Prediction Thread: When Will Russia Conquer Ukraine

[BeBMan]

This is why the current mobilization efforts are "partial" only:

https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1572624326548922375?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1572624326548922375%7Ctwgr%5E120c95f5cd5b9387ca672231eb440061fe78710d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fausland%2Fnikolai-peskow-sohn-von-kreml-sprecher-glaubt-nicht-an-einberufung-nach-teilmobilisierung-a-2968431f-fe21-4815-8f1e-a33fa42e3ecc

[pchang]

Being sent to war is only for poor, unimportant people. The fact he is so self assured that his last name alone makes him exempt tells you everything you need to know.

[N35t0r]

MY PIES ARE BAKED WITH NUCLEAR POWER! (tho probably only partially, when we get electrictiy from France in certain periods).

I can see the cooling tower of the Emsland plant from the window, so mine are most definitely nuclear-powered.

[BlackCat]

This guy is on youtube so I don't think I endanger someone - he is a bit of an unSerb russian but quite interesting :

PS. there are more than this one.

[BeBMan]

There were reports yesterday saying some of the people protesting vs. mobilization were drafted directly after they were arrested by police. Should that be true I applaud this genius move to arm the resistance.

[N35t0r]

Not only protestors, but also pro-putin counter-demonstrators were arrested and forcibly conscripted

[Proteus_MST]

Not only protestors, but also pro-putin counter-demonstrators were arrested and forcibly conscripted

That sounds great ...
I hope the Pro-Putin counterdemonstrators enjoy, that they now have the opportunity to directly serve their lord and master on the battlefield

[N35t0r]

And workers at rocket factories (the Krunichev center, which builds the Angara and Proton medium-lift rockets), airline employees and apparently college students (although not a lot of evidence for this last one, the info I got was that it was in Siberia).

[Geronimo]

What is the official explanation for how not defeating Ukraine could constitute an existential crisis for a country the size of Russia? If it's just an explanation that Russia next to free hostile ukraine would be easier to attack than Russia next to occupied hostile ukraine wouldn't a campaign of global conquest be the logical extension of such reasoning?

I just can't see how mobilization can be sold to the Russian population purely to secure land from Ukraine and to defeat it militarily.

[PLATO]

I just can't see how mobilization can be sold to the Russian population purely to secure land from Ukraine and to defeat it militarily.

It is being sold at the end of a gun barrel

[Berzerker]

Russians dont need Putin to educate them about Nazis

[BlackCat]

Some more reasonable talk

It would be interesting to hear Serbs comments to it

[Geronimo]

It is being sold at the end of a

That might work if attempted in an empire of mindless zombies but until now the Russian government has been quite obsessed with convincing a decisive majority of the population that its strategies made some kind of sense in serving the interests of the population.

[pchang]

Serb’s comments were pretty much those of a mindless zombie.

[Dauphin]

That might work if attempted in an empire of mindless zombies but until now the Russian government has been quite obsessed with convincing a decisive majority of the population that its strategies made some kind of sense in serving the interests of the population.

I think that has been abandoned or is being abandoned in favour of serving the interest of keeping Putin in power. The mask is falling now because it is only now that the two are in direct empirical contradiction.

[BeBMan]

Some more reasonable talk

It would be interesting to hear Serbs comments to it

Re brinkmanship, there are some comments now from Ru officials which seem to retract/clarify some of Putin's nuke comments:

Reuters is carrying a little more detail on those quotes from Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov. It quotes him saying:
We are not threatening anyone with nuclear weapons. The criteria for their use are outlined in Russia’s military doctrine. We hope the Biden administration is also aware of the danger of an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.

Reuters notes that under Russia’s nuclear doctrine, use of nuclear weapons is permitted if Moscow feels it faces as “existential threat”.

This is from the Guardian's news stream since people can only read limited amounts of stuff at Reuters directly without subscription or so.

However, I think ramping up the nuke rhetoric makes less sense as long as they think mobilization etc. is going to have a positive effect (if they really think that is another q'). Also India and China don't seem to be amused in recent times about the whole situation.

If that changes again to get more hot I dunno. Me thinks if the guy from the vid is right, and mobilization was not Putin's first choice, rather something to keep militarist ultra right wing bloggers onboard I could also see how he's uncomfortable with the nuke card, as these guys are calling for it mostly (well they and Medvedev, which seems to be obsessed now to prove that he's reaaaaally tough, and not "liberal" as he was described as years ago).

Unless he's so weak now that he has to give ground on this point too. But it's easy to call for nukes when you're a blogger, not so easy to do it when you're the one facing the consequences.

[Berzerker]

Sooooo... this could have been over in April but the British PM undoubtedly with Biden's support killed the peace deal

[pchang]

This statement is simply insane.

[-Jrabbit]

We need links to such claims, Berz. Even if it's just one of your YouTube "sources."

[PLATO]

I think the nuke threat is to keep NATO out of the war as Russia pours 300,000 more troops westward from their boarders. Putin is scared s**tless about what NATO troops would do to his ragtag army and is doing what he can to make sure there is no intervention in force. He is doing what he can at this point to keep it a Ukraine-Russia affair.

As poorly as I expect these new troops to perform, simply throwing 300,000 bodies at the Ukrainian positions is likely to break them somewhere. This is when the opportunity for a Russian proposed cease fire would be most likely imho.

I think Putin wants out of the war and would be willing to keep the lines where they are for it to stop, but in his mind it must stop on a positive to be able to declare victory.