Tuuktuuk

We'll see how that will go in the States. I just read a text about why there are so few pickpockets in USA, and someone mentioned that during the Paris Olympics people had tried pickpocketing spectators from USA, and got so frequently immediately beaten up by spontaneously formed mobs of Americans that the French police had to start actively intervening on the side of the pickpockets O.o

Not everyone on this planet is like the Chinese and Russians. But, we are about to see.

Might be a cultural difference.

A Finn would be too scared not to react under the contemporary Russian circumstances. They'd work with the motto "I'm basically dead anyway, so this way I at least bear a chance to maybe survive."

Can someone explain why the inner circle doesn't take this as a warning sign that Putin is dangerous and must be liquidated as soon as possible?

They will all get killed (or "persuaded to suicide") one after another if they don't end the madman. Appeasing Putin will bring you nothing good in the longer term.

Some people remember things as images and see stories in books as images. Do you have a memory from that time that is preserved as images so that you can actually see what the world looks like from the perspective of a 2-year-old? Also, can you recognise things in that memory that have caught your 2-year-old attention that would not catch the attention of an adult who already has answers to many questions? Or the other way around, is something missing in the memory that by all logic should be there, because a two-year-old doesn't recognise it as significant?

(My oldest memory is from about that age as well. It's me looking at a pavement made of 30 cm (~1 foot) wide concrete slabs while sitting in a stroller, observing how the lines between the slabs are recognisable when I look further away but turn into a blur if I look as straight down as I can)

Why?

A Russian propaganda win is a win the sense that it enables Moscow to start a new war in a near future. If the Russia can make the 300 000 lost human lives look justified to its own population, it is able to make a micro-invasion into a NATO. In such a scenario, it takes the city of Narva and stops, hoping that at least Germany will refuse to help Estonia regain the city, thus functionally ending NATO. Even if Germany will turn out to help Estonia after all, the terror the people of Narva will have to endure in such a scenario will be horrible, and it also means there is a war between nuclear powers, which is a thing I'd like to avoid. And of course: Refusing to defend Estonia would not avoid the war, but helping Ukraine block the Russia from getting a propaganda victory does.

The Russia must be prevented from getting a propaganda win, because if it does, there will be a war in EU.

The personnel number is a bit under what one would hope, as it means a (very) slight replenishment in the Russia's manpower. They are recruiting in the ballpark 1300 soldiers per day, so this means the Russia's army grew by a couple hundred soldiers today. Of course, 1100 lost is 1100 lost, and that means about 300 dead plus about 800 who tell their friends and family that the situation is absolutely not as told in television.

The number of destroyed artillery systems is very good. This exceeds the Russia's production capability by quite a bit. 110 "vehicles and fuel tanks"... I've lost track of what that number means these days... Does it include Ladas and motorbikes? Or only cargo equipment and such? 3 tanks in a day is nice, because that's more than the Russia is producing. My understanding is that they are producing a tank once per day or two days. Or?

"Creeping forward" would be more acceptable, but still a gross misrepresentation of reality.

The 0.7 % of "advancing" changes nothing regarding the outcome of the war in comparison to complete stability. Also, in World War I the front was not 100 % stable either. There was advancing taking place all the time, but our history books write of it as a stagnant front, because it was indeed functionally stagnant, just like the front in this war has been since mid-2022.

The problem is, a lot of people assume that "creeping forward" means something like 5 % of Ukraine's territory per year, and that misunderstanding affects their willingness to support Ukraine. If they knew that the Russia has not advanced meaningfully in the last three years, their view of the situation would be dramatically different.

I'd say 5 % is a good trigger number. Maybe even 2 %. Though, it would still take them decades to take over all of Ukraine even if they were to advance at a pace of 2% per year.

For losing my home, it is not relevant if that's because of the Russia advancing or not. It could be retreating at a speed of 5% of Ukraine's total territory per year, but if it manages to take over my village, I've got a bad situation all the same.

The "advancing" is a very bad phrase because it makes Ukraine's situation look hopeless to many. "The Russia has been creeping forward" is a very different story from "The frontline has been largely stagnant since summer 2022."

A significant fraction of people in many countries in the west are against helping Ukraine because they think Ukraine will not be able to regain the occupied territories anyway. They wouldn't think that way if the news were talking about a stagnant frontline as is the reality instead of talking about the Russia "creeping forward" or even "advancing". For the outcome of the war the 0.7 % advance in year 2024 had no significance over a completely stagnant frontline. A good question is: How much did the front line move during the "stagnant" phase of World War I? We could very well write in our history books that either Germany or France was creeping forward, but somehow we are writing that the frontline was stagnant, even though advances of several tens or even hundreds of metres took place more or less often.

During the last 12 months the Russia has "advanced" so much that it controls about 0.3 % more of Ukraine's territory than it did those 12 monrhs ago. That's less than one third of a percent.

During the whole calendar year 2024 the Russia managed to conquer 0.7 % of Ukraine's total area.

0.7 % is not "advancing". The Russia is not advancing and hasn't advanced since spring 2022.

Why do reporters keep writing that the Russia is advancing when it factually doesn't?

If we don't win this war now that it's limited to Ukraine, Putin will spread it to first Baltics and then Finland once he his army has regained enough strength. Unless we have developed our defense capabilities sufficiently by that.

We need to be ready for the event that France and Germany decide that Ukraine should fall. And if at that point the only countries that have a serious ability to defend against the Russia are Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then the economy of northwestern EU will be in shambles. And that will definitely affect the rest of EU, including whatever country you are from.

If the whole EU is interested in repelling the Russia when it attacks, then it probably won't even attack. But if only the countries bordering it are interested in that, it abaolutely will attack the northeastern EU. And then your bread will get a lot more expensive.

Using mines is not necessary for repelling a Russian attack, but it makes it possible to repel it with less land area lost in the initial phase. The Russia is very weakened by its crazy war, but that is not a situation that will stay that way forever. In something a bit more than 5 years after this war ends, the Russia can very well have enough material to attack Finland. (It will probably attack Estonia or Latvia first. Most likely Estonia, because Narva is located in a very precarious location and taking Narva without NATO reacting would decrease NATO's political ability to react to bigger things in the future.)

NATO is good to have, and it probably will help if needed, but for example Germany and France have shown that if the Russia says the word "nuke", they reduce their help dramatically, and the country under attack is largely left to its own devices. It would be idiotic of western countries not to support Ukraine as much as possible, yet they do indeed only support it at a minimum level. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania must be able to defend themselves adequately even without external support, because there's not much reason to assume central European countries' thinking about supporting a country in a war against the Russia would be very different in the future than it is now.

It's theoretically possible that a country uses mines and still gets conquered, yes. But the likelihood is smaller. Also, what is much more important is that it's not a black-and-white "you get conquered or you don't". There's also the middle ground of "part of your country gets conquered for a while, then you regain that territory". As is the case in Ukraine at the moment. The smaller that conquered part is, the less demining you need to do to remove the mines sown by the orcs. And if you are a small country like Finland fighting the Russia alone, fighting with other systems plus mines slows down the Russia more than fighting with those other systems only.

Also, mines are indeed generally not as useful as they were 100 years ago. But against the Russia they have been proven very useful in this war now. Not as useful as 100 years ago, true, but extremely useful all the same. Because the Russia is a country that works about the same way civilized countries worked some 100 years ago.

And, to your last point: You're saying it's unlikely that Finland would use mines in a responsible way. Why wouldn't it? Remember, it's Finland's own people that will suffer from the mines. If we are irresponsible with them, it's us that will suffer. This is a country where people take responsibility much more seriously than in any other country that I know. I do trust that the Finnish army does make maps of the minefields. What is the extreme thing that you're claiming Finland would do, actually? Lay a minefield but somehow decide not to make a map about the mines' locations? Why?