#bronk

For context on the time period for the Zexal characters this story will start pre-Duel Carnival

Aichi once again wishes he could opt out of having Psyqualia

Yuma and Aichi get to be wholesome friends 😊. It will make the future despair all the better 😈. Aichi would definitely try to encourage and help Yuma rather than relentlessly roasting him like his friends. Besides he knows Yuma’s pain. They have a lot to relate about.

Misaki is teaching Tori how to not be useless

Kamui is doing the same with Bronk

Somehow…Aichi is the normal one😅. Thinking about magical girls awakens that inner Cain instinct for him🤣.

Kai and Shark are here to protect the smols no matter how much they deny it

There’s no way I wouldn’t have this matchup.

Cameron: I CaN CReaTe tHe fUtuRE

Aichi: *insert Danganronpa meme* I can do that too

Cameron: Wut?

Opening day of the re-modeled Yankee Stadium; April 15, 1976. Some key figures pictured here are Mickey Mantle, Yankee manager Billy Martin, and Thurman Munson.

“Indeed, I now believe it is a genuine possibility that Vladimir Putin’s exposed weaknesses are so severe that we might be witnessing the beginning of the end – not only of his regime, but of the Russian Federation itself.

This vast empire encompassing more than 120 ethnic groups is on an unsustainable footing, and like that famous Hemingway quote, its collapse may be gradual at first but could quickly become a sudden, violent and uncontrollable event. If we fail to prepare for this possibility in the way that we failed to prepare for the collapse of the Soviet Union, it could introduce immense instability to our geopolitics.

I see at least three factors that could lead to the Federation’s collapse. The first is the breakdown of domestic confidence in the Russian Army, which has traditionally been at the core of the Kremlin’s legitimacy. Its humiliation in Ukraine is now almost complete, with the proud Black Sea Fleet still hiding behind Crimea, too frightened to take action against a country that doesn’t even have a navy.

(…)

Second, the damage suffered by the Russian economy has been too devastating to sustain a population of 144 million. The loss of energy markets, which compensated for the country’s lack of modern industries, cannot be reversed. European governments will not rely again on Nord Stream 1, having witnessed how easily it can be turned off, and are already making long-term investments in domestic energy supply.

(…)

This brings us to the third factor, which is the sparse nature of Russia’s population. For despite possessing 70 times the landmass of the United Kingdom, the Federation has just twice the population. These numbers make civic solidarity difficult to achieve in the best of times, but now, with the metropole in a weak position, any sense of national identity could rapidly deteriorate.

(…)

We ought to be asking difficult questions now lest they be sprung on us out of nowhere.

For instance, how would this play out in a country that has considerable stockpiles of nuclear weapons and few centres of power? Who would extract the nukes? How do we avoid leakage of weapons and militants into the Baltic states? Is a major internal conflict inevitable or can the collapse be contained within a political context?”

“In less than a week, more than 3,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory had been liberated, massive stockpiles of ammunition, weapons and armoured vehicles captured for use by Ukrainian forces, and the entire Russian position in North-Eastern Ukraine completely destabilised.

Russian forces have not suffered such a serious and rapid military defeat on the battlefield since the Second World War.

Worse still for Putin is that fact that he has no good options for how to react now.

The majority of his potentially mobile and elite units in Ukraine are still concentrated in Kherson to the south, and are facing a serious and ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensive operation that cannot be ignored.

Furthermore, by signalling for so long that Kherson was target for liberation, Ukraine has baited Russia into accepting an attritional battle in a very militarily disadvantageous position.

(…)

As such, the large concentration of Russian forces defending Kherson are dependent on highly disrupted and bottlenecked supply lines, meaning that they are rapidly running low on medical supplies, food and above all ammunition.

(…)

If his forces stay put in the south, then the majority of Russia's usable combat power will be trapped with their backs to the river and steadily ground down by a Ukrainian force that has much better supply lines, more troops and so can sustain an attritional artillery duel for longer.

However, if the Kherson front were to collapse, it would be such a political and military disaster coming soon after the stunning defeat in Kharkiv that Russian military morale might totally disintegrate, or Putin might even find himself threatened by discontented factions within the Russian power structure at home.

(…)

Furthermore, the need to send those under training or in second-line formations in Russia to Ukraine to try and steady the line in the Donbas means any hope that Putin had of reconstituting a serious force for renewed offensive operations in Spring 2023 is gone.

He could declare war and commence full mobilisation, but even that might produce usable formations too late to counter a Ukrainian offensive in Spring.

Furthermore, it would be highly unpopular in most of Russia and risk further destabilising the regime.

(…)

Ukraine's Western partners now have proof that Ukrainian forces can decisively beat the Russian Army if given enough material support, and that will make it politically much easier to sustain that support at the necessary level through what promises to be a difficult winter from a food and energy security point of view.