So what happens in the Ukraine is important but is only one part of a much larger game. What we know about Putin and the war is filtered by our media thru this lens. — yebiga

If that is the case, your observations cannot be supported as evidence by appeal to any resource.

The article is helpful in showing how the misfortune of war will play out in Russian society. A countervailing perspective from the game of Risk underway in many minds:

During an internal struggle for power in Russia, Putin and other Russians will have other things on their minds, and the war will give way to those more pressing concerns. Sometimes you change the subject, and sometimes the subject changes you.

Another smoking accident has happened, this time on the Kerch bridge.

I figure future accounts will confirm your view. All airborne infantry missions are very risky. Many have failed.

Until that time when more has been revealed, Tzeentch's argument amounts to saying nobody could be that stupid to try it. And when that becomes the measure of what is conceivable or not, we are forced to compare that action with other actions and notice that a lot of those other tactics are stupid.

I don't know, linking to a source that says it does not know does not inculcate confidence.

This was a feint, remember? Your story was there was no intended future use at all. Kyiv was a ruse to fix Ukrainian forces who might otherwise head for the Donbas. — apokrisis

I would like to reassert my previous point that arguments about the intentions of the Hostumel operation are not evidence for or against a 'feint'.

An argument for the 'feint' needs an identification of the forces who would have headed east if not held at Kiev. No such identification has been provided. My attempts to find sources on this point have yielded nothing so far.

The use of airborne forces does suggest it was part of a particular plan. On the other hand, the Russians have demonstrated so many bad tactical practices, easily confirmed by the ubiquitous explosions of tightly grouped armor vehicles, that arguing that another tactic is incomprehensively stupid is no guarantee that it was not attempted.

Russia has conquered, occupied, pacified, and defended strategically important territory for 7 months now while inflicting, by any count I've seen, several factors more casualties on Ukraine than suffering itself. — boethius

What is your source for this?

Yes, I see the dance between claims regarding particular circumstances. My point is only to say that once one has retreated from arguing what the actual planning happened to be by means of providing evidence for it, further discussion of what is conceivable or not is no longer germane to the original question.

And that problem of using the language of inconceivability reminds me of scenes in Princess Bride.

For Tzeentch, the question of intent and planning seems to be on hold until the day documents and investigations can prove one view against the other. He has ruled out any reports presently available to us as being valid. Also, he has said that he is not providing a competing assessment of actual intent but only offering 'speculation' of what might be the purpose of the operation.

So, his or her claim that using airborne troops to secure an airport in order to establish an airbridge is simply inconceivable in this situation is not an argument for an alternate purpose. By the rules of evidence being demanded by him or her, that cannot be stated.

How does this pragmatic approach get started when one side is run by a man in a bunker calmly loading his revolver for the final scene? You make it sound like something his opponents could initiate by themselves.

and if there's no good reason to think that doing so will create a major loss in welfare — Isaac

That's the sticky wicket there. How can the good faith be extended to the Russians in this regard when Putin has played so many for fools for doing it in the past?

Yes, I spoke too broadly on that. But my point is that what is shared is horror at what Russia is doing.

We do not share their national pride and it's obscene to pretend we do. — Isaac

Pride? What is being shared is the desire to exist as a people and to defeat an organization that is really good at erasing such people. That is why borders are defended.

It could also be one reason for falling back when plan A didn’t work. Unlike the fate of all the border cities and villages where bringing in the artillery was the way to liberate their Russian citizens from Nazi oppression. — apokrisis

Your observations upon the reluctance to level Kiev make sense. On the other hand, the distance of supply lines for that sort of thing is much greater than the beating Kharkiv received for example.

In the future, more will be known about the planning in this regard. Coming from Belarus had a lot of limitations in terms of transportation. I wonder who was scheduled to land at Antonov airport if it had been secured.

He is open to talk — Manuel

You have opened up too many wounds to talk about this with equanimity.

I spare you from any curses.

Listen, I think Putin is a thug and a war criminal, but then, I think this is true of most leaders of nuclear armed countries - it comes with the job. Maybe some think he is specifically worse because of his rhetoric or his ramblings. I don't think this should distract from dialogue. — Manuel

I don't understand this idea of withdrawing from dialogue. There are many people desperately trying to talk to a recluse with a special button.

So, as one who promotes dialogue, how does the denial of Ukrainian identity play a part?

Doesn't one have to stop doing that to have a conversation?

Sure. But the propaganda in play here is saying that Nazis have taken control of Ukraine and must be rooted out. Could get rough.

U.S. citizens did fight Canadians in 1812. We both burned down real estate on both sides.

But clever historical references aside, the Putin regime does not recognize any form of Ukrainian identity.

But if they did destroy Kiev, I assume they would have no good propaganda to justify it internally. — Manuel

I guess this is precisely what I question. Russians were cool with the Chechen wars and the tactics used in Syria. If Kiev was a smoking heap, how is that different from the other stuff?

They miscalculated badly and thought that parts of Ukraine would want to willingly go to Russia. They never did destroy Kiev, which they could have - it would go against their propaganda. — Manuel

What do you mean they could have destroyed Kiev? Bomb it out of existence? And what propaganda would that go against?

As for the gap between what they thought the Russians could achieve against facts on the ground, how does one separate the rhetoric justifying the operation from the level of resistance encountered?

The Russians clearly underestimated the response. That mistake is not clearly connected to an expectation of a more favorable reception.

I see where you are going with that. Do you have a passage that underlines that for you?

I did not have a point. I was only asking if you had wrestled with his text.

Edit to add: I am not asking that to establish some kind of authority but to flesh out what you understand to be Aristotle's thinking.

Have you read Aristotle?

I wasn't putting forth what I think may be different but observing that Aristotle intended to highlight knowing for the sake of knowing from solving practical problems with a view toward specific ends.

In its simplicity it describes the innate curiosity of human beings or even cats. — Deus

I am pretty sure Aristotle would object to this on the basis that the desire for knowledge is for its own sake. Wondering what is happening may be related to the instinctual curiosity of many species but Aristotle is doing something else. The desire to understand has its own life.

And the grinding reluctance of the Biden Administration to give the weapons to Ukraine that would fold the Russian invasion in a fortnight is a part of that discussion.

Interesting development in the weapons supply coming from U.S:

In bid for new long-range rockets, Ukraine offers U.S targeting oversight

Far more likely, Russia considers Ukraine at best a proper satellite of imperial Russia. Even the suggestion that Ukraine join NATO challenges this status and is intolerable. — hypericin

Yes, Putin was afraid the store would close before he could rush in to steal the item.

The decision to annex territories where you are set to lose substantial ground right after the annexation obviously isn't what Putin likely had in mind politically. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This exacerbates having partial control of regions where success now requires complete control. Before the annexation, the standard of victory was whatever Putin said it was.

Why would I want to? Attempts at making such assessments properly are foolish at this point, and I wouldn't take them seriously unless they're backed up by serious research — Tzeentch

If that is the case, doesn't that condition apply to your assessment that the attack on Kiev was only a feint?

As a piece of military strategy, a feint draws forces from the true target. But the attack was sprung before movement of that kind changed the conditions on the ground. If you are going to deliver a sucker punch, you better make it work the first time. Do you have a vision of how things would have been different without this 'feint'? An historical parallel, perhaps?

Also, the purpose of taking the airport is to use it. Failure to secure it through combined forces is part and parcel to the failure of the whole operation as detailed in this comparison of Hostomel with the failure of Market Garden in WW2: An Airfield Too Far: Failures at Market Garden and Antonov Airfield

In the face of your criticism of what previous attempts at radical change have amounted to, what do you propose instead?

I have had a long relationship with this bit of music. I like this version because it underscores the dissonance with the harmony.

As the Continental once said: "Pour champagne on me once, shame on you. Pour champagne on me twice, shame on me."

The process of application aside, when Zelensky said that Ukraine is now a 'de facto' member of the alliance, he was pointing to the annexations as Russia invoking Article 5 as already underway. The death of the pretense of a Special Operation means it is no longer clear what lines are not to be crossed. So that does not mean there are no longer such lines, but that they need to be rearticulated by those who support Ukraine.

I read the dialectic as an interaction between people where there are always subjects acting in objective conditions. The subjects are changed through the interactions, and this creates new conditions.

For example, the subjective experiences before the master/slave conflict are different from those that happen after it has gone down.

Well, that was a light and refreshing afternoon snack!

Seeing that both the Russians and the European ultra-nationalists are dependent upon the continuance of the integrated economies, the reach for maximum leverage would be a suicide pact rather than a strategy for victory for all involved.

Slantchev presents a solid argument for how Putin might respond to further losses. I think the logic of proportional response to such escalation would not be to wipe out the Black Sea fleet but to isolate Russian forces in Ukrainian spaces.

By annexing the contested territories, Russia has collapsed the line previously drawn constraining the use of offensive weapons to defend Ukraine. If there is any chance in keeping the escalation from going straight to the unfolding of MAD, response needs to be very specific.

But who am I kidding? I feel like Mandrake while he was stealing a Coke from the vending machine.

I am curious about not considering 'the future enough'

One benefit of being mortal is that line of thinking is not available to us. We can think in terms of generations after us. What do you have in mind?

The purpose of suffering is to learn the causes of suffering so that you don't have to cause yourself suffering anymore. — Yohan

That makes sense to me as an effort to be less stupid. But I am not sure how to apply the maxim to a map of the world.