Escalation starting.....creeping towards a much larger conflict now

It is getting more concerning, but I think Putin would know better and would hope the UN would come down hard if he did.  China and other allies of theirs are already noting concern over the situation in general, which is huge.  Not sure if Putin would be willing to basically be a large North Korea, isolated from even more of the world?  I couldn't imagine his oligarchs being behind it, basically being banned from any of their pleasures outside of Russia.  Very likely targets of various government hit squads after as well.  Their economy would collapse and likely have a revolution.  I wouldn't doubt there is a revolution to happen from what they have done already.

Apparently, Russians are trying to figure out how to break their own arms in order to get out of being drafted. There are tons of protests and police beating people.

I think this indicates that Putin is getting desperate, but the scary part is that he hasn’t showed any signs of backing off. This can only end in one of 4 ways:

1- putin gets removed from power
2- the US and NATO step in and start supplying significant resources to push Russia out of Ukraine
3- Ukraine collapses and surrenders
4- Russia uses nuclear weapons

At this point I don’t know which of those 4 options is the most likely outcome, but #4 does not seem outside the realm of possibility, and I don’t know if it’s any more or less likely than the other 3.

I'll put all this into the "can't help but wonder" file. A little history. Putin was/is KGB, brought up through the Cold War. His objective is to bring all of the countries that went independent after the fall of the USSR back in, under Russian rule. Maybe he wasn't expecting the world to hate him because they didn't react like they are now back in 2014, when he annexed Crimea. Russia is so large that it covers 11 time zones, but he wants more. Their economy hinges on the fact that Russia is a huge gas station, with 100s of millions of barrels of oil, and billions of cubic feet of natural gas. Many of the oligarchs in his cadre have been urging him to pull out; to give up on Ukraine, and notice how many are starting to disappear. One of them fell out of a 6th story hospital room, another killed in a strange auto accident, and that list goes on. Putin has an ego that's not going to let him cave. Think back to what we've been told for the past 50+ years about the way Russia would conduct war. It would be Blitzkrieg on a much larger scale. We've been told they would attack western Europe with aerial bombardment, 1000s of tanks and divisions of infantry, yet that is not how they began in Ukraine. Remember when they first went in to take Kiev? A 40 mile long convoy of tanks, trucks, mobile artillery, but no major infantry to speak of. Then the vehicles began running out of fuel and stalled; there were reports that crews were actually puncturing their fuel tanks so as not to proceed, but that sounds a bit odd. A soldier would be shot for that. So if they ran out of fuel, food, and water, who is responsible for that? Generals. Generals are responsible for logistics, and it appeared that they didn't do their job. Maybe they were against the invasion from the start and didn't want to do their job? I don't believe that they could be that inept to just forget that the columns would need support. Now we see that Russian soldiers don't want to fight, and the Ukrainians are pushing them out. Putin is getting backed into a corner, and we have to wonder what he will do to save face. So now the speech where he will do whatever it takes, and he iterated that it was not a bluff. There smallest tactical nuke is 1 megaton, others up to 10 MT. Even a small one would be a world disaster.
Putin is said to be in poor health. Intelligence analysts suspects that it could be cancer. If true, maybe he's not the least bit concerned about his legacy 'cause he won't be around to worry about it? So now we have to wonder: was his threat bluff or fluff? 

eyesandgillz
 
Weird to state it here but at this point, I am more worried about Ukraine "winning" right now.  Best option right now would be for Putin to get taken out by someone in his inner circle but then you also run the risk of someone even MORE extreme taking over, which is entirely possible.  It is Russia, after all.  

I've thought the same exact thing.
 
Best option is for Russian people to revolt and turn this into an internal issue.  Inner circle, likely has the more extreme element.  Populace is more likely to have a democratic result.  Russian citizens are not the gray breadlines that many think.  They are modern with many of the same things we enjoy.  They have "tolerated" stolen elections.  This could be the tipping point.  The timing of it would be about as good as any.  Much of the military did not have the appetite to slaughter their close neighbor, I imagine even more so for their own.  The forces and equipment are depleted enough for a revolution to have much more of a chance.

Pork, Putin is calling up 300K reserves. That's like 15 Divisions! Question is, are they modernly trained? Does he even have enough equipment, uniforms, food and ammo; in other words, could they be logistically supported. If he's gettin' arms & ammo from China right now, I think the answer is NO! And maybe the reserves know that, and will be unwilling to be fed into the meat grinder. For the Russian people, maybe the only answer is revolution and a coup'.
 

Now the Russians are blasting Ukraine with Iranian made drones? Probably won't be long 'til N.Korea wants to make the news with help also. Would be nice to get one of those drones intact just to see if they reverse engineered the one of ours that they captured a couple of years back.

Gator, they can build 'em and they can fly 'em, but there was a lot of super high tech in that US drone they captured intact a couple of years ago; enough to cause a lot of consternation amongst the intelligence communities. Do they have equivalent guidance systems and intelligence gathering capabilities? Don't know, but I don't want to see the Iranians with something of that capability, but it is what it is. Now Iran has their own people revolting over the murder of that girl just 'cause she was showin' head hair stickin' out of her hijab. Sick ba$tards. We can only hope for revolution in the Number 1 sponsor of terrorism in the world.

Scary, but to note that the jet stream is usually pushing from West to East.  So those favorable wind patterns would be a bit less, than if attacking someone to the East of them.  Most of the Russian population centers are in Western Russia too.  I doubt that Putin really cares all that much about his people having to deal with fallout, but he would care about his inner circle's business interests in those areas.

It seems that the US and Europe are on a fast track to admit Ukraine into Nato. Are ya ready for another Viet Nam or Afghanistan? If they're admitted, will Putin pull the trigger on low yield WMDs? In this day and age, I wouldn't believe anyone could be that stupid, but Putin already lost his face when he invaded, so what's he have to lose except the world? It is unthinkable! I hope there's some cooler heads in the Politburo that can talk him out of that; if not, maybe they'll have to take him out. 

Heck, we are on our tippy toes, leaning fwd. on the precipice of WW3.  NK shooting off ballistic missiles over Japan, SK trying to retaliate with their own missile launch, and it blows up on the base, NK skirting the DMZ with a formation of 12 fighters and bombers and SK scrambling 30 to intercept, the Belgorod ballistic missile sub, carrying the doomsday torpedo, is out of port prowling, Ukraine kicking Russia's arse, Putin rumored to be spending time in his bunker well away from Moscow, Iranians rising up against the establishment, Saudis and UAE spitting on the US and cutting back oil production by 2mbd, poo is hitting the fan EVERYWHERE, and I mean EVERYWHERE, Armenia and Azerbaijan hitting at each other, Putin's inner circle publicly making negative comments about the war and the military, the Chechen goon egging Putin on to use tactical nukes, and this is only the past week or two.....hmmppphhh....
 
With some of the news of the inner circle of Putin's making comments he is too "weak," essentially, if he is disposed of, I am terrified of who jumps in to replace him.  
 
If Ukraine keeps getting support from US/Europe with higher end weapons, real time intelligence, real time war planning, then I have no doubts they can take back both Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts plus everywhere else, including Crimea.  Once they get Kherson, they are in easy range of Crimea for HIMARS normal and enhanced rockets.  I think ATACMS can reach out to 180 or 190 miles.  Hopefully Ukraine can make a push NE of Kherson and Crimea, reach the coast and establish a zone safe enough to bring up a HIMARS or two, then take out the rail portion of the Crimean bridge across the Kerch straight.  Leave the Orcs a pathway to escape with the roadway portion of the bridge, at least for now.  I think once the Ukrainians demonstrate they can hit the bridge, there will be a mass exodus from Crimea of both Russian citizens, any sympathizers and possibly some military.  
 
If support wanes and Ukraine loses the high end weapons from the US/Europe, I think they have plenty of traditional soviet "crap" they captured to still get the East back to pre-war separatist borders and get the South back to the Crimean border....  how much more they gain will likely depend on how much longer range, higher end ordinance they save and keep in reserve.  Going into Crimea may be the straw that does it and may see a small tactical nuke in that timeframe.  Hope I am wrong.

Someone let me know if it is time to start draining the 401k and stockpiling hookers and cocaine.

Reports out of Moscow of numerous military members being arrested by the FSB.  Moscow on lockdown.   Military units on the outskirts of Moscow on high alert.  Interesting times....counter-coup operations?

It's true, Gator. The services are being forced to evict any personnel who has not been vaccinated with the Covid juice and the boosters. More than 20K right now, and up to 100K to follow unless they capitulate. The Coast Guard hero that went into a flooded house in Florida and kicked in a wall to save the occupants; Biden called him personally to congratulate him on the mission, but he's gettin' kicked out for no vax. All of the US services have missed their recruiting goals by thousands. Nobody wants to join the service because of WOKE policies and the fact that there is a huge leadership problem with no trust or faith in the government policies. (Or no policies, as the case is). It wasn't bad when it was just the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but now it's the gender pronouns, LGBTQ, etc. problem. The leftist WOKE politicians have turned the military into girlie man organizations.

MyWar
So let’s please please please not pretend that there isn’t a damm good reason for requiring covid vaccinations of military personnel.

You’re not a serious person.

Or do you still believe the lie that the vaccine prevents infection and transmission?

It has negative efficacy with regards to infection. For new enlistees in their late teens and early twenties it causes more harm than it prevents, unless you consider 1 in 3,000 males in this age group getting myocarditis to be harmless or maybe even beneficial.

There is no scientific evidence or data anywhere in the world that supports Rona v****ine mandates for anybody of military service age and there never has been.

snagr

MyWar
So let’s please please please not pretend that there isn’t a damm good reason for requiring covid vaccinations of military personnel.

You’re not a serious person.

Or do you still believe the lie that the vaccine prevents infection and transmission?

It has negative efficacy with regards to infection. For new enlistees in their late teens and early twenties it causes more harm than it prevents, unless you consider 1 in 3,000 males in this age group getting myocarditis to be harmless or maybe even beneficial.

There is no scientific evidence or data anywhere in the world that supports Rona v****ine mandates for anybody of military service age and there never has been.

Riiiiiiight… and I’m the one that’s not the serious person.