COURAGE ➡️ 4870 MILES 🌻

Tankie Tankie, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could encourage those Russians to get fucked? https://t.co/mE3CJF5Z0u

— Not Josh Blackman (@NotJoshBlackman) March 3, 2022

Drove by a guy this afternoon who was holding a sign at the side of the road on the Roslyn, Va. side of the Key Memorial Bridge.

The sign had a blue and yellow arrow pointing east ➡️, and a caption above it reading:

"COURAGE—4,870 mi."

— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) March 3, 2022

Ukrainian Molotov cocktail production has gone up significantly in recent days.

🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/6o4XZcMZtA

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 3, 2022

This post started a couple of days ago, then stalled. More recent news indicates Russia has almost zero control of the country:

What began as a trickle — with only two or three planes arriving a day — is now a steady flow, 14 loads from one airfield alone. U.S. & allies are pouring badly needed anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles into Ukraine w/@helenecooper https://t.co/kusttPsrdy

— Eric Schmitt (@EricSchmittNYT) March 4, 2022

And their military is, to put it bluntly, in shit shape.

One or more of those Pantsir-S1 wheel assemblies have seized from a lack of lubrication because of leaks through the dry rotted seals.

It takes about a year of not moving a vehicle for that to happen.

Those poor Russian conscripts are so screwed.
2/2

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 4, 2022

Compare that reality (equipment failure) to this analysis:

"Russian political leadership, intellectually, never left the year 2014," he said. "They actually believe the things they say about Ukraine, they don't think it's a state, they thought that within a few days they could rapidly insert forces, avoid any significant fight, go to the capital of Kyiv, force a surrender of the Zelensky administration, get him to capitulate or to flee. The operation is really not a war effort, you have the largest country in the world invading what is the largest country in Europe, thinking fundamentally that it wasn't going to get a real fight."

This is an analysis determined to preserve the idea that Russia has a functioning military which is simply being abused by bad leadership. And still, maybe so: the fish certainly rots from the head:

Despite the nonsensical logic and the overwhelming evidence to suggest otherwise, Putin told Chancellor Olaf Scholz that reports about 'ongoing air strikes of Kyiv and other large cities are gross propaganda fakes,'" reported Rachel Olding. "He reiterated his conditions for a ceasefire which largely mirror his bogus reasons for invading Ukraine: the demilitarization and 'denazification' of Ukraine, the recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, the 'sovereignty' of separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, and the neutral status of Ukraine."

One begins to appreciate how close Trump and Putin are to each other, and to feel more sympathy for the people of Russia.

But this doesn’t change facts on the ground. The 40 mile convoy is getting pummeled by Ukraine because it can’t move; and it can’t move because it has no fuel. Soldiers and officers are abandoning equipment and their duty. Russia is employing a failing strategy? Obviously. More obvious is that they don’t have a functioning military, which is probably due to rampant corruption. Truth, as they say, will out. The Russian bear is a toothless, aged, de-clawed animal at the end of its life. The Russian economy has collapsed in five days. What kind of smoke and mirrors was it to begin with? And does Putin dismiss all that economic news as just more “gross propaganda fakes”?

The military leaders are the least of Russia’s problems.

In Kyiv a woman knocked down a Russian drone from a balcony with a jar of cucumbers. How did they expect to occupy this country?

— Liubov Tsybulska (@TsybulskaLiubov) March 5, 2022