Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia should have launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier and been better prepared for the war.
â¡ï¸Putin says full-scale invasion of Ukraine should have been 'earlier,' adds he's open to meeting Trump. In a marathon press conference lasting over four hours on Dec. 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine should have begun 'earlier.'
-- The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) December 19, 2024 at 9:04 PM
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@#18 ... to tell us all how great Vlad the Mass Murderer is and that is all the Jews fault he had to invade Ukraine? ...
I should have invaded Ukraine earlier, Putin tells Russians in TV marathon
www.bbc.com
@#18 ... When asked by the BBC's Russia editor Steve Rosenberg whether he felt the country was in a better state than where his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, had left it 25 years ago, Putin said Russia had regained its "sovereignty".
"With everything that was happening to Russia before that, we were heading towards a complete, total loss of our sovereignty." ...
OK, so, Pres Putin tacitly admits that he wants to restore the old USSR "sovereignty."
So, is Poland next?
"There is no Ukraine": Fact-Checking the Kremlin's Version of Ukrainian History (2020)
blogs.lse.ac.uk
... The notion that Ukraine is not a country, but a historical part of Russia, appears to be deeply ingrained in the minds of Russian leadership.
Competing interpretations of history have turned into a key ingredient of the deepening dispute between Russia and the West and a subject that Putin in particular appears to feel unusually passionate about.
In this article, Dr Bjrn Alexander Dben explores the question, is it historically accurate to claim that Ukraine has never truly been a nation or state in its own right? ...
@#27 ... Are we counting the empty ones? ...
My question ... is Russia using up (a.k.a., losing) it's wartime equipment more quickly than it can replace it?
Analysis: Russia's War Economy Is Hitting Its Limits
foreignpolicy.com
... Key weapons are running out as Moscow tries to mobilize ever more labor and resources. ...
Signs that the official data masks severe economic strains brought on by both war and sanctions have become increasingly apparent.
No matter how many workers it tries to shift to the defense industry, the Kremlin cannot expand production fast enough to replace weapons at the rate they are being lost on the battlefield.
Already, around half of all artillery shells used by Russia in Ukraine are from North Korean stocks. At some point in the second half of 2025, Russia will face severe shortages in several categories of weapons.
Perhaps foremost among Russia's arms bottlenecks is its inability to replace large-caliber cannons. According to open-source researchers using video documentation, Russia has been losing more than 100 tanks and roughly 220 artillery pieces per month on average.
Producing tank and artillery barrels requires rotary forges -- massive pieces of engineering weighing 20 to 30 tons each -- that can each produce only about 10 barrels a month. Russia only possesses two such forges. ...
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