Originally Posted by
NutLoose
They are also offering prisoners their freedom and 2000ish dollars if they join Wagner and serve 6 months in Ukraine and survive. I don’t know if they have limitations on what crimes will be offered the freedom but it has to be a worry what nutters they are letting out, it also shows the mobilisation of manpower issues they are having.
Watch the fragging rate go up. Some. Prisoners will be victims of the regime anyway, lot much warm fuzzies towards their dear leader's.
open season.
On Russian strategy in this war, as Big P and others have said, the crystal ball for Russia on all options suck... Some options biggly suck.
Ras-Putin is the dog that caught the tyre....
De-nazification smacks of a wee bit 'O hypocrisy, but is always great in front of the
rose garden oops RF citizenry. Hmmmm.
Outcome 1 Raspukin goes home,
"Russe domo eta"
"Russe domo eta"
"Russe domo eta"...
Not without an outbreak of rational cognition in the Crimlin. There is an increase in dissent over the number of good ol boys being scraped off the insides of 6 ton popsicles, but Russia has its own share of zealots considering that anything the dear leader comes up with is just fine, same people who want to resurrect the glory of Comrade Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili. Nice guy, gave his mother flowers, hired some guys who needed employment... Beria, Trotski, Zinoviev, Kamenov... The rest of the gang... Put a human touch to the word Gulag..killed more Russians than Napoleon did. Rationality is a bit out into the future without a seriously bad Russian economy affecting Oleg and Olegneva Russki. That may well happen though, the Russians have become comfortable with opulence that extended above competing with the pigs for sustenance, the good old days of a centralised economy. But the rouble ( 60 years of bad spelling) stays up even with the rubble going on in the rumble in the
jungle wheat fields. Good to have a controlled economy until you run out of levers to pull the wool.over the eyes of Adam Smith's treatise on wealth of nations. To quote
Capt Darling... "Bugger..." On surviving the great war from 1914 to... 1917...
Door #2: Russia is ejected against their will.
Not likely, but more likely that plan 1. Given robust materiel supply, Ukraine may well eject Russia to the 2021 lines of controls, and then it would be interesting. Has Russia's "help" of the natives of Donbass been well received or not. Given a replay, what does the population there want to do? As has been said recently, this may have not been the desired outcome of the real ( non little green bugs) population. Either way, someone is going to have the cleanup on aisle 13, and it is going to be pretty nasty for a period, not happy campers there at all. Krystal
nacht ball hints that there will be need for Kevlar and insurance to whoever wins that toss up..
Plan Adlertag Defile in flight.:
"Time out, K" . Russia has exorbitantly run through the retirement if it's sharper image generalissimo's now seeking anyone with corporal experience who can duck, not eat duck, paint (surprisingly mediocre... But passable) and can catch, clean and recycle 6 ton popsicles or stop them being launched, running out of 90,80,72,62, looking for 34's and there is just not many KV-2's available. Truce in place will be as acceptable to Ukrainians as it would be to anyone who has just has a home invasion. It may look quiet, but it won't be for long, lots of wiring faults in Russe will be on the cards.
Project X: The Russian Federation implodes.
Not as unlikely as it may sound. The boys in the burbs of St Pete and Moscow have been annoying the natives for, centuries. They just showed how effective the might of Russia is after years of corruption. Of the 20 odd states most have no love for Moscow's bedside manner.
Razz Putin has put the fun back into dysfunction... The energy price hike that tlooked like a salvation is leaking and starting to unwind, as, the supply responds to high prices, as does demand, energy turns out to have a wee bit of elasticity on both sides so the market corrects to the best interests of the markets and that sucks for Puritan. We are looking at a global recession, and that causes a sharp reduction in demand, and prices will bounce on impact like a parachutist that packed their lunch instead of silk. (Which reminds me, I need a repack; to do: go shopping, buy lunch, get chute to rigger, check contents of lunch.. )
Russia has exposed it's naughty bits and they are, well, not impressive..they have a finite supply of munitions, legacy mainly, and showing up to be, well, not in great repair. They have done North KOrea and China, and India a disservice. No Christmas cards in the offing there..there..they have shown a curious throwback to 'vengeance" vundwrkind weapons... Hypersonic missiles to do.... What? The SU-57, the living proof that committee design is alive and well, and giving white elephants being stealthy by painting their toenails red and cunningly hiding them in the strawberry patch. Stealth means different things I guess to different folks. Russia needs to buy some Hyundai jets or Toyota's offerings... Sukhoi knows better, as does TsAGi, if they still exist after their bad wiring day..... About as effective as the Su-34... Back to the drawing boardz wiktor.
Lastly but not yeastly, puking boots Nazis outta Ukraine and stops at the NATO border post...
That has to be the nightmare scenario for Russia, as they have to go on and do the mass transportation of 46 million ukrainians. Not making friends doing that, and exactly how do they pay for the spills and breakages on aisle 13? They get to stink more than they do today, my dog wouldn't own up to that stink..(he would blame the cat). The Russian military and nation don't appear to have the armament, manpower, competency or bullion to suppress a pi$$ed-off bunch of competent people bent on ejecting the barbarian hordes. If that is a win, I don't see how.
Crossing the border into NATO ville might get some polite coughing front.he punters that get to rinse and repeat the mighty russky military competency and prowess in arms..
In general,(not the self-sacrificing kind of the RF... ) one of the biggest losses has been the credibility of Russia on the world stage; self-destructing ships/tanks aside, They have a bit of a credibility gap, the President and Foreign minister could get parts as m. Geppetto's experiment with AI, soon to show in the best theatres in Moscow. Bookings for the private showing at the Lyubyanka are now open. The last time anyone told porkies like Pukin and his pet poodle, Lavrov, it ended up with a photo op that is related to military aviation. sort of.
Now, countervailing Russia, there is a charismatic leader in Ukraine, the tousled-haired one @ #10 (at least he was 5 hours ago... not often resignations described as the ships deserting the "stinking" rat...), and we have the most erudite Prez in the last 90 years in the USA that couldn't care less about Crimea, and sat back and did zip, and in counterpoint, we have a current prez who is confused on whether Switzerland or Sweden is joining NATO. Gulp... and in between, we have Putin's Pet Pu$$y Plundering Philandering Prez, ex, on Putin's leash, who used the US Constitution as toilet paper and Old Glory's a jockstrap and worse. Macaroon proposes terms for the Ukrainians, Erdogan does a Jedi mind thingy with Sweden and Finland... (he could get a job with Boeing Ops....) and Germany will give stuff so long as it doesn't have ammo, and it will arrive after it could have made a difference.
And in the meantime, the rollout of support makes one wonder whether there is an intent just to mess with the defenders or to get real and stop the war by booting out the barbarians, or otherwise. On western arms, removing old stock by giving it a field test is not so bad a use, and nothing generates business as much as a good war on someone else's turf. The Western arsenal is not running out of munitions any time soon, and Raytheon and Co thank all those that made this show possible. Their order books are not going to be slender, and the defense procurement is going to kick off, making up for the last 2 years of a locked-down planet.
No predictions but I suspect fuel costs to drop markedly for the next 2-3 years, and Russia's rubble rabbled ruble to drop like Wiley E. Coyote post traversing the land to air, much like KA-32 and KA-28 helicopters have been doing recently.