For the Russians on the street war with Ukraine is very unpopular, but going to war with the west is much more popular. If the war can be successfully cast as Russia vs the US or NATO instead of Russia vs Ukraine, that is a win on the home front. That's why he's saying this. It's trying to change the narrative.
The initial sanctions may not have included Russian oil to give various other countries a chance to ramp up production and fill the gap left when Russian oil leaves the market. As pointed out, the sale of Russian oil has dropped significantly since the war began. Shell bought some Russian oil and they have been heavily criticized for it.
The oligarchs are mostly craven and cowed, but the FSB and increasingly the military is unhappy with him. Those are two other legs of the stool holding him up.
Another factor she is missing is that the common people have been kept mostly quiet for years with an ever increasing standard of living. They have been enjoying the benefits of western consumer goods and the ability to travel to European destinations for over 20 years. Despite that, the political opposition has been growing. The people born after 1980 are increasingly unhappy with Putin even before this war.
In the past Putin has done a military operation when his support has flagged as a wag the dog thing. He invaded and took a slice of Georgia in 2008 and later in 2014 he took Crimea and part of Donbas. This is his biggest military operation yet. It could show how weak he really is with the public.
A story came out yesterday that workers at a factory somewhere had gone on strike because they didn't get paid. With the ruble in freefall, no access to credit, and a lot of key goods no longer made in Russia and need to be imported as nose bleed prices, hyper inflation is almost certain very soon. We in the west have seen what disruptions of some imported goods do to the economy as we've tried to climb out of the pandemic shut downs. Russia's upcoming shortages are going to be significantly worse.
The under 42s who are already unhappy with Putin are going to see their standard of living drop back to Soviet era and worse. The older than 42s understand it, but it's an alien landscape to those too young to remember the USSR. The protests are going to ramp up. And if the protests get too big for the police to handle, the military is not there to back up the police. They will be able to put some troops on the streets, but not as many because the bulk of the army is in Ukraine.
If the polices and soldiers sent to put down the protests aren't getting paid, they will probably be sympathetic to the protesters and might deliberately let things get out of hand and let the protesters occupy carious critical places.
Even if Putin orders these protesters arrested or even shot, the people tasked with carrying out his orders will be outnumbered and might not be all that inclined to do it. Even if they tried they would not be able to put a dent in the protests. You can't arrest 20 million people.
Not that long ago Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus faced mass protests and his government almost toppled. Authoritarian leaders have been ousted when the public got fed up and rose up against them. The massive Russian army has always been a looming threat for this in Russia, but with the army tied down, the door is open.
Since 1900 Russia has had popular uprisings after ever military defeat. One was put down (1906), but the others were the 1917 Revolution and the 1989 collapse of the USSR. And the operation in Afghanistan was chicken feed compared to this war.
He is an authoritarian, but he's stayed in power over 20 years because he is very good at playing off factions and keeping the masses quiet. But he's losing control.
According to UK sources it's now believed that Putin has colon cancer and it may be quite advanced
Vladimir Putin may have cancer, according to source
He's had it at least two years. Early in the pandemic I recall reading about the elaborate decontamination procedures anybody had to go through to see him face too face. He has been behaving like someone immune compromised for two years. He's also exhibited the signs of someone with severe lower back pain from before the pandemic and chronic lower back pain is one symptom.
Another thing I noticed is nobody has seen him in several days. They released a video of him meeting with people yesterday, but it appears he was added electronically too another video and the metadata on the video was from February 21.
Putin may be dying. Interestingly the person who is officially second in line, their head of the military, was ousted today. Putin dying and leaving a power vacuum could also set off a civil war.
Russian tanks are all rooted in the 1950s designs which were in turn evolved from WW II designs. The Russians introduced the main battle tank concept then and every army in the world has adopted it since. The T number on their tanks is the year they were accepted for production. The T-90 is their front line tank today, though I believe they have a T-14 in the works. They are taking T-62s out of storage to send to Ukraine right now. T-62s that have been sitting outside in Siberia for 30 years.
The American Abrams saw action in the first Gulf War. It originally had Chobham armor which was made from layered fabric and is very resistant to conventional armor piercing rounds, but when it became evident that the Russians used HEAT rounds (high explosive anti-tank) the armor was replaced with depleted uranium armor. The Abrams is literally radioactive.
The uranium armor is highly resistant to all anti-tank weapons, including rocket munitions.
The Abrams wiped out the Republican Guards in Iraq in a very short and fast armor battle. I believe there was not a single US tank lost.
Insurgency warfare has been around a long time. The American colonies employed it in the American Revolution. It's always been the way a weaker opponent who is determined can fight back against a stronger invader. There are various weapons used against insurgents, but the only way insurgencies are eventually put down is putting enough infantry on the streets to stop the insurgents before they get going. Most invaders are unwilling or unable to do this.
Russia's population is only a little over 3X Ukraine's. It would take a serious effort and commitment on the part of Russia to subdue Ukraine and they don't have the manpower in arms right now nor the budget to do it. Even if they don't pay the soldiers, they need to outlay resources to put them in the field and keep them there. And unhappy soldiers are not going to do their job very well.
Other countries outside of the Russian sphere have developed their own tanks and most have designed them more on the line of the Abrams than the Russian tanks. What's obsolete is tank designs rooted in WW II and the early cold war.
It's been clear from the start that US intel has been fed to the Ukrainians. Additionally leaks from the FSB have helped both the US and Ukraine stay ahead of the Russians.
I don't see Ukraine surrendering. Their cites are getting destroyed, but when the public is willing to keep up the fight, destroying the cities only has the effect of making the enemy dig in deeper.
Think of the British resiliency during the Blitz and the Germans were just as resilient when the western Allies bombed their cities to dust. Germany was virtually leveled by the war, but they kept fighting to the bitter end. Ultimately the Germans lost because they ran out of everything: men, weapons, and ground to defend. They fought for every inch of it though, especially against the Russians.
I read today that those three guys were actually police. The Russians figured this was going to be such an easy cake walk that they sent civilian police groups in to police places like Kyiv after they had been taken.
I didn't watch the whole video, but is this guy in Russia? If so he almost certainly does not have access to high quality information about the war. I plan to watch the whole thing a bit later.
I don't know why Zelansky keeps calling for a no fly zone. I'm sure he's been told this would lead to the conflict getting worse and possibly go nuclear and imposing a no fly zone is not going to stop artillery attacks unless the people flying the no fly zone are also going to be attacking Russian positions on the ground, at which point NATO has fully joined the war.
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