Desperate Putin, 70, brings Soviet-era T-55 tanks as old as he is out of retirement to bolster his faltering war efforts – having already raided museums for T-62 models

Ahh yes. I totally forgot about the AC-130s. Thank you.

It seems that Zelensky has more Russian tanks than Putin

IMO T-55s are actually more suitable than T-62s or T-64s. I’m surprised they weren’t deployed first. Rugged and very reliable. There’s a reason the Soviets cranked out 100K of them.

But, Russian logistics are trashed so they’ll mostly be death traps. APCs into minefields.

Robert DeLong: "I think you are being extremely optimistic.
Unless you can provide proof, it still looks to me as if Russia has the upper hand, even with American & N.A.T.O. involvement."

Russia certainly had the "upper hand" in February 2022, when they again invaded Ukraine.
And with that upper hand they roughly doubled the amount of Ukrainian territory controlled by Russia.
But they did not succeed in conquering Ukraine and in time were thrown out of Kiev, Kharkiv and Kherson or about half of the newly conquered territories.

And so things have stood since October, 2022, with only very minor changes in battle lines.
First, we were told to expect a Winter Offensive by both sides, then they said winter was too short for a real offensive so expect now a Spring Offensive when the ground hardens again.

In the meantime, both sides are enlisting allies wherever they can, in Russia's case, notably China.
Western nations are increasing thour support for Ukraine, sending ever higher technologies requiring more specialized training.

How all this will play out, nobody knows, but I would not automatically assume Ukraine's defeat.

Robert DeLong: "I think American weakness is very real, as well as, deeply compromised.
We are currently 31.633 trillion dollars in debt.
At the end of 2022 the debt was $30,824 billion (30.8 trillion) & 123% of DEBT-TO-GDP ratio. Which means we have added almost another trillion.
Debt Clock - US National Debt by Year"

I agree the national debt could be a huge problem, and it has already driven up inflation rates to historically high levels.
And with the Fed raising interest rates, we could be facing recession too.

On the other hand, all of these are deliberate political choices by our Democrat administration, and so quickly reversed and soon enough corrected by determined Republican leadership, hopefully beginning in 2025.
As of today the US and our allies are far from defeated or helpless.

Robert DeLong: "In addition, Biden is hollowing out the military with "vaccine" mandates, of those refusing to take the "vaccine".
They claim that they have lost no military personnel due to the mRNA rollout, by adverse events or deaths."

It is sadly true that Democrats, by their nature, deeply corrupt and eventually destroy whatever they can touch, with prime examples being our law enforcement in big cities and in Washington, DC.
The military is no exception and we are now in grave danger.
But that danger is not a function of our support for Ukraine, nor can it ever be corrected by Democrats.
Only Republicans can and will make it right again.

Robert DeLong: "Though of course the way you state it; no possibility Russia will ever impose its tyranny over free Ukrainians,has a ring of truth to it.
If they are free, then Russia was defeated.
I still see no evidence that the final outcome will be Russia being defeated, and thus free of Russian tyranny.
Either way, China comes out on top."

Vlad the Invader was thrown out of Kiev, Kharkiv and Kherson but still controls more Ukrainian territory than he did in January 2022.
What will happen in the coming months is anybody's guess.

For sure, China will benefit the most, but that choice was Putin's, to make war against Europe and ally with China.
I don't think there was any way, short of our abject surrender to Vlad the Invader, for us to prevent it.

Robert DeLong: "What about the tyranny of this country, which I see creeping further & further into becoming the reality.
Our defeating Russia, would only cement that reality of tyranny controlling this nation.
This conflict is a distraction designed to engage the attention of people away from what is happening to our country.
Do you not see that?"

I'm sorry, but life is tough, and we must be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Democrats' victories at the ballot boxes have nothing to with Ukraine's success or failure on the battlefield.
We don't get our Free Republic back if Ukraine loses and we don't lose to Democrat tyranny if Ukraine wins.
They are unrelated.

Our President, Donald Trump, has said that defeating Democrats at the ballot box will require Republicans learn to play the Democrats' own games better than Democrats do.
And in some states we do this already -- Florida and Texas come to mind. But in battleground states we need a new plan and perhaps new leadership to execute it.

Robert DeLong: "Why would they be concerned about Ukraine's sovereignty, & the integrity of their borders, while they could careless about ours?
Now, if you can show me how you can square that circle with a straight face, then I'll concede my argument to be lost."

I promise, there's no smile on my face.
Our Democrats are not "careless" about our border security, rather, they've opened up our borders deliberately in order to import millions of new Democrat voters and permanently shift the political balance of power in their favor.
It will not stop until we somehow elect new leadership.

None of this has anything to do with Ukraine.

Robert DeLong: "BTW, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was relevant when both Russia & the U.S. were the only nuclear powers in the world.
So, MAD is no longer relevant now that more nuclear capabilities exist in today's world, than just Russia & the U.S.
In short, it's an outdated paradigm, and has been for quite sometime now."

And yet... and yet... MAD in some version would come into play under your posited scenario where Russia attacks us with EMP.
There is no way Russia or anybody else attacks us with nukes and we don't respond with something very serious.
Call it MAD, call it whatever you want, that's what's kept us from WWIII since 1945.

100%

T.B. Yoits: "Why invade?
The large authoritarian kleptocracy of the United States can just overthrow the legitimate government of a smaller country thousands of miles away like Nuland did in Ukraine in 2014."

Sorry, but that's Russian propaganda, not fact.
The truth is, in 2014, Russia's stooge Yanukovych fled to Moscow, so the Ukrainian parliament declared him removed and replaced by a temporary pro-Ukrainian government which was itself replaced by a duly elected pro-Ukrainian government three months later.

What exactly Nuland or anybody else had to do with this is unknown, and irrelevant.
Ukrainians decided they wanted their own leaders, not Russian stooges.

Yes, but in America it is primarily a woman’s name

They are winning with help from us, Ivan.

Some of us do not want to go back to a cold war state with an aggressive and dangerous Russia which is also being depopulated, deenergized and with a people who are about to rebel as they usually do when they are suffering fools and losing a war.

"There’s a schism in your usual bloc Joe"

And yet... y'all have been howling like wolves for over 150 years about Sherman's march to the sea.
And yet when Vlad the Invader marches on Ukraine, y'all are just purring like kittens -- none of our business, corrupt Zelenski, NATO threatened Russia, dontcha know, Southern border, national debt, corrupt Democrats.

None of that outweighs the dire consequences of Russian victory over Ukraine, beginning with Chinese invasion of Taiwan and including other former Soviet Republics.

I trust Pres. Trump to negotiate an honorable peace, but that will take time and I can't think of anyone else up for the job.

“And the truth is what, according to stockpirate?”

Wow, how about in war truth is the first casualty”

Or From The Art of War” appear to be weak to your enemy.

Or the truth is Ukraine is loosing the war and about to get beaten badly in spite of your support for them.

Just watch.

“Khazarian Mafia”? Why don’t you go over to Stormfront, they’re more your speed.

Desperate clown and all around idiot Putin......

All true and I pushed the FR like button too!

Call it MAD, call it whatever you want, that's what's kept us from WWIII since 1945.

Just calling it what you called it to begin with. Why would I change it?

No it hasn't. It may have prevented a kinetic version of WWIII, but we are in WWIII. while the kinetic portion of the war is raging in Ukraine, it has great potential to expand considerably, and there is no guarantee that nuclear weapons won't become involved.

But for you to put all of the blame upon Russia is disingenuous. If Russia had done to the U.S. & the UE, what the U.S., EU, & N.A.T.O. has done to threaten Russia's security, we would have reacted as well. I mean, we invaded Iraq, & Afghanistan for 911, when it was most likely Saudi Arabian involvement than either of those nations. We invaded Syria, again by proxy, with our funding of ISIS.

You can try to cover up our misdeeds, but I can no longer do so in good conscience, for to do so is to avoid the evil we are doing.

You apparently can justify our evil, by saying that it's Putin's evil that caused this, because you have chosen to not see the evil our nation is engaging in. This time that evil involves Russia with whom we've started yet another proxy war, on purpose. We are no better than Iran, who also engages in proxy wars around the Middle East regions.

Combating evil with evil is not righteousness.

Now if Putin had done this without any provocation whatsoever, that would be different. But that was not the case. He tried to get the international community to intervene to get Ukraine to stop the hostilities in eastern Ukraine against Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens, and he was rebuffed for 8 years. That resulted with 2 Minsk Agreements in 2014 & 2015. But while Ukraine signed those agreements, they made no attempt whatsoever to enact the agreements with actions. In fact, they later admitted they only signed them to buy time, and had no intention whatsoever to act upon them at all. They did so because of assurances by the Obama Administration to have their backs. But Ukraine had to agree to be the battlefield, and their citizens endure the hostilities that would ensue at some point in time. Then Trump was elected, which screwed up their plans, Once they stole the 2020 election & were able to reinstall Biden, Putin realized that he had no choice but to solve it himself. He went in softly because he was given bad intel on how they would be received in eastern Ukraine.

Imagine of there was a large contingency of English speaking citizens living in northern Mexico on the border that is shared by the U.S. & Mexico. Then imagine them being terrorized by people in Mexico for speaking English. Then imagine that our president tried to get the international community to intervene, but the international community ignored those attempts. Do you think a president would, or even should, ignore such events, or do you think the reaction would be to intervene. Would our president then be the criminal you now claim Putin to be?

Now, I am not siding with Putin at all, I'm just pointing out that it's not as cut & dry like you cheerleaders always claim.

When you look at all sides a very different picture begins to show itself. But you have to be willing to do so, for if you don't then you can only see the evil on one side, while ignoring the evil on the other side. I love my country too much to allow myself to be duped by the evil in my country.

I prefer to vanquish evil on earth, where ever it's ugly head exists, and especially in this country before I desire it vanquished in other countries, because to ignore the evil here while worrying about it elsewhere is hypocritical.

Why would I go there?

But they did not succeed in conquering Ukraine and in time were thrown out of Kiev, Kharkiv and Kherson or about half of the newly conquered territories.

What makes you think Putin was trying to conquer Ukraine? Putin even said himself that he was sure that western Ukraine would be much happier under Polish control. Their only interest in (Kiev - interesting that you use the Russian spelling instead of the preferred Ukrainian spelling of Kyiv) may have been to capture Zelenskyy. But you used the phrase conquering Ukraine, because that is the propaganda you have been fed, that Russia's intention is to conquer & reconstitute the Soviet Union. That will never be possible as long as we are strong. You know peace through strength.

But you are working to destroy our strength, you just do not see that, because you do not believe we will ever be anything but strong. Well, Ukraine keeps demanding more & more, and they keep using up what they are given, at record speed. They are now asking for 600,000 shells per month. The EU nations, the U.S., as well as, NATO are having to dip into their stockpiles to provide for Ukraine's needs. It not like any of the entities, I mentioned, can put in orders for millions and have them magically produced in short notice, even if we were in terrific economic health. That will put more burdens on the economies of all entities mentioned, of which the majority will be saddled upon the U.S. taxpayers. But you seem to have little to no grasp upon reality, and are instead engrossed in fantasies, and your responses confirm that claim I'm making.

I agree the national debt could be a huge problem, and it has already driven up inflation rates to historically high levels.

And with the Fed raising interest rates, we could be facing recession too.

See those statements also confirm that your grasp upon reality is just not there.

Consumerism was put on hold for the "plandemic". As, the consumerism ticked up after the foolish suppression of economic stability and extreme spending by the government to compensate, was eased in a somewhat return to normal, the election theft changed everything.

Not only did it remove a strong leader, replacing hm with a weak leader. It put in place a leadership that is either inept or by design is destroying this nation. With the policies that they removed & replaced with bad policies, the march towards destruction began.

Typically to slow down an economy, the remedy is to raise interest rates, but because of the national debt, along with inflation, it is causing pain. Not only for this administration, but for the Fed also. Without raising interest rates, then the economy stays heated and inflation becomes even more pronounced.

But now with failing banks, they will be bailing out the rich, while the poor & middle-classes are once again being given the bill. To meet those obligations more dollars will need be printed weaking the dollar further still.

We are already in a recession, and the national debt is a huge problem because it limits what can be done to rein in the inflation. It will only continue to get worse, with our providing Ukraine money, ammo, weapons, and equipment. It increases our national debt more. Printing more dollars fuels higher inflation, along with the frequency that inflation increases.

It is sadly true that Democrats, by their nature, deeply corrupt and eventually destroy whatever they can touch, with prime examples being our law enforcement in big cities and in Washington, DC.

Again, you miss the mark, because the problem with corruption is present on both sides of the aisle. The difference is that the numbers of Democrats not participating in corruption, is smaller than it is on the Republican side. By how much is anybody's guess.

Again, they have been identified as the Uniparty. They are real, and they are very corrupt.

The military is no exception and we are now in grave danger. But that danger is not a function of our support for Ukraine, nor can it ever be corrected by Democrats. Only Republicans can and will make it right again.

By supporting the conflict in Ukraine with money, ammo, weapons, & equipment, is absolutely weakening the military, along with the country, financially, as well as, diverting funds to deal with our crumbling infrastructure.

In turn your support for Ukraine is tacitly providing support for this administration, as well as the corruption of the Uniparty actors. Your seemingly inability to connect these dots is dumbfounding, not to mention frustrating, to the people who are trying to help you all see those connections.

The majority want to label us as traitors etcetera etcetera etcetera. That frustration makes as retaliate with calling you useful ignorant idiots. I'm trying very hard to keep this conversation civil, because we share far more views then we have disagreements on.

But this is a major one we disagree on, and you all need to wake up, and start thinking with your brains instead of reacting with your hearts, because you are not doing the world any good whatsoever, by basing your actions upon emotions. Emotions only tend to exacerbate problems, not fix them.

Vlad the Invader was thrown out of Kiev, Kharkiv and Kherson but still controls more Ukrainian territory than he did in January 2022. What will happen in the coming months is anybody's guess. For sure, China will benefit the most, but that choice was Putin's, to make war against Europe and ally with China. I don't think there was any way, short of our abject surrender to Vlad the Invader, for us to prevent it.

Again these childish names that you give Putin, are just that, childish. But then again it illustrates that you are not thinking like adults.

Beyond that though, you misinterpret why they may have willing backed out of those regions, and instead credit the abilities of Ukraine. Without assistance Ukraine would not have repelled them, in my opinion.

You are also operating on the assumption that Putin is acting in a vacuum, that there were no extenuating circumstances for his actions, and you do so because you refuse to look at the evidence that clearly shows that he was forced to act for the security of Russia.

Putin wanted Russia to become a part of NATO, and then there would be no reason to fear Russia, because by extension Russia becomes part of the EU.

But the U.S. rejected that because that would in essence mean that NATO would have no purpose whatsoever to exist. which in turn means that the U.S. would lose its hegemony that keeps Europe as a vassal state of the US.

The U.S. also chose to threaten Russia's security by breaking the promise they made to Russia to not expand NATO. In addition, they schemed to place Putin in a box where they would become involved in a proxy war With the U.S., NATO, and European allies in Ukraine, by not getting involved in providing solutions to the hostilities in eastern Ukraine that had been ongoing for 8 years.

So, what choice did Putin have but to look to China? I'm sure Russia didn't want to join China, because Russia doesn't trust China anymore than they trust us. In fact, they probably trust China even less.

You just don’t like us

We got it

Good to see you leaving the house though

stockpirate: "Or From The Art of War” appear to be weak to your enemy.
Or the truth is Ukraine is loosing the war and about to get beaten badly in spite of your support for them.
Just watch."

Sure, I totally "get" that, it's why we must assume that any information coming from Russia is misdirection, intended to deceive us.
And I'm pretty sure that includes anything posted on Free Republic by Russian bots, like stockpirate.

But just because everything pro-Russians post is necessarily intended to deceive, does that make it necessarily false?
You see, that's the great question, first posed circa 550 BC by the ancient philosopher, it's known as Epimenides paradox.
You see, Epimenides, a man from Crete claimed that "all Cretans are liars", and the philosophical question is: how can that statement be true?

The answer, of course, is, we must discount whatever a Cretan or pro-Russian says until the truth is independently verified or refuted.

As for Russia and Ukraine, the basic ground truth is that Russians outnumber Ukrainians, three to one, and outweigh Ukraine's economy by something like six to one, or so we think.
But with substantial aid from Western Democracies, Ukraine has stood up to Russia so far, and we don't yet know what the upcoming "spring offensives" will bring.

So we stay tuned...

quoting BJK: MAD's "what's kept us from WWIII since 1945."

Robert DeLong: "No it hasn't.
It may have prevented a kinetic version of WWIII, but we are in WWIII.
while the kinetic portion of the war is raging in Ukraine, it has great potential to expand considerably, and there is no guarantee that nuclear weapons won't become involved."

Sure, and it's an interesting exercise in mental gymnastics to contemplate how many "real World Wars" there've been.
By my count, we could be up to World War Seven:

World War I -- 1756 - 1763 Seven Years' War (including our French & Indian War) about 1 million died.
World War II -- 1803 - 1815 Napoleonic Wars (including our War of 1812) about 4 million died.
World War III -- 1914 - 1918 The Great War (aka First World War), nearly 20 million died.
World War IV -- 1939 - 1945 aka Second World War, around 75 million died.
World War V -- 1945 - 1991 The Cold War, around 25 million died
World War VI -- 2001 - 2021 The War on Terror, around 1 million died.
World War VII??? -- 2022 to ??? Russian invasion of Ukraine, about 100,000 killed, military and civilians.

Robert DeLong: "But for you to put all of the blame upon Russia is disingenuous.
If Russia had done to the U.S. & the UE, what the U.S., EU, & N.A.T.O. has done to threaten Russia's security, we would have reacted as well."

As far as I'm concerned, that is lies and nonsense, and why anyone would want to believe such drivel is beyond my comprehension.

Reasons include, first of all, beginning in 1994 Russia and other eastern European countries planned to join NATO, and in 1999 some of them did join.
NATO was no threat to Russia then, and in 2000 Putin himself discussed joining NATO with our Pres. Slick Willie.
Other eastern European countries were also on a MAP to NATO membership.
Had Putin stuck with the plan to join NATO, there is no possibility of NATO threatening Russia.
Well into the early 2000s, Russia and NATO maintained good relations through the NATO-Russia Council.

But Putin didn't want NATO as his ally, he wanted NATO as his enemy, and so began threatening small countries that still planned to join NATO, like Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Estonia.
The result was NATO-Russia relations cooled and, when Putin began invading his neighbors in 2008, NATO-Russia relations then froze.

Robert DeLong: "I mean, we invaded Iraq, & Afghanistan for 911, when it was most likely Saudi Arabian involvement than either of those nations.
We invaded Syria, again by proxy, with our funding of ISIS."

I've seen no evidence suggesting Osama Hussein Obama funded ISIS.

And, there was never any question about Afghanistan harboring Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.
That's why we went to Afghanistan.
The fact that Bin Laden came from Saudi Arabia is an interesting curiosity but does not suggest we should have invaded Saudi Arabia instead.

We invaded Iraq in the belief that Sadaam had WMDs and threatened his neighbors with them.
Come to find out, Sadaam himself believed he had such weapons, had used them against Iran, and nobody has yet accounted for what happened to them, if they did in fact exist.

Nothing remotely resembling these scenarios existed between Russia and Ukraine, or any other country Vlad the Invader has threatened.

Robert DeLong: "You can try to cover up our misdeeds, but I can no longer do so in good conscience, for to do so is to avoid the evil we are doing.
You apparently can justify our evil, by saying that it's Putin's evil that caused this, because you have chosen to not see the evil our nation is engaging in.
This time that evil involves Russia with whom we've started yet another proxy war, on purpose.
We are no better than Iran, who also engages in proxy wars around the Middle East regions.
Combating evil with evil is not righteousness."

Now you're just babbling mindless childish nonsense.
None of that is true.
The truth is, the only connection between our alleged "misdeeds" in Iraq and Afghanistan with Vlad the Invader's "special military operations" in Ukraine is this: our withdraws from those countries demonstrated fatal weakness and incompetence in our leadership, which Vlad realized he could take advantage of, and gave him, in effect, a green light to invade Ukraine.

Vlad's invasion of Ukraine is evil by every traditional definition -- see St. Thomas Aquinas on Just Wars.
Our helping Ukraine defend themselves against invasion is good in every sense of the word.
So why you would want to muddle up the issues and confuse yourself about this is beyond rational comprehension.

Robert DeLong: "Now if Putin had done this without any provocation whatsoever, that would be different. But that was not the case.
He tried to get the international community to intervene to get Ukraine to stop the hostilities in eastern Ukraine against Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens, and he was rebuffed for 8 years.
That resulted with 2 Minsk Agreements in 2014 & 2015.
But while Ukraine signed those agreements, they made no attempt whatsoever to enact the agreements with actions.
In fact, they later admitted they only signed them to buy time, and had no intention whatsoever to act upon them at all."

And the babbling nonsense of Russian propaganda just never stops with you, does it?
The truth is that Vlad the Invader had no moral or legal justification to invade Ukraine in 2014 and Ukrainians had every right to defend their country against invasion, period.
Nor did Vlad have justification for a SECOND invasion in February 2022.
What he had instead was demonstrated weakness by American leadership giving him, in effect, a green-light to do as he pleased in Ukraine.

Effective American leadership (i.e., Pres. DJT) would have prevented Vlad's invasion and could quickly end Vlad's war.
All the rest of your nonsense about America's "misdeeds" is just babbling idiocy, FRiend.

Robert DeLong: "Imagine of there was a large contingency of English speaking citizens living in northern Mexico on the border that is shared by the U.S. & Mexico.
Then imagine them being terrorized by people in Mexico for speaking English.
Then imagine that our president tried to get the international community to intervene, but the international community ignored those attempts.
Do you think a president would, or even should, ignore such events, or do you think the reaction would be to intervene.
Would our president then be the criminal you now claim Putin to be?"

Can you not see how nonsensical that is?
Today there are something like 10 million Americans living in 76 foreign countries, some of which are less than friendly to us.
The biggest number, maybe 1.5 million live in Mexico.
And what does the US State Department do whenever Mexican drug gangs attack & kill Americans there?
Does the American government ever launch invasions of foreign countries **just because** our citizens there are mistreated?
Of course not! Instead, the US State Department tells Americans in hostile countries to GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!!

Your insane suggestions that Vlad the Invader's only option to fix problems caused by his FIRST invasion was to launch a SECOND invasion of Ukraine, is just beyond rational comprehension.

Robert DeLong: "Now, I am not siding with Putin at all, I'm just pointing out that it's not as cut & dry like you cheerleaders always claim."

Of course, you are siding with Vlad the Invader -- you've drunk the Russian propaganda Kool-Aid and now you're trying to make moral and logical sense of what is truthfully nothing more than insane Russian empire building, by conquest.
In fact, there's no excuse for Vlad's actions and no reason for you to attempt justifying them.

Robert DeLong: "When you look at all sides a very different picture begins to show itself.
But you have to be willing to do so, for if you don't then you can only see the evil on one side, while ignoring the evil on the other side.
I love my country too much to allow myself to be duped by the evil in my country."

But I do totally 100% see Vlad the Invader's side!!
He wants to restore the old Russian and Soviet Empires, so he's concocting any excuse he can think of to bully and invade his smaller neighbors.

As for alleged "evil in my country" nothing here remotely compares to the evil of Vlad's unprovoked invasion, or can somehow magically remove our moral duty to help defend Ukraine against this violation of every international law, rule and moral standard.

Robert DeLong: "I prefer to vanquish evil on earth, where ever it's ugly head exists, and especially in this country before I desire it vanquished in other countries, because to ignore the evil here while worrying about it elsewhere is hypocritical."

In effect, what you are saying is, we cannot arrest a murderer until we have arrested every jaywalker in the country because jaywalking is a crime and murder is a crime and it's **"hypocritical"** to arrest one if we don't arrest all the others too.

And that is surely the very definition of utter blithering insanity, FRiend.

You need to fix that.