Yandex warns of bond repayment and supply risks(reuters.com) |
Yandex warns of bond repayment and supply risks(reuters.com) |
Like Google Search going out in the western world
People in the west are too naive to realise that in russia no body asks what people think. The level of propaganda is so strong that people would believe whatever they are told.
The idiocy of those in the west who think that russians can decide something once they face sanctions is overwhelming. In the very long therm it may be but thus completely inadequate measure in the moment.
Another idiocy is to think that claiming that NATO isn’t the part of the conflict can prevent them to actually become a part of the conflict. The moment russia will decide they will invent the cause to attack just as they did with Ukraine.
Now we hear how sanctions will not change russian opinions, but it seems these already started to change, as some cracks appear: some politicians speak against war, some oligarchs criticize putin, some Russians are also migrating to Finland [1], as well as a protest started in Nizhnekamsk [2].
This is not to say that you're entirely wrong, it indeed is very hard to convince someone as heavily indoctrinated as russian nation, but I think it is possible.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pHglSTvgbI [2] https://twitter.com/ilya_shepelin/status/1500073553055657986...
In my experience, these statements are contradictory. When nobody asks what the people think, the people notice, believe little, and keep their own thoughts close.
To their credit, the NATO officials and European leaders who are normally prone to think this way are backing up their deescalatory talk with defensive troop movements and jet fighter deployments.
They cannot think, so we are stupid for not adjusting to their limitations / conformity?
Aren't we?
Putin brought this on his people for some idealogic crusade. Not everyone will understand but some will.
Does anyone know when debt events for other Russian bluechips, and possibly even Russian government bonds themselves are?
https://dcweekly.org/2022/03/04/russia-halts-payments-on-bon...
https://reason.com/2013/12/06/did-economic-sanctions-help-en...
Right now, my Russian friends tell me that state propaganda is so strong that a significant proportion of the Russian population believe the Ukranian deaths are due to Ukranians just killing themselves.
Surely at some point they'll see that what they're being told doesn't make sense. Especially if they also start to see a deterioration in their quality of life...
Rather it says that the ANC (opposition) was supported by the Soviets. So the apartheid government argued that apartheid was necessary to keep out communism.
When the Soviets collapsed, this argument weakened and more people were convinced to dismantle apartheid.
Supporting these affected nations is a win for all involved, except Russia. We should prevent them from going into recession, enable them to reduce their dependence on Russia, while strengthening our relationship with them.
I mean.. do you really think this is going to happen? No one will pay attention to Kyrgyzstan just at they aren't paying attention now. I don't understand these flowery, optimistic arguments that have no bearing to reality. Russia is still the local superpower in the area and they will likely continue to lean on them for support. The alternative is to entirely change their economy to rely on western support, and except western countries to actually bother to try and prop up Kyrgyzstan
Just as with some of the worst lies of Brexit or anti-EU sentiment in mainland Europe, the worst of the lies people believed in the USA were helped by Putin's "outreach" work, both in terms of dark money and via the disinformation teams operated out of the Kremlin like the GRU, and by hacking/activist groups who were possibly unwittingly controlled.
In a climate of disinformation, it's Putin's world, in many ways, and we just live in it. Putin's regime is the primary exporter of state-sponsored misinformation and disinformation globally.
And as to people struggling with things not making sense: that's literally the point.
Both in and outside Russia, Putin's aim is not to have a consistent projected worldview or propaganda; his aim, and his success, is in undermining everyone else's. He was taught to do this by people like Vladislav Surkov, and he is very good at it.
He wants you not to trust anything to be true; just trust that his power is true.
The crackdown on non-state media, especially if it is not exactly in line with the state propaganda message, makes it harder to do that.
> Especially if they also start to see a deterioration in their quality of life...
A narrative that explains and places blame elsewhere for that is fairly easy with complete control of information, especially since it being due to economic warfare by the West is true (and how even some Western leaders have described it.)
I live in Turkey and we have a similar state propaganda (though fortunately not war). The government successfully collapsed the economy but they control the mainstream media and their supporters still blame (and truly believe in what they say) the opposition for everything bad that the government does.
Controlling people's mindset is apparently easier than it seems when you control media.
This sounds like Western meta-propaganda. Russia isn't some mysterious other-world filled with low IQ people. Are we really to believe that swaths of their population believes the Ukranians are merely offing themselves during an invasion? Is there anything we can read that points to this, even Fox News-type article making the claim? Colour me skpetical.
Not at all hard to believe that a significant proportion of Russian people believe this lie.
I think you misinterpreted what the parent poster meant about Ukrainian s killing themselves. It probably meant Ukrainians killing other Ukrainians in false flag operations and not suicides.
This is exactly what they believe. More then that , they are told that some of Ukrainians are “nazis” who kill ‘normal’ Ukrainians. They’ve been told that all horrible bombing scenes the world is witnessing are done not by rus. invader but by by those “nazis” Ukrainians. They are truly believe that and they are happy that rus. army is saving “normal” Ukrainians.
Talk to me about their IQ but it is impossible to convince them otherwise, and trust me I’ve tried and others tried they are complete zombies and would not trust even relatives. They would say that you are brain washed by western propaganda and only them are proud russians who know the truth. No logic can convince them because the source of their believes is not logically based but emotionally based.
Yes it’s that bad! And people in the west who do not understand that are too naive and have no idea with what they are dealing and how enormously dangerous it is. For many people this war came as big surprise. They still think that if russians only knew they would stop. Only force cam stop them now. Sanctions are too little too late and too slow and people in Ukraine are dying also due to the stupidity and naivety of those who can stop it.
If you think I am exaggerating, try to convince at least one russian, and share your experience here !!!
Neither is the US. But you and me have seen during this pandemic, to people able to reason that pneumonia can kill, and covid can cause pneumonia, but unable to reason that covid can kill. Propaganda is like that.
You only have to take a look at what sects do to people to see the kind of gymnastics people can do in their reasoning because propaganda.
To clarify the belief that was cultivated through propaganda is that there are reckless Nazi groups in Ukraine who stop at nothing to hurt russians. They were striking at ethnically russian regions of Ukraine for last 8 years. When Russia invaded to fight these groups they positioned their forces in the hospitals and schools. As they strike back they are hitting their own schools and hospitals mostly from being sloppy, because that's what they are and the equipment is old. And in some cases maliciously, because they need gruesome content for the west. Russian forces are doing precision strikes and hurt no civilians.
I think you underestimate how massive and elaborate Russian propaganda is. These stories are fed in pieces over weeks, sometimes years. For example it took multiple years to establish and cement the idea of Nazi groups in Ukraine. Now if you start at this belief it's not that far fetched to believe these groups have no regard for human life whether it is their foreign or their own.
She’s a latvian citizen - but Russian speaking - so she consumes Russian TV and radio.
My wife had a tearful falling out with her a few days ago on the phone, as she’s absolutely drunk the Kool-aid - Ukrainians are all Nazis, we’re rescuing Russian prisoners, Biden is planning a nuclear first strike on St Petersburg, etc. etc.
A large swathe of the population grew up in a world where the state is the world, and everything external to the state is the enemy.
I'd expect such sentiments to continue and amplify over time — but hopefully support for the war will also be driven down in parallel. Even if it's considered a tactical blunder ("we can't afford to keep up this special operation") rather than a moral one.
I'm not sure Billy will come back that way.
Let's face it: Russia is illegaly invading a foreign country that is fighting back hard. The only way I see out for Russia to save itself is by sending Putin into exile and blame it all on him.
Putin hoped for weakness in the west re sanctions and weapons. They play hardball and now Putin is failing.
edit: I also believe nuclear is the only war Russia could even think about against the west. The army isn't that strong obviously... It is really a bad situation because NOBODY in the west has thought about attacking Russia at all. It is all in their heads. It's just plain stupid.
There are things that might work - big celebrities like top hockey players and other sportsmen could stand up and criticize Putin directly, not just issue some blank statements of wanting peace and not even mentioning what they actually mean by that (Ovechkin is a prime example).
Microsoft could ban any access to license servers, updates, office stuff etc (that might be a massive hit, I recall some UK submarines was running completely on Windows XP few years, I am sure half the state would stop working immediately).
Apple and Google could block any access to their stores, updates, apps etc... Ideally with some message explaining why, shown to every user. But that's a bold move, I don't think they have balls for that yet. Things will get much worse in Ukraine at this rate though, so this may change.
Right now the only change is that google disabled YouTube ads for russian users. Which would make me more eager to sit home and numb my mind with videos
Add a cultivated desire to be “great again” plus economic hardship imposed from outside and Putin can hold a tight leach as he’s been doing. That’s the first time he’s probably gambling his life, but he’s far from being defeated.
In the US as significant part of the population will believe that the political party in power is the source of everything bad, counter to any evidence. Paradoxically, evidence against that point of view is almost taken as proof: "that's what they want you to believe!".
Try talking to an ardent Trump opponent or supporter that he did even the least little thing right or wrong. It's maddening the contortions of reasoning and deflection. He's so very polarizing so the phenomena is more extreme with him but the same goes for any president in my lifetime.
Now imagine there's only one real political party, more controls on information, and a general human desire to not see themselves or their "tribe" as the villains in any situation...
The type of sentiment change you're hoping for can occur, but my own observation is that it only happens very gradually over many years or very suddenly when sparked by something cataclysmic, and that second method has as much chance of hardening the mindset with more rationalizing as it does changing it.
I remember thinking that way, too, back in 2016.
A lot of people accepted the corruption because life became significantly better. And was noticeably freer in some ways, like the allowance of non-state media and the freedom to leave, compared to the Communist era.
In other words, even the least-propagandized Russians seem to be heavily influenced.
Unfortunately, it will probably take a lot of catastrophic economic damage before Putin loses support — as in whole companies going down, life savings destroyed, bankruptcies, loss of homes, hunger, desperation. Think of how difficult it is to overcome your own biases — have you ever changed your mind about something your country did?
Sanctions are horrible especially on this scale, and even those of us who believe they are appropriate have to stay clear-eyed about what happens.
Doesn't really matter in a dictatorship. Putin is likely to suspend the "right to vote" next and turn Russia into North Korea, officially.
No, not a ghost plane. Just a nickname given to a pilot (though it could be multiple pilots) who allegedly shot down a handful of Russian planes in the first days of the war. "Ghost of Kyiv." There's uncertainty and a lot of speculation going on about this pilot's accomplishments (and identity), but that doesn't mean the Ukrainians are being told lies.
It doesn't have to be myth or lies and propaganda to be given a nickname. See also The White Death.
Yet again this week: this needs upvoting for visibility and downvoting for their experience.
Many in the UK and the USA in particular (but in Europe as well) can relate to this kind of experience of talking to someone who exists in an irrational belief bubble concerning one or two other topics.
But in most cases it doesn't have anywhere near the stark awfulness of this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60600487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30555692
--
The 25-year-old has been speaking regularly to her mother, who lives in Moscow. But in these conversations, and even after sending videos from her heavily bombarded hometown, Oleksandra is unable to convince her mother about the danger she is in.
"I didn't want to scare my parents, but I started telling them directly that civilians and children are dying," she says.
"But even though they worry about me, they still say it probably happens only by accident, that the Russian army would never target civilians. That it's Ukrainians who're killing their own people."
--
He was surprised not to have heard from his father, who works at a monastery near Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. He called his father and described what was happening. His father replied that this wasn't true; there was no war and - in fact - Russians were saving Ukraine from Nazis.
Mykhailo said he felt he knew the power of Russian propaganda, but when he heard it from his father, he was devastated.
"My own father does not believe me, knowing that I'm here and see everything with my own eyes. And my mum, his ex-wife, is going through this too," he says.
"She is hiding with my grandmother in the bathroom, because of the bombardment."
--
"I called my mum again. I told her I was scared. 'Don't worry', she said, reassuringly. 'They [Russia] will never bomb Kyiv'."
But they are already doing it, Anastasiya replied.
"I told her there were casualties among civilians. 'But that's what we had too when Ukraine attacked Donbas!', she said, laughing. For a moment I couldn't breathe. Hearing my mum say this with such cruelty just broke my heart."
Anastasiya believes the image Russian media has created is one of the "glorified Russian army" ridding Ukraine from Nazis. For years she avoided political arguments with her parents, but this time she slammed the phone down on her mum.
We spoke to Anastasiya when she was travelling away from Kyiv after four nights in a bomb shelter. Her mind was on an uncertain future.
There are Nazi groups in the Ukraine, and they have a long history. Is this in dispute?
Or on the individual level -- I labour this point because I sadly see it in people I know -- at the kind of mental gymnastics an abused partner inevitably uses to explain away their situation and avoid challenging it.
The thing is, analysis paralysis happens even in situations without a malign actor.
Many malign actors have an instinctive, almost unknowing ability to exploit it.
Usually, it’s a strawman. People in favor of lockdowns, masks, and similar interventions ridicule those who aren’t by falsely claiming they “don’t believe in Covid”.
Whether it’s worth accepting X amount of suffering to increase average life expectancy by Y years depends on the values of X and Y. If someone argues it’s not worth it in a particular case, that doesn’t necessarily mean they think Y is zero.
But there are people who literally think the world is 4000 years old. There are people who believe evolution doesn't happen. There are even people who believe the earth is flat. And you find a strawman that there are people who think that nobody is dying of covid?
So what about Syria? Kurds are another topic you might want to look into (both inside and outside the Turkey). Azerbaijan-Armenia proxy war? It's not as easy as you think.
Syria and refugees are part of a bigger plan. It's not like the government suddenly became philantrophic and wanted to help people running from war.
For decades Kurds and Turks lived happily together. Again, government's agenda is to divide and conquer so they made Kurds "enemy" to some (gullible) part of the population.
Surely it's not "easy" though my point stands: when you control mainstream media you can easily manipulate enough people. Current authoratorian government does this in Turkey, and even if there is also many enlightened people, we are just relatively minority.
Which decades were those?
Does it give credibility to the allegation that there's still slavery in America?
Sure there are sometimes conflicts but most of them are government propaganda trying to divide otherwise perfectly happy people.
btw sending ballistic rockets to bomb Kiev’s population is hardly justified by anything anyway.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/ukraine-s-snake-island-h...
^Another example of a Ukrainian "myth" being a straight up lie. I haven't seen good data confirming Ghost of Kiev's kills....much like the "Russian Airborne lost 2x Il-76 transports full of paratroopers". I haven't seen pics of Il-76 crash sites. Seems odd, considering the huge amount of photos/video of coming out of the war, including plenty of other downed aircraft.
There's a ton of things we don't have good video coverage of, including the Snake Island events, so it's very hard to verify any claims. This lack of certainty affects the belligerents too so -- unless you have conclusive evidence to show that deliberately false statements have been made -- I think it's quite arrogant to say "straight up lies" concerning statements that may have been made in confusion and without a full picture of the situation.
Sure, right here: “Defending the Zmiinyi Island, all our border guards died a heroic death,” Zelensky said. and: The guards will posthumously receive the "Hero of Ukraine," the highest honor Ukraine can bestow, Zelenskyy said. from ( https://www.foxnews.com/world/snake-island-soldiers-russian-... )
His comments left no room for ambiguity. How do you award medals posthumously without CONFIRMATION of death?
Now compare that to the military's actual statement: Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service took to Facebook to announce Snake Island had been captured and its infrastructure destroyed by shelling from a Russian ship on Thursday, adding communication with the guards had been lost.
THAT is the correct way to release a SITREP or pass message traffic: communicate only what you can verify to be true. The Border Guards are closer to the Ground Truth (tm) than the Head of State, so that's the message that should have been propagated, accurately, at all levels. But that's not a good enough morale booster, so some embellishment worked its way in as the story floated up the chain of command. And the consequence is now the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief has egg on his face. That should NEVER happen.
I've spent years working with a Corps-level Operations Center, including months serving as the Senior Watch Officer. I've seen a LOT of sloppy messaging, confusion, and friction. We have battle drills that we rehearse for casualty reporting, CSAR (Combat Search & Rescue), and TRAP (Tactical Recovery of Aircraft Personnel). Clarity of information is paramount, and any decent Battle Captain (what the Army calls a Watch Officer) should know to ask "Who did this report come from?" and "How do we know that's true?" "Can we VERIFY that?" Or, for a bit of levity: https://youtu.be/oqrO1RtN4gA Did you see...the body? You don't make assumptions, and you don't put your personnel spin on reporting.
The story went from "they lost comms" to "they were Killed in Action and we must award them the highest honors" in the blink of an eye. For them to be lying, is the more charitable assessment of events: the alternative, widespread incompetence from their Operations officers to their Public Affairs/Communications Strategy staff, would be far far worse.
E.g. Russian soldiers are fighting for the myth that they are protecting some great country.
Unlike long running state propaganda that runs top down.
At some point Ukrainian propaganda will start to cost them and they’ll need to hit the brakes. I hope they’ll be in a position where that’s a priority.
Also in the idea of elite troops who it is hopeless to fight against. Myth is incredibly powerful in war and for the long term survival of a nation or state.
Speaking of myths, here’s one: there’s more fake news and conspiracies today than in the past.
This is a very strange historic rewriting that's popped up everywhere in the last weeks. Did the Cold War not exist? There have been wars, genocides, coups, and regime changes practically continuously, and international media has consistently reported on them. Western media just didn't highlight them because: {they didn't involve major US security interests / involved "non-white" countries that "we wouldn't expect to be peaceful anyway"}.
Ukraine is a local conflict, just like Syria was. It involved proxy wars with the same major players. But it "feels" more significant, because now it's on "our" border. It all seems so artificial.
This conflict isn't a "turning point" in history, it isn't "war returning after 70 years of peace". It's a local conflict of which there have been dozens in recent decades. World War 3 will happen much later, and won't involve these countries[0]. There is no principled or logical reason for people to care about Ukraine and not Yemen, Ethiopia, and Myanmar, expect for people caring about what the TV tells them to care about.
[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/george-friedman-on-wo...
https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-casualties-600-yea...
Conflict deaths really fall off a Cliff after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So you're right the cold war was only cold in certain regions, but peace in 'the west' did make a difference.
It’s simply pointing to the per-world-capita death rate due to war after ww2 where it dropped precipitously.
The number of people that still argue about how the last election was stolen just blows my mind.
Edit: some examples
Fox News: https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/gas-prices-ukraine-russi...
CBS: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gas-prices-5-dollars-gallon-rus...
CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/03/how-the-ukraine-russia-confl...
USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/03/03/gas-prices-u...
This isn't exhaustive but I tried to cover the main political spectrum here.
Or it’s the case that they see the other side as being perpetually and blatantly dishonest.
Edit: Which is more likely, one political faction is objectively correct and the other is objectively wrong, or that partisan people view the world in such a way that their own side isn’t lying and the other is?
If you wonder how such people can approve of lies and blatant dishonesty it’s because they fundamentally don’t see such things as lies to begin with. They see it as the truth.
It's not even comparable to what's happening in Ukraine.
"Living in war", at least for me, implies being physically present in an active war zone that has been bombarded with military and explosions, not some conflict at the other end of the country which is mainly affecting another country.
(Just for clarity: I personally do NOT support war in any way, either the one affecting Ukraine nor Syria, regardless of the initiator)
That's a logical fallacy. One's honesty has nothing to do with whether or not other people are honest. It turns out you can actually disapprove of all dishonest people, no matter whether other people are dishonest too.
Are you actually claiming that the scale of absurdity between believing election fraud (something members of both parties claim, every losing election, going back decades[1]) and that Ukrainians are killing themselves, en masse, are remotely the same?
1. Here's Hilary Clinton continuing to make claims about 2016 in mainstream media: https://news.yahoo.com/hillary-clinton-maintains-2016-electi...
If people with a free press believe propaganda and lies, what do you expect of people who only have a state-run propaganda machine?
This is your error. They don't "only" have state-run propaganda, and these aren't a backwards, brainwashed, uneducated people.
"A significant proportion of Americans believe the 2020 election was fraudulently stolen. And that’s with free press in America. Not at all hard to believe that a significant proportion of Russian people believe this lie."
Believing in election fraud and believing that a population are coincidentally killing themselves during a military incursion are not remotely analogous.
I remember a very suspicious suicide in Argentina, and how some media were theorizing that he killed himself to make the government look bad.
You believe that the Russians believe this about the Ukrainians? A people with whom they share much culture?
>Propaganda could say they are killing themselves to make Russia look bad.
Yeah, it could say anything. How about demonstrating it does say?
Part of the issue is it isn’t free. So many people were banned. News stories banned. Companies banned and dropped.
When you get that level of censorship it creates a massive level of distrust. Further, what’s “truth” when the facts can’t be debated...
The internet press is more “free as in beer” than ever. It costs nothing. It is probably about as “free as in speech” as it ever was, the variety is a testament to that. But it is not free from influence. It is tied to a profit feedback motive more than it ever has been. Put words on a screen, optimize for profit yield. Until the “press” regains its freedom from this, it will not be free. It will be profit constrained.
In a similar vein, I think it is silly we have social media. It’s profit media more than it is social.
Just makes me feel a little uneasy to see everything from every news source having the same general point of Russia bad Ukraine good. Because it illustrates the power still held over US citizenry.
The unease is because said uniformity makes me believe there is a form of propaganda inlaid with the news US citizens are receiving on the issue - even if I am unsure of the characteristics of it.
Hopefully my point makes sense.
Firstly, there are reputable outlets out there covering alternate angles of the Ukraine conflict, like Aljazeera[0], but they can be hard to find. One of the biggest problems I see with curation generally is that it makes people lazy and not take the effort to find the outlets that are providing counter commentary. Just because you're not seeing a particular perspective being covered doesn't mean that isn't. I think there's a much bigger discussion to be had around the efficacy of curation because it very easily leads to this bias.
Second, media companies are businesses, and like any business, they give and receive influence based on a variety of internal and external factors. For example, it's well-known that organizations like AIPAC lobby on a variety of fronts to push particular agendas, which can easily skew perspectives on certain issues (like the double standard between how we see Ukrainians and Palestinians). This is a consequence of America's embrace of lobbying.
Third, media companies are becoming more reactionary than ever because they now have data on what kinds of stories get clicks in ways that they didn't 20 years ago. In an ad-driven world, you bet media companies are constantly looking to see what kinds of content drive the most traffic to their site.
I think we are seeing patterns emerge that do drive homogeneous, coordinated behaviors on the part of media companies, but I don't think it's as simple as nefarious government-driven propaganda. I think there are many interests, public and private, which vie for particular narratives and stories via lobbying in the exact same way that companies bid on ad space via Google Ads, because its perfectly legal to do so.
One could argue that public relations firms are professional propaganda creators depending on your viewpoint.
0: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/27/western-media-cover...
I'm not in Russia, obviously, but from what I can gather from social media, although outside media is "banned", it's still easy enough to find. Similarly to how easy I can still find RT (or worse).
But for fun, once again, your statement appears to be: "if Americans can believe the 2020 election was stolen (the first sentence), then it's not a stretch to think Russians will believe the Ukrainians are killing themselves (the third sentence)."
It's right there for everyone to read. So what are you actually arguing?
I agree with some of your points, but what do you mean by "strong"? Ukraine is not a cake walk, and the most powerful armies in the world could barely contain poor Afghani warlords. This is not easy.
Consider that much of the news of Russian failure is an information op. The Ukrainians are putting up a valiant fight, but the Russians will run them over without support, no doubt about it.
It shows that you cannot support a huge army in such a poor country (GDP/capita). There was a myth to the russian army, but they barely manage to capture cities in which (according to propaganda) most inhabitans support them.
They wanted a Blitzkrieg and it didn't work out at all. Of course they can keep throwing material and bombs at the cities. They have much more material. But how quickly can they do that? Can they cut off supplies from western countries? Can they keep fighting against Javelins and ambushes?
What's the end game at this point? They will be hated by the population they supposedly wanted to free, the cities will be destroyed and they became an international pariah. Their economy will be in shambles.
Russia did think it would be easy ("will be greeted with flowers and bread")!
I'm having trouble reconciling the above sentences. The equipment they have is the equipment they have, it wasn't a mystery to military analysts or the intelligence community, by any means. That doesn't make their military "weak" any more than it makes the American military "weak" for their results in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Reading through the comments in this thread, I wonder how many people think we're getting unbiased analysis of what's happening over there. Do people really think the Russians are completely flailing here? I have a hard time believing it, myself, but I'm no expert.
I guess we'll see, and revisit this comment in the future. Personally, I find it funny that people like yourself don't believe the Russian military is superior to that of the Ukraine after watching a week of YouTube videos.
>heard somewhere of Russia's fearsome military is irresponsible at best.
Irresponsible? Lol get a hold of yourself.
What I fear is a Cuba crisis style standoff where Russia sets an ultimatum demanding the West stop all arms deliveries to Ukrainian forces, threatening any transit countries (such as Poland) with nukes.
They can threat all they want, but Poland is a NATO member. An attack on Poland will trigger a retaliation from NATO. Not sure Russia wishes to go to war with all of NATO.
