I'd also like to point out that the video posted also demonstrates a crap ton of those weapons these "volunteers" are holding: for sure going to organized crime, as we speak.

As well as even more advanced captured Russian equipment: straight to organized crime you go!

If you don't think people are making fucking bank ... you don't know people.

I think there's a sense among some people here that the war in Russia will be judged on the terms that we in Europe believe it to be really about — Isaac

For here a bit certainly, but the Western mainstream media basically take this idea as the gospel truth.

I think Putin is, as you say, in quite a strong position really. If the war goes his way, then it's obviously a win. If it doesn't then, well, it was only an 'operation'. It's not that nothing could count as a failure, but he's certainly hedged his bets. — Isaac

Yes, definitely Putin could stop at any moment and says he's achieved whatever he set out to achieve.

Fighting neo-Nazi's: shelled Mariupol to oblivion and decimated the Azov battalion base (I don't know where it is, but I assume it's something can blow up if they haven't already).

Russian core strategic interest: it's pretty clear to me Ukraine isn't in NATO, and Ukraine won't be building back buddy-buddy with the CIA anytime soon in my opinion.

Calling the Wests bluff and creating schism in NATO: don't see any sanctions on that sweet, sweet Russian gas (in the EU) and this whole thing about the jets is comical (US: we're working on getting Ukrainians jets! Poland: ok, we'll give them to you, you give them to Ukraine ... US: not tenable)

Key land captures to show for the blood spilled: land bridge to Crimea.

And that's just today.

If his forces can link up in the middle of Ukraine, then he can easily take everything East of the Dnieper river and passify largely Russian speaking areas with zero easy ways to smuggle in arms for an insurgency into that part of Ukraine (unlike the Western part) and proclaim protection from neo-Nazi's achieved for Russian speakers, for ever basically (and better protection of Russia for the next hundred years at least).

By offering throughout the whole war, the de jure status quo before the war, Putin can easily explain his good faith and good intentions (certainly to most Russians) to the end of his days, as all he wanted the whole time is just the fighting in the Dombas to end and a neutral Ukraine (to have peace and not nuclear war) and to blow up some neo-Nazi's; just a simple man really.

As soon as the war ends, the discussion will switch to how it started in the first place and how was anyone crazy enough to reject Russia offer to end it. It makes "emotional sense" now, but will make zero rational sense as soon as the War is over and the extreme damages to Ukraine and people's lives contended with.

We only hear the pro-war almost kamikaze level fanaticism side of Ukrainians (as you point out) but we'll hear other voices as soon as the war ends: and the viscous partisan fighting has only just begun.

And the reason Ukraine government doesn't take the deal (even if they see no way of winning; could be a lot of losses on the Ukrainian side and no functioning logistics) ... is that it would make the entire war effort make zero sense.

Which is pretty clever by Putin offering the status quo before the war.

It's both impossible to accept (as literally makes the whole war pointless, and Ukraine is obviously not being rescued by NATO nor ever going to be let in the club, so "fighting for that right" clearly makes zero sense also) and also absurd not to accept.

If Putin was actually worried about the military situation, he'd start high and then settle low, maybe offer some symbolic reparations etc. to sweeten the status quo deal.

Instead, Zelenskyy finds himself fighting an existential war with a foe that keeps repeating they just want the exact same situation as before the war, just de jure instead of de facto.

People that are against negotiation on principle can maybe consider police negotiators as a useful framework.

Do police negotiators just show up and call a hostage taker a crazy madman, and when the hostage taker denies it they just call him a liar too, and then leave?

The push south from the Kharkiv axis and North from the Kherson axis, to "cut off the eastern half," as you say, did appear to be the plan until a few days ago. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I honestly don't feel there's accurate enough information to make these sorts of conclusions on the order of days. If a position is held for a week, then it's probably well defended, but the back and forth during days isn't really revealing of overall strategy and force strength, and there also seems to be intense map propaganda at the moment of minimizing as much as possible Russian areas (could be true, but who knows ... and, I think all that really mattes strategically is the positions West of Kiev in the North and South and they seem pretty solid: no one has broken through to torch the convoy for instance).

However, we really don't know much about the state of the Russian forces and how their generals see things.

We have a huge amount of intelligence self-produced by Ukrainians, such as what just posted, but this will have an extreme survivor and positive spin bias.

And this video basically demonstrates well my explanation above that infantry are terrible at offensive maneuvers against an enemy line. Imagine if an observer spotted these guys and 10-20 shells and/or mortars landed on them (which we obviously wouldn't then get to see on the internet).

Russians need to establish forward operating bases; so "pauses" in the North and South main pincers seem more to do with that than they have been stopped. If they are stopped for a week, that would be one thing, but slow progress can just represent sorting out logistics and digging in on the flanks, installing artillery, and taking care of a bunch of details.

There's this narrative that Russian forces are "falling apart", but Russia can rotate in fresh troops, has a massive inventory of vehicles and artillery, and isn't going to run out of ammunition or diesel anytime soon.

Of course, doing the unexpected has strategic value, but the value of setting up a line North South seems so high, and the only way to end all the chaotic ambushes and anti-tank pick-offs, etc. in the East, that is the downside of having a super long front in the east (the advantage is that it ties up Ukrainian troops that can be cutoff on mass). Conventional warfare like this takes massive amounts of ammunition, so once units are cutoff their calculus changes pretty radically; they are for sure unlikely to go anywhere.

There's a lot of conversations I haven't had time to continue today, unfortunately.

However, since the Western media insists extremely strongly on the narrative that Ukraine is somehow winning, going to win, can hold indefinitely, I'd like to present here the alternative point of view of the military situation as such.

Of course, deception is a large part of warfare, so the Ukrainians could be planning some brilliant move to rout the enemy that launches at any time. Likewise, stories of Russian moral collapse could be totally true or then riots start breaking out all over Russia at any moment. There's definitely risks on Russia's side and predictions of obviously possible things always have a chance to come true. However, what we can be certain of is that all the retired generals and retired intelligence directors that hammer this impending Ukraine victory home, base that on absolutely nothing. The real experts acknowledge they don't know the situation on the ground for Russia or Ukraine.

So, that being said, the reasons to assume Ukraine is not going to bust out some brilliant move is that conscripts generally speaking, and especially conscripts that trained sometime in the distant past, are terrible at offensive maneuvers. Conscripts are effective at manning trenches and firing artillery mainly, and doing the logistics, cooking, repairing, medical evacs and nurse work etc.

Furthermore, even manning trenches and doing defensive maneuvers and planning logistics etc. requires professional soldiers and officers to keep things from falling apart. Of course, in a long war conscripts who survive can become professional soldiers through learning by doing, but we're literally 2 weeks into this thing. Keep in mind a big part of being an infantry soldier or even just doing logistics is just carrying stuff around and it takes time to build that strength.

Therefore, how a conscript army is supposed to work is that it's mobilized before there's an invasion and then all those conscripts basically go and dig trenches and sit in those trenches with a bunch of ammo (that even old out-of-shape conscripts can do with enough time). Once a conscript is in a trench, it feels safer to stay in said trench, and shooting randomly into the darkness seems like something to keep one occupied, and everyone else is doing it so seems reasonable to also shoot in the general consensus direction.

Which, as an aside, to me, explains the Russian invasion plan. Russia was in a catch 22 that if they made a better plan, Ukraine is likely to be tipped off and mobilize, so the plan would be better ... but Ukraine maybe way better prepared. And, pretty likely there's Russian soldiers just texting with friends in Ukraine who are asking "if they'll invade" and so on (and if all such chats suddenly went silent for weeks... maybe suspicious too; so you'd actually want your troops to be like "same ol' same ol' and that nothing seems to be going on"), which requires your own troops to be genuinely clueless there's an invasion (even officers would spook their troops by acting differently, if that was possible to keep a secret anyways outside the very top; hence "the plan" was likely Putin and 2 other people, then everything is launched in a week kind of thing). Of course, there's downsides to the total surprise, but there's also upsides. And in Russia, if troops get demoralized: off to Siberia!

The other reason it's difficult for Ukraine to launch some surprise offensive is that it's logistics and armor is far worse than the Russians. Russians also have anti-tank rockets and so on, but armor would still be good to have. The reason armor is so important--tanks, personnel carriers, and armored artillery, is that infantry are extremely easy to kill with explosions just walking around; and, even getting hit with a anti-tank missile doesn't necessarily kill everyone, they can still get out. So, to just get your infantry to the battle without being slaughtered by artillery it's useful to have armor. It may also seem "easy" to pick off a tank that's just sitting there (and maybe a decoy), but with artillery explosions and smoke and bombs and machine gun fire, and total chaos everywhere in an offensive maneuver, a tank is not some sort of liability for your own side.

So, if the above points are true, then it's essentially impossible to take back any significant positions from Russia (i.e. land that Russia is able to dig in and setup artillery and supporting logistics and organize it's defense). There has been push back in the East ... but those can easily be tactical retreat to then slaughter the advancing infantry with artillery.

Hence, if Russia can't easily lose any (important) land once taken, and can gradually take the land it wants by just enough artillery, rocket artillery and bombs to just obliterate whatever is there, then Russia plan seems obvious to me to keep as much of the Ukrainian army in the East as possible (just keep them occupied), and then complete the encirclement of everything East of the Kiev. Seems that position West of Kiev is built up and no going anywhere and, according to maps today anyways, seems to be extending salients now South of Kiev. It's just a matter of time until the North and South join up. Again, the "convoy" seems to me a giant parking lot of vehicles that are unneeded on the front (which is seems obviously well defended and also the air space), to make space for new vehicles in the rear bases (i.e. the vehicles that were intended for an uncontested entry into Kiev ... that Russia may as well have tried, but no longer needed in the current configuration; also, better to have a vehicle tens of kilometres closer if it is needed, than back in Belarus).

Having a line North South to the West of the Dnieper river not only encircles Ukraine but also means Russia can easily secure the River itself as more or less unassailable, so if Ukraine simply never surrenders and keeps harassing the Russian front indefinitely, Russia could always withdraw to the East side of the river and there's little Ukraine could do about that.

As I mentioned previously, if there's a lot of Russian speakers East of the river, then it's in Russia's interest to have the most intense fighting to the West (the exception being Mariupol, which seems to me anyways, a clear collective punishment for Azov brigade that's based there). Hence, Russia wants to tie-up as many Ukrainian troops in the East as possible, but not rampage through Russian speaking areas. So there's both a political and military purpose to advancing West of the river (a lot of commentators before the war were predicting a likely scenario of Russia taking East of the river; and the current strategy seems to be about that, but by creating first a line West of Kiev which also puts obvious pressure to surrendering). On the Eastern front Russia doesn't really have much risk in having inexperienced troops, as there's nothing strategic for Ukrainian forces to advance too. The only forces of strategic concern are the North and South salients West of the river, and it seems these forces are the most professional and well organized (in particular the Southern from coming from Crimea needs to take a lot of ground and key cities on the river if it's going to link up with the North-Western front (which is where defense and counter attacks will be focused to prevent encircling of Kiev which has obvious political consequences), and South-West army seems pretty effective at taking territory, so is presumably the professional offensive maneuver and urban combat battalions with the most experienced commanders--an additional reason for having the experts in the south is the Nuclear reactors on the way).

Now, I'm not saying this was the plan from the start, but seems to me the plan now (and definitely I'm not the only one to point it out, but the Western media seems to keep saying Russia is bogged down due to lack of advance in the East ... and then just casually mentions at the end that ok, south is doing better--maybe the strategy).

In terms of game changing weapons, it seems extremely likely to me that Migs from Poland would just get shot down and not do much (certainly can have a chance of doing some damage before being shot down; but the idea the skies would be safer for Ukrainian pilots than for Russian seems "untenable" to use the word that seems to currently describe that). The reason for the focus on the planes is likely for the simple reason that Ukraine does have the pilots and personnel to put some planes up in the sky.

The real game changing weapons would be a lot of armor. There's a reason that Nato assumed that the Soviet Union could just roll through Europe: a shit ton more armor than Nato had. Turns out that the US wildly overestimated the Soviet capabilities (because they hired a Nazi to run intelligence on the Soviets who realized grossly inflating Soviet capabilities would get him more resources and reason to hire his friends), but the basic principle that only a bunch of armor is actually effective against a bunch of armor at the end of the day is pretty accurate (planes and other things can help, but any large scale offensive or counter offensive maneuver needs a bunch of armor--which is why the conscript mobilization playbook also calls for an insane amount of anti-armor mines everywhere).

Problem with donating these kinds of heavy weapons becomes people need to be trained to use them. So, failing that, Ukraine is basically an infantry force, which can sit in trenches (that will eventually get destroyed by heavy artillery and armor assault) and any maneuvers basically gets everyone killed. Hence, the staying in cities which is basically a system of trenches both above and below the ground.

Obviously, Russia's plan is to simply siege cities and not venture in for the above reason unless strategically necessary.

Of course, things can change overnight and with US intelligence help maybe it's possible to do some surprise super move.

However, if it doesn't happen and Russia simply links up it's forces North South and if that doesn't cause a negotiated peace, it would be a sort of "now what" phase of the war.

Last note, another reason for Russia "going light" at the start of the war is that certainly they can now tell their soldiers that the only people that remain "want to" be there, everyone has had a chance to flee etc.

In terms of the wider military significance, if Russia completes a North-South line West of the river that becomes well dug in and basically immune to any infantry attack and can just sit there indefinitely, it's clearly "won" militarily, even if the war isn't over. For the kind of international relations Russia has, winning through overwhelming force is the advertising they want.

Again, abandoning Afghanistan (which then fell in a few weeks without NATO doing anything) and then cutting Ukraine in half (without NATO being able to stop it) and Russia successfully helping Syria, keeping clients in power in Belarus and Kazakhstan (with quick in and out operation, nothing messy), all sends an important military message: US says their your friend ... think twice if that's true, what's been happening to America's "friends" ... whereas Russia says your their friend, Russia sticks by their friends. CIA threatens to take you out, talk to Assad, he's still there.

For the kind of core international relations Russia has, winning this war (even in a brutal way) is a perfectly good message. If the Kremlins offer is never accepted then the Kremlin can say "they were reasonable, all they wanted was a couple of things" for the rest of history and no one can say otherwise.

So, this would be the alternative situation in Ukraine. Again, it's possible riots are erupting in Russia even now due to sanctions or that multiple fronts are being routed as we speak, but what I describe above is also one possibility.

A short version is that Russia is employing World War II pincer maneuvers all over the place, followed by World War I style trench warfare on the fronts it wants to defend. No doubt they have taken losses, but if they are serious that this is existential for them (granted, in the naked imperialistic sense, not my own anarchist philosophical sense), then accepting losses is a logical extension of that.

Was it possible to do better? The problem with this question is that Ukraine's been financed and helped by US arms and intelligence, so the very cautious approach at the start of the war may have been wariness of any CIA surprise ... like, I don't know, biological research labs, or like, whatever man.

We seem in agreement on the key points.

Certainly Russia doesn't prepare for a US style minimal casualty conflict that it conducted at the start.

In my view, for mostly PR purposes of "easing into conventional warfare"; due to failures in that kind of warfare, even Western talking heads are like "well, Russia's going to have to do better". In some strange way their the underdog in a lot of commentary.

Also easing their own population into the war was certainly a factor.

Now that they are doing what they train for, using their heavy artillery, we'll see if it's effective or not.

Moreover, we need to remember that no US presidents were cancelled for deliberately bombing civilians in Germany and Japan. A balanced debate needs to analyze things in the right perspective, not in isolation of everything else. — Apollodorus

I was going to bring this up too that there was millions of people protesting the war in Iraq before it happened, as it happened, after ... war still happened. Western media seems to suddenly think that criticism of the kind the US gets about wars is a game changer all of a sudden (how many war crimes accusations has the US faced for example). Indeed, in the US voters still tend to pick who they think will best "win" the war.

So you were just pretending to disagree with me about that. Ok. — Olivier5

Disagreeing about what?

Obviously the sanctions have an impact. But, if they won't cause Russian's to rise up nor affect the Kremlin's war policy, they are irrelevant in ending the war at hand.

Now, if you're talking long term economic impact, it easily can increase Russia's relative economic strength. It is not a foregone conclusion that sanctions will hurt Russia in the long term.

Commodity price increase is good for Russia ... they have nearly all the critical commodities which means they not only make bank on selling those commodities at historic prices, but also they can easily subsidize the consumption of those commodities for their own citizens.

Who commodity price increases isn't good for is Western nations, where key commodity price increases can easily cause inflation and recession and social discontent.

From a geo-political strategic perspective, the West's power is in decline and this war in Ukraine could easily be a brilliant geo-political strategic move (in terms of pure power politics).

The narrative that this is bad for Russia because the Western media doesn't like Putin even more than before, may not be a true narrative and things far more complex than they seem. Yes, the western media disapproves, but, no, Putin can't be cancelled like some "toxic" male executive trying to host Jeopardy .

You guys think Russia will have no economic problem? Really? — Olivier5

Nobody here has said the sanctions and the cost of the war itself don't have immense economic impacts.

wrote a few key points about the economic impacts.

The question about the sanctions and economic impacts are:

1. Will they actually stop the war somehow
2. Will they be effective long term to "punish" or "weaken" Russia
3. Will increase in commodity prices and re-orienting to China / India make a neutral (or even positive) economic outcome for Russia.

True, China will be buying at a discount ... but if the prices are sky high internationally, then selling at a discount may still be far higher profit anyways.

... And, last I checked, the Germans and the entire EU are still buying Russian gas at top Euro.

That's the hard truth for sure.

And, if the West cared so much, could have let Ukraine into NATO and the EU and given them hundreds of billions of Euro's as a friendly gesture in 2014. Nothing at all stopping such deals happening between "sovereign" nations, just a few papers to sign, easy-peasy.

looks increasingly grim on that front (depending on who you are I guess.) — Count Timothy von Icarus

We'll definitely see in the days to come if Kiev is cut off or Ukrainians can hold their lines.

However, as I say, unless Ukrainians can rout the Russian's entire formation, it's just going to stay put and other formations will move up from the south.

The whole purpose of waging a multiple front war is that the enemy can't defend on multiple fronts.

So the whole narrative of "Russia's totally losing because of getting bogged down and setbacks on these fronts ... but, sure, totally winning on third front" doesn't really make sense; that's the entire point of such a strategy. Had Ukrainian army gone and defended Kherson to prevent a breakthrough West of the Dnieper ... maybe Kiev would be surrounded by now.

Since advantage is to the defender, if the enemy focuses on one front you can just defend your current line, and advance on some other front. Moving troops and equipment around is costly and takes time, so there's basically no way to optimally distribute forces on three fronts everyday, as long as Russia pressures Kiev then it's necessary to reinforce there and try to prevent encirclement.

Sarajevo held out for almost four years before the Siege was lifted with limited paths in for supplies. Even before modern food storage methods, cities in antiquity and the middle ages held out for months, sometimes over a year after losing all supply routes in. Hardly an ideal timeframe. Hence the heavy shelling and poorly implemented raids. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Definitely Ukrainians could keep fighting for a long time.

Russian plan seems definitely to just siege cities and basically wait.

As for poorly implemented raids, Russia has taken a lot of territory already, which is accomplished by sending people to take that territory. Insofar as Russia advances everyday ... they'll eventually get to all their objectives.

There's certainly a high short term cost and high risks; but in terms of purely resource based strategy, Ukraine has resources that will easily pay for the war and the long term increases in commodity prices will also pay for the war (to what extent sanctions impact other sectors of Russia economy, and if this is worse than commodity price increases, we could of course debate).

Oil is currently at 130 USD a barrel and natural gas 27 USD/MMBtu, this isn't "bad" for Russia. EU is still paying Russia a billion Euros a day for energy.

The purpose of "holding out" in medieval times had several practical purposes; cities also surrendered all the time to avoid a siege and, in exchange for that favour, negotiate conditions, when there was zero purpose to holding out.

Why completing the siege of Kiev will change things considerably is that Putin is not insisting on taking the city, and if Russian lines (once setup around the city) cannot be practically broken from the outside, pressure will be pretty high to accept Russia's conditions of surrender.

A substantial majority. 84% of households have cards, which are overwhelmingly Visa or MasterCard. 21% have cards using lines of credit. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is is interesting to know, that they do have cards, but only 21% have a line of a credit. If the those other 84% only have a card for online purchases every once and a while it may not affect them all that much. Certainly annoying, but not necessarily suffering.

For as you say, "Visa and MasterCard did this temporarily after the invasion of the Crimean Peninsula," so:

They also have a better alternative in UnionPay than they did in 2014, but it is definitely hitting regular Russians hard in their day to day lives short term. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Meaning it's less impact than when Visa and Mastercard did so the first time. Now, certainly I would agree this is disruptive to regular Russians, but I've been using a scale of impact of disruption, hardship and suffering, which I'll explain more clearly in response to your next comment.

No modern economy is autarkic. 20.6% of Russian GDP goes to imports. By comparison, that figure for the USA is just 14.6%. Exports are 28.5% of the Russian economy; for the US it is 11.7%. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I only mentioned independence in energy and food, as going without these things causes immediate suffering.

I did not intend in anyway to play down the disruptions and hardships caused by these sanctions, only to note Russians won't be cold and hungry, on the whole, anytime soon.

That the sanctions are insanely disruptive I totally accept and for certain not good for the economy, and such disruptions certainly result in real hardships. I don't minimize these things, and I went to some length to argue that this war is only happening now because the Kremlin "sanction proofed" itself "enough" for severe sanctions to not immediately collapse the entire Russian economy and bring about revolution overnight (such as through the banking reform you mention).

Likewise, in terms of longer term, the wider economic impacts only matter if Russia cannot get substitutes from China. Certainly intensely disruptive to change suppliers, but there's a big difference between that and material, components or equipment not being available at all.

Connection to global markets is huge for Russia. China is a major trading partner, but they account for just 14.6% of Russia's exports. The EU makes up over 40% of Russian exports, the US another 4.6%. Gutting 1/7th of your economy (the amount these exports are equivalent too) is going to hurt no matter what you do to prepare. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, not denying the intense disruption and I think your word hurt would be the same as my word hardship. Definitely hurting and hardships of all this economic disruption.

My talking about suffering is that starving and being unable to heat your home, is not merely disruptive or economic hardship, but real suffering, and the West simply cannot inflict this kind of real suffering on Russians through economic sanctions in the short term.

Certainly, sanctions haven't worked so far in sparking some sort of revolution of causing Putin to withdraw his forces, and the purpose of my talking about energy and food is just that there's simply a limit to how much the West can really impact regular Russian lives.

If they think the war is justified a population will easily put up with disruption and hardships and it "brings people together" and is a patriotic experience, just as Ukrainians putting up with disruption, hardship and real suffering of being on the road or under siege. We can't underestimate the Ukrainians population willingness to support continued conflict ... nor too can we underestimate the Russians is my basic point.

However, all the additional facts you bring are certainly completely relevant. The macro economic implications are super big and there's a massive cost to switching suppliers and re-orienting the economy, but seems normal Russians are accepting this, for now at least.

Importantly for a longer term war, China only manufactures 6% of microchips. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course, they can scale up further if there's demand from Russia, but, also, there doesn't seem any way for the West to prevent China just re-selling chips to Russia anyways; they'll certainly complain, but I don't see China accepting being told what to do on this issue.

I highly doubt that. The war is unpopular and costing them heavily. They want a quick war. This flies in the face of all their strategy to date. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't dispute that Kremlin would have preferred a quick victory, and I'd even accept the current situation is a total surprise they didn't really plan for; but considering this has been building for 8 years, I would expect they did consider these sorts of scenarios (they did their sanction proofing and 'more than friends" with China precisely because they were considering this scenario; how likely they thought it was is another question).

But by strategy I mean their plan now, not their original plan.

And this new plan I wouldn't say is some sort of new idea: likely they're thinking is we try going in soft a few days and if Ukraine doesn't give up we'll just do what we always do.

And definitely if Russian people "rise up" then the new plan won't work, and it's also entirely possible we see some big surprise from Ukrainian army and Russia get routed; certainly not impossible, just that if there's some big secret being planned I don't know about it nor see what it could be.

Western intelligence agencies could have plenty of reasons to mislead about the situation on the ground, but so far most of their limited commentary has been borne out. Open source satellite imagery also seems to suggest this is the case. I'm not sure why else you would want to leave your supply convoy clumped together like that. To be sure, Russia surely has adequate AA along the length of the convoy, but even then, a miracle attack getting through is not something you want to risk if you don't have to. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This isn't really any more unusual than putting your equipment anywhere else. Once you have a front line, you need backup equipment behind said front line, and, in term of any air strike or ambush or whatever, stringing out your backup equipment over 30 km is a good thing.

Of course, you can have your equipment even farther back, but then it's not handy when you need it and when you do send it in it may run out of gas; they would certainly prioritize topping up whatever they may actually need.

The alternative to this long ass convoy and just not committing the equipment at all to the area, would be camouflaging all these vehicles under trees and stuff but there doesn't seem to be many trees and they'd all get stuck in the mud, so just staying on the highway and accepting some risk of losses isn't irrational. Of course, if the front line collapses then this entire convoy could be destroyed, but, presumably, Russian commanders are betting that won't happen.

They also seem to be setting up forward operating bases closer to Kiev.

It's also unclear why they wouldn't want to encircle Kiev as quickly as possible. You can hold most of the area around a city, and if supplies can still get through, your seige won't be effective. — Count Timothy von Icarus

They certainly do want to encircle Kiev as quickly as possible, but due to the political consequence of of that (leadership also stuck and suffering) preventing encirclement of Kiev is Ukraine's top priority.

Why gains in the south are extremely rapid and Kherson was taken without prolonged urban combat resistance, is because Ukraine clearly can't fight on all fronts.

Obviously, Russia can eventually simply complete the encirclement of Ukraine by coming up from the south, but that will take time and preventing encirclement of Kiev meanwhile is their main strategy.

Once Kiev is encircled the military, social and political dynamic will completely change.

Russians are going slowly by surely around Kiev, I would guess, precisely because that's where you may get a surprise counter offensive and your forces routed if you're not careful (as you say, no easy way to skedaddle if you have a 30km convoy on the highway, and a tactical retreat to regroup would be an embarrassment anyways).

There's basically two ways to advance in conventional warfare.

What we see in movies is the armor based offensive to break through enemy lines and rout them. This has high reward, but also high risk that your armor gets isolated and destroyed.

The other way is the slow encroachment of infantry (building fortified positions as they go) following heavy artillery bombardment.

This is a really slow process: infantry advance a bit, get shot at, the enemy positions identified and shelled to oblivion until they die or then retreat (small arms purpose is basically to just protect against the sneak attack): infantry advance a bit more and the process repeats.

Of course, with equally matched forces the enemy also has heavy artillery doing the exact same thing to your infantry positions, and the lines quickly get built up until there is basically no practical way for infantry to advance without immediately all dying (WWI); hence, to try to break such a stalemate the armor offensive was developed (the original purpose of the tank was to simply drive over trenches, which was developed after the intuitive and common sense idea of just gassing the enemy to death proved less effective than people expected); the enemy must then fall back to a less fortified position and you can then immediately occupy their trench system as your new fallback point, after chasing them a bunch until they manage to regroup and/or outrun your supply lines.

Reducing buildings to rubble can make urban combat more difficult, but if the Russians are trying to avoid urban combat then it makes sense to shell buildings that are good locations for launching anti-tank rockets and sniper fire. If you hand out small arms to civilians then it's completely logical to do this preemptively than bother to wait for enemy fire from these buildings.

Will of the people to fight, to resist, is in every war essential. — ssu

I don't disagree. Certainly, if they win, it will be a great victory.

However, people have been surrendering since the beginning of warfare, we do not automatically condemn them as cowards.

Indeed, for WWII, we criticize the Japanese and the Germans of "fighting until the bitter end" and simply increasing deaths without any possibility of changing the outcome of the war.

Now, if the Ukrainian leaders have some brilliant plan that would be one thing, and maybe we'll see it.

However, if even Ukrainian leaders see zero way how they will win, military commanders operating with basically zero logistical network to hold positions, etc. then, considering it's not an existential war of literally Genghis Khan going to murder every last woman and child ... indeed, Russia isn't even demanding a change in leadership, then accepting Russia's current terms seems pretty reasonable.

Now that deterrent has failed, motivation in war is crucial. Motivation is important to endure war. And motivation is important to rebuild the country after war. — ssu

I completely agree.

There are many examples where the best technology has been unable to achieve anything while poorly armed defenders with outdated weapons have prevailed in the end. We are seeing it quite clearly for instance in Yemen, where one of the poorest countries one group has destroyed many American Abrams tanks of the Saudis and have captured them intact as the crews have abandoned the vehicles. You didn't see that with American troops. Will to fight is simply important. — ssu

Yes, it is possible that there's some way for Ukrainians to somehow win or then get better terms (... I guess join NATO).

I just don't see exactly how Ukrainians can actually deal with heavy artillery and Russians can simply avoid urban combat.

And, I'm sure you agree that lives should not be thrown away for no reason, they do need to have some real chance of accomplishing the goals you outline.

Ukraine did do two very smart moves. By not only saying that all 18 to 60 year old men have to stay in Ukraine, but that this has been at large obeyed is actually very crucial. I — ssu

It's possible this is a smart move against some existential threat ... it's also possible it's a really dumb move if peace can be achieved by simply recognizing what it can't have anyways (NATO could bring Ukraine in today if it wanted to) and also Russia winning a conventional war anyways.

I have really serious doubts about the effectiveness of untrained civilians to wage the kind of war Russia is waging.

And to just give out weapons the Zelensky government has effectively created the image both to Ukrainians and to the outside world of a unified country and a people ready to defend it. — ssu

It was a good social media move, for sure, definitely galvanized the West.

However, has serious consequences of simply handing out weapons to civilians, not even pretending to conscript them into some sort of formal soldier status and chain of command. It makes Putin's statements of Ukraine using human shields completely true, and also makes any civilian just wandering around with an assault riffle a legitimate target for snipers / mortars / tanks / artillery / rockets / aircraft bombs / helicopter strafing and so on.

Of course this will, as you say, increase the casualty figures, but that does have when nations opt to have for example universal conscription. — ssu

Certainly countries can have conscription, though that is different than handing out weapons to civilians, as discussed a lot already.

For the overall outcome on the war of all these measures, I personally don't see Russia losing.

Their strategy is pretty simple:

1. Keep pressure on all fronts.
2. Advance each day on weakest fronts
3. Avoid urban combat unless necessary
4. Cutoff all supply lines and wait things out
5. Build out their logistics methodically

Once they cut the country in half I don't see any possibility of Ukrainians prevailing, and I don't see anyway Ukraine can stop Russia from simply cutting the country in half. They can just build a trench system North-South and say "you're move".

It's certainly possible some amazing Ukrainian counter offensive, rapid scale-up of effective training and logistical support for all those conscripts and likewise sanctions having the intended affect in Russia.

So, I'm not saying it's impossible, I just don't see, personally, how the current Russian strategy as I understand it could be defeated, and, at least according to Western press, Russians have increased their support for Putin since the war started.

If they take Kiev, either the West escalates even more or it will have to negotiate. — Manuel

Unclear what more the West can really do to escalate; Germany has already clarified it's not going to stop buying Russian natural gas (obviously). And, even if Germany did stop buying Russian gas ... they'll just start buying again after the war. Russia has gold and currency reserves and commodities to sell to China, India ... Germany.

Sanctions are disruptive to normal Russians ... but even then not necessarily even normal Russians.

For instance, Visa and MasterCard pulled out of Russia, but how many normal Russians even have a credit card to begin with?

Russia is self sufficient in terms of food and energy, so actually making normal Russians suffer economically is likely impossible to achieve through sanctions.

Upper middle class and rich Russians have their lives disrupted, for sure, but don't necessarily "suffer".

Plans to send war planes to Ukraine from the US are spine chilling. — Manuel

I'm not sure how effective these planes are going to be. Russia has plenty of AA defenses and planes of their own.

It's been observed Russia hasn't used much air power ... but you don't really need air power so close to your own borders. The purpose of air power at the end of the day is basically to substitute artillery strikes; which makes sense ... if you don't have any artillery in the area.

If you do have artillery than it would be helicopters that have other uses other than artillery substitute, which we have seen a lot of use of.

I'm pretty sure any plane Ukrainians put up will just be shot down, and certainly Russians are working hard on the counter-drone warfare, and using plenty of drones themselves. The problem with posting everything to social media, is only successes, and not failures, get posted, nor any followup about whether Russian's learned to deal with the tactic.

To be crystal clear, Ukrainian's are more than justified in defending themselves and are doing so very bravely. — Manuel

Certainly are justified. My major criticism of the Ukrainians is arming civilians. Had they kept to professional soldiery, and then lost conventional battles, there would be a lot less civilian deaths and, likely, the exact same chances of successfully defending their country.

It's just hard to say how Russia will interpret such actions - if they are carried out. They obviously simply cannot have a conventional war in Europe, they can't handle Ukraine, so... — Manuel

That's exactly what they are doing now, very conventional warfare tactics to just level everything with artillery wherever they go, lay siege to cities, and (likely in my opinion) just make a trench system North-South cutting the whole country in half, and just wait as long as they need to for Ukrainians to officially surrender.

They are not entitled to a trial in those circumstances, hence "it is one of the few areas where summary execution is allowed." — Count Timothy von Icarus

These aren't really the stories nor videos of these executions.

The stories are "finding" these people, holding them captive, and executing them, not :

If the people involved were actually Russian spies, of they were dressed in civilian clothes or Ukranians military uniforms, and if military forces saw them engaging in sabatoge or combat within the battle space (e.g., actively destroying AA equipment, firing on civilians or soldiers, attempting to disable military vehicles during ongoing shelling / air strikes, etc.), then, legally, you are not correct. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which I have not seen any video nor even any story of someone actually sabotaging anything.

People, whoever they actually are, are just being straight murdered in the streets, but I guess "deputized" civilian soldiers as well as other more formal paramilitary. I would definitely argue these murders are war crimes.

The whole legal framework of "war crimes," isn't relevant in what you're describing. Civilians killing civilians isn't a war crime. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's why I say it can be argued later "it was civilians" all along, to make exactly that point.

However, right now the story is these people are Russian special forces just being executed on the spot without any process whatsoever.

However, if you arm civilians they are no longer quite civilians, and them going around murdering people (is maybe just murder for them, as they aren't really soldiers either) but I would still argue is a war crime of the political leaders that armed them.

And murdering your own citizens in a war is also a war crime.

It's unclear how long Kiev will last, any info on this topic would be appreciated. — Manuel

However, I did see this morning a Western journalist reporting from Kiev that the city is currently being surrounded and the ways out are closing; that the previous day they could go a ways down the road, but now the shelling and fighting is far closer. I was also unsure until seeing this report.

It's somewhat difficult to find accurate info amid this mess. I assume that the reason Kiev is not yet taken has to do with its resistance, but, what whatever happened to that long Russian convoy that was supposed to arrive? — Manuel

Generally speaking, very true that accurate information is sparse, but the major gains are pretty well verified.

Russia's strategy is clearly to simply siege cities and wait them out.

True that Russia would have preferred Ukraine surrender after the first days and taste of war, but their "do it the hard way" is clearly to just shell to the ground suburbs to clear a path to surround cities.

This is a slow process, hence the 30km convoy. I think the narrative that the convoy is stuck is pretty naive, they are just waiting for the front to be setup all around Kiev and also the forces from the East to arrive on that side. It's more just used as a long parking lot.

True, Ukrainian forces could hit it with a lot of air power and drones ... but that's not happening so presumably they don't have the capability.

For this whole executing people thing.

Imagine if there was video of American soldiers just pointing at people, calling them "saboteurs" and executing them on the spot.

The rules don't change just because we think Russians are being executed surreptitiously.

That said, executing spies and sabateurs in civilian clothes or other nations military uniforms is not a war crime. It has always been allowed under both the Hague and Geneva Conventions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Dude, I already addressed this, you still need to have some process and some evidence they are saboteurs.

Just calling someone a saboteur and executing a prisoner of war isn't "a clever hack".

I'm not aware of any treaties where the execution of spies isn't allowed. It's why it's such a dangerous job. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, you'd need some sort of legal process to establish they are spies.

Pointing at someone, calling them a spy, and executing them is a war crime. Since I imagine most of these people are just ethnic Russian Ukrainians that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess it could be argued (later) that no, no, we were just murdering our own citizens based on just your regular guy paranoid vigilantism, nothing to see here.

Now, if they are spies, and they're held as prisoners, and there's some process to establish they're spies and execute them, that's another matter.

However, generally speaking, actual professionals don't execute spies so as to trade them back for your own spies.

Because the Baltic states and Poland, for instance, can now rest assured they can beat the Russians in a conventional war, in case the Russians would feel carried away and try to take over other countries. — Olivier5

They're all in NATO ... Russia has nuclear deterrence.

Unless you can actually stop Russian conventional battalions crossing the country North-South in mostly flat open terrain, then Russia is going to "win". That they didn't win "good enough" isn't going to be a very powerful argument for long, nor is hypothetical losses in scenarios that won't happen.

Nato is a defensive alliance. It has never attacked anyone. — Olivier5

Then why does the comment I was responding to matter?

Sure, NATO could defeat Russia in conventional warfare.

How does that help Ukrainians to know?

Or then why does it matter to Russians if NATO isn't going to attack them as you say? And obviously conventional warfare doesn't matter in that scenario anyways.

That's why they have some thousands of nuclear weapons in the event NATO attacks them.

Russians don't hold themselves to American military standards and just "give up the country" in shame if they aren't able to match a military that spends literally 10 times more.

Russians maybe appreciate their country and free health care the best they can without setting unrealistic expectations.

Destroyed columns say something else. — ssu

The first phase of the war was to just take as much territory unopposed (or minimal resistance) as possible and take undefended settlements. This involved small mechanized units without any sort of battalion formation, so if they did meet resistance they'd just get blown up and run away back to a battalion formation. In parallel Russian's blew up some things with cruise missiles.

I.e. take as much territory as possible with minimal civilian casualties. The reason the Eastern front didn't move is because Ukrainian army had a front setup there ... so why attack the hardest point. In particular, had Ukraine sued for peace (accepted it would not join NATO ... which NATO isn't offering as a possibility anyways) then this was a compromise between military and PR objectives (an amicable resolution could have been reached at this point with minimal trauma, deaths and bad blood; it was not "incompetent" Russian military, but common sense politics).

There's a lot of small settlements everywhere to go anywhere that the Russians do have to deal with. So there is this sort of small scale urban combat.

However, as soon as the Russians meet heavy resistance approaching a city they setup a siege and start encircling the city by demolishing the suburbs and satellite towns with artillery as they make their way around.

There's only one exception--of an urban combat operation to take a city without laying siege or demolishing large parts of it--is Kershon, which has an obvious strategic importance of being the major crossing of the Dnieper in the south, so critical if you want to then just go North to cut Ukraine in half, East of the Dnieper and East of Kiev.

All Russia has to do is simply link up in the middle of Ukraine. No one is even proposing that Ukrainian army is able to offer effective opposition in flat open spaces to major Russian battalion formations. Sure, always possible to harass supply lines as salients are pushed forward (before fanning out) and also ambush some smaller advanced units. However, I do not see how Ukrainians are going to stop the Russians simply linking up in the middle of Ukraine and just avoiding Urban combat as much as possible.

That's one of the reasons why they're the bad guys. — RogueAI

Go fight them then.

And, what I describe is not unique to the Russians; if you use guerrilla tactics and arm civilians, then there's going to be more civilian casualties.

What's the American's excuse for when they're trigger happy with the drones and blow up civilians having a wedding or whatever?

Same exact thing. You kill a bunch of American soldiers with guerrilla tactics and suicide bombers and they retaliate one way or another.

It's basic psychology.

Not only does the perception of what is a legitimate threat change to encompass more things to shoot at and blow up, but empathy for the civilian population is also reduced.

The entirety of the rules of war is based on the visual distinction between soldier and civilian.

It is a "gentlemen's agreement" to not break these rules, but accept defeat rather than resort to blurring the line between civilians and soldiers, because A. if you need to resort to arming civilians you have probably already lost and B. it makes civilians legitimate targets and soldiers should protect civilians and not vice-versa (protecting civilians can include surrender).

The other thing that really pisses me off is the Western media taking at face value extra-judicial execution of alleged Russian special forces.

I saw a video where a Ukrainian brown shirt butted a guy in the face, had him run down the street, and then shot him in the back; and this was presented as "dealing" with Russian special forces. Not official media, just the youtuber caption for what was happening, but the mass media are not pointing out that these stories have zero basis to assume these people are Russian special forces and saboteurs, and, even if they are, extrajudicial killing of an unarmed captured enemy is still a war crime; Western media just casually mention Ukrainians have been finding and killing them.

However, what I did see on a Western mass media was footage of "civilians" getting hit by mortar fire ... without pointing out they included "civilians" carrying around assault rifles that got handed out out to them.

Even more absurd, the legal rational for these executions is these "special forces" are in civilian clothing (which would still need a legal process, but who cares) at the same time as Ukrainian leaders hand out weapons to civilians to Western media fanfare!

These reports of executing special forces in civilian clothing could reach Putin's desk and his reaction could literally be right now "good thing we have zero special forces in civilian clothing in Ukraine right now."

And I say these things because, right now, if the EU stopped being little fucking bitches, they could negotiate a resolution that includes tracking down every single one of these weapon systems when the war is over.

Also, we've seen this exact script play out before.

When Russia intervened in Syria, the "resistance" had an amazing social media campaign, took out many Russian tanks and vehicles (some of it real, some of it fake) with Western supplied anti-tank missiles, high praises from the Western media, and denigrating the Russian equipment and personnel, and predictions of the Russian's losing etc.

Russian's would respond to the social media offensive with a press conference pointing to having blown one thing up, with basically the message that "see, we blow up things too".

On the ground, Russian forces simply relentlessly took ground every day with heavy artillery clearing the way, with a few setbacks here and there.

That the exact same play book is now being used in Ukraine by the exact same people far closer the Russia's border there's little reason to expect won't work.

The argument "they didn't win in a week and therefore lost" doesn't really make sense.

Pointing to successful guerrilla tactics in a conventional war likewise doesn't point the way to victory.

For everyone of these guerrilla tactics to pick off a tank, the Russians will just shell to the ground several neighborhoods to express their frustration with that.

Setting up some sort of insurgency after the war doesn't benefit normal Ukrainians nor will it change the outcome of the war, just empowers extremists to cause mayhem for decades (which if the Russian's are too difficult to kill, they'll turn these weapons on Ukrainian "softies" trying to rebuild the country and their international relations in a common sense way).

And for everyone of these missiles that gets used against the Russians, 2, 3 maybe 10 (in the case of the manpads) will be sold on the black market. Likewise all the rest of the small arms as well.

People really want fanatics with manpads in the heart of Europe and almost zero barriers to bring them anywhere in Europe to fire at any civilian plane at any time for the next 20 years?

Abandoning conventional rules of war in favour of some sort of tictoc fueled "last stand against the galactic Empire" serves no one, least of all Ukrainians, and is simply undermining European security as a whole for decades.

Of course, American's are smiling about that, but why EU nations are going along with this madness for the "views" is truly disheartening.

If you can't win a conventional war, the duty of leaders is to surrender to avoid unnecessary loss of life. Neither Ukrainians nor Europeans will benefit from thousands of sophisticated missile systems being distributed to every extremist group in Europe that can buy them.

You think these "almost" neo-Nazi's won't sell these weapons to Jihadists?

It's true police madness.

If you don't care enough about Ukraine to send your own troops to try to win a conventional war with trained soldiers, flooding the place with sophisticated small arms changes nothing and will cause insecurity on the entire continent for decades.

Now 17 000 anti-tank weapons is huge amount. That it has been sent in less than a week is noteworthy: — ssu

The US already gave Ukraine some 3 billion USD of weapons since 2014 ( / loaned them the money to buy them). That so far hasn't stopped the Russians.

From what I see in terms of militarily strategy--whereas the Russian build out of their logistics on 3 fronts does take time and has met some losses and setbacks--the Ukrainians logistics I don't think are going great.

Russia's strategy is to simply avoid urban combat (where these javelines would be most effective), surround cities.

If their south forces meet their North forces by simply going around urban areas and shelling to oblivion any ad hoc enemy positions along the way, then Russia can just setup a conventional defensive line North-South across the whole of Ukraine.

These anti-tank weapons have very limited use against a conventional defensive line (aka. trenches and other fortified positions supported by artillery) in flat open country.

Everyone is saying "urban combat, urban combat" ... but if Russian forces just avoid urban combat and cut the country in half it is effectively laying siege to not only Kiev but the entire East of the country.

Combat in the East after that point is simply a matter of time before ammo runs out, and mayors and commanders can only ask people to starve only so long.

In the West, assaulting a conventional battle line would require heavy artillery and tanks, anti-tank weapons would be relatively meaningless.

Notably, the only city the Russian's have so far actually done urban combat and occupied is the only city required to carry out the above plan: Kherson. Every other city the Russian's are simply laying siege at minimal risk to themselves.

The armor dashes at the start of the war make sense to simply take as much territory as possible as Ukraine didn't preemptively mobilize, also make sense in terms of public relations of starting "the soft way", and also gave the chance to Ukraine to get a "taste" of war and maybe accept the offered peace terms.

Ukrainian leadership decided that calling Russia's bluff of doing things the hard way was a better idea, and so started handing out small arms to civilians to make clear the cost of urban combat in a social media campaign the likes the world has never seen.

... Which is what Western media keeps on going on about, how it's a "second Russian Afghanistan etc." but, other than the only city Russia has taken with experienced Urban combat units, I don't see any need for Russia to do any urban combat at all.

Russia has never stated it wants to occupy and passiffy Ukraine, everyone agrees it's impossible to do with their committed troop numbers and would be a costly disaster if they did commit the troops to try to do it ... so maybe that's just not their plan, but what they can do is cut the country North-South and just wait out the Ukrainian will to fight.

Easy to be brave when your heroic and defiant statements immediately get a thousand likes on facebook. It's far harder hungry, tired, cut off from communications, running out of ammunition, and no viable pathway to victory in the face of continuous shelling.

I have actually trained to go up against conventional Russian military tactics. It's not a fucking game: it's building and sitting in multi layered networks of trenches and other fortifications for the purposes of protecting your own heavy artillery counter battery fire. Throw in a shit ton of mines, an air / anti-air game going on in parallel for control of the sky, armored offensives and counter offensives to break through enemy lines (for the purposes of destroying their slow moving heavy artillery), and you can "maybe" fight the Russians off within a days march from their own border.

I honestly don't see how javalins are going to stop the process of relentlessly removing any obstacles with a zillion heavy artillery shells.

It's genuine, Peskov is Putin's man. — ssu

It's Reuters and they're reporting as Moscow's offer.

What I mean is that there's no reason to assume if the offer was taken, that Moscow would continue military operations and not withdraw as stated.

No one now believes Ukraine will ever join Nato, nor ever get Crimea back, nor get the breakaway provinces back.

Yet, the West has been telling, and is telling Ukraine to refuse to formally accept the obvious reality.

The usual logic of refusing to accept concessions of this kind is that maybe they ask more concessions later, and then more, and more and more, and you're forced to fight at some point anyways, but have now given concessions for no reason ... but that logic doesn't hold if the fight is happening.

I honestly don't get the logic, other than use Ukrainians as cannon fodder to setup the new cold war and all the arms sales that goes with that

True, but we aren't discussing the portrayed genocide that Ukrainian government according to Putin was doing in the Donbas. No evidence of that has been even given (or fabricated) from the Russian side I think. — ssu

There's been a lot of fighting and ethnic Russians dying in Donbas since 2014 (regions no one doubts wants to break with Ukraine) and likewise language and cultural suppression of ethnic Russians generally speaking. Certainly not the level of a "genocide," but, again, if you're tolerating neo-Nazi's who are extreme anti-Russian fanatics it's an easy sell to say they have genocidal intentions to remove ethnic Russians from Ukraine (which they say they do) and the policies and things like Azov brigade are the start to that genocidal plan, which left unchecked, would be appeasement, and may not be easy to stop later etc.

Better late than never I guess?
Did sanctions have an effect of sorts? Ukrainians cause difficulties?
Anyway, seems the Nazi story fell out of favor. — jorndoe

This has more-or-less been the offer the whole time, before the war too it seemed clear to all analysts there was an agreement that Ukraine was neutral and accepting the separation of break away regions, then there would not be a war.

If Putin makes this very, very, very good offer (accept not having what one already doesn't have and can never get: NATO membership, Crimea, Donbas), and Ukraine refuses, then it's again playing into Putin's hand to sell the war to the home audience as well as other non-aligned states.

Putin can go to the Indians and when they bring up the war, he can say "hey, I made a pretty good offer, it was refused; people can't be simply unreasonable in these issues".

It definitely succeeds in flipping the moral burden and lowers the cost of continuing the war, if Ukraine refuses the deal.

Now, if Ukraine accepts the deal and Putin continues the war anyways ... well, situation hasn't changed but it's a far harder sell both to the home audience as well as other states Putin will need to deal with to re-orient Russia's economy away from the West.

If Ukraine accepts the deal and it's implemented as stated, then we'll see if international opinion views that as Russia being "defeated" by Ukrainian resistance or just stopping a war started to achieve certain reasonable objectives and then stopping the war when those reasonable objectives were achieved.

The so called "ludicrous" demand that NATO pull back it's advanced forces to around Germany ... is honestly not that ludicrous. It's NATO that insisted those advanced forces weren't to target Russia, but the stated reason for missile bases in places like Poland was to strike the middle east if I remember correctly.

As for neo-Nazi's, Azov brigade is surrounded in Mariupol and will certainly be dealt with and their entire city already collectively punished, and, more importantly if there is an end to the war, the Ukrainian neo-Nazi or "ultra nationalist" delusion that war with Russia is actually a good thing may fall out of favour and Ukrainians maybe less sympathetic to having them proudly walk around with their Nazi inspired insignia.

Putin can easily say he's dealt with the neo-Nazi problem himself by killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of "ultra nationalists" on the battle field.

Furthermore, a peace deal would certainly have a whole bunch more details than the main points, and would certainly include Russia arresting any neo-Nazi's on the territories it is currently occupying, and would then have some trials for the home audience (call them show trials if you want).

LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) - Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations "in a moment" if Kyiv meets a list of conditions, the Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.

Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states. — Reuters

There's zero reason to assume this offer isn't genuine.

Unless Ukraine has some way to "win", then Russia will simply implement these conditions by force.

I think there is a tendency on the pro-NATO side to argue either (a) that there are no neo-Nazis in Ukraine or (b) that the threat they pose is insufficient to justify war. — Apollodorus

I definitely agree.

I bring up the "how many is too many" as it's honestly seems to me a complicated moral and political question to answer. Are we actually comfortable with a country tolerating and supporting 1 Azov brigade? Is it "Nazi enough" etc. If it's allowable, where do we draw the line?

Not something I think we can settle now, but maybe a good debate after the war. It's relevance in the current situation is that given the difficulty in addressing this basic question, maybe some credible response (such as has already outlined a basic policy about, which seems fine) is a good diplomatic move, and also maybe (regardless of what the West thinks) Russians largely back the war and sanctions may punish them for it ... but not save a single Ukrainian life.

However, this deliberately ignores the wider point Putin is making, namely that the invasion or “special military operation” is a response to NATO expansionism and aggression: — Apollodorus

Yes, this is definitely the main reason for the War, the neo-Nazi's being either a pretext (if they don't exist) or then just additionally provoking Russia and giving it excellent justifications to its population (who may not follow geopolitics as closely as we do here) to react to their longer term security concern.

In any case, we mustn’t forget that NATO itself has used “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing” and similar claims as a justification for war, as in the 1999 bombing of Serbia. So, I think it is crucial to decide whether we want this thread to be an objective and fact-based discussion or a counterfactual exercise in pro-NATO propaganda. — Apollodorus

Definitely the more the West is hypocritical the less it's able to corral the various pseudo-liberals countries around. Ignoring something in Western media doesn't mean it's ignored elsewhere, and, for example, India media pointing out Western hypocrisy is going to significantly lesson any public concern about these Ukrainians.

In brief, completely agree with your analysis on these various points.

I think everyone agrees that targeting civilians is wrong. But this doesn’t mean that we should white-wash Zelensky and cover up his links to pro-Western oligarchs and US interests. — Apollodorus

Definitely over simplifications in Western media ... which Western politicians now seem to simply take at face value (there's even a bizarre reversal sometimes where even the mainest of the main stream journalists are like "isn't it more nuanced than that" and politicians respond basically "nope, just that simple and clear cut").

Most Europeans and Americans knew nothing about Ukraine literally 2 weeks ago, and suddenly take at face value the "consensus" that has emerged on social media.

The deaths and trauma and increase in energy and food prices globally is true historic tragedy.

But ... if we're not actually going to follow through the virtue signaling by attacking Russia (which ... isn't that the appeasement argument: we should have attacked Hitler sooner?) then the only other option is through diplomacy which requires understanding the other perspective and striking the best bargain.

People seem to genuinely believe that sacrificing Ukrainian lives without any military justification (just ... "maybe" they'll insurgency later), is, sure is maybe not justifiable, but it is justifiable to preserve our virtue signalling on social media and personal sense of righteousness from our keyboard in our living rooms thousands of miles away.

Pray tell, what areas are those? Their best chance for hearts and minds in a major city was Kharkiv, which is overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Russians and right across the border. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Obviously Crimea and the separatist regions they already occupy. You may also overestimate the willingness of normal people to throw away their lives once the war is over and it's entirely possible to continue their lives normally, whether in the Ukraine whatever that ends up being, or now Russian occupied Ukrainian territory, or then in the EU somewhere.

hey stalled there, didn't have the forces to take the city because of their ridiculous number of lines of attack, and resorted to shelling residential neighborhoods for hours on end in what looks like exactly the sort of punitive siege tactics that produce insurgencies. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I stated in one of my first comments in this thread, I believe the strategy is to cut through Ethnic Ukrainian territory to the west of the Dnieper river thus cutting off all supplies East of there and making it a matter of time for forces there to surrender or run out of bullets.

They aren't "bringing down the hammer" in ethnic Russian regions precisely for the "hearts and minds" purposes, they are punishing Ethnic Ukrainians.

Now, the exception to this general pattern is shelling Mariupol to the ground, but this I think is not simply it's strategic significance but Azov brigade is based there so collective punishment for that and fits into the narrative of "de-Nazification".

If protestors drive out the new Russian backed countries Russia will just invade again? Another surprise offensive war to liberate their neighbor as their economy implodes? Yeah, that'll go over well. It's not like invasions are expensive or anything. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This war was expensive because Russia was not "poised to invade" any moment. Russia needed 8 years to minimally sanctions proof itself (Russia certainly found all those sanctions threats the West constantly talked about credible as far as I can see) and to ramp up economic ties with China.

However, if Ukrainian army is decimated and Russia makes it clear it will simply invade if there's any buildup of any kind, any arms shipments from the West at all for instance (Ukraine can build it's own weapons for basic military needs), then the next invasion would be far cheaper ... and must less land to cover.

Armed civilians are useless? What do you think the mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan were? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Mujahideen were not civilians.

Sorry, but almost everything about this analysis is wrong. The coverage of resistance efforts by regular civilians plays an obvious military role. It is providing civilians and reservists with the small arms that they would need to conduct an insurgency against a Russian occupation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ah yes, the point of handing out arms to non-uniformed civilians on live television and making them legitimate military targets and undermining the rules of war we want to accuse the Russian's about ... is so that they can wage an insurgency after the occupation.

If you want to create an insurgency, then you want to create the networks and arms smuggling routes into the country.

You think the average Ukrainian caught up in the patriotic "stand" is going to go around randomly killing Russian soldiers in an occupation with a riffle they barely know how to use ... and may not even have bullets for?

I don't think so, they'll go back to their lives (assuming they're still alive).

On-top of that, Russia may not even occupy Ukraine to begin with, and they've given no indication they even intend to.

Once they've decimated the Ukrainian military (blown up those billions of USD of arms the US has given Ukraine since 2014) and gotten the concessions they want (such as keeping their land bridge to Crimea, any province that "wants to" separate can do so--whether that's actually true or just the regions Russia expects no insurgency and can take without hassle, doesn't matter), and, most importantly, Ukraine finally surrenders on the condition of never joining NATO ... there's zero reason to believe Russia wouldn't simply go back to it's borders (it's new borders).

EU would be left with the legacy problems of cleaning up, and Russia will make clear it will just invade again if it's conditions aren't met.

So, what actual evidence is there that giving small arms to civilians who, we both seem to agree, have zero relevance in modern conventional warfare currently happening (at least by the Russians on the Ukrainians), accomplishes something other than getting those and many other civilians killed?

The duty of a soldier in the modern rules of war is to protect civilians, which does include surrender when further fighting is not justifiable ... soldiers and leaders handing out small arms to civilians to protect themselves (i.e. protect those soldiers and leaders handing out the small arms from the enemy with civilian lives ... somehow, not really clear, I guess a play for a no-fly zone) is reversing on its head literally a thousand years of diplomatic efforts to render warfare less destructive than it needs to be.

At least call it conscription with some formal process to become an identifiable combatant followed by at least some training. Handing small arms to civilians (literally calling it "handing out weapons to civilians") was a media play to garner sympathy in the West, dramatically showing the average Ukrainians "will to fight and defend their country", not a credible military strategy nor responsible or even legal under the current rules of war the West is criticizing Putin about.

Decisions to kill or not are made primarily on the basis of whether people are carrying a rifle or not (which, civilians easily get killed by those decisions anyways as the evidence bar isn't so high).

Handing out small arms to civilians and having them wander around to "insurgency" later will just get them killed. From a professional military perspective, it's outrageous.

Yet as nearly in every Western country, radical elements can pose a threat, but when Ukraine is under such fierce attack from Russia, this hardly should be the most important issue about Ukraine. — ssu

It's relevant because that's Putin's stated justification for the war.

There are lot's more issues we could discuss. There are two sides of a discussion, if people against "discussing neo-Nazi's in Ukraine" followed that principle and didn't discuss it, then the points would be noted (obviously Putin's saying it's the justification, etc.) and the conversation would then move on.

The conversation stays on this point because people insist on trying to prove it shouldn't be discussed!

But I agree that it's not the most relevant issue, nor the most important justification for the war: which is Ukraine not joining NATO (which Putin also talks about and demands). The neo-Nazi's, from my point of view, is more an example of how simply ignoring legitimate grievances, painting Putin as "a monster tyrant" (which we both agree is a caricature), backfires diplomatically. So, it's relevant as one of Putin's stated justifications, but also an opportunity to introspect about the EU's diplomatic process on Ukraine since 2014.

To justify the costs of the war before the Russian population. But the Ukrainian Jews find this justification preposterous. — neomac

Yeah, sure, explain the position of Ukrainian Jews to Putin as a diplomatic response if you want.

Or then ignore anything Putin says as your negotiation strategy ... but then why go speak about anything if the plan is just to simply ignore the points of the counter-party?

Or go fight in Ukraine and defend it from Russian aggression.

People seem to be debating based on the premise that keeping social media momentum that any act of defiance no matter how irrelevant militarily speaking (such as just "defying" Putin on this philosophy forum), is going to save Ukrainian lives.

It won't. Russia can't just be cancelled due to social media momentum like some talking head who said the wrong thing on a podcast.

Russia is currently winning this war and no amount of social media is going to change that.

Effective diplomacy can save thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives, and arguably millions due to energy price increases and food shortages by actively making this war more disastrous than it is.

Maintaining a stale-mate by flooding in arms can force an adversary to the negotiation table.

But there is no stale mate, Russia couldn't take all of Ukraine in a week because it's so big ... but for the same reason there is no practical way for Ukrainians to defend all of Ukraine. As long as Russian army is steadily advancing, then it is winning and will simply continue to do so until it has "clearly won", and then will negotiate.

Russia certainly had a very soft invasion to start the war to give the Ukrainians the chance to accept the demands of being a neutral country. For the sake of "having the right to join NATO" which NATO isn't offering, those demands are refused and civilians armed to demonstrate a existential battle to the death and call Putin's bluff.

Well, Putin wasn't bluffing about invading Ukraine in the first place, and isn't bluffing about doing things the hard way (relentless heavy artillery bombardment that javelines and manpads can't do much about, only equally heavy counter battery and the logistics to continuously supply shells and fuel, which Ukraine doesn't have).

It's common sense. If NATO isn't actually letting Ukraine in the club (which, to be clear, they could have done anytime) then if you call Putin's bluff about invading, rather than conceding something you don't even have (being in NATO), you better be right or you've wrecked your country and traumatized every citizen and gotten many killed.

If you stage a media campaign of "existential resistance" and passing out riffles to civilians (who will have no effect in a modern battle field and Russia being "less modern" than the US doesn't change that, and get sent a flood of small arms like javelines and manpads from sympathetic countries), to call Putin's bluff about willingness to use tactics that are effective against small arms (big arms), then, again, you better be right about Putin's bluff otherwise your cities get leveled under relentless heavy artillery bombardment and your small arms tactics are of no use.

If the outcome of the war is the same, Russia wins, what was the point of calling Putin's bluffs, which obviously weren't bluffs? Just to prove that Putin was willing to "do what it takes"?

Ukrainian government has had a "Putin defiance, zero compromises" policy since 2014, and goaded on in the West ... and, sadly it seems, truly believed the West was a friend and not just egging them on. Seems to me real tears over the no-fly zone and real frustration with NATO for not actually helping (small arms are effective against US ... because US is unwilling to level cities to the ground and US, at least pretends, to be occupying places for the citizens own good; and, even then, small arms tactics don't actually push US front lines back or overrun US bases, just harasses US patrols until the will to continue occupying the territory, more importantly the strategic purpose, is reduced to zero and then the American's leave ... and even then takes decades of small arms tactics to get to that result).

Yes, Russia does not have as many smart munitions ... but you don't need smart munitions if sending tens of thousands of incredibly cheap shells to obliterate the entire enemy position from tens of kilometres away, gets the job done.

Effective resistance can, in some cases, encourage a settlement on better terms.

Ineffective resistance is A. ineffective and B. likely just angers the counter-party more inviting harsher tactics and worse terms of a negotiated settlement.

And pretty much every military analysist interviewed on TV says the same things (including the former director of the CIA): Ukrainians are fighting so bravely, we got to support them with arms, punish Russia with sanctions so "they learn", blah, blah, blah, but obviously Russia is going to win and Ukraine can't do anything to change that outcome. Why the small arms then? Just virtue signaling that "we tried ... but not really cause you totally not welcome in our little NATO club"?

Sending someone to die should at least serve some strategic purpose, not simply play well on TikToc.

> You've still not made clear your link between proof of the scale of Neo-Nazism (its mere existence is not even in question) and its role at the negotiating table. — neomac

Guy, this is Putin's stated justification of the war.

A response at the negotiation table can be be "we don't believe it" or "here's proof there's no neo-Nazi's" or "it doesn't matter" or then "we also don't like Nazi's and would agree to policies that reduce their numbers and influence, however bit it is, after a peace is achieved."

Are you basically suggesting that if Russian diplomats bring up the Nazi justification that Ukrainian and / or Western diplomats just say nothing?

No, it has not. It hasn't even been understood yet. — Christoffer

I literally quoted the response.

And as just pointed out, there's a difference between saying it's exaggerated or "not exactly Nazi's ... but really close" and saying such groups don't exist at all or have no ties to Ukrainian formal government.

I agree he is not a mad tyrant. His weakness is that he has been left with a Russia that is broken up into little pieces a very hostile alliance of nations. It was a cold war, but it was a war, and it was won, maybe a Versailles- type humiliation is what the winners of the Cold War want. — FreeEmotion

That's not really in the cards due to the Nuclear weapons.

I think what's more likely is the winners of the cold war want a second cold war (sell more weapons and have more "fun").

I'm just gonna repeat this again, since the problem is that any legitimization of the propaganda narrative actively supports the spread of that propaganda. — Christoffer

This has already been responded to, what's you're rebuttal?

This reminds me of the Orwell essay “Through a Glass, Rosily”.

"""
The recent article by Tribune's Vienna correspondent provoked a spate of angry letters which, besides calling him a fool and a liar and making other charges of what one might call a routine nature, also carried the very serious implication that he ought to have kept silent even if he knew that he was speaking the truth. He himself made a brief answer in Tribune, but the question involved is so important that it is worth discussing it at greater length.

Whenever A and B are in opposition to one another, anyone who attacks or criticises A is accused of aiding and abetting B. And it is often true, objectively and on a short-term analysis, that he is making things easier for B. Therefore, say the supporters of A, shut up and don't criticise: or at least criticise "constructively", which in practice always means favourably. And from this it is only a short step to arguing that the suppression and distortion of known facts is the highest duty of a journalist.
""" — NOS4A2

Furthermore, are you saying the West and also Ukraine hasn't been making any propaganda about the current situation?

Neo-nazis in Ukraine are not worse than most other nations having neo-nazi groups. All nations work to push those groups back, but using this fact in relation to this war is ONLY in relation to Putin's propaganda reasons. — Christoffer

But this is simply not the case; the neo-Nazi's in Ukraine are not suppressed by the Ukrainian government in any credible way since 2014, and it's been documented with plenty of journalists going and reporting on it since 2014.

You can't just make false equivalence because it suits your own propaganda. Well you can ... just doesn't make it true.

Ukraine has Azov brigade and other groups patrolling the streets since a few years (aka. brown shirts) with formal government powers, what's the equivalence in Sweden or Portugal or Canada?