There’s yet another rumor he’s dead. I’m not saying it’s true, but it was supposed to rain all day here and it was sunny instead.
Using POWs as your infantry, more than being a war crime, seems even less effective than using prisoners.
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1718198803604373518?t=NrHELyYKZDi844CvuUeYXw&s=19
Don’t see how that could backfire.
well, this death rumor apparently has staying power, even if only as a joke, and even if only because putin hasn’t appeared in public for a couple of days. the claims coming from the usual suspects are now featuring details such as it occurred on thursday at 20:40, and his body is on ice in his valdai residence.
I think the ultimate source of this is one not particularly reliable dide? At this point, if they came out and said yeah, he dead, that would be hard to believe too.
No it wouldn’t. The guy who falsely said he’s dead is immediately getting windowed.
The rumor is based solely on the lack of public appearances.
I meant if he was actually dead and they admitted it. I thought there had been recent appearances. Trouble is, with the supposed doubles, how do we really know?
Unfortunately this seems true. Russia does seem to be scrapping the bottom of the barrel and seems to be in bad shape, but Ukraine can’t muster the ability to retake significant amounts of land
So, does this apparent failure mean that the US/NATO focus will shift from potentially “let’s see what equipment Ukraine needs to succeed starting next spring, and rethink tactics as everybody hunkers down” to something more like “the writing is on the wall so let’s start strongly encouraging Ukraine to come to the table and make concessions”?
Should have given Ukraine all the guns, tanks missiles and air power they needed yesterday.
We should now do this today. If we don’t do it today, we should do it tomorrow.
Ukraine still has zero incentive to make any kind of concessions because there’s no agreement Russia can make that they also would not break whenever it suits them. A stationary conflict is preferable to giving Russia the ability to rearm and regroup in peace.
What can you even do until next Spring? I am not sure how much the artillery ammo production has been ramped up but I am pretty sure that we(Germany) haven’t started the tank production. It is still just refurbishing old tanks. I said it early on that I thought you would have to start production regardless of supporting Ukraine. If Ukraine would have lost quickly the NATO-Russia border would have increased significantly.
Then you have old and new problems with supporting Ukraine as Hungary and now Slowakia want a more Russian friendly relationship. Erdogan goes apeshit with the Israel-Hamas conflict. Adding the other stuff like support for Swedens NATO membership and buying russian military hardware I wouldnt call him a reliable partner at this point.
The only thought I have is that since both last winter and this spring the side defending held pretty strongly, maybe it’s in Ukraine’s interest to throw up defensive lines like the Russians did. It doesn’t look like Ukraine has any better options to retake lost territory in the immediate future, so maybe concentrate on deterring or repulsing new land grabs.