Iirc having any prisoner talk on camera to say anything more than their name is a warcrime (albeit a minor one).
Not quite right.
The only thing a POW is requited to give their captors, and the only information that can be compelled from them, is Name, Rank and Serial Number/ID number. The captor is allowed to request more or otherwise encourage the POWs to give up more than that, but that's all that's required.
If uninjured they cannot be compelled to work in war industry, and they are not be used for propaganda purposes, but both of these are so vague there are nearly infinite holes. North Vietnam liked to parade captured US Airmen on camera just so the world could see they were alive and not being tortured anywhere that wouldn't show in a dress uniform - its totally not Propaganda bro!
What Ukraine is doing is "No bro this isn't propaganda, we asked this dude if he wanted to send a message to his family that he's OK and he said he totally wanted to. We suggested that if he wanted to make a statement about how he wasn't cool with the war he could also do that - but that was just a suggestion we made dude! We're just putting it on tiktok to ensure they get it, he said he was cool with that too."
Putin should have spent more time cleaning up the Russian armed of its rampant corruption, embezzlement, and general complacency. [ ... ] I also suspect the only reason his cronies haven't tried making a move against him is they're getting kickbacks from military contractors to keep the war going as long as possible.
If Putin had tried to root out the rampant corruption in the military, he would have been coup'ed if not just straight assassinated.
The reason his cronies haven't made a move was:
A) until last week, Russia was under no threat from Ukraine. They would have been able to stop the war at any time by just pulling their forces back behind their borders. Doesn't matter if you send a million mobliks to their deaths and ultimately fail, there is no personal risk to you.
B) No one can make a move against Putin because if they do, they know they will taken out quickly by one of their power-hungry peers.
How the fuck does an Army run out of water. In Europe and within your own borders of all places? Russian Logistics truly are a magical creature.
Quaint of you to assume even Western Russia has indoor plumbing.
Ukrainians continue to invest in Kursk, with unclear goals. I assume it will end up being an overall loss due to a lack of appraisal of actions based on rational metrics, even removing troops from the already overmatched East for what is a political project, and a history of persisting in operations, long after the cost-benefit has become murky, by the Ukrainian leadership.
Russian strategic goal is the capture of Donbas, Ukrainian is the destruction of a maximum number of Russian forces with minimal own losses. It's highly questionable whether the incursion into Kursk is suitable for that.
Yeah, I'm also concerned this will become a "final stage of Bahkmut" situation.
At Bahkmut, for months Ukraine was inflicting vastly disproportionate losses on Russia as well as tying down a stupid amount of the Russia military to take one worthless town. Once Wagner was able to start meatwave flanking actions the Ukrainians couldn't counter-push, the situation wasn't tenable anymore and if they had done an orderly withdraw it would have been a strategic victory. Instead command was very clearly overly emotionally invested in holding out as long as possible, and they overstayed and tried to reinforce the position and allowed Russia to reduce that disproportionality. Ukraine was also forced to give up some territory beyond Bahkmut cheaper than it should have been because the units in the area were too banged up; they were too banged up from that defense to be able to take advantage of the Wagner Civil War.
Right now Ukraine is winning bigly. They are getting amazing PR, they are destroying lots of Russian equipment (some of it irreplaceable) and in general showing the world that Russia can bleed and has a very tiny dick. If there is some defensive line that can be set inside Russian territory, they can slow and distract Russia for months, but my understanding of the area is that doesn't exist, its very flat. While this counter-invasion is far from stopped, minus a sudden pivot or unexpected battle, the easy gains are done. Now that both hands are on the job, Russia is managing to find the general area its own ass. Minus the Kursk NPP which just from the heat maps Ukraine seems to be avoiding, there isn't anything strategic to take & deny Russia; they could disrupt Russia's mining of the Kursk Anomaly and further fuck Russia's steel industry, but that would require occupying the entire Oblast which I just don't think is possible let alone realisitic. But no major rail hubs, no supply depots, not even any heavy defense industry or even significant agriculture.
I'm concerned that Yook High Command will try to keep this going well past the and end up over committing and taking losses they need not have taken.
OTOH if the US unfucks itself and green lights ATACMS strikes on Russian military airbases....
over the atomic city of Energodar 
is not an uncommon phenomenon.
