Just over a year and a half ago, remember the idiots on social media claiming the Russian forces massed on the Ukrainian border were not a threat to Ukraine. Their idiotic anti-American views fueled by Russian bots shaping social media discussions are easy to identify. Then people get all uptight and argue with these online trolls, these arguments go nowhere of course, they just burn energy and frazzle nerves.

With Russian troops massed in Belarus, it was pretty obvious what Putin was intending, The Russian President sent troops into Crimea in 2014 and then occupied the Donbas region by sponsoring a separatist movement. A positive outcome of this war will be to drive all the Russians out of the Donbas region and back across the border. If the Ukrainians are successful in defeating Russia, then I hope NATO stations a peacekeeping force on the border of Russia to keep the region from being invaded again.

So where to from here? I fully expect Ukraine with NATO assistance to eventually defeat the invading Russian forces ending the military occupation of their country. Once Russia is defeated, I expect the Ukrainian application for membership to NATO to be expedited and Ukraine is fast tracked into the alliance. They have absolutely earned their membership, they stood up to the might of the Russian military despite being an inferior force in terms of equipment and manpower. I think we will see Ukrainian military veterans stationed all over Europe [and possibly further] to train military personnel on tactics and strategy.

At time of writing, Russian defences were holding, the Ukrainian forces had breached thr first defensive line and were making inroads into the second line of defensives. We were looking at around six weeks of autumn before the rains arrived, the mechanised offense would get bogged down when the rains arrive. However, the Ukrainian advance through the minefields had been slow as they cleared the mines by hand instead of committing vehicles to be picked and destroyed by Russian forces.

It was clear to everyone following world events that Russia would invade Ukraine; they had previously embarked on the invasion and annexation of Crimea. There was also the separatist movement in Donbas funded and controlled by the Kremlin. Russian autocrats had pre-planned the invasion of the whole of Ukraine and now they initiated their plan, it was clear to see. What might be funny, since the invasion was launched from Belarus, they might be the ones to come under full Russian control once the invasion of Ukraine stalks and ultimately fails.