If anyone were arguing that NATO expansion were the reason for the war then you could reasonably point to the inefficiency of the technique as a counterargument. — Isaac

You just read what the Forum's official Putin troll has said here:

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, after years of EU and NATO expansion and constant Western interference in Russia and neighboring countries like Ukraine. — Apollodorus

In any case, Russia cannot logically be expected to accept the Black Sea being turned into a NATO lake (controlled by NATO states Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and possibly Georgia). — Apollodorus

And there would be a multitude of other references. Case closed.

I'm not accusing you of holding the Putinist line here, Isaac.

Learn history.

If you think that everything revolves around the US and it's actions and everything happens because of the US, you are not only ignorant, but also delusional.

The US and Europe spent billions on undermining communism, fought proxy wars, instigated covert regime changes, created the largest spying rings ever seen... — Isaac

And so did the Soviet Union with quite a success.

Your argument is that none of that had any effect whatsoever. I — Isaac

Wrong. What I say is that these were only minor issues that had minor effects. The reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed as it did are different.

The arms race with the US and the war in Afghanistan were in the end simply minor issues compared to the reality that a) the Soviet economy wasn't working and that b) the Union and it's citizens of diverse mix of ethnicities, cultures, and religions of an Empire long past it's prime, hence separatism prevailed. Even with those reasons, the Soviet Union could have endured longer...if Russia itself would have tried to sustain the Union as Serbia tried with Yugoslavia. But that didn't happen. On the contrary.
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Perestroika and Glasnost undermined the Soviet Empire as Gorbachev simply didn't understand that the Soviet Union was built on the Russian Empire, which would have no internal cohesion to keep intact. The British were far more successful with their Commonwealth than Russia with it's CIS.

Really, learn your history first.

I think he knew of certain risks involved in invading Ukraine, but I have doubts he would have done so had he known the extent of these sanctions, which are extreme. — Manuel

Putin doesn't care so much about sanctions. The risk was that the Ukrainians would put up a fight and that has materialized. If Putin would have assumed that the Ukrainians will fight, he would have started cautiously and more methodically and likely have had an extensive air campaign first.

I understand that Germany, Finland and many others are now increasing military or wanting to join NATO and the like, all things Russia would not have wanted. — Manuel

And this just shows how illogical and wrong it is to believe the fig-leaf of NATO expansion being the reason for this invasion. The Russo-Georgian war already stopped the NATO expansion from the US, but still left it open for the West to try to restart the relationship. If stopping NATO expansion was all that Russia wanted, that already did the trick. Attacking Ukraine just transformed NATO back to it's original form and increased the military spending and made both Sweden and Finland to start the process of joining NATO. Russian aggression is the sole reason why they are changing their security stance.

And what those that insist on the NATO expansion being the reason for the invasion totally disregard are the actions that Russia took to outmaneuver the US in Central Asia. There the US had airbases, did extensively train the local armies and had military cooperation with the states. And Russia maneuvered the US out of it's bases that it now desperately would want to have after losing Afghanistan. That is the way to truly contain US expansionism. Invading neighbors will have the totally opposite response. And naturally invading neighbors will make them prepare for aggression.

Seems that Ukraine didn't spend the last 8 years without doing anything.

Of course he cannot portray anything other than a victory of sorts. I'm curious to find out when this stops, how will the removal of sanctions proceed. — Manuel

Putin simply doesn't care. He hasn't been interested in the economy at all. If he would be, Russia would have played a totally different game in international politics. Just like, uh, China.

The sanctions aren't so easily lifted. And even so, the more obvious issue isn't the sanctions: it's the extreme risk of trading with Russia. A country that nationalizes companies, confiscates rented aircraft and simply doesn't care at all about trade relations, or looks at the relations as a way to pressure countries, isn't going to be a country that you want to trade with. Now trade with Russia is viewed as a risk, not a prospect. Radical changes can happen only if Russia experiences radical political change. Which isn't likely.

When they interviewed the local minister who is responsible for energy security, the reported asked if Finland would go off Russian oil & gas because of the war in Ukraine, the minister didn't even get her question, but responded that Finland was going off from Russian oil & gas on basis of national security. He basically admitted that the government is already anticipating that there's not going to be any hydrocarbons coming out from Russia ...perhaps as we join NATO.

In either case, it's not good, even removing the bunker talk. If they don't finish this quickly, they will suffer enormously from sanctions, which further pushes them to the brink.

We'll see. — Manuel

Putin hasn't backed down from a war before. It might be difficult for him cut it and stop and just declare victory. I think the next timeline for Putin will be the "home for X-mas"-moment of May 9th Victory Day as important. If the army could wrap it up or at least there would be something to show then, Putin might be happy.

Conflicts tend to go on for far longer than anticipated.

So by what mechanism did all their enormous efforts manage to miraculously have no effect whatsoever? — Isaac

The arms race of the Cold War is only a minor reason.

The centrally planned economy itself would be a larger reason. Or that unlike China, the Soviet Union didn't opt to try to modernize the economy with keeping political the power, but also had the policy of Glasnost, which immediately made it clear what the Union was: a remnant of an Empire with various different people.

And the real reason just why the Soviet Union collapsed so quickly in the end is really is literally there was nobody to preserve it as Russia itself was against it. Without Russia being in favour of the Soviet Union, who would be for it? Hence you got the Belovezh Accords. Learn history.

That the USSR collapsed isn't really in question. The question was the extent to which 'the west' were instrumental in making that happen. The west clearly put huge efforts into destroying them. — Isaac

I'd call that genuine Western hubris, if Americans or others think that the Soviet Union collapsed because of them. The Soviet Union c ollapsed on itself.

It's like the view that Nazi Germany fell only and solely because of the Western allies. The idea is simply wrong and shows total ignorance of the history of WW2.

The Soviet Union collapsed finally because it didn't have the backing of the Russian state itself, headed then by Yeltsin. Then Ukraine and Belarus weren't either supporting it. Simply nobody backed it in the end. And CIS didn't work later.

It would be like the US government out of the blue would attack California, Texas and New York and these states would have no other choice but leave the federation and perhaps form their own union. Guess what would happen to the US without the states of California, Texas and New York left and took other states with them? Controlling just Washington DC hardly matters for the Congress, actually.

Why are you still talking about justifications for war when I expressly said in my last post that this was not about justification for war? — Isaac

Then we simply would have to talk about the real reasons for Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Those are:

a) Putin's personal views about Ukraine and the "artificiality" of Ukraine being a sovereign state and his ideas of place in history
b) the geopolitical importance for Russia in controlling Ukraine.
c) that time was running out for Putin as Ukraine was becoming more capable of defending itself (after the 2014 partial invasion).

The simple fact is that there's nothing defensive in those reasons above for Russia to start a war. Just as in the neocon realm of invading the Middle East there actually wasn't anything defensive either... just the opportunity that 9/11 gave the neocons to go on with their wars of conquest.

They did have them. — Isaac

And the Iraqi invasion had the neocons starting from Cheney who immediately after the 9/11 attack started (to the surprise of others) talking about Saddam Hussein and invading Iraq (as recalled by the Richard Clarke). Even if everybody else knew (perhaps with the exception of the President) that Hussein didn't have anything to do with Al Qaeda.

So yes, these people who start wars have their lies. There's nothing legitimate for a justification in made up lies.

Why is that so hard to understand? — Isaac

The following. If you agree with me, why then say:

IF Russia has legitimate security concerns (just as the US does with regards to China) then tensions can be diffused diplomatically by addressing those concerns. — Isaac

This doesn't make sense. It's like when you know the whole issue of Iraqi WMD's is just a fabricated thing, you think going along with the line then would have deterred Bush and the neocons at the height of their war fever not to invade Iraq?

It's very ironic, but the existence of actual WMD's contains warmongers from starting wars. This has been seen so many time with North Korea. Many US Presidents (Clinton, Bush, Trump) likely have thought of a possibility of some pre-emptive attack on North Korea only to realize just how many South Koreans and American soldiers would die thanks to the enormous conventional artillery that the dictatorship has on the border.

In this case, Ukraine looked an easy picking for Russia. Hence talking about Putin wanting to have a "sphere of influence" is far more realistic than to talk about Russia's security concerns. Russians always hide their imperialism in defending Russia. The US tries to hide it's imperialism into spreading democracy also...besides the talk of threats.

True. Now what's that got to do with the point being argued? Need I remind you of it? — Isaac

Everything.

Why bring up the idea of Russia having legitimate security concerns when it didn't have them?

Think about those guys that years ago defended President Bush's decision to attack Iraq because of the threat that Saddam's then non-existent and fabricated by the White House WMD threat posed at the US? They too talked about legitimate security concerns being the justification for that war. Understanding the attacker.

And then they defended the decision that Bush just got "bad intel". As if the real culprits weren't in the White House with people like Dick Cheney.

To those like@ssu and Christoffer arguing that Russia has no legitimate security concerns because "it's a nuclear superpower", I wonder if you can explain why the US feels so differently about its strategic interests. — Isaac

Russia has no legitimate security reasons to invade a country that wasn't planning to attack it, didn't represented any threat to it and even it's hypothetical possibility of it joining NATO was extremely remote. Which btw wouldn't justify an all out war. Just as there was no legitimation for the US to attack Iraq, neither was there any legitimation to attack Ukraine in 2014 and continue the war with a full scale invasion this year.

So you can shove those legitimate security concerns up your ass, thank you.

Every fishing expedition, with the force of the American justice system, has found very little in the case of Trump. — NOS4A2

And now we have the defense team of Trump responding here... lol.

Fun fact, if and when Germany will now put it's defense spending at 2% of GDP, it's spending will be more than what Russia has in previous years spent. And let's not forget that 100 billion euro additional spending:



Then more arms to Ukraine. Now likely Germany will be the second largest supplier of arms to Ukraine.

Germany is considering to send €300 million ($335 million) worth of additional arms and military equipment to Ukraine, local media reported on Wednesday.

The Defense Ministry’s plan includes delivery of 2,650 anti-tank weapons, 3,000 night vision devices, thousands of protective vests and helmets, radar systems, 18 reconnaissance drones, and various armored vehicles, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported.

Likely Ukraine can form new infantry units or replace previous losses with such aid. Just the size of this aid makes it important.

It's funny how criticism and disagreement is immediately set aside as informed by ideology. — Benkei

If the criticism is going with the lies of Putin, it does reek of ideology. If the arguments are informative and respectful, I'm sure it's beneficial to engage in a discussion.

I also see exactly zero reason to applaud someone who purposefully states he's only here to share his opinion and not actual analysis and debate. — Benkei

To give just an example, that Putin's objective was a quick takeover of Ukraine is to my view good analysis. There aren't good counterarguments to think that somehow this wasn't the objective at the start of the war. That it didn't go the way he thought it would go should be obvious. What happens next isn't clear, of course.

Myriad investigations into Trump—lawsuits, committees, district attorneys peeking through his life. Nothing like that against Biden. — NOS4A2

The only consistency is that neither will likely ever be sentenced because of their corruption.

My view is simply that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is unjustifiable, unwarranted and fundamentally criminal. It has resulted in thousands of deaths already, massive destruction of cities and homes, and the displacement of millions of people. That is not 'western propaganda' nor is the war a consequence of western foreign policy meddling - it came about solely because of Putin's resentment at the demise of the USSR and his vain attempts to restore elements of it into a greater Russia. Every so often I will post something in this thread to register that view. That is all I wish to say, and I have no intention in becoming dragged into these interminable circular arguments which this thread seems to generate. — Wayfarer

:100: :up:

This is the correct way to proceed. I think the correct thing is to engage in discussion that is worth wile. If some have problems to see the real picture from their anti-Americanism or somehow feel that some facts seem for them to be too "pro-US" (starting from the fact that this war was indeed of Putin's making) or whatever, it's their problem.

Russia has likely far more political prisoners now that it had during the late Soviet era and the policies of Putin are making it a larger police state. His fear of "colour revolutions" in Russia won't make it easier. Things are now getting only worse there and the war will continue as Russia simply doesn't have today the ability for a new determined push Ukraine. It might take weeks before that happens.

More Biden family grift and corruption. Of course we knew about this for years, but we suppressed it for political purposes. — NOS4A2

As Republicans did with the Trump family. :wink:

Again, how it is that Trump supporters are not avid fans for Biden is beyond me. — StreetlightX

Don't ever think there is any logic to it. For Republicans, everything that Trump did was good. Everything (same) that Biden does is bad.

And the other way around for Democrats.

Never ever dare mention anything remotely critical about who you support! That's the logic.

This seems unlikely for the simple fact that Belarus is not so stable internally and they add little firepower anyways compared to Russia — boethius

Yes. I would emphasize more the tense political situation in Belarus. Remember the mass protests against Lukashenko? The last thing Belarus would need would be to participate in a war it has absolutely no appetite in participating in. That already quite openly Belarussians are volunteering to join the Ukrainian side tells something (and that the opposition leader is found outside the country).

It could be counterproductive for Putin to pressure Lukashenko to join the war even more.

Although this could be accurate, again I feel the need to debate it.

Agreed, total capitulation is what Putin, Kremlin and the Russia military would prefer (who wouldn't).

However, if you look at events on the ground, they go uncontested from Crimea, basically the first day to take Kherson and first couple days to link up with their forces in the East. These were insanely quick manoeuvres, and achieved 2 critical strategic objectives of taking a position South-West of the Dnieper, thus requiring Ukrainians to commit a large amount of troops to guarding a long defensive line to avoid Ukraine being cut North-South ... instead of a small amount of troops if they just blew-up all the bridges or defended Kherson with urban combat resulting in a prolonged siege. — boethius

I think that Ukrainian strategy hasn't been to stop the advances on the border, but defense in depth and to defend key cities. Defense in depth means to let the armoured spearheads to penetrate, wear the attacker down in depth and attack his supply lines and only defend key points like major crossings or cities. Do note the long advance that happen at the north to the eastern side of Kyiv also and also the various Ukrainian pockets. With the force levels and the size of the country, the front line can be quite sparse.

I remember also one commentator making the argument that the army responsible Crimean front came from the southern military district that has seen far more action than other armies (and hence it performance can be better).

Alarming? Not actually, but still...

(The Guardian) The Kremlin again raised the spectre of the use of nuclear weapons in the war with Ukraine as Russian forces struggled to hold a key city in the south of the country.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is deputy chairman of the country’s security council, said Moscow could strike against an enemy that only used conventional weapons while Vladimir Putin’s defence minister claimed nuclear “readiness” was a priority.

Russia would only use nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine conflict if it were facing an "existential threat," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN International Tuesday.

* * *

One possible way the conflict could become larger is if the fighting would have Belarus involved. But yet notice that here the talk is only about a "company", which could mean basically anything between 30 to 300 men (as voluntary groups aren't standard military formations). Yet I assume some would see sinister links here just with whom the Belarussian volunteers train with. Still it should be noted, that Belarus hasn't joined the fight. At least yet.

I'm talking about the derivative contracts to hedge your exchange rate risk. Those aren't currently exempted from what I understood because that's a regular financial contract between financial institutions and not commodity energy trading. — Benkei

Well, notice how this casino has worked: from negative prices to the present.

If prices go up enough or Putin switches if the gas, at least gas for heating won't be an issue. Electricity though... — Benkei

Depending on the price, Russia has gotten about half or one third of it's governments revenues from hydrocarbons. As stated even in this thread, the real sanctions that matter is the gas/oil trade with Russia.

Yet Russia is at war and however they claim the "tactical truth" of talking about special military operation, they now they are in a large war. Putin and his regime knows that. Hence that there is a severe economic depression doesn't actually matter. The it's estimated that the Russian GDP will fall 10% this year and Russia's economy will shrink to what it was a decade ago doesn't matter. For Putin it's nearly irrelevant: unlike in the case of Biden, there aren't any angry voters ready to vote for the opposition because the prices are so high.

In the European context basically the issue is about the existence of true political leadership of the lack of it. More closer you go towards Ukraine, the more likely it is that people would accept higher gas prices as costs of opposing Russia. The worst case is that politicians deny there's going to be any effect ...and then the country hits a crisis.

The worst possible option is for decision makers to put their heads into sand and pretend that alternative energy / renewable resources will save the day. They might do that, in a decade or two, but not now as we are going to face an immediate supply problem. And thus their actual decision (the one they don't publicly announce) will be to dig up more coal. And then in a year or so we notice that coal production has gone up and the promises of carbon neutrality (or coal phase out) aren't going to be met at all.

So you have to pay in rubles, based on a price that looks ok today but which could absolutely suck in 3 or 6 months time due to changes in the exchange rate. — Benkei

The Urals price is something like 30 dollars cheaper to the Brent price. But of course Putin announcing that the payments have to be paid in rubles is a breach of contract. But anyway, a lot of breached contracts in a war.

How are you going to pay for it when they're no longer on SWIFT? — Benkei

Do note that this wasn't taken off from SWIFT.

All this will just quicken the change out of Russia oil and gas for Europe.

The really annoying thing is that this will likely increase coal production, because of course nuclear cannot be an option.

But Biden's policies are even more confusing:

Biden administration officials traveled to Venezuela over the weekend for talks on potentially allowing the country to sell its oil on the international market, helping to replace Russian fuel. Biden may travel to Saudi Arabia as the US works to convince the kingdom to increase its production. And a looming nuclear deal could bring significant volumes of Iranian oil back to the market.
Caracas, Riyadh and Tehran would have been unlikely sources of relief for a Biden-led Western alliance before the start of the war in Ukraine. But Russia's invasion has upended international relations, forcing the US and other nations to seek out solutions in places they'd previously shunned.

So in order to put sanctions on one country, other sanctions on other countries are lifted? Yet this point is absolutely crucial for Biden because the higher gas prices will be in the US, the lower his approval rating will be. Already there is inflation (thanks to the insane monetary policies), and this will make it worse.

Of course the logical question here is, why not rely on Canada? Well, here the reasons are obvious result from past decisions. A Canadian commentator sums it up why Canadian oil/gas isn't the logical solution (as it could be):

Experts seem to agree that our (Canadian) contribution will be marginal at best, because our energy industry has been starved of investment for years. All because governments have scared away investors by consistently blocking proposed pipelines and LNG export terminals, which could now be supplying our allies in the U.S., Asia and Europe with oil and gas from a democratic country that abides by the rule of law, has strong environmental standards and has no imperial or genocidal ambitions.

The tragedy is that if governments — including the Biden administration, which nixed the Keystone XL pipeline on Day 1 — had simply gotten out of the way and allowed decisions over pipelines and other infrastructure projects to be made by private businesses and landowners, including First Nations, Canada would have a much greater ability to produce and export its natural resources, at little to no cost to the treasury.

In Europe now those LNG export/import terminals and everything else have to be built on a crash course and likely with more cost now. But they will be built and perhaps in a year or some time the West won't need Russia's hydrocarbons.

(note the country that has anticipated that Russian gas might be a problem and not only planning but already constructing more LNG terminals: )

Yes, Crimea was quite close to being an unmitigated victory for Putin, whereas this will be a problematic victory at best with quite a bit of downside in the short term. — Baden

Victorious military operations that went perhaps even better than planned typically later breed hubris and overconfidence.

I wish the war was an 'unmitigated disaster' for Russia, but the fact that they're winning, despite their problems, mitigates the disaster somewhat for me from any reasonably objective perspective. It still puzzles me how you'd refer to the war if Russia was losing or looked like any of its major goals (Ukranian neutrality, autonomy for Donbass) were under threat. But, whatever, we'll just have to agree to differ on that. — Baden

I think here it should be proper to consider a successful Russian military operation: that is the invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014. There was a) total strategic surprise, b) extremely successful information campaign, c) swift overtaking of objectives and d) successful joint operations with the intelligence services and the army, which was then solidified politically by a referendum for Crimea to join Russia. And Russians were very happy about it! Nothing like the scenes below happened then:



Sanctions against Russia weren't similar as now, and we didn't see changes in policy like has happened with Germany. Yes, the time of the West "resetting" the Russian ties was indeed over. But I guess Putin had to show a lot for it. Or think it other way. How many Russian generals were fired, killed, put into house arrest? None.

If now the objectives are basically issues that Russia had already: a) Ukraine wasn't joining NATO and b) it held portion of the Donbas, then that is quite little to show for a war. I think Putin needs far more than that.

Once Russia captures Mariupol, then it can start to consolidate it's position and get the initiative firmly in it's hands. It hasn't happened yet... can happen tomorrow or next week.

That the war is going disastrously for Russia, which it demonstrably is, doesn’t mean that Russia won’t succeed in imposing itself on some or all of the country, or dividing it up in some way. — Wayfarer

Yep.

The US can win every engagement and then lose the war. The Russians can fumble in nearly every engagement, sustain a lot of casualties and then win the war. A good historical example of that (which cannot be said to be propaganda as it's now history) is the Russo-Georgian war. Only that the Georgians were caught even more off guard helped the Russians win the war. And even if the Russians won the war, Putin started a large reformation of the army because of the dismal performance. Seldom a side that won a war is so critical about it's performance.

What should be noted that the dismal performance in the start of this invasion is mainly due to the poor assumptions that Ukrainians wouldn't fight, which was an intelligence failure. Russians seemed to mimick the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and the way US armoured columns pushed into Baghdad. (If the Iraqi defense would have been more concentrated and motivated, even then it could have been different.) But now we are over that stage.

I am perfectly capable of recognising the biases in the media sources I read - CNN, SMH, ABC, and so on. It doesn’t alter the facts on the ground. — Wayfarer

Just to say that Russians had a bad start is enough to be a "cheerleader" for Ukraine / the West for some. Or to note the civilian casualties.

No, you made a comparison and then gave weighting to that comparison. — StreetlightX

Well, that's what I tried to say.

Do note that the wars Putin has started, the weapons projects he has established, the role of the military in modern day Russia. It's just a similar example, perhaps even more stark.

But of course, the US military industry is far larger. And going to get larger, thanks to this war...

Yeah, sure, and this has any bearing on the laughable claim that compared to the US, war as a racket is clearer in the Russian case. — StreetlightX

The real racket would be I guess the war in Iraq and Dick Cheney and Halliburton. Halliburton already became the largest construction company in the US during the Vietnam war ...because of the Vietnam war.

But one should not forget that Russia has this phenomenon too. Just my point. If you find that laughable, then laugh as hard as you want...

There's a lot fog of war and certainly anything is "possible", but while everything else has being going on in Ukraine, Russia has been bombarding and bombing the Dombas front for a month now.

There's a material and man-power degradation of these lines that is reasonable to assume is pretty severe.

There's also a psychological affect on these front line Ukrainian soldiers.

And then there is the fact that the Dombas line is 17 hour continuous drive from resupply in Poland but only 1 and half hour drive from Russia.

Of the news that comes from this area, it seems Russia has broken through in key places already. — boethius

I wouldn't say that would be reason to assume they are collapsing.

Finland accepted defeat to end the continuation war. Finland did not "win" against Russia. — boethius

Yet Finland existed, wasn't occupied. What else is there for Ukraine? Likely there won't be Ukrainian tanks on the Red Square either, so they can't "win" in the traditional sense.

didn't see all that much actual building anything in Afghanistan these last 20 years ... definitely felt more like a destructive process more than an act of love, the advertised. — boethius

Something was done, even if what the West did was to produce an extremely corrupt system which was totally unsustainable. One generation of women were educated, at least, now to face unemployment and being confided to the kitchen again. The simple fact was that Afghanistan couldn't in any way uphold such a government and a public sector (including the military) as it had without Western aid. It simply didn't add up. And hence when the Americans were constantly reminding everyone that they were going away ...and with Trump basically capitulated to the Taleban, then it was no wonder what happened.

Yes, when you pour money into a poor country, you will create corruption and theft. And such will happen in Ukraine, but Ukraine is still in a far better situation than Afghanistan was. Even after this war.

Lol, no one who has looked at where the proportion of money - the only thing that counts - — StreetlightX

And in a smaller economy, which is one tenth of the size of the US GDP, those Russian arms manufacturers are far more important that in the US for the US economy.

Russia's defense industry employs 2.5 – 3 million people and accounts for 20% of all manufacturing jobs in Russia.

Add then in the corruption in the society. If you don't understand that the link to the "military-industrial complex" is bigger in Russia to the Russian economy and politics, well...

Sure, Urkainian total capitulation would have been the most rosiest outcome, but there is no evidence Russia's core objectives aren't exactly what it's stated, — boethius

That is illogical.

You simply wouldn't attack like that if you would have alternative objectives. If the objective would never have been Kyiv, why then attack there? Then those Combined Arms Armies in Belarus / Russian border opposing Ukraine from the north would have just by existence prevented Ukraine from sending those brigades in defense of the Capitol into the Donbas or the South. And they could be still then act as reserves.

There's no question about the primary objectives that Russia had. They failed to be met as intended at the start of the invasion. And now Putin surely can come up with smaller objectives.

will be accomplished with the collapse of the Dombas front (which seems to me in the process of collapsing). — boethius

OK, on what do you base this assumption on? That's the area where Russia isn't yet on the defensive an making some progress? Not yet an imminent collapse.

If Ukrainians cannot, regardless of the amount of ATGM's and Manpads poured into Ukraine, actually push the Russians back to their borders ... how does a war of attrition (in a "stalemate") work in Ukraines favour? — boethius

Well, just like it worked with Finland both in the Winter War and the Continuation War. War of attrition does work.

I do not think any Ukrainian views this as a "win" ... and I fear Western generosity may run into all those "realists" after all, when it comes to pouring in tangible love rather than arms. — boethius

I don't think anybody considers it a win. Not even the future contractors that will build (again) Ukrainian cities after this war.

It's possible ... but, again, if this is the likely "cost" to the Russians, how does that help any Ukrainian? — boethius

Jingoistic imperialism usually fades away after wars that have been failures. Don't forget that Putin views independent Ukraine as an "artificial construct". If those kind of delusional attitudes can be changed, that would be a good start.

Of course, on the other side military industry is part of culture, with much admired cultural icons like Mikhail Kalashnikov:

Kalashnikov's daughter, Yelena, unveiled the statue Tuesday at a square off Garden Ring Road, a busy thoroughfare in Russia's capital city. - Tuesday's ceremony included military music and a blessing by a Russian Orthodox priest, The Guardian reports. Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky said the gun had become a "cultural brand of Russia."

So the issue of war being a racket is a far more clear in the Russian case. Which I think people rarely care about:

Corruption in Russian defense is not limited to the military-industrial complex. It penetrates the political level as well, likely altering the incentive structure for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top security officials. Recent investigations show that top officials in the Russian Defense Ministry own property that significantly outmatches their income, pointing to possible involvement in corrupt deals.

Maintaining a luxurious lifestyle disincentivizes top security officials from giving expert advice that might disappoint the autocrat and cost them access to corruption networks. In the case of Ukraine, this would have meant the risk of reporting to Putin that the country he wanted to invade would put up a fight, that civilians were not looking forward to joining the “Russian world” and would likely greet troops with Molotov cocktails rather than bread and salt, as per local tradition. In this way, the corrupt loyalty of Putin’s top officials might have backfired and contributed to intelligence failures and erroneous risk assessments in Ukraine.

Of course, corruption in the Russian security sector does not predetermine the outcome of the war. Russia still has extensive capabilities and numerous troops to be thrown into combat. But whatever gains the military might make, they will have done so while battling the challenges caused by rampant corruption, from erroneous risk assessment at the top to expired military rations on the ground.

Biden's looking like a rock star. Couldn't Putin have waited a couple more years to do this? — frank

I thought his ratings were in the toilet. But anyway, do you think he'll run again? — Baden

I think Biden is still unpopular. So perhaps a rock star who has lost his fans, perhaps gained too much weight, cut his heavy-rock hair and now reminds the previous fans of their dad.



Americans first and foremost care about the economy (which isn't so much what the POTUS work is about) and now you have very high inflation, which started well before the war in Ukraine.

No, this was in 1997. So, he was specifically referring to the post Soviet era. — Baden

Ok. Then I stand corrected.

I just don't think there's been anything that would result in them not achieving their major objectives as outlined by Boethius. And their significance will be ovestated by our propaganda and understated or denied by theirs. — Baden

I understand that one has to be sceptical about Western media, however one shouldn't forget that:
a) Ukraine is a huge country, b) It has large armed forces, c) it has shown the will to fight and d) it is supported by a huge alliance and finally e) Russia isn't Soviet Union and hasn't the former's resources.

All the above facts make it totally possible that the outcome is a standstill with neither side reaching it's rosiest objectives. To assume that Russia will inevitably win and reach it's objectives is a long shot.

I'm on board with this. There is a solution there imo, i.e. acquiesce to basic Russian demands with maybe a bit of face-saving negotiation around them. — Baden

Neither side is yet, after a month, is really willing to cease operations and declare that their objectives have been met. Of course both sides will declare victory...but when and at what cost. Thinking that either side will abruptly now collapse isn't realistic.

The biggest danger though is that Zelensky hopes that the longer he draws out the war, the more there is a chance of some kind of accident or spark that gets NATO involved on his side. He may feel it's worth the gamble if he's painted himself into a corner of not accepting any loss of Ukraine sovreignty. — Baden

I think that NATO and US are far more timid than they were in the proxy wars during the Cold War. The Polish MiG-29 debacle clearly shows that. In truth if the fighters would have been painted to Ukrainian colours and flown by Ukrainian pilots to Ukraine wouldn't have resulted in WW3.

And note that Zelensky would be all too happy about a "no-fly-zone" made up with Ukrainian manned Soviet legacy system (that would have been imported from NATO countries).

I think this war will go on far longer than anybody anticipated and be more bloody and ruinous for both sides than anybody thought. At least Ukraine has the nice prospect of refurbishing all that old infrastructure after the "urban renovation" from the Russian Army and Air Force with Western aid.

For Russia this might be an ordeal like the Russo-Japanese war, which didn't go so well afterwards in the domestic scene for the Czar.

I think Vlad is right to be nervous. It may be more serious than the FSB having just erred in their assessment.

The US had access to tiptop intel prior to the war about what was planned (even though few believed their predictions of an all out aggression, even in Ukraine). Possibly they were tipped from the FSB (or another source). And two weeks ago the Ukrainian side said they fought back a Wagner force aiming to kill Zelensky, thank to tips coming directly from the FSB. — Olivier5

A dictator can interpret the "yes"-men behaviour of giving rosy pictures that then backfires as intentionally done deception. Add here that it really does seem that the Western intelligence did get tips about the invasion will make nearly anyone paranoid about the mole.

Of course, the pre-war intel was crucial here.

The invasion would have made total sense assuming the Ukrainians wouldn't have put up a fight. If they would have been as paralyzed as they were in 2014 (when from 160 000 army could only muster up a fighting force of 6000 men and had a handful of combat capable fighter aircraft) or would have caved like the Afghan Army and the Ukrainian leadership would have flown to the West, then indeed it would have been the way to go. Otherwise the invasion plan simply went against even basic Russian military doctrine. You don't attack an enemy force of 200 000 with 190 000 men.

Yet now the question is what to do now in this situation. And it might be now one possibility is simply to organize those reserves (which can take several months) and during that time take a time out and defend your positions and hope that you inflict losses to Ukraine if it counterattacks and only try advancing in the most favorable areas.

It's possible it could happen again, but it in the same order. — frank

Well, let's remember that before the Great War that started in 1914, the last huge European war were the Napoleonic wars. And that had been ages ago and there wasn't any historical memory of such total war as the World Wars we have now. And there were no nuclear weapons.

We have a totally different collective memory of World War 1 and it's continuation, WW2 and at least those that have been born during the Cold War remember quite well the scare of WW3 during the Cold War. Hence such sleepwalking into a bigger war isn't likely in my view as happened in the summer of 1914. It is already quite evident from the timid way that the US and NATO act in the support of Ukraine.

(In 1914, they were enthusiastic about the war, as can be seen in the pictures...)

A bit more analysis on whether the failure to advance further on Kyiv was a disaster or intentional or something in between. — Baden

Do notice that there obviously was a intelligence gaffe, which Putin likely hasn't been all too happy. The most likely reason is that Putin has had in his inner circle fellow minded people and anyone thinking that this "special military operation" wouldn't be a great idea was sidetracked. The three intelligence services (SVR, the FSB, which handles the near abroad, and the GRU) likely did give them intelligence that they wanted to hear. After all, the 2014 invasion had worked splendidly, hence the idea that it could continue similarly could be something that you could sell in the Kremlin. It's not hard to find such examples of this, when one remembers the way how the American intelligence services reacted to the wishes of the neocon White House before the invasion of Iraq.

Vladimir Putin has placed the head of the FSB's foreign service and his deputy under house arrest after blaming them for intelligence failings that saw his army handed a series of embarrassing defeats in Ukraine, it has been claimed.

Andrey Soldatov, a respected author on the Russian secret services, said sources inside the FSB told him that Sergey Beseda, 68, head of the agency's foreign service, has been placed under arrest on Putin's orders.

Also arrested is Anatoly Bolyukh, Beseda's deputy, according to Soldatov, who said Putin is 'truly unhappy' with the agency - which he ran before becoming president.

The fifth department of the FSB (Operational Information and International Relations), ran the "near abroad" and was responsible for missions in Ukraine, has been said to been raided by the both FSO, Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation, Putin’s own security service.

But of course now this is old news and the reality now is that Putin might really be thinking of looking at just Donbas and the landbridge to Crimea. The question is what Ukrainians think about it and just how much Putin is willing to fight for. He hasn't lost a war yet, so it might be hard for him.

I personally fear that the war will just continue for far longer even if a conclusion could be made earlier.

"You may not humiliate a nation and think it will have no consequences." — Baden

I guess he was speaking on behalf of the Soviet Union. Wasn't also Ukraine a large part of it, or is just the Russian federation the only successor state of the Union? Just asking..

World war continued with a pandemic, yes, that's the history.

In that respect, if that was to proceed, I'm thinking that all Ukrainians throughout be allowed to freely attain citizenship either way (and relocate when they can, without coercion obstruction reprisals threats or whatever, I mean). — jorndoe

Over one and a half million people have fled the area, the majority to other parts in Ukraine, but also hundreds of thousands have fled into Russia. Before Russia's assault happened, many (usually women and children) were evacuated from Donetsk and Luhansk to Russia. Already in 2019 Putin declared that all citizens in Donetsk and Luhansk can get Russian citizenship. About 720 000 have now got Russian citizenship. Now it seems to be a higher number:

(DW) In 2019, Russia began to distribute Russian passports to the area's inhabitants. According to the latest reports, some 800,000 eastern Ukrainians are said to have Russian citizenship — an estimated 15 to 25% of the population, although exact figures are hard to obtain. This is the central argument behind the Kremlin's recognition of the independence of the separatist regions.

The idea of people freely choosing their citizenship either way in a warzone is unrealistic.

If true, interesting. And of course, the numbers can vary.

Yet what is likely that Ukraine hasn't used it's armored forces heavily as it tries to preserve it's strength, just as it tries to preserve it's meagre air force. A conventional counterattack might give a too good target to the Russian forces and cause severe attrition to the fewer Ukrainian armored units.

(Forbes) Ukraine has lost at least 74 tanks—destroyed or captured—since Russia widened its war on the country starting the night of Feb. 23.

But Ukraine has captured at least 117 Russian tanks, according to open-source-intelligence analysts who scrutinize photos and videos on social media.

In other words, the Ukrainian army might actually have more tanks now than a month ago—all without building a single brand-new tank or pulling some older vehicle out of storage.

The Russians meanwhile have captured at least 37 Ukrainian tanks—a sum inadequate to compensate for the roughly 274 tanks it is believed to have lost to all causes.

The disparity in captured tanks speaks to Russia’s lack of preparation for a high-intensity war against a determined foe. But it also speaks to the advantages any defender possesses over any attacker.