BREAKING NEWS: Although not completely confirmed yet, reports of 125 Ukrainian border guards have surrendered "en masse" on the Kharkov border refusing to fire a single shot at the advancing Russian army.
Lightly armed border guards are easily overrun. They were there to check papers, stop smuggling, etc. The best and most obvious course was for them to surrender. Now what do you have to say about the 18,000 Russian conscripts deserting in the same month and other Russian soldiers refusing their orders to advance in Putin's meat grinder?
BREAKING NEWS: Russian forces have entered Vovchansk, near Kharkov, the situation is deteriorating fast
CORRUPTION! Ukrainian officer Denis Yaroslavsky complains that: - Russian army entered the Ukranian territory freely - There supposed to be 3 story deep concrete fortifications He says it’s either corruption and all money for the construction was stolen, or it’s deliberate sabotage.
$Billions of US Taxpayer dollars sent to Ukraine over last two years, but instead of building fortifications Zelensky and his cronies siphon off the money to offshore accounts.
Russian economy doing great actually. Up 2% and doing better than more countries including, the US and Europe. What the tens of thousands of sanctions accomplished is push Russia and China closer and now, they have good trade volumes with each other. Net result is positive for both Russia and China. You would think with all the sanctions, how many is it now? Like 18,000 sanctions would have brought Russia to its knees? Russia is thriving and Europe still buying Russian oil and natural gas although, they like to pretend they are destroying Russia's economy. The trick is they buy Russian oil and natural gas thru India and China and the middle man that India and China gets to charge them full market prices for that oil and natural gas. It still winds up in Russia's pockets either way. Oil prices are going up and Russia and OPEC has cut its oil production to ensure prices goes up. US and Europe are the only losers as the move to ditch the US dollar hurts the US and Europe. The move to remove US dollar as the reserve currency is becoming a reality.
Russia's economy is overheating in many areas as a result of a total shift to a wartime economy. Not sustainable but it creates some great economic numbers short-term. Not any numbers that benefit anything other than the war machine though. If it does, then certainly the Russian people would like to see it and it is forcing him to sell off Russia to China one brick at a time. Meanwhile some of his key trade partner allies- such as K-Stan are distancing themselves and leaning to the west. There are lessons from Russia’s GDP growth — but not the ones Putin thinks https://www.ft.com/content/9518bcd8-547e-4a41-b518-265ad0451c9b