Former USSR

I don't mean a full scale invasion as that would be too much, I'm thinking a further incursion or unrest. Moldova is the obvious next area via a Russian enclave. Putin could quite easily take Moldova supplied through Ukraine and the Black Sea.

After that tensions will be stoked in the Baltics who have a sizeable Russian population.

If Trump undermines confidence in Nato or even pulls the US away, it'll be the green light to act. Even now he's indirectly preventing the US from providing funds.

The best way to stop that is to give Ukraine the necessary tools so Putin is either defeated or given enough of a bloody nose to not extend further.

As for the EU, there isn't much it can do as defence is a national government item. It can help coordinate and fund centrally but as we've seen, infighting over contracts and people like Orban can frustrate.

Funny how we've been warned over Brussels dictating what sovereign nations can do when in reality even relatively small sovereign nations can stop the EU from acting. 🤔

Time for all of Europe to step up. The UK can lead here if we really want to.

Europe and in particularly France/Germany need to up military assistance or this will only go one way.
The US playing politics with Ukraine is disgusting.

Claimed by IS, yet they were "heading back" to Ukraine.

Hmm. 🙄

Nice police though, if reports are true (which they seem to be).

"The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) issued a new report on Tuesday, revealing a surge in credible allegations of torture and executions of captured Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) at the hands of Russian forces."

dppa.un.org/en/un-report-credible-allegations-ukrainian-pows-have-been-tortured-russian-forces

No, and these will just be those who made it to POW status. Many more won't even get that classification.

In other news there has been a big increase in munition manufacturing in Europe, apparently we are about to confirm a big procurement soon. It will still take time and the hold up in the US is going to cost lives.

Haven't watched it yet, but there was a documentary the other day on BBC2 that's supposed to be sobering but worth catching.

We know Iran and Russia are close, could this be connected? Moscow certainly has form with attacking critics outside Russia.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68717210

Not the first time Iran (well, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) have tried to kill reporters from Iran International TV. Couple of years back a plot to assassinate two of their TV anchors was foiled because instead of using their own agents they tried to recruit an international hitman who (as it turns out) was also working for Western Intelligence agencies and they apparently pay better. 

Hope he's right.

"Feng Yujun, one of the China's leading Russianists and a professor at Peking University: Russia is sure to lose in Ukraine – The Economist

Four reasons why Russian Federation will lose to Ukraine, according to Feng Yujun:

The first is the level of resistance and national unity shown by Ukrainians, which has until now been extraordinary.

The second is international support for Ukraine, which, though recently falling short of the country’s expectations, remains broad.

The third factor is the nature of modern warfare, a contest that turns on a combination of industrial might and command, control, communications and intelligence systems. One reason Russia has struggled in this war is that it is yet to recover from the dramatic deindustrialisation it suffered after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

The final factor is information. When it comes to decision-making, Vladimir Putin is trapped in an information cocoon, thanks to his having been in power so long. The Russian president and his national-security team lack access to accurate intelligence. The system they operate lacks an efficient mechanism for correcting errors. Their Ukrainian counterparts are more flexible and effective.

His conclusion is as follows:

Russia will be forced to withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea.

Russia's nuclear capability is no guarantee of success. Feng Yujun gives the example of the United States, which left Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan with no less nuclear potential than the Russian Federation has today.

Kyiv has proven that Moscow is not invincible, so a ceasefire under the "Korean" scenario is ruled out.

The war is a turning-point for Russia. It has consigned Putin’s regime to broad international isolation. He has also had to deal with difficult domestic political undercurrents, from the rebellion by the mercenaries of the Wagner Group and other pockets of the military — for instance in Belgorod — to ethnic tensions in several Russian regions and the recent terrorist attack in Moscow. These show that political risk in Russia is very high. Mr Putin may recently have been re-elected, but he faces all kinds of possible black-swan events.

After the war, Ukraine will have the chance join both the EU and NATO, while Russia will lose its former Soviet republics because they see Putin's aggression there as a threat to their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

According to Feng Yujun, the war, meanwhile, has made Europe wake up to the enormous threat that Russia’s military aggression poses to the continent’s security and the international order, bringing post-cold-war EU-Russia detente to an end. Many European countries have given up their illusions about Mr Putin’s Russia."

Source: economist.com/by-invitation/2024/04/11/russia-is-sure-to-lose-in-ukraine-reckons-a-chinese-expert-on-russia