Likewise last night when I saw this...

"Here's a thought...
Have you ever heard someone ask "If you could go back in time, would you kill Hitler? "
Well, maybe a Russian General somewhere may be able to test a similar idea now, and no time-machine required."

It's not a guarantee, but looking at the desperate situation of the Russian Forces should a third party enter the fight, the Outcome is clear and not good: End of Mankind.

dead_pan hit the nail on the head regarding the real conclusion: Conventionally the Russian Armed forces have reached their limit with Ukraine, which ist about the military power of 1/7th of the combined European forces.
They are so much on their limit that Vlad is already now pointing out the level of desperation by hinting at his nukes. Nukes were always the last instrument of desperation for the one who was just about to be wiped out.

Drop the side walkway down a length of hose and a 45 gal drum will sort that problem, hardly disabled.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....2d9afeda6.jpeg

How are we to regard Russia and the Russian people in future - assuming we’ve got one? Their general public appear to behave much as any other modern Europeans, yet their soldiers (their own sons and husbands) are corrupt barbarians. The much-vaunted Russian military are showing themselves to be incompetent and ill-equipped thugs whose only real threat to the West is nuclear weapons. Their strutting elite are a bunch of amoral gangsters solely obsessed with accumulating vast personal wealth and possessions. Their government behaves as though the last hundred-odd years never happened, and seem to regard their main enemy as their own people. Much of this was well known before this calamity, but how can we establish any future trust-based relationship with them unless there are seismic changes amounting to a revolution there?

The point I was making was the damage to the tanks, and how it was caused.
I see also what looks like cloth coming out of the filler nozzle. Maybe there was an intention to torch it. :cool:

Of course it is would be relatively easy to get it moving again but not quite so easy to get it "into service".

i have to ask if you have ever been involved in negotiations ? Having spent decades negotiating with major companies, I would say that asking for something ridiculous and impossible ( NATO retreats out of E Europe ) just makes you look like a fool and loses you all credibility before negotiations start. Under such circumstances i would refuse to participate on the basis that even talking about ridiculous demands gives them some credibility.

And some rather sad reporting if true :(

read it here..
It makes interesting reading on the outcome of sanctions now imposed, with their reliance on the west for just about everything they are as described...


His credentials
https://www.ie.edu/business-school/f...maxim-mironov/

Just needs a passing farmer with a tractor .....

I wondered when these honourable sons of the steppes would revert to the WWII behaviour of their grandfathers and start the time-honoured Russian tradition of raping and murdering young girls. It seems we didn’t have to wait long. #animals

Russian Soldiers Rape Ukrainian Women

Regarding those 2.700 Strela munitions Germany is to send.

It seems they are largely kaput ... https://uk.news.yahoo.com/anti-aircr...092853540.html
Never the less the report does say that UKR specfically asked for them

What makes you think it hasn't started already?

??? So far it is Ukraine, Russia and potentially Belarus.

^ this. Negotiating is not a zero-sum game. The aim is to share information in order to reach a mutually-beneficial outcome. Very often, one party is able to concede something at low cost to themselves that is of greater value to their counterpart, and vice-versa, and one aim is to flush out these opportunities. We're not buying carpets in the Souk...

As we have 100.000 Ukrainian women with kids here in Slovakia who found safe harbour in our houses they tell us various war stories. Here's one narrated by one of our guests:
There was a Russian tank closing in to her village and everybody was scared running to the basement awaiting the worst. But still there was no gunfire. The tank was running in circles again and again without any action. After a while one "babushka" (grannie) couldn't stand it anymore and ran out to the tank. It stopped and hatch opened so she started to shout: "Go away, blyat, either shoot or leave, but I can't bear this anymore!" A young commander, almost a boy told her: "Mama, don't be afraid, we don't want to shoot or kill anyone, we just ride around the village until there will be no fuel left."

You thought Farmers having tanks away was strange, how about three guys on a motorbike sidecar combo towing away a Russian mortar. :E

Not every day you see a pair of B52's flying a squiggly pattern over SE Romania. (seen on FR24).