Originally Posted By FrankyRay:

Okay, I'll be the one to ask... What is that painting of?

Originally Posted By Bassgasm:


You cannot decouple the US from the EU.

EU = NATO = US. We're hitched to that wagon whether or not we want to be.

Russia hasn't attacked NATO for the same reason NATO hasn't attacked Russia. Unless Putin is truly overdue for a trip to the loony bin or unless he decides he wants to go out in a hail of ICBMs (and nobody stops him), that's not going to change.

Originally Posted By BlueSetter:

I don’t think US forces should join the fight, I think EU should. The western world absolutely has the capability to stop the mass killing of civilians immediately.  Those convoys could be destroyed immediately.  Missile defense could intercept launches from outside immediately.  All remaining assets Russia has staged could be rendered useless immediately. If the nuke threat is a deterrent, we might as well roll over and watch Putin March on because it will forever be a threat.

Originally Posted By aswrg7:



Google translate:


Assessment of Russia's prospects by an FSB analyst
March 04, 2022
“I’ll be honest right away: I hardly slept all these days, almost all the time at work, my head is slightly floating, as if in a fog. And from overwork, sometimes I already catch states, as if all this is not real.

To be honest, the Pandora's box is open - a real global horror will begin by the summer - global famine is inevitable (Russia and Ukraine were the main suppliers of grain in the world, this year's harvest will be smaller, and logistical problems will bring the catastrophe to a peak point).

I can't tell you what guided those at the top when deciding on the operation, but now they are methodically lowering all the dogs on us (the Service). We are scolded for analytics - this is very in my profile, so I will explain what is wrong.

Recently, we have been increasingly pressed to customize reports to the requirements of management - I once touched on this topic. All these political consultants, politicians and their retinue, influence teams - all this created chaos. Strong.

The most important thing is that no one knew that there would be such a war, they hid it from everyone. And here's an example for you: you are asked (conditionally) to calculate the possibility of human rights protection in different conditions, including the attack of prisons by meteorites. You specify about meteorites, they tell you - this is so, reinsurance for calculations, nothing like this will happen. You understand that the report will be just for show, but you need to write in a victorious style so that there are no questions, they say, why do you have so many problems, did you really work badly. In general, a report is being written that when a meteorite falls, we have everything to eliminate the consequences, we are great, everything is fine. And you concentrate on tasks that are real - we don’t have enough strength anyway.And then suddenly they really throw meteorites and expect that everything will be according to your analytics, which was written from the bulldozer.

That is why we have a total piz_ets - I don’t even want to pick another word. There is no protection from sanctions for the same reason: well, it’s quite possible that Nabiullina will be sewn up with negligence (rather, the switchmen from her team), but what are they to blame for? No one knew that there would be such a war, so no one prepared for such sanctions. This is the reverse side of secrecy: since no one was told, then who could calculate what no one told about?

Kadyrov is going crazy. And the conflict almost started with us: perhaps even the Ukrainians threw in misinformation that it was we who handed over the routes of Kadyrov's special forces in the first days of the operation. They were covered there on the march in a terrible way, they had not yet begun to fight, but they were simply torn to pieces in some places. And off we go: it was the FSB that leaked the routes to the Ukrainians. I do not have such information, I will leave 1-2% for reliability (it cannot be ruled out at all either).

Blitzkrieg failed. It is simply impossible to complete the task now: if Zelensky and the authorities were captured in the first 1-3 days, they seized all the key buildings in Kyiv, they gave them the order to surrender - yes, the resistance would subside to the minimum values. In theory. But what's next? Even with this ideal variant, there was an unsolvable problem: with whom to negotiate? If we demolish Zelensky, well, with whom should we sign agreements? If with Zelensky, then after we demolish it, these papers are worth nothing. Opposition Platform for Life refused to cooperate: Medvedchuk is a coward, he fled. There is a second leader there - Boyko, but he refuses to work with us - even his own people will not understand him. They wanted to return Tsarev, so even our pro-Russians turned against him.Return Yanukovych? But as? If we say that it is impossible to occupy, then any of our authorities will be killed there in 10 minutes, as we leave. Occupy? Where are we going to get so many people? Commandant's offices, military police, counterintelligence, security - even with minimal local resistance, we need 500 thousand or more people. Not counting the supply system. And there is a rule that by covering the poor quality of management with quantity, you only spoil everything. And this, I repeat, would be with the ideal option, which does not exist.we need 500 thousand or more people. Not counting the supply system. And there is a rule that by covering the poor quality of management with quantity, you only spoil everything. And this, I repeat, would be with the ideal option, which does not exist.we need 500 thousand or more people.Not counting the supply system. And there is a rule that by covering the poor quality of management with quantity, you only spoil everything. And this, I repeat, would be with the ideal option, which does not exist.

What now? We cannot announce mobilization for two reasons:

1) Large-scale mobilization will undermine the situation inside the country: political, economic, social.

2) Our logistics are already overstretched today. We will drive a many times larger contingent, and what will we get? Ukraine is a hefty country in terms of territory. And now the level of hatred towards us is going through the roof. Our roads simply won't be able to handle such supply caravans - everything will come to a standstill. And we won't manage to pull it out - because it's chaos.

And these two reasons fall out at the same time, although even one is enough to break everything off.

Losses: I don't know how many there are. Nobody knows. The first two days there was still control, now no one knows what is going on there. You can lose large units in communication. They can be found, or they can dissolve due to being attacked. And there, even the commanders may not know how many of them are running around somewhere nearby, how many died, how many are in captivity. The number of deaths is definitely in the thousands. Maybe 10 thousand, maybe 5, or maybe only 2. Even at the headquarters they don’t know for sure. But it should be closer to 10. And now we don’t count the LDNR corps - they have their own accounting.

Now, even if Zelensky is killed, captured, nothing will change. There is Chechnya in terms of hatred towards us. And now even those who were loyal to us are opposed. Because it was planned from above, because we were told that there would be no such option, unless we were attacked. Because they explained that it was necessary to create the most credible threat in order to peacefully agree on the right conditions. Because we were initially preparing protests within Ukraine against Zelensky. Excluding our direct entry. Intrusions, to put it simply.

Further civilian losses will go exponentially - and resistance to us will also only increase. They already tried to enter the cities with infantry - out of twenty landing groups, only one had a conditional success. Remember the assault on Mosul - after all, this is the rule, so it was in all countries, nothing new.

Keep under siege? According to the experience of military conflicts in the same Europe in recent decades (Serbia is the largest testing ground here), cities can be under siege for years, and even function. Humanitarian convoys from Europe there are a matter of time.

We have a conditional deadline of June. Conditional - because in June we have no economy left, nothing remains. By and large, next week there will be a turning point in one of the sides, simply because the situation cannot be in such an overstrain. There are no analytics - it is impossible to calculate the chaos, here no one can say anything for sure. Act intuitively, and even on emotions - but this is not poker for you. Rates will rise, in the hope that suddenly some option will shoot through. The trouble is that we, too, can now miscalculate and lose everything in one move.

By and large, the country has no way out. It’s just that there is no option for a possible victory, and defeat is everything, sailed at all. They 100% repeated the beginning of the last century, when they decided to kick weak Japan and get a quick victory, then it turned out that the army was in trouble. then they started the war to the bitter end, then they began to take the Bolsheviks for "re-education" into the army - after all, they were outcasts, uninteresting to anyone in the masses. And then, the Bolsheviks, who were not really known to anyone, picked up anti-war slogans and it started like this ...

From the pros: we did everything so that even a hint of the mass sending of "penalty boxes" to the front line did not pass. Send convicts and "socially unreliable" political prisoners there (so that they don't mess with the water inside the country) - the morale of the army will simply go into the negative. And the enemy is motivated, terribly motivated. He knows how to fight, there are enough middle-level commanders there. There are weapons. They have support. We will simply set a precedent for human loss in the world. And that's it.

What we are most afraid of: at the top, they act according to the rule of overlapping the old problem with a new problem. Largely for this reason, the Donbass of 2014 began - it was necessary to divert the attention of Westerners from the topic of the Russian spring in Crimea, so the Donbass crisis, it seems, should have drawn all the attention to itself and become the subject of bargaining. But there were even bigger problems. Then they decided to push Erdogan into 4 pipes of the South Stream and entered Syria - this is after Soleimani gave deliberately false inputs in order to solve his problems. As a result, it was not possible to close the issue with Crimea, there are also problems with the Donbass, the South Stream has shrunk to 2 pipes, and Syria has hung with another headache (if we go out, they will demolish Assad,which will make us look like idiots, but it’s also difficult and useless to sit).

I don't know who came up with the "Ukrainian Blitzkrieg". If we were given real introductory information, we would at least indicate that the original plan is controversial, that we need to double-check a lot. A lot of things. Now we got into the shit somewhere up to the neck. And it is not clear what to do. "Denazification" and "demilitarization" are not analytical categories, because they do not have clearly defined parameters by which one can determine the level of accomplishment or non-completion of the task.

Now it remains to be seen that some fucking adviser will convince the top to start a conflict with Europe demanding to reduce some sanctions. Or reduce, or war. What if they refuse? Now I do not rule out that then we will be drawn into a real international conflict, like Hitler in 1939. And then our Z will be compared to us with a swastika.

Is there a possibility of a local nuclear strike? Yes. Not for military purposes (it will not give anything - this is a defense breakthrough weapon), but with the aim of intimidating others. At the same time, the soil is being prepared to turn everything to Ukraine - Naryshkin and his SVR are now digging the earth to prove that they secretly created nuclear weapons there. Damn, they are now hammering on what we have long studied and dismantled: you can’t draw evidence here on your knee, and the presence of specialists and uranium (Ukraine has a lot of depleted isotope 23:cool: - this is about nothing. You can’t even do a “dirty” bomb quietly, but the fact that their old nuclear power plants can produce weapons-grade plutonium (REB-1000 type stations provide it in minimal quantities as a “by-product”

Do you know what will happen next week? Well, even after two. Now it will cover us so much that we will start to miss the hungry 90s. While the auction was closed, Nabiullina seemed to be taking normal steps - but it's all like plugging a hole in a dam with a finger. It will still break through, and even stronger. Nothing will be decided in 3, 5, or 10 days.

Kadyrov beats his hoof for a reason - they have their own adventures there. He created for himself the image of the most influential and invincible. And if it falls once, it will be taken down by its own people. He will no longer be the owner of the winning teip.

We go further. Syria. "The guys will hold out, everything will be over in Ukraine - and there in Syria we will again strengthen everything in positions." And now, at any moment, they can wait there for the contingent to run out of resources - and such a heat will set in ... Turkey blocks the straits - to transport supplies there by planes, it's like heating an oven with money.

Notice that all this is happening at the same time, we don’t even have time to bring everything into one heap. We have a situation, like in Germany in the 43-44th. At the start right away. Sometimes I am already lost from this overwork, sometimes it seems that everything was a dream and it was a dream, that everything is as before.

In prisons, by the way, it will be worse. Now the nuts will begin to tighten so that to the bloody ichor. Everywhere. To be honest, purely technically, this remains the only chance to keep the situation - we are already in the mode of total mobilization. But you can’t stay in such a regime for a long time, and we have ambiguity with the timing and it will only get worse for now. From mobilization, management always goes astray. Yes, and imagine: you can run a hundred meters in a snatch, but it’s bad to go to a marathon distance and give a jerk with all your might. Here we rushed with the Ukrainian question, as if we were running a hundred meters, and fit into a cross-country marathon.

And that's what I'm talking about very, very briefly.

From the cynical, I will only add that I do not believe that VV Putin will press the red button to destroy the whole world.

Firstly, there is more than one person making a decision, at least someone will jump off. And there are a lot of people there - there is no "one-man red button".

Secondly, there are some doubts that everything is functioning successfully there. Experience shows that the greater the transparency and control, the easier it is to identify shortcomings. And where it is not clear who controls and how, but always bravura reports - everything is always wrong there. I'm not sure if the red button system works as advertised. In addition, the plutonium charge must be changed every 10 years.

Thirdly, and this is the most vile and sad thing, I personally do not believe in the readiness to sacrifice oneself of a person who does not let the members of the Federation Council, but his closest representatives and ministers, come close to him. For fear of the coronavirus or an attack, it doesn't matter. If you are afraid to let the most trusted people near you, then how will you dare to destroy yourself and your loved ones, inclusive?

If anything - ask, but I can not answer for several days. We are in rush mode, and there are more and more tasks.

In general, our reports are peppy, but everything flies in the pi_du.

Originally Posted By FrankyRay:

Okay, I'll be the one to ask... What is that painting of?