“One pundit thinks they should either surrender or go for a full mobilization, another thinks it’s just going to take time (the first mockingly asks if his ten year old kids are going to get a shot).”
He’s lucky he’s in Russia. In Ukraine opposition parties are outlawed and the SBU would arrest and likely murder him for saying that on the air.
“He’s lucky he’s in Russia. In Ukraine opposition parties are outlawed and the SBU would arrest and likely murder him for saying that on the air.”
Ukraine is banning pro-Russian parties for the same reason it’s arresting pro-Russian officials who’ve been (amongst other things) tipping off the enemy about Ukrainian positions and facilitating the occupation.
Are you speaking entirely from the rather envious position of being a citizen of a country that’s never in its entire existence had to repel a hostile military invasion with boots on the ground?
Granted, the USA has fought a war of independence, and has participated in over 100 wars outside its own borders, but the USA has never faced a situation like France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Poland, Ukraine, Jersey, or England has.
Pearl Harbor didn’t result in a Japanese occupation for the USA to repel so the USA never had to worry about the enablers of an occupation. 9/11 didn’t either. So this is a problem the USA has absolutely zero experience of.
But if you seriously think, in the event of a Russian (or any other) hostile invasion of the USA RESULTING IN OCCUPATION, the US Government would actively tolerate pro-invasion agents actively working for the occupying force inside both civilian government AND the defense forces, you’ve clearly forgotten all about the McCarthy era. Zelenskyy was dealing with a clear and present danger right in front of him because Ukraine had already been invaded and occupied; America was acting pre-emptively to prevent a future worst-case-scenario that might arise if “reds under the bed” were allowed to flourish in the open.
You also overlook another thing - several Nazi sponsoring parties that Russia had successfully argued were a big reason why they were so engaged in Ukraine were booted TOTALLY out of the Rada in the general election in 2019. Some of the parties Zelenskyy banned were the parties that Russia objected to - and which had already been routed in that election. He banned them to prevent their return stirring things up with Russia. Was he right to ban them or not? Was that the action of a president determined to piss Russia off or one who was determined to find practical ways to defuse tensions?
Swings and roundabouts - either you accept an inviolable Freedom of Speech which effectively means NAZI PARTIES IN ANY GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE ALLOWED EVEN IF THAT GIVES RUSSIA AN EXCUSE TO INVADE, or you take the pragmatic view that having Nazi sponsoring parties in Ukraine represented too big a threat to regional and global security for them to be actively tolerated.