The Russians really thought they were as tough as the West depicted them to be

>ukraine will just give up because we're strong
>ukraine will just give up because we're brothers
>ukraine doesn't have the strength to fight us
>ukraine doesn't have the will to fight us
>ukraine doesn't have the equipment to fight us
>our SSO forces can take any airport they want
>our mechanised forces cannot be killed by ATGM's and AT rockets that ukraine has
>our infantry are so well trained they only need 2 days of preparation for invasion for it to work
>the ukraine people will fight against their own military to welcome us as liberators
>the west and NATO won't dare support ukraine to fight against us
They were wrong on all these accounts

failed to reinforce the vdv at hostmel so they could stage a decapitation in kyiv

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Autocratic systems are weak and fragile and reward loyalty and promotes yes men instead of merit.

>>64832437
Anyone have that webm of the Russian media boasting it would be a two week operation? Or that webm of the front line Timelapse?

>>64832407
Russia thought that it was the second strongest army in the world and that they could do anything that the US could do...

Then they found out that they cant do what the US did in the 90s let alone the 80s.

>>64832407
The Russian government drank their own kool-aid and have since stubbornly refused to leave without anything to show for it.

The question assumes the premise.

>>64832448
This. Lots can be made of strategic failures on the ground, but I think it was endemic corruption and other institutional issues. The military failures were consequences, not causes.

>>64832407
It's not. It's still ongoing.

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>>64832407
Unexpected reinforcements

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>>64832457
This?

russians have always been bad at war

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>>64832437
Dont forget they were not invading, to say otherwise is just crazy UK and US talk about fearmongering
>we are not invading!
Also for 'much sekret plan not to fail' you must also tell all those people who are doing the invading that they will absolutely not be invading

>>64832407
Because they did it like 3 times before and it worked.

>>64832584
Do you understand why that's a failure or do you lack the intellectual capacity to watch the world's "second army" resorting to donkey powered logistics and six digit casualties to occupy a few minor towns that have been reduced to rubble and not see a problem?

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>>64832670
They STILL claim they never invaded Ukraine years into their invasion.

>>64832670
I was deployed to the middle east in November 2021 and we were told then that the Russians were 100% going to invade. Apparently we had only received half the intelligence briefing because we had no idea how awful the Russian military was and were treating them as a Call of Duty-tier adversary that would overrun Ukraine in days. The plan was for my unit to be redeployed to Romania and act as a speed bump in case king monke decided to push into NATO. Fortunately my rotation ended before the war broke out and the Ukies actually held on.

>>64832407
>AI slop

>>64832670
every nation that borders russia knew its gonna happen prior to feb 2022
it only worked in Anglosphere and 3rd world
>>64832423
man i cant believe i used to fall the russophile shot before 2022
t14 tanks and su 75 femboys should be rolling into washington dc anytime now

>>64832682
The fact that they still advancing albeit slowly and haven't outright abandoned the operation means it's still on. Actual war doesn't work like in your videogames, retardo. You don't automatically control an entire area after taking the spawn point.

>>64832407
I don't think anyone truly understood how much the corruption ate away at everything. Been a kino war though. That vid of helis flying over the water and one crashing full of VDV troops will always stick with me.

>>64832437
Isn’t the current narrative that Ukraine will freeze

>>64832861
for the fourth winter in a row, yes

>>64832872
Seems to have an effect this time around but not they way they’re thinking

>>64832827
>>64832827
The vatniggers the battle of Verdun look like blitzkrieg. They went from Rhine In Seven Days to Kupiyansk In Four Years, while begging for trump to bail them out and hand them Donetsk for free.
No matter how you slice it, it’s an abject failure on the part of the russians.

>>64832827
Russia pretty much never won war mano a mano.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when America invades Iran. They can't afford to finance multiple major wars simultaneously.

Also Russia invaded in 2014, why does everyone forget this? It was in 2022 that they started the international promotions for the war to garner donations, but it was going on long before that time.

>>64833057
Unless Iran does another 9/11, the US has no reason to personally send boots on the ground that local moderates, they can supply weapons to, can't already do. Besides, Trump's already busy with his little Greenland debacle.

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>>64832407
they believed they couldn't lose

>>64832407
Russian propaganda was used for internal consumption

>>64833057
>They can't afford to finance multiple major wars simultaneously.
lol
lmao

>>64833053
To add on that, thanks to it's geographical position, and Russia itself being irrelevant shithole for most of history, they could pick their own opponents and invade at the most advantageous scenarios, because they themselves couldn't be invaded back. So 99% of wars in history of Russia, were fought on Russia's term, facing an opponents that either were in state of collapse, or were already fighting on multiple fronts. In most of these wars (and again, as a reminder, Russians being ready for war, at their full strength) they were absolutely thrashed. So yeah, war in Ukraine is not an outlier, it's something that happens literally every time Russia goes to war.

>>64832457
russian government released a several pages long rambling about their win, new strong russia nobody dares to oppose and new world order 3 days into it in in what was clearly a timed release.

>>64832407
Putin thought the FSB used the bribe money to bribe various Ukrainians in power to let the Russians just walk in.
He forgot they were Russians and they stole 95% of the money.

>>64832407
>Fresh out of ideas, Gerasimov turns to /k/ for help.

>>64832423
>USA and the West depicted russians as some grand adversary
>they are a paper tiger
>meanwhile China depicts the USA as some super villain diabolical god enemy
what do the Chinese know?

>>64832407
>did fail
It's not done failing yet. It's still in the process of failing, AND dragging entire russia down with it.

>>64832448
This, and the decision makers are never given accurate or reliable information. Even if they know that there's an element of propaganda and face-saving-lies in everything they're shown they can never know how much of what they're reading is inaccurate. Putin believed that '48 hours to Kyiv' was at least mostly accurate, because nobody was going to tell him that it was based in reports designed to polish generals reputations and career prospects rather than reality.

>>64832800
>every nation that borders russia knew its gonna happen prior to feb 2022
Mine, for one, largely did not believe it would happen.
Our entire defense relied on the assumption that Russia knows better than starting stupid wars it can't win. We had to make some quick changes after that assumption was proven false.
t. Finland

>>64833201
>Our entire defense relied on the assumption that Russia knows better than starting stupid wars it can't win.
That's basically a 101 on russian history mate

>>64832437
Tbqh it worked well from Crimea to Kherson and Mariupol

>>64833228
I remember reading the governor of Kherson was a turncoat and delayed the blowing of bridges, part of why the Russians were able to advance quickly in the south. The Russians anticipated that they'd have turncoats in every region and the whole invasion would play out like it did there

>>64832407
The Russians genuinely thought they were only going to have to deal with a handful of hard-line Azov militants, combined with an unwillingness to mobilise pre-war (not needed for a short operation, loss of surprise, it's generally unpopular etc) meant that they had a real lack of manpower. Their plans fell apart when it turned out that people don't like being invaded and took up arms to shoot back. They also failed to account for the fact that the Ukrainians might actually listen to the British and Americans sounding the alarm bells and move their troops and AA away from obvious target areas. This meant that the initial airstrikes and missile barrage didn't really achieve anything.

>>64832407
It was Putin, which is kinda funny. He's been talked up as this tough guy who made Russia strong again, but in reality, he weakened it to the point where they can't even invade the poorest country in Europe, even with their vast natural resources and enormous cold war armory.
If he had just cut down a little bit on the extreme corruption, instead of growing the oligarch class, and maybe not weakened the military so much, they could have taken Ukraine.
Sure, they might have failed anyway, given Russia's ingrained incompetence and corruption, but they could at least have had a chance if Putin hadn't spent 20 years weakening his own country.

>>64832670
I remember a random conspiracy youtber using public SAR satellites to view hidden russian build up along the border and information about transfusion blood being stockpiled in the area to correctly predict the invasion a week before it happened.

Turns out that the CIA and MI6 were just reading Putin's emails and listening in on his phone calls the whole time lmao.

There are examples of rapid collapse of regimes and morale, such as in France and South Vietnam, but it seems difficult to intentionally cause or expect this to happen.

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>>64833261
Calm, in my trech
Focused, bodies don't bother me
Steady

>>64833491
There was another thing. In the months prior to invasion they simulated/wargamed the invasion with USA and brits at least with russian plans and strength almost if not exactly to what they turned out to have in real life. They learned that to counter thrusts towards Kyiv they need to fortify cities just as Sumy and Kharkiv and make russians try to go around them and use fallen bridges. They did just that and it won a ton of time, favorable engagements and overstretched useless russian logistics even more

>>64832407
Because Putin is a history fetishist and was hoping for a repeat of Czechoslovakia and Crimea.

>>64832407
Because Putin is Xi’s bitch. He didn’t invade during mud season for meme numbers, that was just cope because the Chinese wouldn’t be happy if he did it before or during the Chinese Winter Olympics.

>>64832407
Everyone overestimated Russia.

>>64833513
>and was hoping for a repeat of Czechoslovakia
I'm not sure Russia's breakup will go that nicely.

>>64833511
The only reason the Russians managed to capture Kherson was because the bridge remained intact because of treason. Hard to say if they'd have attempted a river crossing, or if they would have sent those troops to Zaporozhia where they might have captured it with the extra forces.

>>64833192
>Putin believed that '48 hours to Kyiv' was at least mostly accurate, because nobody was going to tell him that it was based in reports designed to polish generals reputations and career prospects rather than reality.
Not really. The fundamental issue is that every single retarded faggot in the RU system and society also thought that it was not only obvious that ukies would fall in a couple of days, but nothing else could be a thing. They have this weird idea in their culture where ukies are both "subhuman hillbilly farmers", "not a real nation" and "just russians fooled by propaganda".

>>64833575
They would not have crossed the river. The current was too strong under the dam and I dont think those guys who drove up from Crimea had practiced crossings. The few river crossings(across much rivers much, much smaller than the Dniepr) they attempted ended in disasters.

>>64833579
That + the centralized micromanaging of russian state also explains why they were so slow to adapt. And how they could not react to all events such as russians fleeing the country, even half a year after the start. They didnt have a backup plan. No military backup plan, no political backup plan, not even plan for what war does to their internal matters. And no initiative at levels lower than Kremlin.

>>64833579
Russians refuse to accept they're not the previous power anymore and base almost every decision in extremely selective historical examples.
>2022
>oh Warsaw Pact member is acting up? We'll roll through them like in 68
>1979
>Britain thinks they'll control Afghanistan? Not if we invade first!
There's a bizarre pattern to this shit and you can catch it whenever Putin launches into his historical schizo ranting.

>>64832437
I think Putin unironically believed the corrupt politicians were going against the peoples will by aligning with the west.
He saw Euromaidan and thought "those are all CIA plants".

>>64832407
They French-fried when they should have pizzaed.

>>64833611
>He saw
A bunch of zigger milbloggers claim that Putin doesn't actually look at news, he gets his info from the yes-men that surround him.

I don't know if that makes it worse. Or better.

>>64833617
>free

>>64833618
I think he just claims that so whenever he fucks the people over he can pull the classic "if only the tsar knew".

>>64833631
>invasion goes great
>Putin known as man who saved the soviet union
>invasion goes not great
>dead soon anyway not his problem

>>64833605
>roll through them like in 68
Did he forget that the CSSR was alone and offered practically no military resistance?
Like Hungary and East Germany in the 50s?

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>>64833634
>I remain a master strategist

>>64833499
>If he had just cut down a little bit on the extreme corruption, instead of growing the oligarch class
Putin has almost no say in this though, he would get replaced (quietly or noisily) if he tried.
Even autocrats must have consent of the governed. The only difference between autocrats and democracies is that a dictator needs consent from far fewer people. But never zero.
Russia self relies on a patchwork of corrupt alliances where loyalty from officials is purchased. And it becomes less effective whenever you take money out.

>>64833500
to be fair countries frequently do things like that to rattle cages all the time.
Everyone talks up the one time the signs pointed to something that actually happened. No one talk about the other hundreds of times war games were just war games, troop deployments were just posturing, and dictators making STRONG, DECISIVE, INFLAMATORY speeches for domestic consumption were nothing more than that: talking.

>>64833628
oh? cool!
maybe the mongols should go and straighten up their serfs in moscow.

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>>64833602
I think Russia is likely to end the war with more territory than it started. In a sense that is a victory. But Russia's overall strategic position in the world is worse than before, so it might end up being a "Pyrrhic victory."

Russia did the equivalent of a pretend pianist banging on the keys of a fake piano. The audience would hear Mozart but it was just a recording. Then someone shoved an actual piano in front of them. That's when the humiliation began. You can technically finish the performance which stretches on for hours but what the audience will hear doing that time is BONG BONG CLANG ASS BONG, and now everyone knows everything.

>>64833602
How many are dead this month on Russia’s side for an empty village with a prewar population of 20?

>>64833659
youre right they really should. putin, your ancestors were absolutely demolished and raped. you are officially on chong territory and have 24 hours to evacuate

>>64833774
>degenerate, soft, materialist hedonistic.
But enough about Mobiks

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>>64833774
>Of course you wouldn't understand sacrifice for a noble goal because you are a degenerate, soft, materialist hedonistic.

>>64833165
That the US actually does outclass them in every way imaginable from a military standpoint and their wargames (at least they used to) reflect that. Shit like giving OPFOR invisble planes, complete knowledge of the battlefield at all times, assuming all comms were compromised, fuck even giving them working mecha and orbital strike capabilities. Xi is a midwit high on his own supply, most of the high command (before the purges anyway) aren't.

>>64833261
Because if it stops Monke gets thrown off the golden toilet and all his friends go out the window after him. The only way to make it stop is to accept less than a victory that leaves Ukraine unable to defend itself when they try again in five or ten years. Meatwaves is all they have left.

>>64833228
>third time s the charm

>>64833819
It's also plausible that they're just preparing for an absolute worst case scenario: they presumably don't know the exact capabilities of their enemy, so don't want to be caught off guard if they underestimate them or take anything for granted (like not training soldiers to prepare for/work around potentially compromised comms).
To give credit where due, it's a much more sensible approach than just setting up every exercise to be an easy win for propaganda, in which case the military doesn't get tested under pressure and doesn't reveal any weak points to be corrected.

>>64832670
If they just hadn't invaded at that time, concluded the military exercise and went home, they would've successfully painted the entirety of Western media, government and intelligence apparatus as overly paranoid kvetching fools
It would have been a massive psyop victory, especially if they repeated it a few times near the Finnish and Baltic states border.
It could've fed Russia's "they just want to destroy us for just minding our own business" narrative for literal years
I wonder how many people knew how disastrously this was going to end, and if they said something and were ignored, or outright decided to stay quiet in fear of the Tsar

>>64833595
I should have emphasised "attempted".

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>>64833605
You can hardly blame the Russians for holding onto increasingly delusional historical fantasies - there really isn't a country that has fallen as far, and as rapidly, as Russia over the last ~30 years. Sure, Britain, France, Spain, and the other European Imperial Powers are nothing compared to what they were at their peak, but they're still modern and credible countries. Russia, meanwhile, went from being the undeniable second power on Earth to being a criminal organization pretending to be a country that's only taken vaguely seriously out of inertia and because they still (allegedly) have a nuclear arsenal.

>>64833869
the problem for china is that this used to be the approach they took (and still somewhat do today) but xi's political correctness purges and general fuckery with political commissars making strategic decisions, has fucked this over a bit. modern international exercises with chinks have shown that they still struggle in situations where a scenario is thrown off script, they get thrown a curveball, and they have to react to an actively developing situation. if xi wasn't around, they'd likely be a far more dangerous threat to contend with.

>>64832475
it is in the process of failing, yes. the worst part is if they just accepted reality and gave up earlier, russia would not have lost nearly as much.
due to their own hubris and stupidity, they have now turned this into an existential war for their own survival, and it's a forever war they can't win.

>>64834167
From a certain perspective, I understand. Imagine if half the United States broke off from the Union and aligned with a triumphant Soviet Bloc. Not only are you weaker, but those former states are fucking prospering while taking larger and larger steps to get away from the Union. Fuck you Michigan, no you can't have nice things- I was a global superpower god dammit.

Now this is an alternate reality where a top down socialist economy isn't a complete clown show and the Soviet Union can actually act like a adult nation instead of a belligerent mancatcher.

>>64833602
>if i keep spamming that ukranians are going to freeze to death for the 4th winter, it'll magically happen.
turns out intentionally trying to freeze civilians to death in the 21st century where freezing to death is very hard to do even without central heating, doesn't actually freeze them to death, and just turns otherwise indifferent people into hardliners with a generational hatred and thirst for TZD that they will express for the next century or more.
and they're right next to your country, good job.
>russia s-still has the momentum
they have zero momentum, that's why they're losing the attritional war, they're gaining essentially nothing while taking monumentally more losses than the ukranians are.

>>64833605
russia is like if modern day britain pretended in their heads that they were still the imperial superpower they were at their height. ziggers simply don't understand that russia is barely a regional power at this point, and they are diplomatically impotent, only being able to affect change through their ever decreasing and at this point nearly empty cold-war military stockpiles.

>>64834184
>Fuck you Poland, no you can't have IKEA furniture- I was a global superpower god dammit.

>>64833628
pretty pathetic that russia is even failing to invade it's own territory then.

>>64834167
>undeniable second power on Earth
Meds. Now.
That "undeniable second power on Earth" could only bully countries that were significantly smaller and weaker than them. Any time it had to work against any sane opponent it would be a disaster. Such as the Russo-Japanese war. Or the WW1. Or WW2 where the only reason it didn't collapse was the western lend-lease and Germany having to fight on multiple fronts at the same time.
The fundamental problem for even the post-WW2 USSR was that it couldn't feed itself. Like at all. Commies murdered the local agriculture sector during the 1930s and it never recovered, especially due to commie ideology denying normal policies. If USSR had to go to a big war in say 1960s or 1970s, arguably at its peak, then it would mobilize a couple million retards and slowly collapse into a famine, as did the czarist russia did back in 1914.

>>64833774
>bable
>Ai write this
nigger you can barely speak english, shut your thirdie ass up.

>>64834205
It's how the Ruskis saw themselves during the Cold War, and how NATO saw them at the start of the war (before it became clear that it was all an act).

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The universe of Russia-aligned international organizations like the Eurasian Economic Union, the CSTO, the CIS, and even the so-called "Union State" make a lot more sense when you realize that they do nothing.
They are nowhere near close to being equivalent to the EU or other European institutions of cooperation.

I sometimes wonder if the Kremlin even gives a shit about that, or if they just care about the nominal existence and memberships of those blocs.

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>>64833165
>what do the Chinese know?
The US have functional Gundams.

>>64834223
Having functional institutions is a big issue because they are antithetical to the manual control mode of things the autocracy needs. How can you have a court which follows the law, when the regime needs a way to easily jail someone or protect someone from prosecution?

>>64834282
I just find it funny that Russia was never even able to get Belarus to adopt a common currency. That's a pretty low bar to clear.

>>64832475
This type of thinking is why Russia's sunk cost fallacy hit crush depth three years ago.

>>64832827
>Actual war doesn't work like in your videogames, retardo
That's right. You just need to keep going until you get enough victory points, then the enemy automatically surrenders and you get all your demands.

>>64833228
Lol, no. It didn't. They bled like stuck pig for Mariupol and thats even though they threw all of Donbabwe militia on it.

>>64833057
Shit, have we already gone back to Iran being the thing that saves Russia? Feels like only yesterday it was Venezuela.

>>64833599
>And no initiative at levels lower than Kremlin.
And even then Putin procrastinates long after it becomes obvious that there is no possible alternative to a course of action.

>>64833165
They know quite a lot thanks to comfort women and stupid politicians. That's why they are so wary.

>>64834323
Mariupol got a lot of attention at the time, but seems almost forgotten now. I think it basically saved Ukraine. When ukies were under a lot of strain and it was imperative for Russia to move quickly before they could dig in and receive more aide, lots of ruskie forces that were desperately needed elsewhere got held up in Mariupol instead. Pushes elsewhere that were beggining to stall couldn't get the reinforcements they needed until it was too late and they got bogged down. Hostomel gets all the attention, and it was very important, but Mariupol was important too.

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>>64832437

Nothing ever changes in Kremlin military planning.

>>64832448
Democracy has similar foibles when it comes to policy. If policy were based on just merit, nuclear energy would be thriving.

>>64833605
That's downplaying Afghanistan. Afghanistan was already a Soviet vassal state. The USSR deposed the guy they installed to run Afghanistan so they could install a new guy which kicked off the war. The Afghan War was Russia losing a conflict to its own puppet state.

>>64833261
>Maybe that's what ziggers planned
yes, trust the plan
two more weeks

>>64833579
every decision they make can be boiled down to picrel >>64833094
every time
guess that's what happens when you let an arrogant kgb retard run your country

>>64834205
>That "undeniable second power on Earth" could only bully countries that were significantly smaller and weaker than them.
Not trying to be inflammatory, but you could just as easily say this about the US, it's just that there are more countries that are significantly smaller and weaker than the US.

>>64833261
Do you really think they planned to empty out their soviet hardware stockpiles for what they've accomplished?

>>64832448
Ah yes the weak troops of Nazi Germany

>>64832448
This, combined with inherent arrogance towards historical entities. The Russians thought that the former USSR states would welcome Russian occupation

>>64832561
Wdym?

>>64835008
the military leadership of Nazi Germany was already in place prior to the autocratic takeover

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>>64835022
>it was real in my head

>>64835035
He is retard posting and saying that the 3 day SMO wasn't a failure.

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>>64832561
The premise is self-evident. QED.

>>64835092
first stage of grief is denial

>>64832475
Good, keep going, hehe.

>>64832827
It is extremely satisfying to see this attitude of yours, like some retarded bully walking over broken glass because he is "a tough guy", we are counting on you doing this for our amusement, and telling us it doesn't hurt, that's the cherry at the top.

>>64833057
>2014
So less than 20 percent in 12 years? Do you even check your own propaganda?

>>64835092
>w-we PLANNED on getting bogged down in a multi year long quagmire, losing over a million men and the arms stockpiles that took the better part of a century to build!

Hyper levels of cope.

>>64833499
So, someone finally vocalize it, and now the thought is out let's see what happens.

>>64835008
they lost

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>>64834751
seeing them open the invasion with riot police heading to the capital, I couldn't help but be reminded of the military band that was intended to perform in Helsinki

>>64835221
The US Army rated German troops as worth more than any others in terms of effectiveness.

>>64835022
>US gave up
>US for some reason is still ACK-ing russian allies and assets
What did he mean by this?

>>64833460
It was a good assumption. There was a noticeable tension with the lefties in my country (Germany) during the first days were they were clearly thinking the revolution was starting and Moskau was finally liberating them.

>>64834760
>That's downplaying Chechnya. Chechnya was already a Soviet vassal state. The USSR deposed the guy they installed to run Chechnya so they could install a new guy which kicked off the war. The Chechen War was Russia losing a conflict to its own puppet state.
Time is a flat circle

>>64835228
What about the military band that got slaughter before they reached Kyiv?

>Someone have the pic of the accordion player dead in someone's yard?

>>64833634
>dead soon anyway not his problem
It's very much his problem. Putin believes in magic and got himself spiritual protection from everyone he could, from Syberian shamans to satanic sorcerers. And the types who'd agree to such an endeavor are super nasty "better to get in debt to literal mafia" types. They'll carve his soul for spare parts the moment he dies.

>>64832448
I really just blame it on autocrats becoming thin skinned faggots. They have no excuse for why they become unable to take any bad news. All I can surmise for a more reasonable tyrant is that you can't really reward mister negativity unless you do what mister negativity warned against and then see he was right. But frankly the Epstein leaks is showing me how infantile our so called 'elites' are, so I can fully believe if any general told Putin "This is a bad idea" if he didn't kill them he'd start having a full on spergeout temper tantrum.

>>64835433

A part of me doesn't want us to ever truly discover immortality or the means to prolong life past ~100 out of spite for the rich who you can see, again with Epstein on down, how much it's that one thing that they can't reach that drives them absolutely ballistic. I'm all for making it so you are lucid and healthier to the last days. Shit, if we could be physically and mentally in our 20s and die at 100 that'd be amazing. But I don't think it would be good for humankind to achieve actual immortality. Just imagine being stuck with a Putin for another 100 years.

>>64835466
the issue is structural
Autocrats tend to become thin skinned faggots because that is what holding unchecked power for any real amount of time does to human psychology, and any system where executive power is held by a single man or a small group of elites is naturally going to align itself toward pleasing that man/group at all costs, since that is how everyone else in the system gets ahead

I'm beginning to wonder whether Putin is even able to receive briefings and give orders in front of a war map like Hitler.

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>>64835466
Figuring out how to keep humans alive until 150 would guarantee the ascendancy of western democracy. Look at how senile Putin is now, and imagine how low his competence would sink if his heart could be kept ticking for a few more decades.

The brain is harder to fix than the rest.

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>>64835530
You drive an interesting devil's bargain. I would have to consider the ramifications for us in the West but frankly having our old fossilized rich jews able to live another 50 years wouldn't really change much given Soros' kid is just going to take over the exact same policies.

But I would counter your idea with the nightmare of Diane Feinstein existing for ~60 more years instead of being deader than disco. Except again, look at who replaced her - same as it ever was. We're just more institutional than dynastic, and more either than the 'personal' like tin pot dictatorships are.

So your idea has merit.

>>64832407
the invasion of ethnic Ukrainian territory was a hilarious failure. but they did get the Donbas out of the deal. some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen. the soil there is as black as coal. the shale reserves underneath it are also very desirable.
if i were putin i would have just skipped the decapitation attempt and just moved into the areas that were already de facto Russian. probably would have aggroed the international response far less, by being biden's "minor incursion." And it would not have exposed how weak his military is.
now he's expended thousands of lives and billions of dollars so he needs a political victory rather than an actual victory

>>64835566
>Thousands of lives
Nice try pajeet

>>64835008
the nazis had the advantage of starting the war on their terms. its not hard to score a few points when all the other players are still in the locker room
>>64835221
not because they lacked quality

>>64835577
you mean to tell me it's over a million dead? I find that hard to believe. maybe half a million.

>>64835590
Even if it's half million dead, every other casualty faces hell when they return to their grateful oblasts

>>64835590
it is dude, easily

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>>64833644
>I remain a master strategist
Kek!! I love that guy.

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>>64833500
Yeah I've told people for years, we've been swinging off the crazy days of the GWOT for some time. Like there was the obvious military developments we all saw over the years along with some chronic overthinking of doctrinal policy in COIN ops by various military forces that come to terms with the fact our governments are fucking retards that let us get stuck in these things for 2 decades at a time.
But, there's all the other shit
All the E-war, 5th spectrum spook shit floating around which is designed specifically to find out what people try to hide, on top of that is a bunch of bald nerds who were once young men that spent their best years of their life looking at how sneaky niggas be sneaky. They sank tens of billions into that shit across practically every continent. Its still out there, still being used

>>64834024
It absolutely would have been the stinky finger fuck you to the west
But Putin's the double down or nothing guy who's got a pretty fat wad in his pocket and the 'rona gave him a view into his own mortality. The old Bunker Uncle kinda knows he's running real short on time, he's only got maybe 5-10yr left before he's an old fat cunt shitting his panties on a golf course somewhere and no one will remember his name. So the hilarious thing really is that if he literally did nothing from the magic numbers of 220222 that the court wizard told him were auspicious with the northern wind sky spirits... and if he just maybe backed off about 10% not being a monkey when it came to the corruption, theft and niggery behaviour. Put that back into the country, some infrastructure, development and maybe just for 10yr-
>Russia probably would remember him as someone special
>He would be accorded historical significance

But that's kind of not how Russian power and holding onto it works, if he wasn't out there on a massive military flex, using some of that hard power, he might have been ending up the Duma Rooster who did nothing but soft power clucking

Corruption absolutely fucked any hope of this invasion to end swiftly.
Don't get me wrong, the US is corrupt too, however, we use our military and military industrial complex to facilitate our corruption.
They thought they would roll into Ukraine, fight off a few reactionary forces, have the rest of the Ukrainian army surrender to their "saviors" and be greeted by the civilians with open arms.

Had they actually spent the time (and money) correctly, they could've been in way better odds. Not saying they would have steam rolled them, but they would probably be alot further than they are now.

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>>64836023
The FSB 5th Service was set up to do exactly that- spend money supporting, corrupting and disabling opposition in foreign countries opposed to Russia. Putin set it up himself, all his own devices, his people and a lot of state money got spent on them. They were very active in Ukraine and managed to spike the ball a bit in the south which got them Kherson and some territory down there, but in the north.
In the north they just stole all the money for themselves, none of their contacts, safe houses, dumps and 5th column forces eventuated. Hence we saw a whole lot of the spec ops russians holed up in various places around key intersections and MSR's getting surrounded and gunned down by the cops and border guards.

Putin then had to take the whole 5th service out behind the shed and put them down

>>64834756
Fun related fact: Germany lost their nuclear energy because their politicians got bought/bribed (and possibly) blackmailed by russians. It was even partly publicly visible (Gazprom giving money to politicians from the green party)

>>64835530
>>64835538
Consider that in a democracy, as much as shit often doesn't feel like it, we can in fact vote old fucks out given enough political will and pressure. I think regardless of political persuasion most people would agree that there's a lot of work to be done in a lot of countries to make systems better reflect the will of the people, but it's fundamentally possible.
With an autocracy, there's no gentle removal or regular handing over of power. Longer lives would inevitably mean more handovers as a result of destructive inner turmoil, further weakening the state. Alternatively, leaders running their shit into the ground get to hold on even longer and lose their minds even worse.

Essentially win-win outcomes.

There's also possibly something to be said for politicians that will have to live with the outcomes of more of their decisions while in power. Even in democracies where politicians trend younger, the average elected representative will only have to worry about seeing the next say, 30-50 years. Same for voters for that matter, longer term planning would be more palatable and short term drawbacks would represent a smaller portion of their lives. Long term planning is arguably the biggest weak point of democracies, longer lifespans may do something to mitigate that.

>>64833869
This, you'd much rather have an Iraq '91 where you find the war a lot easier than you'd expected than a Ukraine '22 where, well. You know.
Much better to over-prepare for war than under-prepare.

>>64836023
There's a big difference between corruption that's annoying and gets in the way of the system and corruption endemic to the point that the entire point of the system is corruption.

In the US, you might have corruption inflating the price of the program and slowing progress, but out the other end you still get the F-35. It's a plane that does everything asked of it, even the silly parts, while being so desirable for the allies it was partially built for that economies of scale make it cheaper than most 4th gens, and your factories can't build them fast enough. You still get the jet that not only does what the US needs, but also allows it to furnish allies with insane capabilities to make them more effective in any shared future endeavours. Fucking Australia currently has the third largest stealth fleet in the world.
It cost more and took longer than would be ideal, but you still got a plane that ticked all the boxes and represents a military, commercial and geopolitical win.

In Russia, a corrupt plane program gets you the fucking Su-57. Despite nominally building their own stealth fighters, Russia currently has a smaller fifth gen fleet than a good chunk of the EU. No serious export buyers after India backed out, no ability to actually enter serial production with your own funds, questionable VLO capabilities and none of the supporting tech in sensors or weapons systems to even make it useful as a 5th gen anyway.
You don't get the plane you wanted. No allies are won or made more capable. Nobody is bailing you out of the hole you spent yourself into to build this trash fire in the first place. Nothing was achieved here beyond lining a few pockets and having something new for airshows.

This is the difference between corruption at a level that leeches off a country and corruption at a level that destroys it from within.

>>64836153
>In Russia, a corrupt plane program gets you the fucking Su-57
Well, it gets you four or five of them, at least. Kek

>>64835566
Thats what I expected them to do when russia accepted the "call for help" of their fake states. To just move military to those areas and freeze, then annex them. Thats it. There clearly wasnt enough strength assembled to try conquering and occupuying entire Ukraine. Turns out russians are far greater retards than I could have ever hoped for

>>64833819
>Xi is a midwit high on his own supply
What makes you think that? In fact he hasn't done jingoistic saber rattling at all, he usually just minds his own business

>>64836331
>In fact he hasn't done jingoistic saber rattling at all
Anon, he has autocratic control over China. If a CCP government mouthpiece does some sabre rattling, Xi is sabre rattling. Why would he open his own mouth to talk when he could just have someone do it for him?

>>64836331
Deng was the quiet, reserved and secretive one, Xi was the annoying cunt that started up the whole wolf warrior foreign policy thing until they eventually figured out that it worked about as well as smearing yourself in shit every time they walked into the building.
All that managed to do was get everyone to hate China on all sides of politics

>>64835466
Death is, in a way, a gift in this universe of flawed organisms like humans. Just imagine a 200 year old Stalin. The fact that good people also die at around 80 or so is worth the price if it means eventually being rid off people who would make the lives of the rest of of humanity a living hell. The point of medical advancement is to eliminate diseases which cripple us, be it young or old. Cure cancer, alzheimers, dementia and parkinson's? Fucking awesome, go for it. Make people literally biologically immortal in the process? Hell no. Everyone deserves to leave this life with dignity in a lucid state, and being surrounded by loved ones who can say goodbye. What we do not want are cyborg Putin's or Epstein's. And it's not like such tech would be shared with us plebs anyway. I for one look forward to the day when these geriatric power-mongers are clawing at their bedsheets in terror as they expire and they have to leave behind everything they own in this world. World leaders and Technocrats ought be forced to recite Ecclesiastes on a daily basis.

>>64836073
Check out Gerhard Schröders career. The corruption was so blatant it might as well have happened in some eastern european shithole

>>64832437
Don't for get the
>lets attack on magical 20220222 for spirit of Rurik will see the Rus great again and make tanks float above mud and snow
Any progress after the initial highway rush to last gas drop happened during the summer, when you could properly apply any force with winter being a regeneration and attrition slumber.

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>>64833165
We may never know.

>>64834167
>Russia, meanwhile, went from being the undeniable second power on Earth
you talk like god aint gave you good sense boy. if you aint high, and still talking that kind of bullshit, go find yourself a crazy doctor and get a check.

>>64836619
>China fucks up and realizes wolf warrior politics is retarded
>Trump decides they were just doing it wrong and starts threatening long-time US allies

>>64835008
>gives Himmler command of Army Group Vistula

>>64835228
>raata road tuba
sounds kinky

>>64833491
>>64833491
This, I assume the tiny invasion coupled with that retarded feint towards Kiev, seizing Hostomel airport with zero backup and bringing in riot cops instead of conventional infantry were all due to a colossal intelligence fuckup on Putin's part. He was probably 100% convinced that there were enough pre-Maidan pro-Russian elements in the state and military to launch a coup against Zelensky if Russia just made a big show of force. Their original intention has always been to neutralize Ukraine from joining NATO/EU, and now that this plan has failed miserably they will settle for a buffer zone on the Dnieper river.

>>64837412
>Dnipro River
FTFY.

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>>64835530
Gerontocracy can be a problem even in democracies. Speaking as a median millennial American, I'd rather our government wasn't composed entirely of supercentenarians.

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>>64836023
Some wise anon explained the difference as picrel.

>>64837551
I feel that problem could be solved with more stringent term limits for elected officials of all sorts, the elimination of lifetime appointments for roles which have them, and the implementation of an up-or-out system for the bureaucracy. Y'know, just make sure there's enough churn.

>>64836659
Part of the issue there is that the processes that make aging happen often *are* the processes that lead to cancer or dementia or the various degenerative diseases. You can't solve all that shit without also figuring out more than a few things about aging.

Good news though: living to 150 wouldn't make them immune to buckshot or a guillotine.

>>64833460
>The Russians anticipated that they'd have turncoats in every region and the whole invasion would play out like it did there
Because since 2014 the FSB had been quietly been working to undermine Ukraine in preparation for invasion.
As a part of this operation the FSB were provided truly enormous amount of untraceable cash and literal bars of gold to pay turncoats.
Then when shit got loud, it turned out that a whole bunch of the Ukrainians who got paid to stand down still decided to fight for their country.
And it turned out that most of the bribe money had been stolen by FSB agents who quite literally just grabbed the money and ran.
It was this debacle that led to all military intelligence duties being stripped from the FSB and handed over to the GRU a couple weeks into the war.

>>64837551
>>64837696
Too much turnover can be a bad thing though.
The Missouri House of Representatives has term limits of eight-years and the chamber has 163 members. It has become a problem where some districts are running out of people who are qualified and want to do the job.

>>64837722
>Because since 2014 the FSB had been quietly been working to undermine Ukraine in preparation for invasion.
Since early 90s actually. And it was pretty easy, since a ton of the old cadre Ukraine inherited in terms of glowies, cops, generals and other such faggots were all literally indoctrinated in mosqueov during their studies back in the days of USSR.

>>64836819
It was the 24th, not the 22nd.

>>64837412
>feint towards Kiev
oh sweetie...

>>64837783
They announced the "we're recognizing LDNR+" on 22th.

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>>64835499
I'd pay to see that

>>64836073
>Fun related fact: Germany lost their nuclear energy because their politicians got bought/bribed (and possibly) blackmailed by russians. It was even partly publicly visible (Gazprom giving money to politicians from the green party)
It goes way further back, the whole peace/ anti-nuclear movement in Germany was massively supported by the USSR since the middle of the cold war at least, their influence was known in the west already in the 80'
Take Gerhard Kade for example, a prominent figure in the peace movement and author of the book "Bedrohungslüge" about how the west invented the threat of the soviet SS20 missiles to justify them stationing their own missiles in Europe
When the Warsaw pact kicked the bucked it turned out that he wasn't just naive or an useful idiot but an agent for the stasi and kgb and his publisher was directly financed by East Germany

>>64835970
>So the hilarious thing really is that if he literally did nothing from the magic numbers of 220222 that the court wizard told him were auspicious with the northern wind sky spirits...
Wait is this shit real? Is Putin really that kind of schizo?

>>64837917
>Is Putin really that kind of schizo?
It's not just Putin lmao. Since bolsheviks first murdered and raped regular organized religion, and then resurrected a clown corpse of it under KGB during WW2, the soviet society was deep into all kinds of mambo-jumbo, from retarded superstition to fucked up conspiracy theories to eastern medicine to whatever else. Those retards in the higher ups of russian state literally take baths in the blood of elks and such. Some RU oligarchs have a pipeline of paid jailbait-tier virgin pussy not because it feels good but because they believe that it reinvigorates their body and such.

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What makes me scratch my head is the not insignificant numbers of Russians who still believe that postwar, everything will return to the status quo antebellum vis-a-vis Europe-Russia trade.
Even if the US tries to welcomes Russia back into the global economy, a majority of Europe will never play ball with the current Russia ever again. While Orban and a couple others may bitch and moan, the natural gas and oil bans will probably be permanent.

>>64837942
Even though generally Christian, various places often have their own idiosyncratic local beliefs and superstitions that don't align with the Christian doctrine but nonetheless survived despite the church's best attempts. Typically some kind of folk magic, warding off evil spirits or misfortune, that sort of thing. Evil eye is a prominent example in Europe, in LatAm they take it a step further with their Day of the Dead beliefs, or the Santa Muerte cult
All that to say, it's not just because of the commies, superstitions like this exist everywhere to an extent - although the gutting of the church certainly didn't help
The orientalist hoodoo I would guess probably comes from the influx of New Age bullshit when the regime fell and the borders opened, though some of that existed even before that (look up Anatoly Kashpirovsky)

>>64837696
there are lots of ways the problem could be solved, the issue is that all of them without exception require permission from the old people still clinging to power in order to be implemented

>>64838002
I'm not talking about "there is some older pagan crap still left out despite technically moving to Christianity" (which is indeed normal and present everywhere), but like full on retarded superstition which appeared from who knows where and, along with other crap, basically expanded into the power vacuum of beliefs, where organized religion previously existed before 1918.

>The orientalist hoodoo I would guess probably comes from the influx of New Age bullshit when the regime fell and the borders opened
Nah, eastern medicine, traditional medicine, fortune telling, divination and a ton of other fucked up retarded shit was super popular in USSR even before 1980s. It's just that most of it wasn't shown by censored media. People drinking urine to try and heal something doesn't look for the regime. Or people going to "healers", because they've lost any trust in official medicine (because soviet medicine was shit) and basically want at least some hope.

>look up Anatoly Kashpirovsky
Bruh, I was born in USSR, I know this shit firsthand.

P.S: you've never lived it if you hadn't worry if that nice girl, who's trying to give you her homemade cake, didn't add her menstrual blood during the cooking process, as a way to "bewitch" you into loving her. Yes, that shit happened.

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>>64838045
>P.S: you've never lived it if you hadn't worry if that nice girl, who's trying to give you her homemade cake, didn't add her menstrual blood during the cooking process, as a way to "bewitch" you into loving her. Yes, that shit happened.

>>64835566
You aren't including Ukraine in this hypothetical
Even if Russia had gone in with (and achieved) a limited objective of seizing the donbass and nothing else, they would still need to maintain a massive sustained conventional military presence in the region, effectively forever, in order to stop the Ukrainians from doing the exact same thing back to them as soon as they leave

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>>64835566
>they did get the Donbas out of the deal
two more weeks

>>64838045
That's mostly the kind of stuff that I'd class under the folk magic.
Though I guess what makes the difference is the scale of things, and how widespread the beliefs are. I've heard of the menstrual blood thing, but it would never occur to me to worry about someone actually doing that, case in point I suppose
> and why does this remind me of the /k/ brownies

>>64838080
If it was _just_ folk magic that would be one thing (although how widespread it was is still an issue), but asian crap mixed in in weird amounts? Like using shilajit for example (known as мyмиё in USSR). Or doing the fucked up "traditional medicine" of obvious asiatic origin. There were like massive sometimes even borderline official industries for that shit, e.g. to get badger fat, which is common traditional remedy from Mongolia and Korea.

>>64835008
>Ah yes the weak troops of Nazi Germany
The troops were less of a problem than the high command
>yes-men
>in a continual state of butthurt with each other
>Begging for slices of Daddy's money, factories, and oil, which is a major source of said butthurt
>Open conflict and actual goddamned assassinations between each other in wartime
>Constantly duplicating effort, manufacturing, and combat domains
>Multiple regular armies, an air force and a half (one of which wants to be an army too), several different hastily-militarized paramilitary police groups, two navies that hate each other and their commander, plus levies from conquered countries, many of whom hate the fuck out of each other and outright refuse to operate in the same theater
>I like my propaganda guy, give him an army while we're at it
>sir he's retarded
>but I like him, army now
>let's throw every weapons program we can at the wall and see what sticks
>half the inner circle are messianic true believers, the other half are incredibly cynical assholes that the boss likes
and so on and so on.
Having an autistic tweaker micromanage based on his increasingly-deranged whims and poor intel leads to Bad Shit for even a competent army.

Now imagine you're dealing with a late-stage 'roidheaded spook and a much, much less competent force. One that not only has a tiny fraction of the money and manufacturing capability, but less illusion by anyone that the boss actually has any reciprocal loyalty to his immediate subordinates.

>>64835582
>the nazis had the advantage of starting the war on their terms. its not hard to score a few points when all the other players are still in the locker room
not only this, but also several historical enemies who were broke, tired of war, and hoping this was just a limited land grab like the preceding several centuries of war had been

>>64835499
>>64837895
Look on the bright side, the map guy wouldn't have to any actual work most days

>>64832407
The United States was helping Ukraine with defending against Russia for years before the invasion.
Ukraine wasn't caught with their pants down.

>>64832407
It didn’t
Three more weeks
Trust

>>64838045
>P.S
Holy shit, the vampire chick story from all those years ago came rushing back to me. I can't find the fucking screenshot, though.

Saw a zigger unironically claim the US was worse off after Vietnam than Russia is after Ukraine. Just wanted to vent that because I’m annoyed.