SympathysSilhouette

Source: Guess

Source: Guess

There is no "likely" about it. They would inflict massive damage just with a fraction of their drone capability. Let alone if they involve long-range missiles/air force operations.

Hasn't she been with them for a while now? I think someone else mentioned this x amount of months ago, hoping it would mean she would get more and better work.

I saw some people begging NATO to destroy the column. Obviously they won't do that because it would be a huge escalation. But it would be so easy to do. I'm sure a lot of the top brass in the various NATO countries are feeling incredibly frustrated. This operation is being waged so tactically poor by the Russians that they could utterly decimate the Russian forces with ease, and they would only need to use a tiny fraction of their combined operational capabilities to do so.

The U.S. air force completely obliterated such tank columns during the second Iraq war. Even with the limited aerial capabilities that the Ukrainians still possess at this point, this is tactically incredibly poor from the Russians.

These long columns without proper air support would be easy pickings for the Ukrainians, if they still had enough air capabilities themselves (including drones).

Aging like fine wine!

Alex looking really good as always.

Putin pushed all of his chips onto the table for an operation that I find hard to understand in terms of long-term strategy. Even if he achieved his short-term goal (kill Zelensky and his government and install a puppet regime), surely he must know that a long and bloody insurgency awaits him? One that will be incredibly unpopular domestically. And very costly. So what is the point? Especially considering the cost in terms of international reputation and severe sanctions.

I'm sure they will be greeted as brave liberators!

"Denazification!"

Reports that Russia literally has Wagner mercs looking to execute Zelensky and members of his government. Which makes the claims of "denazification" even more absurd.

The failure in the strategic and operational sense for Russia is hard to make sense of. Like, how do the Ukrainians still have functioning planes and drones this far along into the invasion? Russia has massive air superiority and one of the best AA systems in the world. It all makes no sense whatsoever, unless there is a massive failure of leadership from the top all the way down to the unit commanders. Which would also explain insane stuff, like units that don't even appear to have maps of the area they are invading...

Yup! Thanks! Totally forgot Charlie's name. Don't think I knew about Annalisa after all.

Is her new beau following Gel Boy the guy with the successful weed start-up? Or am I thinking of some other model?

Name?

Remind me who these two are again? I am pretty sure I at the very last once knew the name of the girl with the chaps (on the right in the picture).

The French army is excellent, but very specialized. They don't have the numbers, but their combat units are amongst the best in the world. But perhaps more important to discuss right now: Olaf Scholz has freed an immediate budget of 100 billion to bolster German defense spending. And more consequential by far: a commitment to a minimum of 2% of their GDP to defense. Translated through the realities of their current GDP, that is an annual investment of around 74 billion dollars. That would immediately make them the fourth biggest spenders in the world in terms of their defense. Behind the U.S., China and India, but ahead of Russia. For all the talk of "poking the Russian bear", what the Ukraine invasion has actually achieved is breaking through a 7+ decade long taboo when it comes to significant defense spending for Germany. The black eagle has risen from its ashes. Great job Putin!

Things just got very interesting. If an escalation is coming, it'll happen soon.

Xi can't move on Taiwan as easily as Putin can on Ukraine. For one thing, his relation to the Chinese military (which is a separate column of Chinese society altogether) isn't like Putin's. In essence, the Chinese brass will only consider an incursion into Taiwan if they themselves deem it opportune. They aren't beholden to Xi in the traditional sense. They are more like the Turkish military once upon a time, until Erdogan neutered them a bit. And probably more significantly, an invasion of Taiwan would be a very complicated thing. We are talking a degree of difficulty that would rival operation Overlord. It is certainly an operation that would require a huge amount of resources and years of preparation. And would need to be launched at a very specific time of the year to even stand a chance. So I don't think however Putin's incursion into Ukraine turns out, it will be at all instructive to China as a playbook for Taiwanese ambitions on their part.

What is the long-term prospect even if Putin wins? I don't think he can support an occupation. He doesn't have the means to do so, even if you don't even factor in Ukrainian nationalists who will be desperate to drag the occupying force into a bloody insurgency. So what does he gain? Annexation of a part of the country (to the East)? What else? If the entire idea was no longer to have a pro-EU/NATO presence on his border, that doesn't change if he has to leave some of the country outside of his control. But he definitely lacks the resources to occupy a country the size of France, with a population of 44 million.

There is a certain irony in Zelensky's courage. Here is a head of state who begged for more U.S. help for years and only got a fraction of it. Yet he is staying and fighting for his country. Meanwhile, the propped up regime in Afghanistan fell almost immediately and Ghani fled immediately, taking a fortune in stolen money with him. In spite of the fact that Afghanistan received far more support in terms of equipment and training from the U.S. Seems all of that money could have been much better spent in Ukraine.

The European response has frankly been pathetic. Now the Russians have openly threatened Sweden and Finland and the reaction is still *crickets*. This is incredibly pathetic. We aren't even talking about a real super-power like the U.S. or China here. Russia has a GDP of less than half of Germany. If not for their nuclear arsenal, we should be treating them roughly like Spain or South Korea in terms of their global importance. Yet people here are terrified to even respond in kind when they are openly threatened?

Who is that? Also, boo at the nipple censorship!