No, the interior of Russia. Russia has also raised the enlistment age to 65 years old. There are a lot of signs that Russia’s troop strength is in terrible shape.
These are guys on life sentences, murderers, rapists and the like. There are videos of the recruitment speeches on telegram.
Russia is in desperate shape.
They invaded on 4 axis back in Feb, they attempted to surround the Kiev... yes, it was an all-out invasion.
The notion that Russia could easily put an end to this war if they merely tried is laughable at this point.
They're buying ammo from North Korea and China, their military ranks are so thinned out that they're letting rapists and murderers come fight for them as a get out of jail free card.
Just yesterday Russian sources on Telegram showed them firing up tanks that have been sitting in storage for decades.
The Russia military is in sad shape right now and no where near the power it was perceived to be 6 months ago.
Stalinist Russia deliberately starved and murdered the Ukrainian populace in the 1930s in an effort to end the Ukrainian culture. There is almost no dispute of the occurrence. It is really hard to blame the Ukrainian people for siding with anyone who fought against those who were trying to exterminate them.
Research the holodomor, a dark era of Soviet history... even by Soviet standards, that they can't really deny.
Gotta remember, Soviet Russia began in 1918, it was not a reaction to Nazi Germany.
Those hard feelings have carried on for decades and when Putin openly expresses that the policy of Russia is that Ukrainian identity doesn't exist he is galvanizing tens of millions who have a deep distrust of Russia.
Neither of them are white hats.
China is communist, Putin endlessly laments the collapse of the USSR.
They fought with Germany during WW2 not because of ideology but because Russia had been committing a genocide against the Ukrainian population for over a decade.
Russia's army is being exposed as awash with corruption and antiquated strategy and equipment.
Their men are fighting with weapons their grandfathers used, their supply issues for them to use civilian cars. Their soldiers are mostly poorly trained conscripts who have no idea what the hell is going on.
Putin, like many autocrats, is surrounded with yes men who don't tell him harsh truths. They went into this war thinking they'd be welcomed and instead they've gotten butchered on several fronts.
They're now recruiting from prisons and buying weapons from communist nations.
I've pointed out several times... Russia's only allies in this are Islamic states and communist states. It should give those who are praying for their victory serious pause.
With Russia vowing to wipe out Ukrainian culture and society... I don't think the Ukrainians lack for motivation.
Russia is upset that their version of globalism failed.
This is very vague, and one could easily think it is the separatists committing these atrocities.
None of this violence started until Russia gave some disgruntled Russian speaking people a bunch of tanks and artillery and told them to have a blast (and likely sent in a lot of Russian mercenaries at the same time).
Putin has been untruthful at every step, but while there are countless examples I will only mention the basic when it comes to the invasion.
Putin claimed on Feb 22 that he was sending troops to the Donbass on a "peacekeeping mission". Not even 48 hours later, with zero new provocation, Russia invaded Ukraine on 4 fronts, including using the border of a "neutral" power.
Russia did this to install a Kremlin friendly puppet in Kiev, to intimidate other nations from joining NATO and to flex it's military prowess.
At this point all three of those objectives are laughably unachievable.
Scott Ritter the kiddie diddler.
I've brought this up before when people quote him here. The guy is a disgrace. He writes for RT because, other than providing unabashed propaganda, he is of no use to anyone.
He was writing articles back in March on RT, breathlessly speaking about the brilliance of Russian command and saying the total collapse of Ukrainian resistance was weeks or even days away.
It was no strategic drawback. Visually confirmed, they left dozens of tanks, artillery and rocket systems. Most men on the front line could not escape the encirclement are now POWs.
You don't suffer those types of losses strategically.
Russian sources on Telegram are enraged by this.
I suspect this is more about "parking space" than anything else. All of the royalty, all of the rich, all of the famous, on the entire Earth are begging to be seen there, pretending to grieve.
There are only so many places to park private aircraft.
I live in Phoenix, and when the Superbowl is here along with the PGA Scottsdale at the same time... they have issues providing rich people with aircraft parking space, I think that will pale in comparison to the death of a 70 year lizard queen.
The two party system is the main enemy of this nation. They thrive on dividing us.
CIA tipped him off.
I don't believe any of the "hologram planes!" stuff that gets kicked around, but I absolutely believe that US intelligence knew what was going to happen and helped it along.
Sort of like Pearl Harbor.
Look at what the Russians are saying in their own media and on their own social networks.
It's a fucking disaster for Russia.
The retreat isn't even over, with each passing hour more and more reports are coming in of territory trading hands... and this is from Russian sources!!!
Newscasters on RT are saying "pray for our boys, hope they can hold their ground"... you don't say that shit if things are going swimmingly.
You don't seriously believe THAT do you?
We're 6 months into this war and Russia has accomplished zero of their pre-war goals... at the cost of (even by Russia's own accounting) thousands of lives,
Go on Russian social media, this is an outright disaster for the Russian military, and it doesn't appear to be over, as more and more news is pouring in about the continued advance.
There is no trap being set.
I'm not saying Russia has lost the war... but they sure as shit are not winning right now.
That said, I don't think there is a coup going on. If Putin were to get ousted in a coup we wouldn't hear about it until it was over... if we heard about a "coup in process" that would almost certainly spell it's doom. That guy rules with an iron fist.
I remember back in April there were a lot of people here convinced that Ukraine was already beaten and the news was covering it up.
Spoiler alert, Russia's army is a cesspool of incompetence and corruption. I feel bad for their soldiers. Forced into the military, terribly paid, poorly trained and using equipment from the 70s.
I am not sure how this is going to end but it certainly won't be the way Russia thought it would months ago. They claimed they wanted to stop the bloodshed that has been going on since 2014, demilitarize Ukraine and "denazify" it. Instead, tens of thousands are dead on both sides, the Ukraine is one of the most militarized countries on earth and the Nazi element of their military has been elevated to the status of national heroes.
Russian propaganda is adorable.
There are videos from Russian sources showing their mad, sloppy dash to escape encirclement. Even their own Russian media has acknowledged what a disaster the last few days have been.
This was no trap executed by Russia, it was a total collapse of the northern front of the war.
There has been a total collapse of the Russian line in the North East. Even Russian media is reporting this.
I don't know of the "Kherson offensive" was a ruse, but the simultaneous offensive near Kharkiv has been devastating to Russia. Territory that Russia has slowly taken over 6 months has totally collapsed in 2 days.
The Ukraine media is supposing that 20k Russian soldiers will be killed or captured, that number is absurd, I would think they had some window to retreat, but without question, thousands have been lost for Russia and this is a shocking defeat.
I know this won't be well regarded news for many here, but ask yourselves who are Russia's allies in this conflict... why? Why are only Islamic nations and China and North Korea providing aid?
Official now. She’s died.
That date math is way off.
The tweet is 11 years old and she seems to be defending the pedofuck. Revolting.
A shortage of pilots isn't an "excuse". It's a reality.
My dad was in the Air Force, he was a commercial pilot after leaving the Air Force, the military taught him to fly for free because back in the 70s they needed tons of pilots. If not for the military he never would have become a pilot because it is extremely expensive to get a commercial pilot's license and takes thousands of hours of flight time before you can fly a large airliner.
Now most of the cold war era guys are retired or nearing retirement age and the pool the airlines have to hire new guys is a lot shallower.
Watch the speech... these are dudes sentenced for life, they literally say "your only way out of here is in a box".
Again... they've also expanded their recruitment window to 65 years old... SIXTY FIVE!!! You don't recruit geriatrics if your military is in good shape.