He's fine. I know that. With as many sigmas of confidence as you like. When was the last time an autocrat was brought down internally in any significant autocracy?
you can argue about significant, but obviously there were two in 2011 (even I'm not going to call Yemen significant, which would have been the third). Pretty significant if you live/d there though.
Tunisia, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was the first in 2011, but as significant autocrats of significant autocracies go, I think we're on much safer ground later that same year with Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.
Those two I had in mind and discounted. The Arab Spring was CIA. And global warming in Syria. And Egypt was back to normal in no time. China and Russia cannot, will not change, become as democratic, plural, as India even. Which has to be as it's so diverse. Run by a populist neo-fascist for nine years. Brazil just just got rid of one. Turkey re-elected one. Freely. I mean, how could Russia & China possibly not be one-party states? South Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria are all what they have to be. Because there is no good example, no leadership in the rich north.
I am not saying he has been deposed. I do think the mutiny has shaken him to his foundations.
I guess the Kremlin has now released a video of Putin speaking on Monday. He did not mention anything about the mutiny, though. It has yet to be confirmed.
The comment about Trump being in a position to pull the US out of NATO is getting tiresome. There is simply no way he can be re-elected. People remember what happened on January 6th. I would say 80% of all Americans want to see him indicted for conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected government.
He's fine.
Now I now know now why I'm wrong. Do you? There is no simple way he can't be re-elected. Nobody in the margins, the swing, no floating voter, gives a shit what happened on January 6th 2021. On what basis do you make that absurd claim?
And knowing how perverse hard wired human nature is does not make anyone pro-Trump.
I'm wary both of Gramps49's sunny optimism and Martin54's jeremiads but I would very much doubt that Trump will ever be POTUS again.
Even if he were, as has been said, even he couldn't pull the US out of NATO unilaterally.
Gramps49 cites the BBC as asking 'Where is Putin?'
I've seen no suggestions from the Beeb that he's been deposed or isn't anything but still very much in charge. The over-riding BBC take seems to be, 'Putin is a dictator and if there's anything dictators know it's how to hold onto power.'
I'm wary both of Gramps49's sunny optimism and Martin54's jeremiads but I would very much doubt that Trump will ever be POTUS again.
Even if he were, as has been said, even he couldn't pull the US out of NATO unilaterally.
Gramps49 cites the BBC as asking 'Where is Putin?'
I've seen no suggestions from the Beeb that he's been deposed or isn't anything but still very much in charge. The over-riding BBC take seems to be, 'Putin is a dictator and if there's anything dictators know it's how to hold onto power.'
What is the basis of your doubt?
No, but he could just stop funding it unilaterally I imagine. And give a while, he could bully the party in to it.
Putin's fine. Absolutely fine. There is no basis whatsoever for thinking otherwise. His thugs threatened Prigozhin's family.
This is getting fairly far afield from the subject of the Russia-Ukraine war
As far as point #2 goes, I think we can make the safe assumption that any Democratic president will continue support for Ukraine, both verbally and materially, while any plausible Republican president in 2025 will want to either scale back or discontinue such support. Discussion of the exact identities of those hypothetical presidents is irrelevant for this thread.
As far as NATO funding goes, the American president lacks the power to unilaterally fund or not fund anything. Appropriations are made by Congress and the line-item veto was ruled unconstitutional. Stop making up shit to support your conspiracy theories.
This is getting fairly far afield from the subject of the Russia-Ukraine war
As far as point #2 goes, I think we can make the safe assumption that any Democratic president will continue support for Ukraine, both verbally and materially, while any plausible Republican president in 2025 will want to either scale back or discontinue such support. Discussion of the exact identities of those hypothetical presidents is irrelevant for this thread.
As far as NATO funding goes, the American president lacks the power to unilaterally fund or not fund anything. Appropriations are made by Congress and the line-item veto was ruled unconstitutional. Stop making up shit to support your conspiracy theories.
Thank you as ever for the expert opinion, no matter how shittily packaged. I made up nothing at all that I didn't say I hadn't.
The US does not fund NATO. NATO itself costs next to nothing.
Each nation funds its own military spending. There is an expectation that each member will spend 2% of GDP on defence so that they have the capability to share the burden of joint operations. If you seriously think Trump would reduce US defence spending then you haven't been paying attention. To anything.
To be fair though, Trump himself doesn't understand this either.
Anyway, all this is beside the point. The real risk in Europe at the moment is if Western powers stop providing military aid to Ukraine. Now that is something many Trump allies have talked about and I can seriously imagine him doing.
Trump, if he were president, could send a lot of powerful signals that he wasn't going to honour the North Atlantic Treaty without actually withdrawing from it. As CinC he could order US troops stationed in Europe back to the US. The US has literally dozens of bases and tens of thousands of personnel in central and eastern Europe. It doesn't take much to imagine an emboldened Putin if Trump (to take an extreme example) orders Ramstein Air Base mothballed and publicly equivocates on "an attack on one is an attack on all" in relation to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. He could order US personnel to cease training Ukrainians. There is an awful lot he could do to undermine support for Ukraine, and there's little to indicate that Republican senators would be any more willing to remove him than before.
Ukraine apparently is claiming to have captured a significant portion of Donbas today. It has been confirmed by the UK Defense Ministry. Here is a CNN link showing the amount of claimed progress in Donbas.
Ukraine apparently is claiming to have captured a significant portion of Donbas today. It has been confirmed by the UK Defense Ministry. Here is a CNN link showing the amount of claimed progress in Donbas.
How many significant square kilometres of Donbas have they claimed to have captured today? In taking another small, but obviously disproportionately significant, village. The link shows no progress at all today. Nothing but empty waffle. The map is meaningless. Masking the significance. The BBC reports nothing at all. How wrong they must be!
Ukraine apparently is claiming to have captured a significant portion of Donbas today. It has been confirmed by the UK Defense Ministry. Here is a CNN link showing the amount of claimed progress in Donbas.
The BBC is also reporting slow progress. Their main reporter on these issues said as much on the main news last night. You seem highly selective in the way you choose your soundbites.
The BBC isn't ruling out Ukrainian breakthroughs at some point but it isn't reporting that the offensive is a walk in the park either.
A senior Russian general had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership, according to U.S. officials briefed on American intelligence on the matter, which has prompted questions about what support the mercenary leader had inside the top ranks.
The officials said they are trying to learn if Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former top Russian commander in Ukraine, helped plan Mr. Prigozhin’s actions last weekend, which posed the most dramatic threat to President Vladimir V. Putin in his 23 years in power.
A Report has appeared on the “Ukraine” Telegram channel, quoting the Russian rosZMI media channel, that Surovikin was arrested on the evening of June 27 and is detained in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention centre along with his deputy, Colonel-General Andriy Yudin.
That last one seems to be based solely on a social media post, so caveat lector. For that matter the first article could also be an example of a "strategic leak", meant to sow discord in the Russian leadership.
Ukraine has claimed they have stated a bridgehead across the Dnipro River. Russia immediately denied it. 24 hours later the Russians have claimed they have eliminated the (non-existent) bridgehead. Ukraine has not said anything more. Who are you to believe?
If it were true, I cannot see how it benefits Putin to publicize it. It would be a brilliant conspiracy. It would need a ton or ten of HE on the river bed to guarantee taking out the bridge and all on it, floated submerged from upriver. Mooring a barge of HE under a bridge by the Kremlin and waiting is not exactly stealthy. And if it isn't true, i.e. the FSB made it up, ditto: it makes him look extremely vulnerable either way. But that could be him playing in to Russia is never as strong - or as weak - as she looks. Most likely the FSB spun up a story from an actual maintenance event. Which of course is a point of weakness...
And in the week since Ukraine took a south bank village below Kherson, still north of the formidable Russian defences, what?
@Gramps49 - I think most of us appreciate that anything coming from a Russian source is suspect, despite @Martin54 's expert debunkings.
It is hard, I know, to separate fact from fiction (or wishful thinking) in this volatile scenario. The mere thought of Putin deliberately ordering the destruction of a nuclear power plant, is, however, extremely frightening.
Someone will be along in a while to assure us that this will never happen...
It's perfectly rational for him to do it if there's a breakthrough. Nuclear war without a shot being fired. I'm as expert at sitting in my armchair as anyone. Bin sayin it fer munce.
I think I have read the Russians are leaving the nuclear power plant. But it is not clear what is next. I guess we will expect the worst but hope for the best.
Even if the sky falls, I want their cautious optimism to be wildly realised. But the Russians will have planted millions of mines already, they will have vast stocks; 26.5 million landmines 4 years ago. Let alone claymores. All the talk of hundred metre advances seem to be horizontal, clearing above the line of defence. A mere million mines gives you one every 30 m radially over a thousand square kilometres. The entire front for a depth of a kilometre. Sow another million in there in a hundred meter random band 3 m apart. Repeat. Ten times.
Hate to say this but.. are the Ukrainains wasting some of their (very expensive) weaponry?
Apparently the Russians shot down some drones recently over Moscow, and a short while a ago a Storm Shadow caused what looked to me like pretty trivial damage to the deck of the Kerch Strait Bridge.
Maybe they are, maybe they aren't - it's hard to know the facts rather than speculation - but again, just getting to Moscow, or bashing the Kerch Strait bridge, must be morale-boosters.
Morale-boosting is, I guess, somewhat hard to quantify, but simply being able to hit back at the Russians must help...
Hopefully, new weaponry will be quickly forthcoming from Ukraine's supporters and allies.
It is hard to say the drones that hit Moscow were Ukrainian. Other paramilitary groups have attacked Moscow recently. The Russians themselves are known to launch false flag operations.
The image of the attack on the Kerch Bridge was supplied by the Russians. Therefore, they would want to show as minimal damage as possible. This is not the first time the bridge had been attacked and probably will not be the last. There was also the attack on the Chonbar bridge and the Antonovsky bridge earlier.
I think it is part of the overall strategy of the Ukrainians to take out the bridges because the Russians continue to rely on them for major supply of its troops. Even a small hick up in the supply of Russian material can impact the front lines significantly.
Hate to say this but.. are the Ukrainains wasting some of their (very expensive) weaponry?
Apparently the Russians shot down some drones recently over Moscow, and a short while a ago a Storm Shadow caused what looked to me like pretty trivial damage to the deck of the Kerch Strait Bridge.
Even if the information available is accurate, in any modern war a lot of equipment, even fancy Western equipment, will be lost, destroyed, or used for what seems like trivial effects.
To take one cited example, the mere fact that Ukraine can reach Moscow with drones is probably as unsettling to Muscovites and Russian leadership as the Doolittle raid was on Japan.
Hate to say this but.. are the Ukrainains wasting some of their (very expensive) weaponry?
Apparently the Russians shot down some drones recently over Moscow, and a short while a ago a Storm Shadow caused what looked to me like pretty trivial damage to the deck of the Kerch Strait Bridge.
The drone attacks were 6 weeks ago. And for the effect as @Crœsos said, cheap at the, what, six figure price?
On 22 June, the Chongar Bridge connecting Crimea with Kherson Oblast was struck by a Storm Shadow to interrupt Russian logistics.
None have been launched at the Kerch Strait Bridge. The Antonivskyi Bridge was finally destroyed by the Russians in November after being battered by the Ukrainians in the 6 weeks of July-August.
They need about a thousand of these and twenty combat engineering vehicles to launch them.
Comments
Those two I had in mind and discounted. The Arab Spring was CIA. And global warming in Syria. And Egypt was back to normal in no time. China and Russia cannot, will not change, become as democratic, plural, as India even. Which has to be as it's so diverse. Run by a populist neo-fascist for nine years. Brazil just just got rid of one. Turkey re-elected one. Freely. I mean, how could Russia & China possibly not be one-party states? South Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria are all what they have to be. Because there is no good example, no leadership in the rich north.
He's fine.
Now I now know now why I'm wrong. Do you? There is no simple way he can't be re-elected. Nobody in the margins, the swing, no floating voter, gives a shit what happened on January 6th 2021. On what basis do you make that absurd claim?
And knowing how perverse hard wired human nature is does not make anyone pro-Trump.
Even if he were, as has been said, even he couldn't pull the US out of NATO unilaterally.
Gramps49 cites the BBC as asking 'Where is Putin?'
I've seen no suggestions from the Beeb that he's been deposed or isn't anything but still very much in charge. The over-riding BBC take seems to be, 'Putin is a dictator and if there's anything dictators know it's how to hold onto power.'
What is the basis of your doubt?
No, but he could just stop funding it unilaterally I imagine. And give a while, he could bully the party in to it.
Putin's fine. Absolutely fine. There is no basis whatsoever for thinking otherwise. His thugs threatened Prigozhin's family.
Please state your reasons for such certainty. with appropriate links.
To re-iterate a point I made earlier:
As far as NATO funding goes, the American president lacks the power to unilaterally fund or not fund anything. Appropriations are made by Congress and the line-item veto was ruled unconstitutional. Stop making up shit to support your conspiracy theories.
He's still in the saddle but has taken a knock.
Thank you as ever for the expert opinion, no matter how shittily packaged. I made up nothing at all that I didn't say I hadn't.
No need mate. The claim that he isn't needs substantiating. Why wouldn't he be?
Fine is his grip on power.
Each nation funds its own military spending. There is an expectation that each member will spend 2% of GDP on defence so that they have the capability to share the burden of joint operations. If you seriously think Trump would reduce US defence spending then you haven't been paying attention. To anything.
To be fair though, Trump himself doesn't understand this either.
Anyway, all this is beside the point. The real risk in Europe at the moment is if Western powers stop providing military aid to Ukraine. Now that is something many Trump allies have talked about and I can seriously imagine him doing.
AFZ
Note the 'm'!!
US defense budget 2021: $730Bn.
AFZ
What conspiracy theories mate?
How many significant square kilometres of Donbas have they claimed to have captured today? In taking another small, but obviously disproportionately significant, village. The link shows no progress at all today. Nothing but empty waffle. The map is meaningless. Masking the significance. The BBC reports nothing at all. How wrong they must be!
@Crœsos this
is a personal attack. Please desist or take it to hell.
@Martin54 we are unclear what this
means. Please promote discussion by stating your position clearly and in good faith.
Hostly beret off
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
In response to @Gamma Gamaliel's which like @Gramps49 similar assertion wasn't backed up in response to my (I subsequently proved myself wrong, hence my )
I ignorantly replied, in the light of @alienfromzog, Emphasis mine. That is me saying that I'm which tends to pre-empt that as an accusation: I didn't say,
My deconstructs to I suggest.
The BBC is also reporting slow progress. Their main reporter on these issues said as much on the main news last night. You seem highly selective in the way you choose your soundbites.
The BBC isn't ruling out Ukrainian breakthroughs at some point but it isn't reporting that the offensive is a walk in the park either.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/28/nato-ready-to-face-threat-from-moscow-or-minsk-says-alliance-head-after-wagner-group-chiefs-exile
Perhaps last weekend's brouhaha was all a ploy to get Belarus involved more than it is already? Lukashenko dances to Putin's tune...
Chaser
That last one seems to be based solely on a social media post, so caveat lector. For that matter the first article could also be an example of a "strategic leak", meant to sow discord in the Russian leadership.
Do you have a link, please?
Then, there is the reported assassination attempt against Putin on Friday.
Are the walls coming down?
The other link is about cybersecurity problems in Spain - perhaps that's superseded what you saw earlier?
No. That's the point.
As for the breakthru-lite campaign, it's a bit like divine revelation according to Isaiah 28:13 isn't it: here a little, there a little.
And in the week since Ukraine took a south bank village below Kherson, still north of the formidable Russian defences, what?
It is hard, I know, to separate fact from fiction (or wishful thinking) in this volatile scenario. The mere thought of Putin deliberately ordering the destruction of a nuclear power plant, is, however, extremely frightening.
Someone will be along in a while to assure us that this will never happen...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/03/russia-ukraine-war-at-a-glance-what-we-know-on-day-495-of-the-invasion
Some small gains, but I guess that, to the Ukrainians, every metre or kilometre recaptured is a tremendous morale-booster.
Others watching from outside may disagree.
Apparently the Russians shot down some drones recently over Moscow, and a short while a ago a Storm Shadow caused what looked to me like pretty trivial damage to the deck of the Kerch Strait Bridge.
Morale-boosting is, I guess, somewhat hard to quantify, but simply being able to hit back at the Russians must help...
Hopefully, new weaponry will be quickly forthcoming from Ukraine's supporters and allies.
The image of the attack on the Kerch Bridge was supplied by the Russians. Therefore, they would want to show as minimal damage as possible. This is not the first time the bridge had been attacked and probably will not be the last. There was also the attack on the Chonbar bridge and the Antonovsky bridge earlier.
I think it is part of the overall strategy of the Ukrainians to take out the bridges because the Russians continue to rely on them for major supply of its troops. Even a small hick up in the supply of Russian material can impact the front lines significantly.
Even if the information available is accurate, in any modern war a lot of equipment, even fancy Western equipment, will be lost, destroyed, or used for what seems like trivial effects.
To take one cited example, the mere fact that Ukraine can reach Moscow with drones is probably as unsettling to Muscovites and Russian leadership as the Doolittle raid was on Japan.
The drone attacks were 6 weeks ago. And for the effect as @Crœsos said, cheap at the, what, six figure price?
None have been launched at the Kerch Strait Bridge. The Antonivskyi Bridge was finally destroyed by the Russians in November after being battered by the Ukrainians in the 6 weeks of July-August.
They need about a thousand of these and twenty combat engineering vehicles to launch them.