If he does invade I fear it would not become easy to win well and quickly. Ukraine is quite a country. The fact that they allowed the Krim to be invaded does not mean that they won’t put up a real fight. And even after the “win” there most probably is going to be continuous guerrilla, including “terrorist” attacks in Moscow. He must weigh this all in. Wishful thinking maybe though. The guy’s a classic alpha male.
What I don’t understand is how he has managed to control the message so effectively in this age where it’s pretty easy to see that all the foreign media outlets are painting a very different picture than the Russian state media. OTOH I see what Fox News does to Americans…
it would not become easy to win well and quickly. Ukraine is quite a country. The fact that they allowed the Krim to be invaded does not mean that they won’t put up a real fight. And even after the “win” there most probably is going to be continuous guerrilla, including “terrorist” attacks in Moscow
I agree.
Russia would win eventually but for a rapid one they need a “Desert Storm” i.e. 500k on the ground, and absolutely superior technology, as well as non-conscript soldiers. Russian soldiers are drawn from all over the mostly-poor country; lots of stories from 1944-45 and then from 1968, where they had not seen a clock (yes, if you needed to know the time, an officer would tell you), and if they saw a “transistor radio” they would steal it at gunpoint. I am sure they are better today but probably not massively.
That assumes a resisted invasion, however; most aren’t resisted. That is the real question. Will the Ukraine just surrender, like e.g. Czechoslovakia did, in WW2. And everybody else nearby either surrendered, or provided confidential banking / ball bearing manufacture services 
Czechs were quite p1ssed off that their govt just caved in, but that’s all it takes. Nobody could have actually stopped Hitler then. I am sure Russia will try to assassinate the Ukrainian govt figures.
What I don’t understand is how he has managed to control the message so effectively in this age where it’s pretty easy to see that all the foreign media outlets are painting a very different picture than the Russian state media. OTOH I see what Fox News does to Americans…
A % of any country is truly stupid. Probably the same % in any European country, too. Some countries do have a lower IQ but only a bit. Nobody is immune. The only difference is how one country’s events are reported in the other(s); in “intellectually superior” Europe the media likes to paint America as a land of stupid people. Mainland Europe likes to paint the UK as a land of stupid people, currently (I’ve seen the stupid cartoons in the press). Here in the UK, for example, the BBC aims mainly at stupid people, which is bad because it is funded with a mandatory tax.
In Russia there is an extra dimension in Putin’s popularity: they know that without him the country would have disintegrated. Also culturally they like strong men, whereas in most of Europe people have “gone soft”; one can almost see the first non-binary leader getting in any day now
I wonder who controls the UK media. It isn’t Boris. I get the foreign news I trust from Ireland, mainly.
I see the “Russia is going to invade Ukraine” media and politician statements as propaganda.
I feel some envy for Russians if they know Putin controls their media. :-)
Ukraine becoming NATO might be a line Russia cannot allow to be crossed – as the US saw USSR missiles in Cuba almost 60 years ago.
Nobody “controls” the UK media.
This isn’t WW2. Also the D-notice system is not legally binding nowadays.
For CV19 there is obvious media control, to prevent publication of stuff like how to work around the DIY tests.
Of course somebody " controls" the media in the UK. Newspaper owners have control. Editors have control. If they happen to be pro or anti a particular point of view, they will back that point of view.
The Tory party over recent years have been in constant conflict with the BBC and Channel 4 over what they consider to be left wing bias, even though it has been proved time and time again that that is not the case. The BBC has to time and log every political reference made on its television and radio channels and editors have to ensure that there is a political balance, pro rata to the votes the parties received at the general elections and the make up of parliament.
The trouble is that everyone on the right still thinks the BBC is left wing and everyone on the left sees the BBC as right wing. The problem is that over the last few years the Tories as a whole have increased their attacks on the BBC and have now both capped the licence fee for 5 years and aim to scrap it after that.
They will be in for a big surprise when they find that the only people reading their tweets are journalists and that Ant and Dec have more political clout than they do.
The individual companies are owned by their owners, of course, and all run their agendas and narrative. Same as everywhere.
Nobody “owns the media in the UK”. There is no State control. So the question of who “owns the media in the UK” is meaningless.
The BBC is not so much left-wing as it is
But, since “your enemy is my friend”, the left and far-left align themselves with the PC crowd and they hijack each others’ agendas.
They have an impossible job really but I think that for the way they are funded they should address those with an IQ over 50; let’s face it, most of the wealth in the country is generated by the smarter people.
dutch_flyer wrote:
What I don’t understand is how he has managed to control the message so effectively in this age where it’s pretty easy to see that all the foreign media outlets are painting a very different picture than the Russian state media.
Mostly because his entourage knows what to say to different groups of people:
1. For the majority – “look, the Ukrainian military attack their own people!”
2. For the minority – “look, the ultra-right a provoking a new war by exploding things on both sides and shelling the rebels and the governement forces, so the Ukrainians are going to attack”
3. And “Who do you trust? Western world? Right, especially after the yellowcake uranium in Iraq or that wireless dead drop scandal in Moscow… Who do you trust?”
And the press that is not supporting the policy of spreading the above, is marked as “agents of foreign entities as they’ve received money from the aborad and engaged in the political activities”, so the said press lose access to most of the advertising money. The most persistent personalities are marked as “extremists” and that it is.
Easy!
In Russia more to the point is that the public are unaware of the number of troops massed on the Ukranien border. They well be aware of exercises to prepare for being attacked by Nato or the USA and UK alone.
They are aware of their Russian bretheren and underdogs being under threat from the terrible, western backed Ukraniens in the Donbas region, when all they want is to live peaceful lives, like the people of Crimea are doing since they live under the protection of mother Russia and its strong leadership. In the Russian media there is no other point of view than that of the State. And that’s how they control both the media and through that, public opinion.
Maoraigh wrote:
I see the “Russia is going to invade Ukraine” media and politician statements as propaganda.
One has to wonder. I have seen several interviews and articles from people living there. They draw a very different picture of the severity of the situation than what the media do (in general). Are they living in a “happy bubble” so to speak, or are they right? who knows?
