Russian invasion of Ukraine

When Putin's shown talking to his senior people, some of them look absolutely terrified. I'm hoping that many of them are as horrified as we are. He's lost the plot and made a huge misjudgement which will see him got rid of.

Some of the BBC reporting is worse than intern level, e.g. anti-missile flares described as 'gunfire striking the aircraft'. Who do you rate for accuracy and balance? Channel 4 News is obviously solid...which others do you trust?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60454795?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=6217cfc7d774c11a4faada02%26WATCH%3A%20Russian%20helicopters%20fired%20upon%20near%20Kyiv%262022-02-24T18%3A42%3A44.724Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:d7c0bcee-53c6-407c-af48-4ee322669ac4&pinned_post_asset_id=6217cfc7d774c11a4faada02&pinned_post_type=share

Have we considered the possibility that Putin has actually lost his fucking mind? There’s no way any of this is going to end well for anyone, including Russia. It’s fucking insanity.

I can’t work out why he isn’t focusing his forces on an objective, if even with air superiority, he has enough forces to take over the country or how he is going to hold it.
He might have a brilliant plan.....or...

It’s been less than a day.
And real life villains don’t don’t monologue their plan so MI6 can thwart their plans.

Google says Kiev is 75km from the Belarus border we expected the 3rd Shock Army to move faster than that back in the 80’s

So what’s the strategic importance of Chernobyl?

There are talks that they have a list of persons they want to "punish" (pro-west politicians, war veterans from 2014, even active people from various pro democracy NGO's and so on).

It's possible that his plant is to not go all in but be more direct with the manhunt capture all those in the list (who drive the country towards west ideas basically), punish them (up to your fantasy what it means) and probably leave them alone with pro Russian government installed (and with those couple of regions captured).

Russians themselves kept on talking about the "list" on their tv.

Looks like Putin is trying to keep up appearances of minimising civilian casualties.

Could very easily have pummelled Kiev and surrounding areas with bombers, artillery, and rolled in thousands of tanks.

It's interesting that sanctions are being rolled out live, at pretty much the same speed as shock troops, in the hope of putting an instant brake on Putin's advance. Economic weapons vs violent weapons. The EU and Nato powers seem to be working together pretty well. I wonder if this solidarity is what he expected? Was he banking on countries still buying his gas, or allowing him use of Swift?

Russia has consistently had sanctions put in place against them for years!
Putin will have been well aware that sanctions would come from the invasion.
The question is, will they bother him and Russia or not.
I'm fearful they won't, but I'm no expert.
I'm counting my blessings I'm not Ukrainian, or in Ukraine right now, but I am very nervous. I hope I don't need to be.

It’s a source of uranium, which is useful in making nuclear weapons…..

is he minimising civilian casualties whilst making as much noise as possible hence Chernobyl, the only place in Ukraine most people have heard of.

Counterintuitively pummelling built up areas makes them more difficult to fight through.

He isn’t short of tanks in theatre if he had one posing near Chernobyl with a BMP .

Not sure why he has taken Antonov airport as he knows Lithuania have given Ukraine Stinger missiles and you would have to be deranged to fly in troop transports. Russia may think they have learnt to counter Stinger since Afganistan.

Maybe recent Russian experience with Turkish UAVs has made them rethink shock tactics

The RotW’s current policy seems to be to answer armament with algorithm?
That Russia will be disabled by being shut down economically rather than by shelling back and so thwarted?
Would that this would work.
Anything would be better than actual physical war and death.
Is it likely?
Or even possible?
Currently have the “At first they came for the Ukrainians. But I was not a Ukrainian…” line running through my head. The ‘well, this went well, why stop here?’ line
Accepting (wrong word, but there again) that this incursion will succeed (well, it has, and the result will be a bitter, bloody counter insurgence by the country surely?) what’s to stop it ending here? Borders? What borders? ‘Oh, hai! We used to own this. Just taking it back in hand.’
Am really struggling with this.
Struggling to reconcile how this literally just happened, could happen, couldn’t be stopped from happening.
Grew up thinking (via government propaganda) we’d all die in a fireball of nuclear bombs because Russia hated the West.
That it didn’t made me rather blasé about things happening, seemingly far away, even if imaginary (to me in smug southern engerland. Looking at you, The Balkans) distant places in parts of Europe less than 20-odd years ago.
What the actual fuck is going on.
Is it some kind of crude machismo-flex towards the US because of ‘you’re so weak binning Afghanistan?’
Apologies. Crude rant. Likely pointless.

I fully understand and I myself am sharing those concerns.
This is my childhood fear coming to life.

"well, this went well, why stop here?"

This has been playing through my head all day too. I try to rationalise that surely not even Putin wants war, but, he's a loose cannon. It's what he's been building to this his whole presidency.

Taking of airports can be either to bring in your own planes, or cripple the defending country’s access supplies into the region.

Practically the number 1 part of infrastructure to take and control.
They are not being destroyed as building new ones is time consuming and expensive. Could easily just shell/bomb them and render them unusable, but they are strategically useful for both sides.

What's playing through my head is why the west can't just send a surprise gift in form of a missile to Putin's balcony. Been thinking about the same thing with Lukashenko, when he silenced all the protests with brute force and murders. A few friends of mine from Belarus can't return there and visit their friends and family because they're in the wanted list.

China is a good guy compared to Russia or Belarus.

Putin will be deep underground right now. His message of war was pre recorded

China is a good guy compared to Russia or Belarus.

Not sure the Tibetans or Uighurs would agree, or even the citizens of Hong Kong

Are you sure? The Ukrainian ministry came out an hour ago saying it was back under Russian control, seems to of changed hands several times today. While I was watching C4 news earlier they started reporting the Ukrainians recaptured it to they had lost control again within the space of 30 minutes.

I know but In comparison to millions killed by soviet union and entire countries and their economies crippled so bad we still can't catch up with the west 30 years after escaping the soviet union?

inb4 soviet union was different from current russia... Not really - Putin is a thug with career in KGB. Hell, he even changed Russia's anthem back to Soviet Union one (except swapping some words).

Suspicious of an account that has 11 posts, mostly in this thread. Sorry.

They have tactical and strategic nuclear weapons they don’t need some sort of dirty bomb except for propaganda.

Soviet theory saw no step between conventional and nuclear phases of war.

They had a theory called Axe theory, if you are in a bar and someone insults your wife you are going to insult his wife, he throws a punch you throw a punch, he hits you with a barstool you reply in kind, he hits you with an axe you hit him back with one if you still can.
If someone insults your wife hit him immediately with an axe, you are going to have to use ultimate force eventually use it straight away before you get hit with an axe.

Maybe their moves at the moment show an increased subtlety

Russia has air superiority they would like Ukraine to try to fly stuff in so they can shoot it down

Surely the man has gone mad. Nothing about this bodes well. Sigh..