Summary
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised year-end press conference, said Russia should have invaded Ukraine earlier with better preparation.
He defended his policies, highlighting strengthened ties with China, Russia’s aggressive nuclear doctrine, and military gains in Ukraine, while dismissing claims of setbacks.
Putin claimed economic “stability” despite sanctions but acknowledged 9.1% inflation.
He emphasized “sovereignty” as a key success of reducing Western reliance.
The press conference was highly choreographed and tightly controlled.
You know, I still say it’s incredibly depressing we didn’t loan them a couple A10 warthogs to hit that convoy that was pushing to Kyiv.
I mean, seriously.
all those tanks… all those fuel trucks and other supplies? all just lined up and stuck on a road? just waiting for an A10 driver to just… do their thing…
It was the one incredibly specific scenario where the A-10 would actually have been useful.
Unfortunately that’s not necessarily true. The north of Ukraine at the time was covered by S-300 and/or S-400 AA systems deployed in russia. While these can be dealt with by F-35(As demonstrated by Israel), something as old and slow as A-10 wouldn’t fare well. Which is one of the reasons why the US Air force is trying to retire them.
“I should’ve…”
What a fuckup. They just gave him the keys to the country?
I’ve seen numerous people watching the stream live and I can’t really comprehend that. Even fanboys should know at this point there won’t be anything of value to hear. Safe scripted questions and non-answers repeating ad infinum is what every stream of his were and when shit actually happens it’s rarely if ever announced beforehead, like the start of the war was, or mobilization, or almost anything. Even if your kid ended up on the frontline, his fate would be decided in the cabinets, not on the open air, and the only time he was close to actual communication is when Prigo went rogue, because Volodya needed to actually perform some damage control, and he did that with a lag when he was assured things are nearly settled. With prols - who cares? Years before and already a year+ after that these shows were a watermill hardly deviating from Tucker Carlson’s interview and the only thing I do when I get caugh up in a room with these talks is look at his face for signs of make up\surgery and listen to his characteristical khe-khe coughing, wondering how much work they need to put THAT before people and cameras. Credit where the credit is due: he looks almost like a human, not aged an hour from his previous elections. People were joking about the fridge he sleeps in but he’s really cared for by a little army of cosmetologists.
And, after remembering the Prigo guy, I recall his descendants in the media, military bloggers, sometimes coming directly from his media org, showed a lot of dissatisfaction with that show, more than usual. They are pocketed and allowed to say that and ironize at obvious bad takes, but that means they and their curators find that their target demographics - the most bloodfirsty and ‘patriotic’, who need to be spoken baldly with zero bs - lost connection to the government’s agenda, frustrated by it, and still don’t have a person to replace Evgeniy and somehow reignite them. Only in time of the riot he himself only once refered to ‘gramps’ who needs to leave, and now regular bloggers discuss what he said. It’s not a lifechanger, but it shows some gradual exhaustion that too hopeful people like me can call a sign.
In other news, new year would bring a rare change in minimal price of booze. If anything, I feel upping the price of the most available and usual coping mechanism may have a bigger impact than whatever he could possibly say. And this small thing is rarely talked about in comparison, for, once again, they don’t talk when they do real stuff.
Most people didn’t care about Russia and respected their sovereignty. Until they disrespected that of another country.
I mean, tactically yes, it would have been more successful, but at the time he didn’t want to expend the worldwide political cost because he wasn’t completely off the rocker yet
