my grandparents and extended family oppose it

Putin is completely despised by younger people, his biggest sympathizers are people in their 40/50s, who support him only because they are afraid of returning of 1990s Russia (hard time, but way more democratic than now). Putin exploits this fear to the fullest extent, blaming all his fuckups on 'the hard post-soviet legacy' (although he was a mayor deputy in the St. Petersburg administration at the very same time and responsible for many failures back then).

cu@

2014 Crimea events did boost putin's approval rating amongst his core electorate, mainly because it was quick and bloodless, but right now the situation is completely different. The excuses that russian propaganda came up with (denazification of Ukraine) were so terrible that even zombified by tv putin fans have a hard time wrapping their heads around it.

The worrying part is that putin knows about the negative effects of waging war (lower ratings, hit on economy), and he invades anyway, without a care for any repercussions. The only conclusion seems to be that he acts out of pure imperial ambitions, pretending to be a 'unifier of russian lands', and nobody can tell where these ambitions will end. I hope that people of Ukraine stay safe and that putin forgets where he put the nuclear briefcase.

it's so scary for me because when you say that, the leading political party in Poland wins just in the same way as Putin does
unfortunately Poland don't have many ways in my opinion to help out Ukraine by military way but still we as a country could help a lot Ukrainians by giving them places a shelter or even place to live (at least temporarily, as if the war would end i bet most people would want to come back to live in their motherland) and i wish our government will take steps (which are at some point already being made now) to help Ukraine by this as much as possible

Слава Україні!

What's the actual impact of a decrease in his ratings though?

Short of some kind of military coup, he seems untouchable.

https://i.imgur.com/bhXkbHl.png

I guess the real threat to Putin is the oligarchic group behind him, which has to choose whether or not he should remain Russia's main representative, rather than the will of ordinary people

In Russia's POV NATO is the aggressor and the invasion of Ukraine is just uniting ethnic Russians together. You don't like this or you think it's wrong that's irrelevant as only what Russians think will matter and they will absolutely love the invasion if it goes well (as early polling confirms). Whatever propaganda Putin makes, there is a kernel of truth of NATO threatening the Russian sphere of influence and there is at least some Russian minority in Ukraine. The war can go either way yet Putin was (largely) forced to act like this or Russian influence on neighbouring states would decrease and eventually die when they join NATO. Given that the situation between the West and Russia is already inoperable, invading actually makes a lot of sense.
Anyways, I predict this is just Crimea 2.0

yall pray for catbowcar i think georgia could be next

embarrassing there are so many jokes on this thread when a country of 40 million people are having their lives uprooted from violence

out of solidarity im not playing heavy anymore in tf2. i implore you guys to do the same.

I'm with you, brother, my uncles are in Donetsk right now getting drafted. Слава Україні!

People can joke about things as a coping mechanism for the horrible things going on. Comedy is separate from supporting tragedy

there's a difference between joking to cope with the situation and making jokes at the victims' expense or about future risk, like fucking "cu@"

https://i.imgur.com/Q2B2iZ8.png

@scrambled stunning and brave

youre not allowed to make jokes if bad things are happening to people in the world (rare occurrence)

i think whats more obscene than making jokes is gesturing as if u rly care and rly want to do something about it and then just changing ur profile pic or making some posts on some forums and calling it a day but u do u

the invasion isnt about u or ur knowledge of russian-american geopolitics. it's - as u pointed out urself - about the ukrainian civilian population's suffering

One can care about it without being able to stop the war themselves.
Making fun about this invasion when you know people are suffering as we speak and especially after some members of our community expressed in this very thread that they have family living in the affected regions, is insanely disrespectful.

Not saying you can never make jokes about serious topics, but there is a time and a place.

and that time and place definitely isn't on a forum for a 15 year old video game, where only the most serious discussion takes place

They should give s1mple the awp. Ez win for ukraine.

No but all seriousness this shit fucked up. Fuck Putin.

someone made a slam poem about being putin's moms

maybe ur right on this point considering as u said some people are truly personally affected even here, but a lot of posts here and on the rest of the internet is exactly what i said in my post before, gesturing. im not saying people are callous enough to pretend to care about something they dont, but theres no way this many people are actually personally implicated directly or indirectly lmao

the west had 8 years to turn Ukraine into a fortress of democracy and failed to do so because its cheaper to be "pacifist" what's very telling is i watched the Belgian parliamentary debates on the issue yesterday and basically politician a expresses selective rage about Ukraine asking weeks ago for anything equipment-wise and weapons, and we basically ignored it, because as our prime minister said: "we need the items for our NATO-commitment" which means in practice that we will be standing on the border all together with our stuff lamenting the fate of Ukraine, while making sure it never gets actually used, because defence is already underfunded and our national eu armies basically are undersupplied for anything big. Of course the politician lamenting the fact turned his wagon when he got the answer and the issue was dropped. Since by now, even if delivered it would just land in the Russians hands so why even bother right))).

I feel bad for the Ukrainians because they legit want to enter the sphere of prosperity countries like Poland are in, but get denied because of the awful handling of post USSR-Russia in the 90s by the USA and the later order by George w bush (is there anything this guy didn't ruin?) that expansion of NATO was going to happen into the former USSR (promise to Georgia) whether Europe and Russia agreed with it or not. Dissolve NATO in favour of an EU army imho..

I received a summons to the draft board, if I never come back then know that it was fun to play tf2 with all of you for all these many years.
peace to you and your homes.

WW III joke anyone?

Good luck brother.

Why are you being insensitive to try and "gotcha" a tftv user by using this poor guy's post
I really don't think portrays what you want it to

Russia has been messing up eastern EU since post-WW2 and all the world did was sit and watch as those countries got ruined. Now they are doing it again, and in broad daylight, as all of us can follow the events on a screen. Coming from a country that used to be in the soviet block and hearing stories of how Russia treats the people after taking over, it's inhumane that this is allowed to happen.

I hope the rest of the world can figure out a way to actually help the innocent people in Ukraine instead of just slapping sanctions because Putin clearly does not care nor will he change his mind. Good luck to Ukraine friends and I hope you guys get through this, it's unreal to me this is even a thing happening in post 2000.