troops or military installations to be stationed’, while “Russia had apparently agreed to withdraw its forces to the level of February 23”. However, “British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened in Kiev on the 9th of April and prevented a signing. His reasoning was that the West was not ready for an end to the war”.[18] According to Kujat, the West demanded a Russian capitulation: “Now the complete withdrawal is repeatedly demanded as a prerequisite for negotiations”.[19] General Kujat explained that this position was due to the US war plans against Russia:

“Perhaps one day the question will be asked who did not want to prevent this war… Their declared goal is to weaken Russia politically, economically and militarily to such a degree that they can then turn to their geopolitical rival, the only one capable of endangering their supremacy as a world power: China… No, this war is not about our freedom… Russia wants to prevent its geopolitical rival USA from gaining a strategic superiority that threatens Russia’s security”.[20]

What was Ukraine told by the US and the UK? Why did Zelensky make a deal given that he was aware some Western states wanted to use Ukraine to exhaust Russia in a long war - even if it would destroy Ukraine? Zelensky likely received an offer he could not refuse: If Zelensky would pursue peace with Russia, then he would not receive any support from the West and he would predictably face an uprising by the far-right / fascist groups that the US had armed and trained. In contrast, if Zelensky would choose war, then NATO would send all the weapons needed to defeat Russia, NATO would impose crippling sanctions on Russia, and NATO would pressure the international community to isolate Russia. Zelensky could thus achieve what both Napoleon and Hitler had failed to achieve – to defeat Russia.

The advisor to Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovych, explained in 2019 that a major war with Russia was the price for joining NATO. Arestovych predicted that the threat of Ukraine’s accession to NATO would “provoke Russia to launch a large-scale military operation against Ukraine”, and Ukraine could join NATO after defeating Russia. Victory over Russia was assumed to be a certainty as Ukraine would merely be the spearhead of a wider NATO proxy war: “In this conflict, we will be very actively supported by the West—with weapons, equipment, assistance, new sanctions against Russia and the quite possible introduction of a NATO contingent, a no-fly zone etc. We won’t lose, and that’s good”.[21]

NATO turned on the propaganda machine to convince its public that a war against Russia was the only path to peace: The Russian invasion was “unprovoked”; Moscow’s objective was to conquer all of Ukraine to restore the Soviet Union; Russia’s withdrawal from Kiev was not a sign of good-will to be reciprocated but a sign of weakness; it was impossible to negotiate with Putin; and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg subsequently asserted that “weapons are the way to peace”. The Western public, indoctrinated with anti-Russian propaganda over decades, believed that NATO was merely a passive third-party seeking to protect Ukraine from the most recent reincarnation of Hitler. Zelensky was assigned the role as new Churchill – bravely fighting to the last Ukrainian rather than accepting a bad peace.

The Inevitable Istanbul+ Agreement to End the War

The war did not go as expected. Russia built a powerful army and defeated the NATO-built Ukrainian army; sanctions were overcome by reorienting the economy to the East; and instead of being isolated – Russia took a leading role in constructing a multipolar world order.

How can the war be brought to an end? The suggestions of a land-for-NATO membership agreement ignores that Russia’s leading objective is not territory but ending NATO expansion as it is deemed to be an existential threat. NATO expansion is the source of the conflict and territorial dispute is the consequence, thus Ukrainian territorial concessions in return for NATO membership is a non-starter.

The foundation for any peace agreement must be the Istanbul+ formula: An agreement to restore Ukraine’s neutrality, plus territorial concessions as a consequence of almost 3 years of war. Threatening to expand NATO after the end of the war will merely incentivise Russia to annex the strategic territory from Kharkov to Odessa, and to ensure that only a dysfunctional Ukrainian rump state will remain that is not capable of being used against Russia.

This is a cruel fate for the Ukrainian nation and the millions of Ukrainians who have suffered so greatly. It was also a predictable outcome, as Zelensky cautioned in March 2022: “There are those in the West who don't mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.[22]

From that time:

People need to realise this a larger war than Ukraine-Russia. The reason Tomahwaks can't be given and most likely won't be is because whilst Western involvement in this war is obvious (intelligence, ISR, Western arms and aims at the expense of Ukrainian blood etc) Tomahawks or any system that requires the very explicit involvement of the US to operate such systems (that can't simply be given to those without the operational ability) increases the tensions between rival powers who are avoiding direct conflict (a hot war vs a cold indirect one via proxy now). The stakes are simply too high unless you want to risk WW3 and gamble on that.

This is where Ukraine finds itself in a bad position - because it's provided defensive means but never the offensive means that can perhaps tilt the balance in their favor - which may not happen even if they were provided. Those offesnive weapons simply risk a hot war between Russia and the West that is being avoided at all costs by the sane minded, or being flirted with by the insane Eurocons who dream of Balkanizing Russia and taking the fight to them - not knowing what that even means.  This is why diplomacy is the only way and the cutting of losses to prevent further losses (to life or land).

As we speak there are encirclement of the front line cities with Pokrovsk being a major logistical hub in the cross hairs. The linear thinking of - Russia only captures x km of land in x amount of time therefore it would take them 100s of years to capture all of Ukraine - is simply not smart. War isn't linear - if certain places fall they can have a domino effect more than others and leave wide open spaces to take land more easily than others. Attrition warfare is never linear.

Ukraine's drone strategy is good in causing issues in Russia - but the other side of this is that facilities get repaired and back online within weeks at times, and Russia can adapt or move product to other regions to be refined etc. Things shouldn't be overstated. Even if we think the West can cause enough chaos in Russia as to have Putin overthrown - what does that achieve? Putin is actually seen as more of a moderate in Russia - do we really want someone like Medvedev to come into power? lol. 

This is a good video on the gas situation: 

We are told that to be patriotic and Pro-Western (values and all) is to egg on a Chihuahua (Ukraine) to fight a Pitbull (Russia), and that anyone talking of a diplomatic solution is a Russian bot. We can't even see the diplomacy Russia/Putin has engaged in since his coming into power, let alone early on in this as the Istanbul negotiations showed. We're lied to and pysoped about every other war or imperial arrangement (Israel-Western ties) but can't fathom similar taking place with regards to this conflict.

Edited Tuesday at 08:53 AM by zazen

[BlueOak]

Well, to keep things grounded for you all then, till I address the posts on psyops and weaponry or that somehow Russia is doing well at this very moment.

Russia is making barely any progress whatsover, the strategy is to let them take very slow gains while they destroy their own country. This is what the war looks like. Its throwing armored columns again at drones and taking such high losses because of their desperation; due to Ukranian weapon production replacing American withdrawals, the forces on the ground are reaching parity, and internally Russia is collapsing.

It's already done unless it makes a change. Its taken no major cities since 2022 for hecks sake. People have said it'll take them till 2030 to take donetsk at this pace, or over 100 years to take Ukraine. They don't have 2 years at this rate.

Edited Tuesday at 09:10 AM by BlueOak

[Kid A]

34 minutes ago, zazen said:

Glen Diesen

I've never been prouder of my fellow citizens than earlier this year, when there was a national effort to remove all advertisement for his filthy party from public spaces. It was a great success!

That guy is as trustworthy as the Kremlin. 

[BlueOak]

1 hour ago, zazen said:

I agree - it requires an inclusive security architecture of “indivisible security” as they say. The problem is a security guarantee is as good as NATO article 5 which is a large factor of this war to begin with - hence it needs to be made to include Russia rather than exclude them.

The bottom line in reducing all those tensions (and hybrid antics which will never go away but can only ever be managed in the world of politics) is normalisation of ties and a proper security architecture that resolves the underlying tension between Russia’s relationship with the West.

Write this in another thread but it’s worth a read (including the Glen Diesen Substack):

People need to realise this a larger war than Ukraine-Russia. The reason Tomahwaks can't be given and most likely won't be is because whilst Western involvement in this war is obvious (intelligence, ISR, Western arms and aims at the expense of Ukrainian blood etc) Tomahawks or any system that requires the very explicit involvement of the US to operate such systems (that can't simply be given to those without the operational ability) increases the tensions between rival powers who are avoiding direct conflict (a hot war vs a cold indirect one via proxy now). The stakes are simply too high unless you want to risk WW3 and gamble on that.

This is where Ukraine finds itself in a bad position - because it's provided defensive means but never the offensive means that can perhaps tilt the balance in their favor - which may not happen even if they were provided. Those offesnive weapons simply risk a hot war between Russia and the West that is being avoided at all costs by the sane minded, or being flirted with by the insane Eurocons who dream of Balkanizing Russia and taking the fight to them - not knowing what that even means.  This is why diplomacy is the only way and the cutting of losses to prevent further losses (to life or land).

As we speak there are encirclement of the front line cities with Pokrovsk being a major logistical hub in the cross hairs. The linear thinking of - Russia only captures x km of land in x amount of time therefore it would take them 100s of years to capture all of Ukraine - is simply not smart. War isn't linear - if certain places fall they can have a domino effect more than others and leave wide open spaces to take land more easily than others. Attrition warfare is never linear.

Ukraine's drone strategy is good in causing issues in Russia - but the other side of this is that facilities get repaired and back online within weeks at times, and Russia can adapt or move product to other regions to be refined etc. Things shouldn't be overstated. Even if we think the West can cause enough chaos in Russia as to have Putin overthrown - what does that achieve? Putin is actually seen as more of a moderate in Russia - do we really want someone like Medvedev to come into power? lol. 

This is a good video on the gas situation: 

We are told that to be patriotic and Pro-Western (values and all) is to egg on a Chihuahua (Ukraine) to fight a Pitbull (Russia), and that anyone talking of a diplomatic solution is a Russian bot. We can't even see the diplomacy Russia/Putin has engaged in since his coming into power, let alone early on in this as the Istanbul negotiations showed. We're lied to and pysoped about every other war or imperial arrangement (Israel-Western ties) but can't fathom similar taking place with regards to this conflict.

Let's start with the facts:

Oil facilities are repeatedly hit. As are deposits, pipelines, infastructure, pumping stations, etc. Each time it gets progressively harder to repair them, as the damage stacks up and the parts run out, each time they come back online they are hit again. There is focus rather than breadth to these attacks, that's why 19 were selected, not 19 strikes but hundreds on these 19 or their surrounding areas. Even with knock-off chinese components now used in place of Russian war, which tend to break down eaiser, refineries are going down. They are also going down now because they can't do the necessary repairs or operate them at the same level with Chinese ad hoc tech replacements.

Your video is a lie. Queues are in most areas of the country. What has happened is the work week was reduced, so there is less need for gas, but also less money, and as such the economic nosedive is increasing. (This is part of what I mean when I say they are digging a bigger and bigger hole, also with junk bonds, printing money etc).

Ukraine doesn't need Tomahawks; they'd just speed up the resolution of the war. They already produce their own missiles and drones, and this capacity has been encouraged and raising greatly. They said one missile a week at the start, now its estimated that its close to 1 a day, and going up (Though don't quote me on it being 3 a week or 13 a week, data is sketchy, only that its going up) Someone mentioned near 99% of attacks are carried out by Ukranian weaponry. This may seem unbelievable, but factor in most are done by drones that cost 500-2,500 dollars, not multi-million dollar expensive Tomahawk-type Western tech. 

What those tomahawk missiles would do, is end the refinery rather than let it be crippled over and over. But tbh Trump is very anti his weapons being used in Russia, so its sort of a mute point and done for publicity more than anything. Still it'd be nice to hit more russian command posts in the rear.

Pokrovsk is costing Russia more than i've ever seen. And i've seen 100's of tanks taken out at a crossing early in the war, or the suicidal armored column that tried to breach Kyiv at the start. Its up there in terms of Russian losses. Its not near encircled; that would mean units were all around it. Russia is held by drones at the villages, because drones rule the battlefield (both ukranian and russian drones), this means any advance is cripplingly slow and costly.

Russia can just move things to other regions? What things? Its exports are toast. They are going up in flames and they don't have the fuel to move them. Its exports are fuel!

It can move crude sure, where its deposits are not being targeted in the east, leaving nothing for itself, and for a fraction of what refined or gas is worth. This just leads to the country going further and further into the hole. China can keep buying it up and lending it money, and so can India. That just prolongs the decline.

Russia is doomed. If they don't change the pattern or get Trump to bark at Ukraine enough they are finished. Maybe they will surprise me with a pattern change, its happened before, but so far I've seen no evidence of it. I predicted a war between democracies and autocracies due to the rise of nationalist sentiment and things like fascistic heroic masculinity (which spiritual teachers helped usher in).

I am telling you now this pattern is it for Russia.

This is a good video on the gas situation: 

Its really not. Many have closed completely, and there many que's all over the country, trucks backed up trying to get goods into western Russia. Its somewhat accurate in that central Russia has fewer problems, as do Moscow and St Petersburg as they are priorities, but even they are feeling the prices. Its why the railways just laid off half of their staff, HALF. This is a traditional indicator of the health of the Russian economy, as it uses trains for everything. It can't even pay its troops all the cushy bonuses they were promised, so what are they doing, shooting their commanders or refusing orders more often than usual.

Again this is 2.5 months in @zazen. I want you to drop your bias and imagine a ten month in scenario with no pattern change.

Here is what it looks like, if I remove any optimism for either side.

Russia in Pokrovsk. Putin in hiding more than usual. The Russian economy cannibalizing itself to survive. More foreign troops propping up Russian lines. But critically the country is at a standstill (its already almost there.) It can't move back or forward without outside help.

That is with no pattern change.

[Breakingthewall]

24 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

Its why the railways just laid off half of their staff, HALF. This is a traditional indicator of the health of the Russian economy, as it uses trains for everything.

Where did you found that information? 

RZD, which employs approximately 700,000 people, announced it will eliminate management positions and freeze hiring as a cost-cutting measure in the face of a drop in freight traffic. Since August 2025, some head office employees have been forced to take unpaid leave as a temporary adjustment measure, rather than mass layoffs. Russian Railways' freight volume has fallen consecutively in recent years (–4.1% in 2024 and –6.7% in the first nine months of 2025), forcing cost-cutting measures.

[BlueOak]

4 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Where did you found that information? 

RZD, which employs approximately 700,000 people, announced it will eliminate management positions and freeze hiring as a cost-cutting measure in the face of a drop in freight traffic. Since August 2025, some head office employees have been forced to take unpaid leave as a temporary adjustment measure, rather than mass layoffs. Russian Railways' freight volume has fallen consecutively in recent years (–4.1% in 2024 and –6.7% in the first nine months of 2025), forcing cost-cutting measures.

You are correct that numbers are hard to lock down. And I've only had video sourcing.

I will correct that with a more sourced and unbiased account, bearing in mind that this was the picture BEFORE Ukraine started hammering the economic output of Russia. Which is the main point.

Most of these articles are in the previous months.

Reuters: Russian Railways to cut management jobs as economy slows, Interfax says
https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/russian-railways-cut-management-jobs-economy-slows-interfax-says-2025-10-17/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Reuters: Russia plans rail transport discounts to support coal industry, letter shows
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-plans-rail-transport-discounts-support-coal-industry-letter-shows-2025-05-13/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Reuters: Russian Railways to cut spending by around 40% in 2025, says finance chief
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-railways-cut-spending-by-around-40-2025-says-finance-chief-2024-12-05/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

RailJournal: Russian rail freight drops to historic low
https://www.railjournal.com/financial/russian-rail-freight-drops-to-historic-low/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Independent/FOI memo: Structural issues in Russian railways
https://www.foi.se/rest-api/report/FOI Memo 8833?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Novaya Gazeta Europe: Off the rails (report on Russian rail stagnation)
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/07/04/off-the-rails-en?utm_source=chatgpt.com


I want you to put everything aside and focus on what a four day work week means in practical terms, wipe 20% off everyone's pay check. Let's be generous and say the price of everything only goes up another 20%, this would be me being very optimistic for the Russians, as they've kicked the can down the road on these problems, and they've no fuel for imports, their workforce is dying off, and they've no industry but war (which has no intrinsic return) and nothing to fund it, several hundred thousand wounded or criminals to carry. So the reality is going to be worse, but let's stick with this in the unlikely event things don't snowball. (As they do in recessions, one failure leads to another, and another etc then add a war to it!)

Can you afford 40% out of your paycheck to disappear? In what I will call an optimistic scenario. Let's say you get bailouts from others etc.
We'll take a balanced scenario. 60%?
We'll take a pessimistic scenario of 80%?

I mean what is the breaking point, considering the trajectory is only getting worse? That is the pattern. Its not improving. If I show you a line downward anyone can see its not going to have a positive outcome. To be fair the line is present globally, right, its just not a problem that's being stacked up like Jenga blocks in other countries, and when the war ends Europe will be dusting off with barely anything to worry about but energy costs. Meanwhile Russia will be left in whatever state its in clawing itself out of a hole.