Russian journalist explains what Russians are thinking about Putin's war

"341 days into my 3 day war, I am still master strategist." -Vladimir Putin

Agree with both guests: this situation in Ukraine does remind of WWI western front, and these threats coming from the Kremlin do suggest that this is all Russia can do at this stage. The term “special operation “ still seems appropriate, however, because in the end Russia will loose so much more than just a war.

my heart goes out to the russian people whom dont want war ... and the same xs2 for the brave Ukraine people.

The war crimes committed by Russian troops must not be left unrecognized. In second World War, Japan's general Yamashita was hung due to war crimes of his uncontrolled troops. Putin has been acting like a general to his troops that have raped, killed innocent civilians, and etc. ; he must be held liable for these horrible crimes.

My gramps fought the great Nazi empire for this tiny nation I reside in. Scotland! He even stated " war makes money for the higher ups who watch men go to war and end off leaving women widowed. Leaving families disrupted as sons and daughters are ripped apart. Fathers ripped from their sons and wives. Politicians are the problem. Thinking they are above all of us and using public money to finance pathetic wars " although this was back in the 90s when I had this conversation with my hero. My grandad. More legendary than Michael Phelps to me and that takes some doing as I idolize the great Baltimore Bullet. He has nothing on my gramps though. A national hero, war hero but he would often remind me he wasn't and the men who died were the real heroes. Try hearing that and still thinking war is sunshine and rainbows. If you have ever heard stories about ww2. Those stories are nothing compared to the actual hell soldiers faced. My grandad saw one of the Russian comrades he was exchanging letters with back then. This was many years later and both of them burst into tears seeing each other for the first time. Do not ever say all Russians are bad people. They fought and helped us against the worst atrocities in history. The Nazi's. Yeah, you think war now is hell. Bring up a chair and I'll give you an incite into what my gramps had to face. Never hesitated either. But, it broke him badly. He'd often gaze to the skies when he heard a plane pass. I'd have to say it's okay grandad. But, the look of horror on his face at times was terrifying. To him it was bittersweet as he thought stukas were coming overhead sometimes and at other times he'd say " Look, The Hurricanes are coming to save us son " safe to say Some people thought he was insane . But, if only they could know the horrors on which he had to face. His neighbours would sometimes look at my gramps as nothing more than an old lunatic. I had to remind them that without men like my gramps. They would have no freedom and they would be speaking German so put some damn respect on his name whether they liked it or not. I wasn't having people who lived next to him taking any of that sh*t for granted. I had a conversation with a young military man later that year. He came round and gave my gramps a modern day version of a salute. My grandad looked at him with this big old smile and said " Name and rank son " I don't think he ever let his military side go. But, he was so happy to just have an hour with this young man to trade his stories with the guy and vice versa. One of the happiest days of my grandads life was aitting there just trading these stories. The guy didn't have to do that either. But, he wanted to. I was so happy that he gave an older brother in arms that chance. Unfortunately my gramps is in a care home now with severe dementia. He barely recognizes me anymore and trust me if I could I'd rag doll dementia if it showed its face. But, being an invisible disease I can't. You don't know what that does to me on the inside seeing him rot away like that. But, please don't ever say all Russians are the pits of evil. Some men had no option but to call them their buddies. I hope one day at the gates of Valhalla or whatever they say. The wastelands of death. I hope my gramps is standing there guiding me. Even if it was his favourite bird guiding me. I'd be happy. He loved crows. He often said to me " Be like crows. They have a buddy system that relies on each other. Gracious and humble " he took a lot of what he learned in the military and I think he saw some of himself and his buddies in the corvids. Sorry for the story. But, I had to write this just so I can see it as words and it does bring me a smile. Which Is sometimes all you need to remind yourself that the men of yesteryear gave their entirety to the cause for our freedoms. Sorry about the grammar as well. That was secondary to my little piece I was trying to type. ☺

I say every time I watch Erin do interviews and speak. She is by far the best News anchor of any news channels out there. Defienetntly gets the most out of the news story, down to great questions, summaries and she has a huge heart and great mind on top of all that, professional speaker . I know watching CNN from Canada is not always my favorite news outlet, but when Erin does a story and interviews, always great.

A win for Ukraine is a win for freedom. Victory for Ukraine💙💛

This war is such a tragedy. It will take generations before we can see Russia as a respected nation again. How could it go so wrong?

I watch TV RAIN on Clip-Share and Ekaterina is a great journalist. She calls out the voulchers who need to be, and praises those who deserve to be praised. One of the best journalists.

Absolute madness. Even Soviet talking heads weren't that inressponsible when talking about nuclear weapons. I really hope their words are just bluff but even if not - you shouldn't give in to their threats. If you comply and do as Russian government say, if you stop helping Ukraine - it's only getting worse.

In March 2022, Nina Khrushcheva expressed outrage at Vladimir Putin's conduct in the war that he waged against Ukraine, saying that her grandfather would have found Putin's conduct to be "despicable". In October 2022, she said, alluding to George Orwell's novel 1984, that in "Putin’s Russia, war is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength and illegally annexing a sovereign country’s territory is fighting colonialism."

The number is huge, but war is one by tactics, advantage, technical ability and determination. Ukraine has the advantage and soon there will be total retreat by the Russian army in key strategic areas. Ukraine will prevail. Freedom is coming to Ukraine. Slava Ukraini ! 👍❤️🇺🇸🇺🇦🇬🇧

I lived in Russia, such a beautiful country, so sad to see it destroying itself through its politics. Even more sad to see it destroy Ukraine.

Praying from USA for all the soldiers Ukrainian and Russian and all others. We know the majority do not want this and hope there is a quick resolve for all.

This woman, Ekaterina Kotrikadze.....KNOWS WHAT SHE IS TALKING ABOUT
From 2003 to 2005, Ekaterina worked on the Dangerous Zone (Russian: Опасная зона) programme on the TVC channel.
In 2006 she returned to Georgia. The first place of work in Georgia was the Alania TV channel, where Kotrikadze started from the position of an ordinary reporter, having worked for three years. At the same time, in 2008, she began cooperation on the RTVI channel as a correspondent for Georgia. In 2009 she began working for the Russian radio station Echo of Moscow. In October 2009, she became one of the founders of the Russian-language television channel the First Informational Caucasian, which was created in Georgia. Ekaterina headed the information service and in 2011 she took the position of general director, in 2012 - chief editor of the information service.
In 2012, after the closure of the FIC channel, she accepted RTVi's invitation to become head of the information service and form the channel's editorial policy. In 2016, after Alexey Pivovarov joined the channel as general producer and editor-in-chief, she was appointed deputy editor-in-chief.

This one of the better reports on the state of the war undertaken.

Actually its a small number when looking at Russia with a population of 143 million so on that scale it is small even if you cut that in 1/2 then subtract 40% for old age and then cut it in half again it still leaves them with about 21.45 million people of military age which is between 18 - 60.
The fact that they have less in terms of well trained Divisions than what was estimated is surprising. Just as the state of their equipment. But the rhetoric on their state media is unsurprising after all it is Putin's state media.

Those of us with memories of the Pueblo crew remember that prisoners can be made to say anything. Prisoners who were doing life I would think are particularly untrustworthy.

At a young age (1960's) growing up we learned to think of Russia as the enemy. As time went on attitudes toward Russia became more favorable, but now Putin's insanity/ego has destroyed that... another generation now seeing this will once again look to Russia as an enemy.

Praying daily for Ukraine and ultimately Europe 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

"Why? Just to be afraid of using them?"
That's literally the reason why Nuclear Weapons exist.

This video left me speechless.

i love the way you present the news.

The resolve of many of Russian conscripts to fight an unjust war while being treated as cannon fodder and supplied with poor equipment may affect the outcome in the Ukrainians favour.
A highly motivated defender vs a reluctant conscript changes the balance somewhat, the world needs to assist Ukrainians fight a war that may if lost, result in another Putin push, Moldovia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania are all potential buffers that Putin will want if he succeeds.

We tend to forget, but what an incredibly brave person; Alexei Navalny

Bring back Ekaterina more often :-)

'Quantity has a quality all its own' is hard on morale.

They've got to move a lot of food and supplies, and keep it going. To feed that many, day after day, is going to take a huge effort. It is hard to sustain this many troops. I think that NATO is hoping to grind down Russia's effort until they cannot do it anymore and troops starve.

500K troops is roughly half of the US military positioned to invade Ukraine all at once.
That’s probably a more impactful comparison than 2.5X the initial invasion especially if you’re like me and have no perspective on the scale of the initial invasion.

I wish such Russians come to the present and experiences peace/love. The girls mind is time traveling as seen in this video. You all see, she is in the future thought. Dwelling on the past and future only takes one away from peace/love. The emotions experienced when thinking of the past and future are anger, grief, guilt, shame, apprehension, need, want, and desire. Only when one is present may he or she experience love/peace. The further away one time travels the more stronger the fear based emotion manifests. People are dying over things that are where? The past? And where is the past? In the mind. The mind is like a puppy. Tell it to sit and it will walk away. You must train the mind to sit and this takes time but like a puppy it will eventually sit on command. Not good to let it wonder to far off either for it can get lost. This land Russia is fighting over stems from what in the past? See. It never will end. Forgive and forget. Best to come to the present. I say this not only to help others but myself too. Thanks. Peace/Love :)

The definition of insanity is repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein

In fact
When the soil is not suitable for heavy tanks, the light tanks being supplied to Ukraine will be very useful and effective
The light tanks will destroy the less mobile heavy armour

Sounds pretty crazy actually if you're gonna have a nuclear war why do you need 500000 troops unless you just need to thin out numbers all the way around

The head of Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner, Evgeny Prigozhin, has announced a milestone achievement in the battle for the city of Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut), publishing a video allegedly taken in front of the town’s administrative building on Sunday evening.

Think about it, a dictator invades his much smaller neighboor without provocation and ends up getting his ass stomped so he threatens the world claiming he is going to use strategic thermonuclear warfare because he is not getting his way in the country he illegally invaded and committed tens of thousands of war crimes in.

Just re-run a few bits of Blackadder IV.
“You mean advance very slowly towards the German machine guns just like we did 16 times already?”
“Of course! And that’s the genius of this plan. The Germans will never expect us to use the same plan again.”

The first wave of Russian soldiers were exactly that, soldiers. This is cannon-fodder. Unmotivated conscripts vs totally motivated, battle-hardened Ukraine fighters.

Putin: "I just have to win my war against Ukraine, or I am going to be the biggest loser of the century -- even a bigger loser than Trump. Frankly, I don't think my ego could handle that."

This operation was so special, it has taken the Russians almost a year now to achieve less than what they started with 3 days into the invasion. That's very special!

500,000 troops is scary enough but a few of them might even have weapons

Russia can deploy as many troops as they want, but without the proper weapons like tanks and planes, it will be very difficult to conquer all of Ukraine.

Watching this again ... the threat of nuclear war could be a ruse to terrify the russian people so that a stand down based on 'the benifience of Putin' would be a releif for them ensuring his continued reign as president? The most important phrase for me was 'If Russia loses the war ... ' Thus preparing everyone for that outcome. It's certainly, as far as I am aware, the first time that losing as a possibility to be broadcast on TV there

My wife was born and raised in Russia and immigrated thirty years ago. As many people who have already left Russia she is helping dozens more herself. She is fluent in Russian and English which is very helpful for helping people negotiate the Federal bureaucracy.

Is the talk about nuclear weapons a ploy to bait the US and NATO into thinking they are forced into a nuclear first strike against Russia immediately instead of waiting to be nuked? We never thought about first-striking Russia before, but all their talk about nuking us has Americans thinking we need to strike massively with our nukes before they nuke us first.

There are only 2 million military aged men (18-40 yo). Maybe 100,000 of them have already died. perhaps 500K have already left the country, maybe more. I think it would be quite difficult for Putshit to fine enough willing bodies, let alone weapons that work and any sort of body armor. As it is he has to have three ranks of troops to fight: the forward fighters, the ones who shoot deserters, and the ones who shoot the deserters of the second rank.

If you watched any of the youtubers reporting on this they were already reporting that they were always recruiting more than just the 300,000 they said this months ago when the mobilization started

Ruzzia is applying the same strategy the soviets had applied in Finland in the Winter War of 1939-1940. History is repeating itself once again.

They are on point. I studied WW1 for my Master's in military history, trench warfare is disgusting. Also, the Russian woman is gorgeous 😊😊😊😊

The consequences of a nuclear war over Russia's failure to conquer Ukraine is more insane than a landlord who burns down their own apartment complex because they failed to evict a tenant.

As long as there's no logistics providing everything these additional troops need, Ukraine will be able to handle them

I do now see that there are some significant differences in the reporting about the opinion of russian about this topic. An other "expert" reported on DW a few days ago, that to current mentality of russians is a feeling of indifference, he argued that russians don't real care anymore. It's strange to hear that there is a general sens of fear now.

Ps, not looking to get anything published, but those of us who think this way seem to be a minority. Just looking for and sparking a thought in your professionals. Never see this issue in my media, which mostly consists of Swedish and Norwegian state television, as well as CNN and Sky News and Al Jazeera.
I am a Scanian-Swedish nurse and have lived in Norway since 2015, I am a veteran with service in the Balkans under NATO together with the Telemark Battalion, have also served in Liberia under the UN and in Afghanistan together with the Finnish reconnaissance group, also then under NATO, always under the Swedish Armed Forces
Sincerely, BjörnErikNilsson
....
Putin's win, part of Ukraine, gas fields and nationalism.
Putin wants Sweden and Finland to join NATO. The West's increased strength is Putin's gain with increased Russian nationalism. The war will most likely end much like the Finnish Winter War, when ten percent of Finland became part of the Soviet Union. The advantage of Ukrainian land versus Finnish land is that there are gas fields in Ukraine. Six large gas fields and four of them in eastern Ukraine. Four out of six gas fields, a pretty good conquest if Putin has his way.
Putin has never said what his goal is with the war in Ukraine, except to de-Nazify the country.
Putin knows how difficult it is to conquer a country and then control it. No country in the 20th century managed to conquer a country and hold it longer than the Soviet Union, then countries in Eastern Europe, and then the Soviet Union was "liberator". Israel still fights the cause of Palestine today, and Nazi Germany controlled Poland for almost five years.
For full control of a conquered country, total subjugation and eradication of the people's culture in the country is needed. Extermination in the form of, for example, blankets with the weapon of smallpox to the families of the occupied country. Blankets that we Europeans generously gave to the Indians of North America in the 18th century. It will never happen in Ukraine, except with nuclear bombs. Putin knows this.
I hear how our Swedish and Norwegian politicians say that Putin has failed to make NATO stronger. Putin and his world's largest country are not interested in Sweden, Finland and NATO. All he wants is for blue NATO to only get bigger on the map. He wants to point to the map and show how the threat from the West is growing and growing. The Warsaw Pact is gone but NATO remains. A clear sign for him to show to the Russian people. We in the West exclude Russia from everything, culturally, trade, aviation, media and sports. And we are clearly anti-Russia, Putin and Lavrov are absolutely right.
Violations of Swedish and Finnish waters and airspace have occurred throughout the years, with submarines and aircraft. And we never made a big deal out of it. But after February 24, 2022, this changed. Why? Because we do exactly what Putin wants, we show his people that nationalism is the only thing that works. After 24-two, in 22, Russian military planes once again violated Swedish airspace. The Swedish defense shows pictures that the Swedish air force took of the Russian fighter planes posing in front of the cameras on the Swedish fighter planes, on Swedish territory. Afterwards, Russia clearly explains through Russian spokesmen to Sweden and Finland that these countries should not join NATO. We in the West respond by applying for NATO through Sweden and Finland. The West also excludes Russian school children from visiting Scandinavian schools and our children from visiting Russia.
Finland and Sweden do not need NATO, these countries are safe under the EU's defense guarantee, Article 42.7. Right?
The war will in all probability continue for many more years. Like positional warfare from trenches and bunkers. With elements of offensives from both sides. The more years we embarrassingly do what Putin wants by freezing out the Russian people, the more hatred from East and West. Putin doesn't care about the Russian people. Do we do west care about the brainwashed poor russians? We clearly show the opposite. In three years, the gap will be much greater than today between the people of the East and the West. We suffer from Russophobia, our behavior towards the East shows nothing else.
Putin's plan, Putin's win, everyone's loss.
Culture equals brainwashing, brainwashing equals culture. Open to Russian sports, culture and visits again, don't give Putin the tool he needs most, nationalism.
We make the same mistakes now as at
Treaty of Versailles, 1919, we are too hard on those we think are doing wrong. We all think we are better than Russia, but they are the third largest superpower, the weakest of the three superpowers, but still a superpower. A great power that refuses to see itself defeated.
The leadership in the West, has a future plan, with the result of this war is going to end "a draw" between Ukraine and Russia. So no winner, as usual in war. Right? A long cold, psychological and real physical wall between the conquered Ukraine and the old Ukraine will stand as a memory. Because Russia will never give up, and neither will Ukraine. Because we in the West will never dare to provoke the atomic power Russia too much. And by that we mean equipping Ukraine with really good offensive weapons. If we give Ukraine too strong weapons in the form of superior fighter jets like F-35, ore other superior weapon to get into Russia, Chances are high then. With their right, Ukraine thinks. By their right, we all think! If Ukraine gets these powerful weapons the West has. Then their superior won air supremacy will probably result in the best Western weapons having captured strategic ground in Ukraine. And then probably continue to take strategic parts of southern Russia. The result with gained ground in southern Russia will be rewarded with Ukrainian forces being able to avoid and keep the Russian artillery and their missiles far enough away. The prey has become hunter.
By such an arms delivery we would provoke the old Russian bear too much. And if a country attacks Russia, they are entitled to use nuclear weapons, their nuclear guarantee.
The Russian "military special operation" has therefore become war, because of Ukraine.
Russia will then probably respond with nuclear bombs in central Ukraine, a radioactive wall, to cut off the West from the East of the country. And we in the West will accept it. What else are we going to do? Drop nukes into Ukraine? Why? Shoot nukes into Russia then? Never life, they have nuclear weapons. Putin knows this, the US and China as well as the EU.
Everyone knows.
For our politicians, whom I trust, the end is a war that will cost both fronts too much, unfortunately. No harm in our western politicians for that, or us ordinary citizens. We have no choice, just like Ukraine. Putin decides. The result will be a ceasefire and a long reconstruction of Ukraine. Russia will have lost too much to want to continue the aggression against Ukraine or the rest of the Western world. The Russians will be war-weary, economically and popularly. And their victory will be that de-Nazification is complete and the land of the Nazis is now Russian again, as well as some gas fields. Russophobia is stopped. And a long reconstruction of the relationship between the countries of Ukraine and Russia will perhaps begin. A reconstruction that none of us will see the end of in our lifetime.
A wise thing that we can do on the safe home front is to open up to Russian culture, media, sports and visits again. It will shorten the aftermath of this war, and reduce the rise of Russian nationalism, in this now. Putin and the others are the enemy, not the people of Russia. We should all understand that. Right? Which of the countries USA and Russia has lost the most wars? And the whole world will finally forgive Russia, as we forgave Germany.
Putin's legacy to his people, even more gas.
Modus vivendi. Cash is King.
Ben, Trondheim

500,000 Troops require quite a lot of equipment, food, water, medicine, medical units, ammunition, and vehicles to carry them into, around the battle zones. There will be bottlenecks, high concentration of forces inside larger buildings, inside more buildings, higher rates of friendly fire, higher fatality rates per day. Force concentrations will be more easily discoverable by satellite and drone recon. Higher density force structure and deployment will cause higher fatalities in general, as each artillery round, each rocket has a greater chance of eliminating more soldiers per shot. It will be a real blood bath.

I feel sorry for Ukrainian people 💔☮️🙏

I Thank All The Great SF Writers Who Predicted All this Many Years Ago And Helped Me Decide not To bring Children Into This Insane World.😞.

Excellent reporting by letting the origin message footage be seen. It is good to see it CNN. Well done.

Why she told what we're afraid of WW3?) It's ridiculous, the most of us live in such conditions that we don't notice the difference between now and a new brave world 🤣

Like with Germany after WW2, it will take generations to get a sort of normal relationship with Russia again.
I was talking to my kids yesterday (6 & 8 yo) about different countries. When I mentioned Russia, they immediatly started making puking sounds. I asked them why, and they said that russians are bad and evil. I said that not all russians are bad. Many of them want peace, but they have leaders that don't. My 8yo told me that one of his classmates had said that when he grew up, he wanted to help kill russians.
I have to admit that I am also a little more aware if I, at the store, hear someone speaking a language that sounds like russian. Most of my clients won't do business with me until I can guarantee that I am not working with any company, or person from Russia.
The hate towards Russia is growing stronger every day. Innocent people are suffering and dying. Someone's parent, kid, or sibling are killed every day, on both sides.
Admit your defeat, Putin! Pull your troops out and help rebuild Ukraine, and start rebuilding Russia's reputation (even if it will take generations)!

We should be doubling our efforts to Ukraine 🇺🇦…I don’t understand this dragging our feet 🦶 to this war…We should be sending them planes and more Himars and artillery and sending them more tanks than we are..Why is it going to take a year to get there we surely can get them there within a few months like we did in Iraq 🇮🇶…Let’ss give them what they need to win this war now instead of letting them slowly suffer a we are doing now..😢

I really hope even though I find its difficult , I hope the person and people responsible for the death and destruction of Ukraine are tried and served justice.

Two and a half times MORE than the initial number of soldiers? Or two and a half times the initial number of soldiers? There's quite a difference.

One Russian we MUST admire is Navalny The man is guts personified...Come to think of it, his daughter is of the same stock. Gee these folks are just what Russia needs right now. God bless these 2 brave patriots.

Glory to the Heroes

"No one has the right to think freely" ... that was not the case until 02/24/22. Everything changed then. I felt no repression in St. Petersburg when I left on 02/07/22. I went to my favorite Irish bar the night before, and had a great time (I just had to convince them of my negative Covid status ... no Russian issued QR code :). I think everything changed on Feb. 24th.

Let’s all show Mr Putin and all evil dictators of the world that we are NOT scared of them as the power lies within each and every one of us - courage 🕊️

If we want to give Ukraine a real chance to win, we should provide fighter jets (F16s).
It is essentially clear that the free world, if it wants to be serious, should make a stand.

In WW1 and WW2, Russia threw MILLIONS to the German assault. Russia is among the few countries that can pull such numbers. But this war is causing long-term economic implosion. This most recent mobilization may be Russia's last for decades.

I think every country with nuclear arms in the NATO should pick an area of Russia to respond in line with a nuclear bomb. And that way when Russia is, is there a nuclear bomb we can respond quickly to each site that is strategic to the downfall of Russia once and for all.

I don't agree that Russia's only option is to use threats. I think the other option is stop fighting and send everyone home. That's as simple to do as it sounds.. I don't think there would be much resistance to that decision...

More reasons for why Ukraine needs air support.

Nobody who knows geopolitics thinks for one second that Russia will start a nuclear exchange. They would have to lose, get invaded and Moscow under siege under threat of being captured first. In reality they will lose and be degraded to a point where they cannot form an attack and then left to sit with that.

Learn the #@*& lesson:
"If Russia says something is true, then you know it is false!"🤬
Remember the old Soviet saying, "Nothing is confirmed until the Government denies it!" 🙂

Considering how poorly the Russian military equipment has performed in this war, would the Russians really want to use nuclear weapons knowing that the US, and the European allies will respond in kind. If one Russian nuc gets through on the west, it would be dwsvasting, but the majority of ours would get through and that would be the end of Russia

IMHO The next Russian Offensive will have a heavy emphasis on S-300 missiles , converted to ground to ground ( which Russia still has many of ). Also their supersonic missile with a conventional pay load that they have only used a couple of times in Ukraine so far . Also in combination a bigger use of air power ! Using intelligence , their main target ( especially with the supersonic missiles ) will be western weapons , mostly tanks in large numbers while they are being moved into Ukraine . Other targets will be energy infrastructure again ( because they know where it is ) . Another heavily targeted area will be Kyiv with an emphasis on killing Zelensky . The main objective will be discouraging the West , crippling Ukraine , terrorizing it's people and breaking moral . Some of this could be prevented . But the West needs to take a more Pro Active and not a
Reactive stance !!

Wish we could see some more Russian TV

If what you say is true then all aircraft and seaborne transport will probably be under military threat soon if not already

Kim Jung Un is laughing his ass off and gets some time off to relax (and save a bunch of missile launchings while at it)

It is a time to love and share with each other not a time to kill each other in this war.

Stop listening to the Russian blather, and start listening, and watching far closer our own intel. Let us not get stupid here, and forget our capabilities.
We're a bit beyond the age of surprise. We are wise, and are able to see what Russia is doing.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces has been in an expanding, and training process all winter long, and will not get caught off guard.
Let's be responsible with commentary, and accurate with our aim.
🇺🇲🇺🇦
Glory to God,
Victory for Ukraine,
Rise Free Nations!

Thinking is not enough. They must be persuaded to do do MORE to influence public opinion at home.

The Russian threats of using their nuclear weapons seems to completely ignore the fact that NATO has the same amount of ready nuclear weapons for a response. They act as if their nuclear weapons are some kind of all winning Ace without expecting any consequences to them if not worse.

500,000 soldiers! Oh, no -
But it make me recall 564,XXX US soldiers presented in the south of Vietnam during the war (1968), and about 600,000 Chinese soldiers attacked north Vietnam in 1978.
War is always terrible.

This is the Russian equivalent of Operation Michael in WW1, and will probably fail for the same reason (logistics). If the Ukrainians are able to mount a flexible-defence, they should be able to deal with this and inflict considerable casualties. Russian threats of using nukes need to be opposed with clear and unambiguous counter-threats both conventional, and nuclear if needbe. Conventionally, the west will, at the Ukrainian's invitation, attack Russian troops with massive superiority in NBC proof assets, were Putin to use a nuke or chemical or Biological weapon. Western nukes would be used on a tit-for-tat basis against Russian troop or materiel concentrations, alongside the utter evisceration of the Russian airforce. Putin using any NBC weapon must invite a response that it is devastating for Russia, and he must be left with no illusions that there is any chance of evading such a response.

Crazy Idea: All Russinas who throw down their weapons and surrender can get Ukrainian citizenship, or maybe in other European countries as well. They do not have to fight a war they wish were not a part of, nor return to Russia. Naturally, this would be a long process where loyalty and trust must be earned. But most of these men I heard are not even Russian, but migrant workers from the East, mostly Chinese.

The power of a martyr is immense
Symbol of unbreakable conviction and courage
In the name of Navalny, millions will fight

'And Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field," and when they were in the field Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him...' over and over and over again...all throughout human history...until now and into the future...

Peace talk is the words to save Both Soldier's Soul

A few things: 1. Hardly likely Russia has built 'more' nuclear missiles, assuming they're overstocked as it is. 2. Also, given the presence of mercenaries who are largely comprised of convicts, do we seriously think if Russia could raise an Army of 500,000 that it would waste money on employing mercenaries?. Even more, the situation is so unstable in Russia that, at this time, raising a 'patriotic,' war-seasoned, reliable army of 500,000 isn't possible -- especially when they don't appear to have resources enough to properly outfit as little as few thousand. 4. We may want to remember that Russian propagandists are using the Hitlerian playbook of propaganda and psychological warfare and manipulation. Right now their just planting seeds - - which if we believe, bloom as intended: believing. We certainly hope the Ukrainian fighters are on to this, as well. But then, our guess -- they sure are! This is a reason, very likely, whatever the number among the aggressors, they see only ONE thing: СЛАВА УКРАЇНІ! [GLORY TO UKRAINE!]

In Europe and America there's a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets.

Extremely interesting the difference of the presentation of this war between eg Scot Ritter and this people.

It's not quite 'give me liberty or give me death' is it? "Meh, we have a crap ton of nukes, so they must be for using. I mean, I don't understand why we even have them otherwise."
Never go full Russki.

Throughout the attack Russian soldiers have been complaining about providing their own material, not having rifles and bullets. Do you think they have they been hiding a big stockpile until this surge?

We all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future - President Kennedy calling for peace

As each threat escalates, the world has to prepare for each threat by showing overwhelming force. The greater the the threat, the greater the response!

500 000 recruits, well trained, with adequate equipement, along a big zone (like could be the whole of the Ukraine-Russia border) could indeed overcome the Ukrainian defences. But that same number, piled up in the short Donbas border, with the poor training, equipment and morale we already know, is to send them to the slaughterhouse..

Considering how hard it was for Russia to raise conscripts last time around it’s hard to believe they could manage 500,00 this time…….in fact it’s almost impossible.

I am wondering if, having made a point, Putin will call it off to show magnanimity (and save his own skin). That is what he should do.

It is going to be a very target-rich environment.

The issue is that 1/3 of the amount who invaded Ukraine were professional soldiers with training and everything. Most of the 500.000 are just conscripted chaff with low morale, poor training, and ludicrous equipment. It saddens me that they're just cannon fodder meant to soak up ammunition and have to die for essentially nothing.

Кто знал, что Екатерина Котрикадзе так хорошо говорит по-английски? Молодец!