One of the worst fears is that Putin may deploy a FOAB (Father of all bombs). For anyone who doesn't know, a FOAB is a bomb with a yield of approximately 44 tons of TNT. The bad thing about this bomb is that it's a very powerful conventional explosive - meaning that it can do great damage without contaminating the environment with radiation, which removes a lot of the deterrent for using such a powerful explosive. The US has an equivalent bomb called a MOAB (Mother of all bombs). 

Ukraine had an outstanding order for dozens of Turkish made drones - the same ones Azerbaijan used to great effect in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Sure, Russia’s forces aren’t comparable to Armenia but I wonder if Ukraine has been able to use these or if they’ve spoken to Turkey about expediting the order backlog.

I'm surprised Ukraine still has control of their capital. I hope they can make it through another night.

USA was afraid of communism spreading in Asia and threatening the West. They used this as their reason to invade Vietnam, which Vietnamese people (and huge portion of western population) though to be bs & wrong. And now Vietnamese people use this same reason to justify Putin's actions in Ukraine? Nah, I refuse to believe this is what majority of them think.

Thing is, USA and most of other countries have done dark shit in their history. But we need to look at what's happening now. Case in point, Soviet army that attacked Finland in Winter War was, at first, mostly Ukrainians. And today Finland hopes Ukrainians can defend themselves agains Russia. Give them hell!

Yes I know Stalin ordered the attack. But the thing is, Russia has now made clear they haven't changed their ways. If anyone thinks Ukrainians are fighting back because of influence from West and USA they absolutely don't have a fucking clue. They don't know what it's like when Russia casts its dark shadow over your country. And it's even worse for ex-USSR countries. There are Ukrainians whose parents saw Stalin's Great Purge and all that shit.

I don't know why anyone outside Russia believes this NATO excuse. Putin doesn't trust his own citizens to buy it as justification for war, so Kremlin is feeding them propaganda about genocide, Ukrainian neo-nazis etc nonsense. He is simply insane.

Our president Niinistö was asked how He sees Putin now. Mind you, other European leaders have been consulting him past weeks about Putin because he knows him well. He doesn't grovel before Putin like Trump and Lukashenko for example, but they have a long history. 

Niinistö responded 'the mask is stripped and now there's only the cold face of war'.

Then he took a pause and continued 'and war... war never changes'.

Ok ok I made up the last part for purpose of drama :P but what he said tells us plenty about Putin.

Most of us here are pretty tired of being involved in foreign wars after decades of it with nary a thing to show for all that needless loss of life. I sense no appetite for direct military involvement on our part and am not interested in that myself.

However, most Americans were in favor of steps like cutting off oil purchases from Russia even before this invasion, even if it means we have to pay higher prices for gasoline, for example. The fact is that most people here would really like nothing further to do with Moscow, period -- no talks, no trade, no nothing, treat them like North Korea -- and personally I'm with them.

China was probably pretty surprised, evident by how long it took them to take a stance in the issue. As China tries to strengthen their economic influence war isn't good for them. On the other hand Russia is an ally in many regards, so they don't want to step on their toes.

Yeah, I think it is pretty telling, that even allies and economic partners of Russia are at least guarded and clearly are not supporting the invasion, although they might not condemn it as well, to not jeopardize their economic relations. But no one came out in support of Russia, except Belarus. I think Putin gambled away a lot of political influence with that invasion.

And that is also true for russian politics. The protests clearly show this war has no support from the population. And I doubt many state officials or oligarchs are happy about what is happening. I wouldn't even surprised at this point, if someone tries a coup to remove Putin from office.

If those sources are accurate then if the war drags on then there is the possibility of Russia seeing a relatively high desertion rate amongst its forces.

Just want to say thank you, Ryuu96, for sharing all these tweets and infos with us. I really appreciate!

Slava Ukraini!

I’m surprised the US imports much oil from Russia (but then, I think it also imports oil from Venezuela) as I thought they were mostly self-reliant.

I would be even more surprised in the aftermath of the Russia invasion if they wasn’t a large political push, including from Democrats , to boost oil and gas production to supplant Russia as a major energy supplier to Europe, as this is the key bit hobbling sanctions at present. Germany in particular is massively reliant on Russian gas.

Environmentalists (including myself) might prefer to see a push towards renewables but realistically that isn’t happening in the short-term.