This war will drag on at least as long as Putin lives. Maybe even beyond his death. Putin can only live on by keeping the war running.

I do not criticize the Ukrainian military-They have shown they are the best in the world right now and yes-they will attack where Russian are weakest.

Can't remember who of you wrote some days ago.

Russia has learned their lesson they have dug them self heavy guarded defence line or fortifications. However is this the case on the entire front.

As time goes the Russian has time to fortify their defences and expand them.

My guess on how this offensive will go

The attack will be like an arrowhead thus punching a hole in the Russian defense line

One thing I'm certain of-They(Ukrainian) will start the offensive with heavy bombardment and low flying attack with SU25 to pave way for the offensive.

I could very well imagine Ukrainian does this where the offensive isn't gonna happen.

I have a wildly imagination

Markus

Think these videos explain it good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PCg-ba9tRI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRboVa5zyUk

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. If Putin dies, the power struggle will decide the outcome of this war it will come of its own accord, unengineered by anyone, born in the chaos of the Kremlin.

What cares Putin Russia? If he now agrees to seize fire and retreat, if he looses the war - he will get shot. He cannot end the war without massive, funamental wins, a victory. And if he cannot win, the the only way for him to extend his worthless life and not getting shot is to keep the war running.

Thats why I think any hope to negotiate with him is completely illusory, pointless, misled. Of that I am 100% certain. If he does that and gives ground, his own minions will kill him. And he knows that. So...

This implies that any offer by him to negotiate is just a trap, is deception, is not meant serious.

This also means that Putin cannot have any interest at all to negotiate. It would mean he negotiates his own death.


If he dies, by bullet or rope or poison or missile or cancer of whatever, the fight for power will break loose openly. And it is not certain at all that the successor of Putin will be any milder than Putin was. In fact his successor likely will be even worse.

Putin's life is at stake, and that is what commands his political decisions.

Russia is a dictatorship. A strong one. Putin faces no challengers from elites or society that a democratic leader might face when fighting or losing a war. People criticizing Putin for failing to achieve his initial objectives, which he clearly stated in his February 21, 2022, address, have no way to overthrow him or to even really criticize him. Putin can define victory in any way he wants. Tomorrow on television, Putin could declare victory by claiming that he freed the people of Donbas from fascists, protected “ethnic Russians” in Crimea, or stopped NATO’s invading forces in Ukraine before they reached Russian borders. If Putin ended his war tomorrow and claimed victory, the vast majority of Russians would support him. Russian leaders have done so repeatedly throughout history too, including in Afghanistan as well as at the end of World War I, the Japan-Russia war, and even the first Chechen war (Yeltsin, suffering heavy losses, agreed to a ceasefire in exchange for territorial autonomy, but not independence.). I don’t know what Putin will do if he starts to lose in Donbas or Crimea. And so don’t you. But we all should recognize that he is not suicidal, he is not crazy, and that he has options.

No, I think you overestimate the stabilty of putins system. It has degraded, has lost stability over the war. I talk not of the people on the street, but the sharks in the pool putin himself also sits in.

Putin still controls the FSB and its security forces and army the rest are irrelevant political he has full control Wagner and the Chechen have lost the power struggle Putin has full control over the power triangle like Stalin created it. But this can all crumble we can not predict when or how we did not foresee the czar abdicated or the fail of the USSR all happened by surprise and suddenly.

The Ukrainians have 20k combat troops that just finished training in the UK a week or two ago. That's five more brigades right there.

I don't see them having any other choice, America being their biggest backer.

And another leak

https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/st...14321213005824

Reading these status-There are 3 notes.
Made me recall the discussion between Dargo and Skybird.

Markus

Article via Google Translate dunno what kind of newspaper this is Skybird think could tell better https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/..._x_tr_pto=wapp

In general, I see no evidence here, looks more a copy/paste article like there are many

FOCUS is a weekly magazine like Der Spiegel, centrist-left, but not as left as the Spiegel. A high profile publication over here, quite known, quite popular. Not my favourite (that would be the Swiss NZZ), but I regularly check it.

Makes one wonder if we have a wish that Putin is terminal ill and thus letting our intelligent service create stories on which we believe.

No-I don't think they make up stories as they go..It could be the info they get is not correct.

In the beginning of the war he was suffering from some other disease(Can't remember-Maybe it was Cancer)

In my mind though, there's no doubt that some Russian generals are thinking about taking out Putin in a coup. Due to the heavy loses in Ukraine.

Markus