Things are good in Russia?
Well lets take a look at how their elections are run:

In the election of Vladimir Putin Russian citizens were
asked to choose between Putin or the firing squad.
80% of the population supported Putin. The rest - 20%
are missing.

Foxy,

Hitler and Stalin might have escaped court, but by accounts neither died peacefully.

As for tacit approval of Stalin's executions and camps, that's a stretch.

As for their more recent comrade Putin, this tyrant will only back down when the military losses become so unsustainable that he cannot continue.

Paul,

This is a record for you not only have you made several lies in one post but have now graduated to outright defamation.

You need to retract and apologise.

Foxy wrote: "Putin and the Kremlin do not care about the life of a soldier. What's more important is winning no matter what the cost."

Never a truer word was spoken.

This is not unusual in Russia. Historically, the one advantage Russia had against its opponents was a virtually unlimited supply of people who the authorities used as cannon-fodder. During the siege of Stalingrad, Khrushchev, who was a military leader in the region, sent essentially unarmed troops against the Germans on the basis that the Germans would be forced to waste bullets on them.

This is why Russia has the advantage in this war - ultimately they are the only ones who don't care how many people they lose. Just keep throwing warm bodies at the enemy until the enemy can no longer stomach the battle. Russia has always sought to turn its wars into battles of attrition because they know they are prepared to sacrifice more blood than their opponents.

The Ukrainian spring offensive was vital in altering the situation on the ground and turn the war into a battle of movement rather than a war of attrition. That appears to have now failed although it is true of war that the breakthrough always looks unattainable right up to the moment it is attained. So who knows. We could wake up tomorrow and find the Ukrainians have indeed achieved a breakthrough somewhere - and they only need one.

Still, it looks like this will become a war of grind and Ukraine and the west aren't prepared to grind it out. Putin will have won his territory. But what will he have won? A united and expanded NATO. An invigorated Poland-Lithuanian confederacy. A Donbass that has been returned to the stone age, full of anti-Russian partisans and economic problems that Russia is incapable of solving.

Calgacus is reported to have said of Rome..."they make a desolation and they call it peace". Putin will have created unsolvable problems for his successors but will call it victory.

Although Putin should have more cannon-fodder than he needs, perhaps he is running out of warm bodies to fling at the Ukrainians. The Duma (rubber stamping Russian parliament) yesterday passed new laws that increased the age that citizens can be mobilised. It now seems that 70 year olds can be called upon to become compost in the Donbass.

"Putin and the Kremlin do not care about the life of a soldier. What's more important is winning no matter what the cost."

"Historically, the one advantage Russia had against its opponents was a virtually unlimited supply of people who the authorities used as cannon-fodder."

I think the pair of you misread the situation entirely and are writing your own script to try and cope with the poor military situation that's confronting Ukraine.

If Putin wanted to throw mens lives away he would've launched a big arrow offensive and committed everything he had to it.

Instead what he's done is shaped the war to Russia's strengths, and used his enemy's weaknesses against them.

He's sent regular waves of missile strikes, many of which are decoys, forcing Ukraine to exhaust it's air defence missiles, and in the process located the radar and launchers and taken them out.

He's slowly but surely taken out Ukraines air force, exhausted their stinger and ATGM's, he's waited for the west to gather up all it's tanks and armoured vehecles and buillt a strong impenetrable defensive line,
- and waited for the Ukrainians to throw themselves at it at the behest of the West,
He's taken his time and forced the Ukrainians to run out of artillery shells, using their strength in outnumbered artillery and shells to decimate Ukrainian troop numbers.

He has slowly, patiently and strategically allowed the Ukrainians to grind themselves down, kept a large contingency force in reserve, so that when it comes time to deliver that knock out punch, Ukraine will fall to the floor at the push of a feather.

If he had've ran in there gung hu, Russia have taken many more losses, but it may have put a long term winning strategy in doubt.

The were stages during this this conflict where they strategically withdrew, and accepted the loss of territory, criticism of a defeat, but were following a long term strategy that would reduce troop casualties, reduce the risk of being overrun when Ukraine was somewhat stronger, and instead lead the Russians to a military victory.