Phew, there we was thinking you were a Russian sympathiser when all you really care about is Ukrainian lives, you couldn't give a @$#& that more Russian lives are being lost daily than Ukrainian .
How very Russian
The war in Ukraine...
- Thread starter Danllan
- Start date
How very Russian
Foregoneconclusion
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- Pembrokeshire
farmerm
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- Shropshire
Any “peace” will not save Ukrainian lives, it would only temporarily delay their deaths. putler has no interest in negotiating anything in which Ukraine remains independent and well armed.
Russia in danger of invading Europe, who the hell are these lying morons trying to kid.
7453289
Ukraine's defence forces repelled 24 Russian assaults on Avdiivka front today – Ukrainian General Staff report
KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO — SATURDAY, 27 APRIL 2024, 19:197453289
INDEPENDENT.
10 minutes ago
ukraine-war-russia-missiles-drones-putin-b2535883.html
Russia launches fresh missile barrage across Ukraine – but Kyiv fights back with drones
The airstrikes by Moscow are the fourth large-scale aerial assault targeting Ukraine’s power system in recent weeks
Chris Stevenson10 minutes ago
ukraine-war-russia-missiles-drones-putin-b2535883.html
Charlie Gill
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- Location
- Kent
Ukraine is in Europe.
If you want to be picky "invading NATO countries"!
Best get your excuses in first, if Biden loses it will be because of Russia & China fixing it not because Biden is totally useless, will Democrats accept the result if it happens, I very much doubt it!
7453285
US finds evidence of China's attempts to influence upcoming US elections – Blinken
KHRYSTYNA BONDARIEVA , KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO — SATURDAY, 27 APRIL 2024, 18:507453285
Charlie Gill
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- Location
- Kent
I love being picky
But on a serious note, as I've said before, time is the biggest gift we can give to putin. Underestimate that cnt at your peril.
Ms Estonia gets it.
UK and US aid for Ukraine should inspire others to do more, Estonia’s ‘Iron Lady’ says
Kaja Kallas urges free world to show its determination to defeat Russian aggression
www.telegraph.co.uk
Very few actually get it, America is more than happy with things as they are, if they weren't they would be providing the means for Ukraine to win rather than just keep the status quo.I love being picky
But on a serious note, as I've said before, time is the biggest gift we can give to putin. Underestimate that cnt at your peril.
Ms Estonia gets it.
UK and US aid for Ukraine should inspire others to do more, Estonia’s ‘Iron Lady’ says
Kaja Kallas urges free world to show its determination to defeat Russian aggression
- Location
- Limousin/Charentes toad land
I love being picky
But on a serious note, as I've said before, time is the biggest gift we can give to putin. Underestimate that cnt at your peril.
Ms Estonia gets it.
UK and US aid for Ukraine should inspire others to do more, Estonia’s ‘Iron Lady’ says
Kaja Kallas urges free world to show its determination to defeat Russian aggression
what the feck would she know about it? She needs to have a chat with Bri Z and get educated
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
I don't find anything funny about them being there either. I found the suggestion that they will soon be there funny and ridiculous which is why I replied. You are still trying to twist things.Being accurate - I don’t find anything funny about Russian tanks in any country at all… other than Russia
The statement I replied to deserved a bit of stick as it was so ridiculous, just like other stupid posts have been attacked by others on here. The poster is considered to be on the good side in the war against Brian though so hasn't been called out.I'm not going after you at all. I simply pointed out that the threat you ridiculed was being treated seriously by Poland. It would have been easy for you to point out the same rather than to question people's intelligence - but then I suppose you wouldn't have got the argument that you popped in for that you can then complain about
The threat as you say is being taken seriously by Poland and as a result a Russian attack won't happen, unless Poland was suddenly to send all its troops into Ukraine and bomb the shite out of Russia of course Which isn't happening either.
Once Poland has finished there won't be many countries that could attack it.
essex man
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- Location
- colchester
The attack not going to happen anyway, just another bout of scaremongering, it's a bit repetitive
Hindsight
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- Lincolnshire
Why Ramzan Kadyrov’s demise could plunge Putin into a new war
The Chechen leader is said to be terminally ill, raising the prospect that the ‘balance of terror’ in the Caucasus will be upset and the Kremlin will have to intervene militarily, writes Russia expert Mark Galeotti
Vladimir Putin secured Ramzan Kadyrov’s loyalty by throwing money at the new Chechen elite
Mark Galeotti
Saturday April 27 2024, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times
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Chechnya was the making of Vladimir Putin. With a blend of brutality and calculation he turned the tiny territory in the north Caucasus from Russia’s most rebellious region into, seemingly, its most loyal — and in the process defined himself as a leader who could restore order to his country after a desperate decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But if recent reports are correct that the Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov is fatally ill, then the settlement that Putin imposed after the second Chechen War (1999-2009), when he backed a self-interested strongman to keep a violent peace rather than seek any fundamental solution to the region’s discontent, is in jeopardy.
Kadyrov’s predicament exposes the wider stresses on Putin’s political system, and the consequences of decisions he made in the 2000s.
Goodbye Kadyrov?
There are regular claims that Russian officials from Putin downwards are fatally ill, which often come to little. However, the latest reports about Kadyrov have been supported by sources ranging from Ukrainian intelligence to Russian insiders and suggest he is beyond treatment and nearing death.Kadyrov was apparently diagnosed with pancreatic necrosis in 2019. His health took a serious turn for the worse since last year, with periods in hospital in a medically-induced coma. In his rare public appearances, he has been slurring his words, and swollen of face and abdomen.
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Some observers have suggested a picture of Kadyrov exercising is old footage
In an attempt to dispel the claims, last week he released a video purporting to show him exercising. Some observers have suggested this is old footage, noting discrepancies between his look in that video and another showing him meeting officials.
Chechen conundrum
Chechnya has long been a thorn in Moscow’s side, only subdued through a combination of extreme repression and the continued paying off of the new Chechen elite. Kadyrov himself is infamous for his personal zoo and his array of top-of-the-range cars, including one of only 20 £1.4 million Lamborghini Reventóns ever made.Considering the other crises on his desk, Putin will try to arrange a smooth succession. Kadyrov, who succeeded his father, hoped to build a dynasty, elevating his oldest son, Akhmat. However, he is just 18 — even though this did not stop his father appointing him Chechnya’s minister for sport and youth — and the law stipulates that the head of the Chechen Republic must be at least 30.
Instead, the front-runner seems to be Major General Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Chechen Akhmat mercenary units in Ukraine. Moscow regards him as someone with whom it can do business, but there are others closer to Kadyrov who may consider themselves to have a greater claim. Kadyrov’s cousin Adam Delimkhanov, for example, has since 2007 been Chechnya’s representative to the Duma, the Russian parliament, and has his own military forces.
This is why Kadyrov’s likely death matters so much. Stability in Chechnya was bought after the war through both massive federal subsidies — to buy off Kadyrov and the rest of the Chechen elite — and a balance of terror between rival armed camps, all of whom pledged loyalty to Kadyrov, but mistrust each other.
Parts of Grozny, the Chechen capital, were left in ruins by the Chechen wars
GLEB GARANICH/REUTERS
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If attempts to install a new leader cause splits in the Chechen elite, then this is likely to become not just a political but an armed dispute. In the words of one Russian political commentator, “There are too many men with guns and grudges there to be able to assume that things won’t turn bloody.”
A terrible dilemma
If they do, then this will pose a terrible dilemma for Putin, for whom it comes at the worst possible moment.Pacifying Chechnya and preventing instability in this region from spreading to the rest of the volatile north Caucasus would almost certainly require a substantial deployment of Russian forces. Putin can turn first to the paramilitary National Guard, which is substantial and well-armed, but if past experiences are any guide, they would not necessarily be enough.
Putin with Kadyrov in 2011
ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
In that case, Putin must choose between two equally difficult options: divert troops to secure Chechnya at the cost of momentum in Ukraine, or keep his forces in Ukraine and risk losing Chechnya and destabilising the north Caucasus. In fairness, many Russians would welcome “losing” Chechnya, but Putin himself, thinking of his political and historic legacy, is unlikely to be comfortable abandoning territory Russian spent more than two centuries conquering.
Chickens coming home to roost
Chechnya is hardly a typical region of the Russian Federation, but in many ways, this is just the first and most dramatic of a series of looming challenges created by decisions Putin made much earlier, while building his state.ADVERTISEMENT
In the 2000s he assumed first of all that he would always have ample resources with which to reward compliant local leaders and governors — and also ample forces with which to punish the troublesome.
Whatever Putin’s attempts to create some kind of personality cult and historical legitimacy, essentially his system is based on renting the loyalty of the elites by offering them opportunities for enrichment through corruption and embezzlement.
Times are harder now, though, so tough decisions are having to be made, with some leaders and regions still being well fed, others in effect put on short rations.
Squeaky wheels
What used to be rewarded was either conspicuous loyalty to Putin or the capacity to be a problem for him. In the current environment, loyalty alone no longer seems to guarantee money from Moscow.Increasingly, it is clear that local leaders have to threaten the Kremlin with dire consequences. Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin, for example, quietly highlights how embarrassing it would be if the infrastructure in Putin’s capital began to decay while, after the recent terrorist attack, leaders of regions with large Muslim populations warn of the risk that angry locals might turn to jihadism if funds are cut.
A Russian soldier in Chechnya during the second war in 2000
EPA
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Kadyrov was ahead of this curve. Behind his protestations of support for Putin was always a subtext: without me, you may face a third Chechen War. Whenever there was any attempt to cut the federal subsidies which account for more than 80 per cent of the Chechen budget (and allow Kadyrov and his cronies to live the very good life), he made moderately veiled threats to stand down.
Gerontocracy
This is a challenge that is especially hard for an increasingly ageing and conservative leadership to handle.At only 47, Kadyrov was a relative stripling in the Russian elite. Putin’s dependence on people of his own generation and mindset, and his unwillingness to see disruptive churn at the top, especially in the security elites, is turning his system into a gerontocracy. The powerful Russian Security Council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, is 72, for example, and so is Alexander Bortnikov, director of the FSB security service. The National Guard director, Viktor Zolotov, is 70, while the foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, is 69 and the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is 74.
• West must prepare for a splintering Russia
This has obvious implications for their energy, their outlook and their capacity to adapt to new realities. It also generates resentment in the next political generation, impatiently awaiting their turn at the top.
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Above all, it means that through illness, infirmity or mortality, the 71-year-old Putin — so long as he himself survives — will likely have more such difficult choices thrust upon him, and not at a time of his choosing.
For example, it is well known that Bortnikov is ill, and has been for some time. However, Putin is forcing him to stay in place to a large extent because there are controversies about his heir apparent, Sergei Korolev.
Prospects
Putin has put considerable effort into proofing his system against predictable and manageable threats, from the danger of a coup to the impact of sanctions.Yet as Kadyrov’s fate demonstrates there are fundamental “design choices” in his system that he can do little about, without dramatic changes to the very system. And there’s no sense he has it in him to do that.
Instead, all he can do is just hang on, in what could become a very bumpy ride. From here on much of his domestic political decision-making is going to have to be crisis management.
Professor Mark Galeotti is the author of over 20 books on Russia, most recently Downfall: Prigozhin and Putin, and the New Fight for the Future of Russia, to be published by Penguin in June 2024
Global politics
Russia
Vladimir Putin
Ukraine
its yourself
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- Location
- Scotland, Finland and France.
You have never been to Russia.
They don't care about people.
You have not seen rural Russia.
A destroyed rubble strewn wasteland would be quite familiar to Russians.
Russia loses more than one thousand soldiers in one day
The Russian Armed Forces lost 1,096 soldiers, 43 artillery systems and 11 tanks on the battlefield on 27 April.
www.pravda.com.ua
its yourself
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- Location
- Scotland, Finland and France.
Russia has already attacked Estonia in 2014.
It crossed the border and abducted an Estonian border agent.
Border probes across the Finnish border are common and are likely to lead to an armed confrontation soon.
Russia must be defeated.
essex man
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- Location
- colchester
Oh perleaaase.
At least if you going to talk like that, i hope you are in favour of nato attacking russia?
its yourself
Member
- Location
- Scotland, Finland and France.
I'm in favour of stopping armed Russian troops crossing NATO borders.
You are just sore because you were factually wrong again.
As usual.
essex man
Member
- Location
- colchester
No, they haven't attacked estonia, if you think that's an "attack" then that's up to you, not how i would define it.
Under your definition i guess they have "attacked" uk re Salisbury.
If you continually repeat nonsense it doesn't become more correct.
If your gibberish could make me "sore" i would have a real problem, it's entertaining enough though.
You not answering the question, as usual...you want russia defeated so we should attack surely?
Oh hang on! this is the question you refused to answer before!
Comedy!