Do you think Russia is just going to keep "poking and poking" to coerce the US into WW3?

No.

I don’t that’s part of any real military or diplomatic strategy the Russians are deliberately choosing.

Instead what the growing list atrocities, blunders, and war crimes indicates is a breakdown of command, control, and discipline on the battlfield – and the decay of ethical & rational decision making among political leadership.

Ukraine has been a disaster for Russia at almost every level, but they refuse to admit mistakes or learn from them. In that situation failure and chaos feed on each other.

Hasn’t the US been bombing and occupying up to about 10 countries for the past 20 years? We’re already in a World War it’s just not being marketed as such. Propaganda or something like that.

I’m certainly worried about it.

Only Putin knows for sure.

I feel I have no idea what Putin’s end game is. Seems like he wants to go out in a blaze of fire. Psychopath! I saw a few minutes of UN talks and Russia was saying something about the US just trying to gain more control and I can’t remember the exact wording. I wanted to go back and listen to what the different countries said about removing Russia from the UN rights council.

What does the Russian propaganda say about bombing hospitals and killing children? What are they telling Russians and sympathetic countries about killing all of these children? I couldn’t help but wonder if they say Ukraine has Nazi leaders at these day cares and hospitals and it’s these horrible Nazis who don’t care about the children dying. I’m sure they must twist it somehow.

@SquirrelEStuff Just curious, what percentage of the Ukrainian people do you think want Russia to be in control of the country?

No, he’s just poking and poking to get as far as he can before the US does something drastic (which is unlikely). Then he will back down by returning the 80% of Ukraine that he didn’t want in the first place.

Not at all. I believe Putin decided a wrecked Ukraine is preferable to that country’s membership in NATO or the EU. It may be a ruthless and cynical solution, but it is certainly not beyond our own own incursions and disruptions of places we deemed necessary.

I saw a photograph of a child’s blood-soaked soft toy lying abandoned on that station platform. It should be kept on Putin’s desk in the Kremlin so it won’t be forgotten.

I don’t know why Putin attacked Ukraine or why he attacks civilians so mercilessly but I know it has made him a war criminal and I hope he is brought to justice someday.

@JLeslie The same percentage of people in the middle east who want the US to bomb and occupy their countries. 0%.

I’m not quite sure what your point is. No one wants their country to be bombed or occupied. I’m just saying that I don’t believe the track record of the US makes the US the moral authority here or in any situation.

If any other country becomes involved, the the Ukraine/Russia scenario becomes WW3. No country wants to start that (yet).

@SquirrelEStuff My point is, I don’t think most Afghanis are happy the Taliban control their country. To be clear on my position, I never was on board with invading Iraq, but Afghanistan I felt differently about, although obviously the US efforts didn’t help much, except for the thousands of Afghanis who made it out of the country. In this scenario the Taliban is Russia. The only people happy about Taliban control are men high in the ranks and religious zealots. That’s how it appears to me anyway.

In Iraq and Afghanistan we didn’t try to make it part of the US like what Russia wants to do Ukraine.

It’s complicated.

I understand why parts of the world see the US as war mongers, but usually it’s not considering all the details.