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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

I think Russia would still have a problem if it intended to occupy the entire Donbas region. The map below shows Donetsk and Luhansk (with Mariupol, Donetsk and Luhansk cities highlighted). I've drawn (in white) the approximate line of control according to the Minks Agreement, which shows the areas the separatists declared as the DPR and LPR. Red areas a predominantly Russian speakers, and blue areas are predominantly Ukrainian speakers. Maybe outside of these major cities it's easy-to-control countryside? But I don't think Russia will be welcome outside of the DPR and LPR, altho there may be no-one left to oppose them in Mariupol :(

And they'll still be faced with the same problem as they did in 2014/15 when volunteer battalions contained Russia in the DPR and LPR areas, only this time the Ukrainian military will have 200,000+ better equipped soldiers as opposed to the 6,000 it had back then.

View attachment 315860

One of the interesting things I think I've been picking up on is that the supposed "liberated" don't seem to be that keen on being liberated and many Ukrainian "Russians" have discovered their inner Ukrainian. (I am aware that I am seeing a heavily filtered set of views and experiences on SM).

Also saw some stuff about the pro RU militias in the disputed regions having suffered severe losses in battle. I don't have sources to quote, just what I've picked up whilst surfing the worldwide web over the last few days. So if the Russians stop where they are at, they may not have such an easy time.

Probably wrong but hey ho, speculation thread is far away.
 
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i don't understand that kind of reasoning and he's not a bear but ok.
If the full extent of the concerted sanctions had been agreed and fully spelled out in detail a month ago i don't know if he'd have gone ahead with the whole stupid thing in he first place but it's too late now.
Well, if the nature of the sanctions had been published in advance, those sanctioned would've been able to mitigate the impact. Money moved to other banks, assets transferred to other legal entities, private jets flown to safe countries, yachts moved to safe ports, etc..

Much like the government did for their donors - 30 days notice of seizure has softened the blow.

So I think he'd still have gone ahead, and would be under less/no pressure to abate.
 
One of the interesting things I think I've been picking up on is that the supposed "liberated" don't seem to be that keen on being liberated and many Ukrainian "Russians" have discovered their inner Ukrainian. (I am aware that I am seeing a heavily filtered set of views and experiences on SM).
Yes look at Mariupol and Kharkiv, two predominantly 'Russian' cities, and the amount of resistance there, not to mention the number of Russian speakers that joined the nationalist volunteer militias (I think some of those militias are actually majority Russian speaking)
 
WHich the west have done. However the threats weren't sufficent in preventing Putin make a massive fuck up.
Threats of specific economic sanctions != threats of specific military action. It's a lot easier to escalate economic threats in light of ignorance of said threats than it is for military ones.
 
If I remember rightly, the sailor in Letter to Brezhnev was Ukrainian from Odesa.

Quick namedrop moment... I met Margi Clarke a couple of times in the late 70s. She was in a band, but I can't remember what they were called, or if they were any cop. I liked her though.
I woke up on a camp site next to Margi on shell Island years ago. I new it was her before I'd even unzipped my tent.

Also a mate of mine who ran a club in Liverpool tells a good tale of her falling out with a bouncer of his because he didn't know who she was and why she didn't have to queue. She went next door eventually :D
 
I woke up on a camp site next to Margi on shell Island years ago. I new it was her before I'd even unzipped my tent.

Also a mate of mine who ran a club in Liverpool tells a good tale of her falling out with a bouncer of his because he didn't know who she was and why she didn't have to queue. She went next door eventually :D
And I've just remembered her band. It was... Margox and the Zincs. Saw them a couple of times in Manchester. Still can't remember if they were any good. Probably nowt to write home about if I can't remember.

Apologies for the derail, folks. I'll stop now.
 
Could still have mentioned UK and US - only seems polite really.

There's also a lot of EU countries, I hadn't realized half of them were in the EU.
 
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