Where are the guys who were saying that the real russian army is on the other side of the urals? Ukrainian drones are hungry for russian sturmoviki, they want blood.

He wanted a legacy just not this one.

He could have, until his very much put-upon subjects started noticing the citizens of their neighbouring country, with its similar history and culture, thriving in a way that’s denied to them. (It’s one thing for Russians to see Poland or Estonia, former imperial dependencies with different languages, alphabets, religious observances and such, become affluent liberal democracies and shrug it off as ineffable cultural difference, but Ukraine’s history is a lot more closely intertwined with Russia’s, and arguments that The Ukrainians Are Not Like Us would ring hollow.)

Nice drone!

Meh, he still could have easily ridden that out. This reality is demonstrably the worse narrative for him.

Goddamn fucking tractors.

He had a crazy ass speech shortly before or after the renewed invasion to Ukraine. Some really deep, absurd shit about Russian history.

I will read old Russian novels forever but fucking come on

This seems to be a recurring problem, of strongman leaders who allegedly love their country and people making terrible decisions starting elective wars.

Trump is a fool and a conman and just wanted to blow up brown people, but Netanyahu, for instance, should have known better.

Netanyahu wanted (and wants) to stay out of prison, but also (thanks to America and its European allies) Israel has faced a grand total of zero consequences for trying to do regime change in Iran. What should they (Netanyahu obviously couldn't have done this alone) known better?

Iran now has proof of concept, that closing the Strait of Hormuz serves as a deterrent for war as good as the capacity of nuclear response. In fact, it's better in that it's more useful. No nation yet dares to actually use nukes that they have (for instance, Russa hasn't threatened nuclear escalation as the US and Europe support Ukraine, and Ukraine might still join NATO.) Closing the strait does economic damage, but much less physical damage, so it's Iran is freer to close the strait more readily than they could be with any nuclear weapon.

So now Iran has shown that power, it is stronger for it on the international stage, and as a result Israel is now weaker. We're already seeing this as Iran uses the closed strait to pressure the US to, in turn, pressure Israel to stop attacking Syria.

If Netanyahu hadn't pressured the US to attack Iran, then the IDF could probably continue to war on Syria without Iran closing the strait, and the US would not be under pressure by Iran. Also the people of the US might disapprove of Israel less and the influence of AIPAC money in US elections would likely be less of an issue. There's also pressure in the US for Congress to stop budgeting for materiel for Israel.

Recently, Israel intended an air strike on a plane full of Iranian negotiators, but the US warned Tehran about it and the plane was diverted, so we're already seeing signs that the alliance between the US and Israel is under stress.

Am I crazy or is Israel using Epstein-files to blackmail trump to do the war?

just 3 more days bro!

I will read old Russian novels forever but fucking come on

Why do you hate yourself.

The funny part is that Ukraine, Estonia, and Latvia had their own problems and I would prefer living in Russia pre-2022 than in pre-2022 Ukraine or Latvia. If we forget, of course, about the unpredictability risk of having a madman as a ruler

Reportedly it’s a major problem with authoritarian strongmen, that everyone surrounding them blows smoke up their ass for years. They are either afraid of getting murdered for telling the truth, or they think they will get ahead by telling pleasing lies, or there is just an overall culture of corruption.

In any case Putin thought his situation was a lot better than it really was.

We laugh, but now we see what drone warfare is going to be like moving forward. War has always been horrible, but it somehow also keeps getting worse.

No more swords and axes. Ah well.

PUT AXES ON DRONES

Lol modern problems require modern solutions

I was sad when Yevgeny Prigozhin (leader of Wagner Group) was killed off, because if his coup was successful we could have seen less bloodshed and a sooner close of the war.

They are either afraid of getting murdered for telling the truth,

Stalin died a painful death because everybody was afraid of waking him when he was actually suffering from a hemorrhagic stroke for almost the entire day. It didn't make up for all of the horrible shit he did, but it was at least a little bit of karmic justice.

You think Epstein files is enough to bring down Trump? After all of the hundreds of thousands of emails we've seen?

You should watch Warlockracy. Some of that shit is pretty damn funny.

Probably, since there'd be no decision to retroactively justify, if it was a new ruler. Of course, Pregozhin was much more of a hardliner than Putin, so a lot of people watching were less than exited about him as god-king.

trump is the type of boy who will start a war to prevent pictures of him blowing Bubba from leaking out, he does care about the files

Are there pictures of him blowing Bubba? There's already enough evidence out there that he's sexually assaulted teen girls. If that's not enough to turn the base (and the courts) against Teflon Don then I doubt that a gay act or a deviant sex act would do it either.

The whole MAGA movement is following the pattern regarding cult leaders to a T: The leader is given exception to rules and is immune to judgement.

During Trump 1.0 there was the controversy of whether Putin has Kompromat on Trump in the form of videos of Trump engaging in watersports. They never emerged, but since then it's been super clear that even his family values oriented Evangelist Christian followers are eager to forgive him for anything.

Hence the hypothetical that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and never lose a single vote.

In fact, he loses MAGA voters all the time, but one at a time, after they've deconstructed their own loyalty and come to accept they've been played. (It raises the question if they've actually learned empathy, that programs that help the undeserved might help them and theirs as well, but they seem to consistently quit MAGA when they come to terms that they've been harmed, themselves.)

The only realization he would come to is that something is either potentially affecting his power or his wealth negatively. The problems of the common people only matter insofar as it affects the first two.

why do you hate yourself

Russian existentialism would also like to know

But all they get is oil 😌

Stop this madman!

There was no such thing as Russian existentialism. What you are probably referring to (notes from underground, death if Ivan Ilyich) is a bunch of Orthodox philosophical fiction, which then became Russian cosmism and then, when existentialism had been spreading all over France - a social realism.

I appreciate the clarification, was not familiar with cosmism

Prigozhin was not entirely collected in his mind. He was perhaps a military leader but that's it. I watched with fascination at that "march on Moscow" unfolded but it isn't surprising that it failed.

I wondered what they had on him to hold him in place until the absurd plane blowup assassination.

Have patience, russian troops are being trained in china. When they hit the battlefield, things may change quickly. Hope Ukraine is preparing for this. Even without them, russia continues to make gains on the battlefield, be it slowly. It's a long fight. Slava Ukraine.

Russian cosmism had an unimaginable influence. The idea of using advent in technologies to do the miracles of Jesus Christ again was simple, yet no one is expressing anything similar today online.

For example, do you know that the real reason why Lenin wasn't buried, was that he was supposed to be the first person resurrected by science?

Pro tip: don't march on a capital in the 21st century, take a flight there.

Nah that was silly

Ah, ruskie officers are so smart they're unable to study the real warfare (which is how you get best intel and combat expertise) and they have to outsource training their troops to China which is not even at war.

Holy fuck, russian military really is a fucking joke, and a funny one at that!