We will wait and see 
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Except for Crimea, yes, I said that the original transfer was dodgy but I think nothing would persuade the Ukrainians to give it up short ot their own total defeat, which seems unlikely. A properly organised and independantly monitored referendum might solve it but it would have to be sold to the Ukrainians first and if they thought that all their support would drain away if not, that might happen. After all they haven’t been fighting to get it back since 2014 so there may be some leverage there.
Like John I thought they would have flipped the drone V1 style, turns out they actually
hit it and damaged the propeller, risky strategy unless the dumped fuel damaged it.
US releases footage of Russian jet crashing into drone
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Yes, I wouldn’t have thought clipping a turning propellor was the smartest thing to do. The frame rate of the onboard cameras must be something though for such clear slo-mo.
It’s a spy plane 
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Haven’t looked at the footage - is it “slo mo” or a strobe effect making the rotors *appear* to turn slowly?
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Good point.
Frame rate and strobe effect.
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That will have him quaking in his boots, he will stop the war tomorrow. 
Only George W’s and Tony Blair’s warrants to go then…
I still feel deep down that Putin will be taken down by his own military if he continues with his lies and iron rod over ordinary citizens. What I have never understood is why the people don’t stand upto him, he can’t arrest them all at the same time surely! Even sending women prisoners to fight is low and you can’t help but think he is just getting rid of them and their cost of keeping them prisoners to his government coffers. Next it will be the handicapped and elderly infirm he will send to the front to be killed off, dosn’t bear thinking about and he is the type to do it.
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Strewth @Shiba , I never looked at it that way before. 
Good job Fran and I aren’t living in Russia then. 
It’s not the (soviet) Russian way of doing things - suppression of news, freedom and the truth (Pravda) to the general population is the communist way. He wouldn’t bother putting dissenters en masse in prison, he’d re-open the gulags or use them as cannon fodder (so compliance by being shit scared).
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I realise that but I get the impression that these days, the younger russians are far more westernised than their parents/grandparents and resent the communist rule hence why so many have fled to the west or other friendly countries already. Its very hard for us who live in a fairly free democracy to fully understand what it must be like to be prisoners as such of such a regime and one man. Have you noticed too how many of his top people have died/disappeared without trace for no logical explaination other than illness?
There’s probably also a lot of thinking that "they came for the Jews, but I did nothing… "