Is it possible that Putin is not in total control of his military?

[awake]

while he talks a tough game is it possible that the Putin's grip on his army has slipped and the Russian military or a part of it may have gone rouge on him. If so the situation may be scarier than we thought.

[MineralMan]

1. Gone rouge? Did Sarah Palin join the Russian military?

[MohRokTah]

3. .

[MoonRiver]

13. Bwahahahaha!

[HERVEPA]

2. I'd say unlikely

[awake]

4. Unlikely but still possible

Why else would you let you high technology get in the hands of the crazy rebels.

[Agschmid]

5. Rethink your usage of the term "rebels"...

[William769]

6. Because he gave it to them. nt

[awake]

8. Then he is stupid which does not seem to be the case

more likely the Russian military never gave up control of the lunchers. The fact that no one seem to have check if the plane was a military plane leads me to believe that the Russian command and control has some major holes in it.

[geek tragedy]

10. he is reckless, not stupid. He figures he can get away with causing

all kinds of chaos, thinking that the Europeans will forget all about it once winter rolls around and they need gas for heat

[HooptieWagon]

15. Posssible, but unlikely imo.

The rebels claimed to have captured BUK SAMs from govt forces a few weeks ago. The Ukr govt confirmed this. Most likely the SAM that shot down the jet was one of those captured. Russia may have sent tech personell to help rebels use the BUK SAMs, that is unknown. Most likely, weapons supplied to rebels by Russia are light arms, shoulder-fired rockets, and other untraceable weapons. Its unlikely Russia has sent heavy weapons, which could be easily tracked during transport or traced back to them.

[Igel]

18. It's pretty clear that the Russians have sent or allowed through

tanks, APCs, amphibious vehicles, and Grad systems. Also quite a few KAMazes and Urals.

They keep not capturing these things and getting more and more of them. Columns of them appear at border checkpoints, there are constant reports of them crossing the border. Then there are reports of them near towns near the border. Then they show up in Lugansk or in Snizhne. If they show up in Snizhne, then they're seen in Torez or Alchevsk or Horivka or Donetsk.

Often there's video posted of a column moving through places like (Russian) Donetsk or Shakhtinsk the day before they're reported crossing the border.

There's an unconfirmed report that a Buk or two crossed the borderperhaps a week ago. Just like the little green men returned a couple of days ago in Eastern Ukraine, and then were spotted a day or so later near Snezhnoe.

There was a report that the rebels captured a Buk a while back. But also a report that it was destroyed before they captured it. And the rebels deny that they have any Buks at all (notice this: The rebels, proud to shoot down an Antonov on 7/14 at over 20k feet, and who were glad to have shot down the Antonov yesterday, or so they thought, suddenly have nothing that can get above 9k feet).

RT reports that Buk RLS were "ascertained" yesterday in the right areas. Thing is, the assumption from RT is that they had to be Ukrainian because the rebels say they don't have any. And certainly RT won't admit until told to do so that Russians supplied anything like that. Therefore it's clinched--they had to be Ukrainian SA systems that shot down the plane. All the other options have been ruled out unconditionally, either by MID dictum from Moscow or DPR dictum from Donets'k. Only Ukrainians lie.

[HooptieWagon]

19. The only reports of tanks and SAMs I have seen...

... were that the rebels had captured them from Ukr govt forces. I would think that any movement of heavy military equipment across the border from Russia would be EASILY detected by US satellites... not to mention SIGNIT intelligence, HUMINT and possible spy-plane flights. Not that Putin doesn't want to, but I doubt he'd be stupid enough to start WW3. He's only going to help the rebels enough to piss off the US a bit, not enough to provoke a military engagement with NATO.

[Codeine]

7. Because he supports them. nt

[geek tragedy]

9. no, he is an absolute dictator, and any Russian

who crosses him is in mortal danger. Russians who live in other countries aren't even able to safely defy him

[RKP5637]

12. Yes, definitely ... he wants to return to an iron rule IMO as other dictators in the

history of Russia. Just his body language reveals a lot IMO. He's clearly a thug and a bully.

[RKP5637]

11. My gut feeling, not knowing anything ... is that some got carried away with a new

toy and it locked in and shot the plane down ... maybe by mistake, not knowing what they were doing. ... or they saw it and decided to shoot it down for the hell of it not even knowing anything about the plane.

[ZX86]

14. Putin is not in control of his ego.

Thus rendering him incompetent. I have a feeling he's a short timer. People will accept a vicious dictator but not a bumbling ass clown. Even peasants have standards.

[HooptieWagon]

16. It is very unlikely Putin doesn't have firm control over Russian military.

He probably has little control over the rebels.

[DrewFlorida]

17. While it could be possible, I would think that was the least possible determination....

Much more likely would be, the possibility that the plane was shot down from inside Russian territory under orders from Russia and someone made the mistake of not properly identifying the plane first.