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[Strongpoint]

Meanwhile, there are unconfirmed reports in Armenian\Azeri Twitter that Azerbaijan started an offensive into Karabakh after Russian troops left the area

Edit: Really minor incursion blown out of proportions. Azerbaijani army took some hills in a gray area. But there is a potential for escalation.

[martinuzz]

Perhaps it is also a good time for Georgia to retake the illegally occupied territories, and for Chechnya to overthrow their puppet leader and declare independence. I also think Afghanistan still has some unsettled business with Russians.

Meanwhile in Russia, a DSM studies for the Russian business news paper Vedomosti shows that many Russian are hoarding medication.
They are mostly hoarding anti-depressants, sleeping pills, insulin, cancer and heart medication, and birth control pills, out of fear that those will soon no longer be available, or unaffordable in their country because of sanctions.

[Strongpoint]

Perhaps it is also a good time for Georgia to retake the illegally occupied territories, and for Chechnya to overthrow their puppet leader and declare independence. I also think Afghanistan still has some unsettled business with Russians.

Meanwhile in Russia, a DSM studies for the Russian business news paper Vedomosti shows that many Russian are hoarding medication.
They are mostly hoarding anti-depressants, sleeping pills, insulin, cancer and heart medication, and birth control pills, out of fear that those will soon no longer be available, or unaffordable in their country because of sanctions.

The current Georgian government doesn't even want to join economic sanctions.

Kadyrov's grip is too strong and the majority of Chechens who are capable of fighting... Are fighting in Ukraine

Taliban has rather good relationships with Russia and has no reason to rush things. With many Central Asian immigrants losing jobs in Russia (because of the inevitable Russian recession) and returning home, we can see serious instability in the region. And when we see political instability in Muslim countries (even rather secular) we see Radical Islamism on the rise.

[martinuzz]

The EU has let it be known that they refuse to pay for their gas and oil in rubles.
Not accepting euros or dollars would be a breach of contract from the side of Russia.

[Strongpoint]

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-top-ukraine-intel-official-this-is-where-putin-failed-1.10697255

A good piece for understanding why Ukrainian intelligence didn't quite believe that Russia is going to invade despite warnings from NATO

[martinuzz]

Russia announced that 'the first phase of the military operation' is now complete, and they will now focus on 'liberating Donbass'

[Random_Dragon]

Russia announced that 'the first phase of the military operation' is now complete, and they will now focus on 'liberating Donbass'

Now there's a level of being in denial I haven't seen in a good while, nice. :v

[Lord Shonus]

They were openly expecting to sweep the entire country a month ago. Redefining their mission like this is basocally an admission of defeat.

[martinuzz]

Either they are preparing to admit defeat, they're in complete denial, or it's a trap.
If I were Ukraine I would not move too many forces to Donbass, away from Kyiv and other important places.
I suspect Ukraine is smart enough to already realize that.

[Strongpoint]

Russia also announced that they have 1351 KIA. Very believable

[Lord Shonus]

Note that, by any sane standard, 1300 KIA in a month is extremely high. Scaling for time, most of the battles in Vietnam were not that brutal. It takes something like the World Wars or ghe hardest-fought battles in Korea to exceed the level of intesity needed to lose that many guys that quickly - the US lost almost that many at Chosin Reservoir. 

These are their "we're totally winning with acceptable casualties" figures. The losses they are admitting to are disasterous.

[brewer bob]

Unconfirmed: two Russian commanding officers have been killed -- one purportedly by their own men.

Spoiler: from BBC live updates (click to show/hide)

Russian colonel killed by own men - Western official
Paul Adams
BBC Diplomatic correspondent

Two more senior Russian commanders have been killed - one of them apparently died after being attacked by his own men, a Western official has said.

The commanding officer of the 37th Motor Rifle Brigade, a colonel, was deliberately run over by his own troops as a result of the scale of losses taken by his brigade, the official said.

“That just gives an insight into perhaps some of the morale challenges that Russian forces are having,” they added.

However other reports suggested the colonel - named as Yuri Medvedev - had suffered leg injuries and had been evacuated to Belarus.

A seventh general (commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army) was also killed. The Kremlin has not yet responded to the claims.

The BBC has not been able to confirm this independently.

[Robsoie]

Is there some report on how is the percentage of the russian army presence in Ukraine between conscripts or volunteers/professionals ?

[Lord Shonus]

Russia probably doesn't have that information because of they way they forced a lot of consctipts into becoming "volunteer" soldiers. Dount anybody else does.

[Strongpoint]

Is there some report on how is the percentage of the russian army presence in Ukraine between conscripts or volunteers/professionals ?

Officially, for the whole Russian land forces, only 30% are conscripts and the rest is professionals.

But there are doubts that those numbers are accurate