And lo and behold, we have found it quite possible to have this discussion here, in spite of the war going on, so I don't see the link between a war going on, on the one hand, and a moral debate, be it on first principles, on the other hand. These are two very different things and I can see no causal mechanism between them, where one would prevent the other... — Olivier5

Time is limited.

Every word you consider saying you could first debate in your head 10 years the first principle reasons before saying it. Nothing prevents you from carefully reflecting in such a way.

It may however prevent other goals the word under consideration was intended to address 10 years ago.

I don't see how wars and events prevent a moral discussion. That's a non sequitur. — Olivier5

As for "preventing" that's a completely absurd representation of my position.

I said if you want the bloodshed to end (that's your moral objective in the here and now), then it will end by one side winning or then diplomatic resolution.

That doesn't prevent discussing from first principles just war theory and the moral theories upon which such just war theories would be built, it's just unlikely to help end the war one way or another (which I mention Ukraine "marching on Moscow" would be one way to end it, and does not require thinking about the Russian perspective much).

I don't see how wars and events prevent a moral discussion. That's a non sequitur. — Olivier5

You didn't read either of my comments.

I said moral discussion of first principles, which you are not doing.

You assume Ukraine has just cause, you are not discussing your moral theory about it nor anyone else's, nor why Ukraine happens to have just cause with respect to your moral theory.

You are not discussing morality, you are mostly just condemning Russians and praising Ukrainians based on moral ideas you already have, and accusing people you perceive as helping the former at the expense of the latter. I.e. you are implementing political objectives: to influence and shape perceptions.

A moral discussion would be circling back to issues such as how many Nazi's would justify invasion, to be confident it's not Russia who has just cause.

Which, each side claims they have just cause and therefore they can lie and their crimes can be excused, as crimes by soldiers and even institutions in warfare can be expected; either as "shit happens" or then the means justify the just ends and the warrior has to do sometimes difficult things, hard choices have to be made.

Or then, maybe neither side has just cause and individual soldiers are better off deserting.

Perhaps even both sides can have just cause in a moral relativistic theory driving identity politics ... which suddenly I don't see, where did it go? Is it under this rock? Nope, not under there. Maybe behind this tree? Nope, not over here either. Funny, I was certain it was around here somewhere.

If you actually look at the moral arguments, they essentially are structured around a sort of original just cause that justifies whatever deception or otherwise crimes that follows that. However, if original just cause justifies lying, the problem is it justifies lying about the original just cause as well.

In your system of reasoning that's solved by simply assuming you have just cause and even challenging that to see if it would survive critical scrutiny would undermine the belief in the just cause, a belief required to win the just war, therefore even scrutinising the original just cause would be immoral as it undermines the belief in the just cause, which you know is true without any scrutiny, which would be immoral to really cary out in a good faith way, but you know it to be true anyways.

No reason to expect the bloodshed to stop, nor to wait for the bloodshed to stop first before we can debate morality. — Olivier5

I said from first principles. If the bloodshed ended we could circle back to a lot of foundational moral issues that have been touched on in this thread, but it's difficult to really get into because of the war and events moving forward.

Wanting to end the war, is a moral position, be it militarily or diplomatically or via revolution in Russia, but we are taking that moral position for granted, not debating first principles about it.

From that shared moral position, people here are advocating different things—be them further moral differences or then just analytical questions of effective action; i.e. how best to achieve the shared goal.

For example, some have clearly stated the position that repeating Western media narrative helps Ukrainians, helps them fight and get support and so helping to end the war that way, and Russian points, be them true or false, should be ignored as even recognising "the seed" that happens to be true as true serves the Russian propaganda.

Others, have argued for a diplomatic resolution which requires a diplomatic framework.

And we have discussed "what we can do about democracy in Russia" such as provoke a violent revolution.

However, if one disagrees with that plan and doesn't see or hear any other plan to affect Russian policy on the short term (the here and now when people are dying), then, again, seems the best we can do is try to understand the Russian perspective and make the case of Europe and the US using their leverage and "statecraft" to reach a diplomatic resolution and the end to the current bloodshed.

If the bloodshed stopped, then there would be plenty of time to debate the morality from first principles and what longer term policies may prevent and minimise wars in the future, including policies with respect to Russia. War crimes should be investigated, for various reasons, including that it hopefully dissuades more war crimes in the future.

I don't need to worry about balance. So most of the stuff you're saying is just misunderstood by me. I don't have the same concerns you do, so I don't get the intent. — frank

Our, certainly my, concerns are the hundreds of military bases and toppling government and interfering in democratic political processes even in Europe as well as overt military threats and actions as well.

Which, the US, having the most military and covert power, does the most of, in addition to the integration of this power system with multinational corporations that implement these policies in a sort of quasi-legalistic way as well.

Are these actions justified by democracy? No. Democracy can still result in unjustifiable actions.

We can also question not only how democratic the United States actually is, but also question, given it determines policy and governments in many places around the world who don't get to vote ... if the US system is really democratic at all considering the case can be made that the United States imposing its will on poor countries is de facto governing without the consent of the governed.

Be that as it may, the question is one of scale. The actions of the US have far greater impact on the state of the world than Uzbekistan, so the utility of criticising US policy is simply more relevant and hopefully more fruitful.

If you say "but you don't criticise the others!" ... we do. I called China a totalitarian hellscape many times on this forum, and if you retort "ok, but not as much!" then the answer is in terms of scale and effectiveness.

USA, for now, has more influence on the state of the world than Uzbekistan and even China, so is more relevant in terms of political criticism.

Additionally, not only is criticism of USA more effective precisely because it's not yet completely totalitarian (I would argue pretty close though), so we can engage with American's such as yourself, but our own governments have far more influence over American policy than Uzbek or Chinese policy. A lot of actions the US want to be seen as "the US and its allies" and "the Free World" and so Europe has considerable leverage in such "Deciding for the Free World" conversations. Sometimes US goes it alone, but it prefers not to.

For example, certainly there is lot's and lot's to condemn and criticise about North Korea, I don't think anyone here would disagree, the problem is that the criticism doesn't go very far as we can't do much about it. If someone had a plan to make life better and more democratic in North Korean from the outside ... great, let's do it; the problem is the paucity of such plans and so there's little to scrutinise and discuss and little to do, and North Korean influence on the world isn't so great, so "the problem" can just be ignored insofar as no one seems to have a solution anyway.

However, contrast this to American policy and it's a different situation; the scale of the American War Machine and covert machine is global and massive, in addition both legitimate and illegitimate political and economic power; these policies can be influenced in several effective ways, so it's worth debating.

I see. I think you might be affected by media that I'm not exposed to. — frank

Sure, if all you read is this forum, then maybe it seems the case isn't made enough against Putin.

Do you watch televised news? — frank

I do not have a television, but I follow the major news outlets and aggregators to get an idea of what the mass media is saying.

How things are perceived and what the mass media is saying is a critical part of geo-political analysis.

Unfortunately, due to algorithm driven media, we basically no longer know what information "people" encounter in a general sense. There's no longer "the news paper" that everyone who discussed politics or world events would read as a common reference.

The "mass media" is more now a conversation with bureaucrats and technocrats and most ordinary people ignore it.

Indeed, mass media is no longer the best term, but "establishment news", whereas facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube and Tictok "personalised algorithms" are the actual mass media now.

So, I do agree it's hard to actually know what the real mass social media is even saying to most people, we can only really follow CNN, Reuters, BBC, Aljezera, al Jazeera, Times, Fox, Bloomberg, and co. to see at least what elites and bureaucrats are exposed to.

But he wouldn't have that attitude if the culprit was American. He'd happily go in the other direction of being as unfair as possible (I think). — frank

Because billions of dollars are already spent to make the case to defend the American president, there's zero need to "make it more".

Likewise, the case against Putin is already made extremely loudly and we're all expected to accept the verdict is already in.

Lastly, as Westerners we can affect Western policies, we can't affect much Russian or Chinese policies.

Sure, worse there than here ... but I don't see what I can do about that except through affecting Western policies, which requires scrutiny and criticism of Western institutions and power brokers.

So I don't think it's a matter of valuing fairness. — frank

This is exactly the false equivalence I point out.

The conditions going into a debate are not somehow preordained to be equal and different perspectives already equally heard, and we all have unlimited time to defend each case and develop every possible accusation.

If billions of dollars are already spent defending one perspective, I am not being fair by apportioning my time and energy equally to unequally represented parties.

For example, I say several times I am trying to represent the Russian perspective because the Western media and Ukrainian case is already repeated pretty loudly.

If it was the reverse, that everyone agrees with the Russians and doesn't understand why Ukrainians are fighting, calling them irrational, and cheering the Russians on to crush them, I'd present the Ukrainian perspective instead, try to understand them (their passion to defend their land) in hopes of a diplomatic resolution.

Now, if it's true, Ukrainian righteousness and the decision to fight a good one and it's true that the Russians are evil ... ok, go fight. Get in there NATO.

However, the problem is that even if it is true NATO is not going to fight and Ukrainians aren't going to defeat Russia (impose their conditions on Russia by force).

So ... even according to the Western narrative there is no military solution to achieve Ukrainian's just cause.

Conclusion: either Russia is going to win, or then there will be some diplomatic resolution at some point; the sooner the better, and diplomacy is not possible by only considering one side of an issue.

I'm trying to understand people who are quick to defend Russia. I mean people like Benkei, who may not qualify as apologist, but seems to jump to defend Putin in a way he wouldn't for other leaders, particularly an American president. — frank

I can't speak for @Benkei but he may have some bizarre legal idea that both sides of a dispute deserve to be heard, which you interpret as defending one side because that side is already guilty without hearing their point of view or verifying any facts.

If Western media is blaring 24/7 their accusations against the Russians, maybe focusing on those as "maybe true" (which, certainly many are "maybe true") serves no further purpose at some point than to repeat propaganda, but that representing the other side of things, indeed even mentioning that it may exist, is required for clear thinking.

Likewise, if the same Western media automatically gives the benefit of the doubt and simply straight up ignores Bush's crimes, many documented without any dispute about the evidence whatsoever and including straight up confessions by the head of state of the US government! ("So we tortured some folks"); so, again, maybe for the principle of fairness the other side of the story should be heard.

You are arguing from a false equivalence that we have already heard each side of the issue, we already know all the facts, and are simply deciding who we support morally without needing to make decisions or formulate policy: i.e. that if "Putin is bad" is one's moral opinion given the undisputed facts that are already established, then repeating that is the terminus of the critical thinking process.

For example, what I am completely convinced of is that children in Ukraine are certainly innocent and do not deserve to be killed, maimed and traumatised. I have mentioned this is and it's my emotional motivation to contribute analysis in the hopes of a resolution and end to the war.

However, if I did no analysis, just repeated "children don't deserve to be harmed or killed" again and again and again ... at some point I am not serving those Ukrainian children's interests but my own emotions and people would just say "yeah, we get it, we don't like seeing children harmed either, but just saying so doesn't end the war." And if I continue and engage in none of the discussions about the military or political situation and decisions different parties can actually make, at some point I'd be accused of virtue signalling by only repeating the innocent and morally righteous case of the children in Ukraine.

And there's enough of useful idiots around then to confuse the issue and go along with the idea that everything was staged. Likely there's going to be the argument that Ukrainians staged this in order to get more sanctions put at Russia and to get more aid. — ssu

As @Benkei (an actual lawyer) has already pointed out, there does need to be some sort of credible investigation, chance for the accused to defend themselves, and, ideally, some sort of impartial trial to determine war crimes, or crimes in general.

Additionally, war crimes by individual soldiers or units (which I do not doubt has happened; it's essentially guaranteed in any war) do not automatically translate to being war crimes of the military or the government. It must be some sort of institutionalised policy or direct order.

However, an additional reason to reserve judgement and not break out the jump to conclusions mat, is the Russians may have exculpatory video evidence.

And the Russian's generally like to present what evidence they do have in whatever legal process it is, such as the evidence about the biolabs at the UN security meeting. The longer false-accusations are made, the more impact exculpatory evidence has, so waiting for the "proper" legal time serves this purpose. Not to say they have exculpatory evidence, just when they do the Kremlin's policy is to reveal it later, as then their accusers (i.e. the West) loses credibility (certainly for the purposes of muddying the waters when they are actually guilty as charged).

It should also be kept in mind that the Ukrainian strategy has been to garner sympathy with civilian casualties by not evacuating them from war zones and even giving them automatic weapons instead. So, it cannot simply be denied that there would be a motivation to create more atrocities if the Russian shelling wasn't enough (which, as horrible as it is, wasn't enough in terms of a no-fly zone). And, there are literal neo-Nazi organisations operating in Ukraine, and I definitely don't put anything past them in terms of treachery and immorality.

What is pause for thought though, is not only Western media automatically interpreting these tied dead civilians as executions by Russians (without any investigation, just circumstantial) ... but when there was many reports and even actual video evidence of Ukrainians executing alleged Russian spies, this was taken at face value as just executing saboteurs to "deal with them".

Why do we not extend the benefit of the doubt to the Russians and simply assume if they did execute all these people, they were spies and saboteurs and could be summarily executive in the same insane process as the Ukrainians have been executing people?

They applied pressure on all those dead civilians in Busha alright. — Olivier5

Why weren't they evacuated by those trains just mentioned as evacuating people because Kiev wasn't under a siege in any sense of the word?

Finland evacuated the entire Karelian region before fighting the Russians on it, by force: you didn't have a "choice" to stay and be brave.

Even grandma's were forced to leave. There's a famous story of soldiers coming up to one grandma's house to force her to leave before burning it down.

She says "no, I'll do it myself," and then takes the fuel and torches her own place.

Point is, she wasn't just left in the path of intensely destructive warfare.

So if Finland (who lost the war with the Soviets) is the model, why not evacuate civilians from war zones like Finland did?

What seems much more like obsessing over a point is going over analysis literally 4 weeks ago, which difficult to deny now, was far more accurate than what the Western media narrative was at the time (what my analysis was about: proposing other possibilities) ... and finding only the criticism that I predicted a "siege" and "encirclement".

Criticism that is simply wrong, as I was just explaining another purpose for the Russian operation there en lieux of entering Kiev and taking it with urban combat.

The prediction was simply that whatever is achieve militarily Russia can simply announce anytime they achieved their objectives (as they only ever stated fairly minimal explicit goals and demands), a prediction that has come true.

Had they achieved more (which would have included encircling all of Kiev or taking all of Ukraine if there was zero resistance) then they would have declared that mission accomplished.

As for whether the operation around Kiev was or is successful, and or whom, that will depend on what happens next.

And if posters here want to say Ukrainians "won the battle for Kiev" but may lose the war ... sure, I don't have a problem with that terminology either, but my military analysis is more focused on "winning the war" part.

Evacuation trains have been leaving Kiev every day since at least early March. But never mind facts, let's listen to some bullshitter obsessed with proving a point :roll: — SophistiCat

It's just part of actually analysing what is actually happening.

Russian military advances on Kiev, applies large amount of pressure (call a siege or a half siege if you want), media start reporting it as a siege, Ukraine publicly abandons (under pressure that includes a half siege) political objectives like joining NATO or "the right to join NATO even if you can't actually join NATO".

I'm not denying that one road was left in the South ... I even point that out. "Dictionary definitions" (if you ask the people that write dictionaries) do not define language and how terms are used in a given context, but try to record how language changes overtime ... so maybe the word siege is taking on new meaning to refer to Russian tactics in this war, as that's what the media keep explaining.

However, even so, if Russia has intelligence on what are resupply and what are evacuations (leaving the city ... so not supplying it), and just blows those supplies up (like intelligence there's a bunch of soldiers and weapons on a base and just blows that base up), seems to me is part of the evolution of siege tactics.

Likewise, maybe the modern definition of a siege to compel concessions (such as surrender) makes sense to now include other more modern day civilian pressures (... like, I don't know, living in a subway for a month), and not just literally starving to death in a castle.

And it's not me saying these things, media repurposed the word siege for this modern situation.

However, I don't care if you call it a siege (why I changed by language to "pressure" and "surround" to be more general of whatever was actually happening), but the media used the word siege all the time and that has a political effect.

Which are pretty obvious points to make, and if you don't care about them ... maybe you just don't care about the topic.

And, if the definition of the word siege interests you so much:

According to Wikipedia (after mostly talking about sieges in ancient times, medieval times, Mongol and Chinese times, renaissance "age of gunpowder" times, WWI and WWII times):

Post-Second World War

Several times during the Cold War the western powers had to use their airbridge expertise.

- The Berlin Blockade from June 1948 to September 1949, the Western Powers flew over 200,000 flights, providing to West Berlin up to 8,893 tons of necessities each day.
- Airbridge was used extensively during the siege of Dien Bien Phu during the First Indochina War, but failed to prevent its fall to the Việt Minh in 1954.
- In the next Vietnam War, airbridge proved crucial during the siege of the American base at Khe Sanh in 1968. The resupply it provided kept the North Vietnamese Army from capturing the base. — Siege, Wikipedia

... how are these sieges if there all supply wasn't cut, which obviously includes air as another "root" out.

and also

The siege of Khe Sanh displays typical features of modern sieges, as the defender has greater capacity to withstand the siege, the attacker's main aim is to bottle operational forces or create a strategic distraction, rather than take the siege to a conclusion. — Siege, Wikipedia

... Why isn't wikipedia sticking to a single dictionary definition of a siege but adapting it to modern context and purposes? Someone should inform them.

Totally agreed. "Harming" the oligarchs actually removed their influence ... not motivated them to do anything about Putin.

The influence of the oligarchs is that they had wealth abroad and therefore could "arrange" certain deals within Russia based on wealth outside the control of the Kremlin. Placing all their wealth within the control of the Kremlin simply removes their influence basically entirely.

It also reduces, by definition, corruption if powerful people can't launder money around in foreign countries to get favours. So we have made Russia less corrupt.

If people don't know why a corruption-free democracy is better than the status quo, they only have the status quo to live for. — Christoffer

I'm pretty sure nearly everyone in this thread, if not everyone, shares this same opinion.

The only differences are that of how to go about achieving it, which I think both and already brought up some key point about.

We'd all like to see Russia and Ukraine and everywhere less corrupt and more democratic ... so, how? Is the key question as has been mentioned to you. Feel free to explain to us how we actually do anything about it, other than just complaining about it and assuming anyone "fighting it" has righteous cause (regardless of the outcome or how many people suffer and die).

However, it seems to me you are confusing support for what you want (which we also want) with opposition to Putin and the Western narrative of how that opposition can be carried out.

The reason us "geopolitical realist" camp is not on this bandwagon is simply because "where does that lead"?

For example, you say Yeltsin was better than Putin because some total chaotic shitshow in Russia is somehow going more towards freedom and self determination (than exactly towards authoritarianism to clean up the shitshow once people simply can't deal with it anymore and prefer some sort of order, even unjust, to chaos).

However, the realist view of Yeltsin was instability and chaos (including tanks firing on parliament buildings) in a country that has thousands of nuclear weapons.

That is really the key thing for the realists: "improving Russia" by taking down Putin ... first how? Nuclear weapons? Covert coup that results in total chaos and nuclear weapons?

The policy choices are very much limited and conditions by this fundamental and pretty big fact.

For example, Hitler didn't have thousands of nuclear weapons ... and if he did, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have just shown up unannounced on D-day and I'm pretty sure Stalingrad would not have "held out" against a nuclear strike.

This is the key problem, nuclear weapons do change the situation, you can effectively blackmail the world with enough nuclear weapons.

The only reason this has not happened since WWII is because people think other people aren't crazy and immoral enough to use nuclear weapons and immense diplomatic effort put into creating a dialogue and "status quo" as you put it where nuclear weapons are simply off the table for tactical use.

Just like chemical warfare was simply tacitly agreed off the table in WWII, even though no one expected that to be the case given the massive use of chemical weapons in WWI there was no reason to believe no one would resort to them in the next war (indeed, Luftwaffa even designed their bombers as small and agile to deliver chemical weapons ... why drop tons and tons of bombs when a ton of nerve agents gets the job done).

The geo-political realists of today fear nuclear weapons and are willing to make concessions to limit their use, and certainly feel it foolish to actively provoke their use.

No one really knows what will happen once someone "breaks the ice" in terms of using nuclear weapons to make a point or win a battle.

Kremlin's negotiation position is basically: I don't want to go there, but I will.

There is nothing we can really do about that except return to good faith dialogue and deescalate demonising both Putin and the Russians.

We cannot "win" with sticks and stones, and therefore can only "win" with words.

Which words exactly is the question.

Basically the situation in Kyiv and in Mariupol are quite different. One is under siege, one isn't. — ssu

I don't care what you call it, and I never predicted Kiev to come under "complete encirclement" and "100% siege".

However, it's relevant anyways to point out it can be argued a siege mainly because lot's of media reported it that way, which affects perception and decision making.

Furthermore, if the purpose of laying siege is mainly political, then the objective end goal is likely to be more what the media reports than some physical situation on the ground: i.e. the mission is to encircle Kiev enough for media to start reporting it as a siege which achieves sufficiently the political objective, not only of serious pressure on Kiev (who, even if they don't feel it's a "true siege" would still want to break the false-siege enough for media to say they broke the siege according to the media) but also changing moods in European capitals and at home.

Sometimes media focuses on specific points on the map and builds it up as a big important battle ... whether it was true or not, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, as the fact that the media is focused on that battle and those positions makes taking or defending those positions suddenly of immense propaganda value.

Western narrative built up the Western highway as "the big battle to siege Kiev" and more or less framed things as Russia taking that highway would mean it has effectively has or inevitably can siege Kiev, and Ukrainians defending it would mean they were able to militarily defend and prevent encirclement.

The highway went back and forth several times but then ended fairly securely in Russian hands and media changed their reporting from "Russians advancing" to mostly "Kiev under siege".

Again, whether it's militarily true or not, or whether journalists even had any military basis for their claim or it's just more dramatic in a micro drama of the whole war, doesn't matter. Once a battle takes on symbolic value (Stalingrad being the most famous) then everyone knows each side has high motivations to win and the battle becomes a sort of litmus test of who has the better army. At the same time, there can be literally hundreds of back-and-forth, successes and losses, elsewhere that aren't reported and have zero symbolic value, just tactical retreats or then various wins-and-losses that tend to happen for both sides in a war.

Karkiev was also reported as under siege a lot.

In military terms, given long range and standoff weapons and also intelligence, the argument can be made that a modern siege must take into account these tactics as well.

Do I need to physically setup a roadblock on every single road if I can blow up weapons shipments on the road leading into Kiev ... or even on bases hundreds of kilometres away?

In terms of denying supply, it's no longer ancient times and even in ancient times "some supply" didn't mean breaking a siege.

However, if you rather, for the strict military analysis, say "partial siege" with "larger supply line attacks and disruption elsewhere in the 'battlspace' " ... doesn't matter to me what terminology you use here.

However, it's still relevant to the analysis anyways what terminology the media uses. So, bring your dictionary definition to the media.

And yes, definitely Mariupol was under a far more intense siege than Kiev ... that something can be more intense doesn't mean less intense things can't also share the same characteristic. "Less intense red" is still red.

Definition of siege:
a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling those inside to surrender.
This hasn't at all happened, so what are you talking about? Quite baseless remarks. — ssu

You did not read my comments.

I explain that the I never "predicted" Kiev would be 100% encircled with 0 supplies in the first place, just explaining an alternative purpose (lay siege) the Russians may have compared to entering the city and taking it in Urban combat (the dominative Western narrative at the time).

I explain why Russia would be trying to do so (tie-up troops and apply political pressure), and I also explain that Ukrainians will fight extremely hard to avoid total encirclement, as it would be a big strategic loss and so Russians maybe doing thing slowly and cautiously.

None of that were "predictions", just explaining a potential different plan that explains the convoy sitting on the road for example and the purposes of achieving said plan. I repeat several times that Ukrainians could potentially rout the Russians, just that I don't personally see how.

That being said:

Why it's arguably a siege (or then accomplished the intended purpose of a siege) anyways is:

And, key word "arguable"; I'm just pointing out the argument could be made anyways that there was a siege:

A. If all roads are cut off save one, and that can be covered by artillery, missile and air cover, maybe supplies are disrupted enough. As has already been mentioned, few sieges in history are perfect, so certainly Russia disrupted Ukrainian supply of Kiev, and with modern weapons and surveillance maybe a modern siege doesn't literally require a circle of guard and torches all the way around the city.

B. The media started reporting it as a siege once the West highway was taken, so maybe the definition of siege is changing to fit modern warfare (rather than medieval and ancient warfare).

But, whatever your definition of a siege, the operation may have been ended as the purposes were achieved before 100% encirclement was reached (whether the Russians could have advanced more or not): Mariupol seems essentially fallen, Ukraine accepts it won't join NATO, game changing moves like no-Fly zone are off the table, peace talks at least appear to be progressing (which, maybe disingenuous on Russia's part, Ukrainian part, or both, but the existence of the talks maybe one other purpose of the manoeuvre to lay siege).

Obviously, if purposes are achieved before an operation is fully complete ... there is no further reason to continue that operation. And, this is why I rephrased things as applying "pressure" to get these political concessions, of which total and complete encirclement may not be required; North, East and West maybe enough "pressure".

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Sunday said Russia is shifting its strategy in Ukraine, discounting the idea that it could be withdrawing from the war-torn country.

“What we see is not a real withdrawal, what we see that Russia is re-positioning its troops and they are taking some of them back to rearm them, to reinforce them, to resupply them, but we should not in a way be too optimistic because the attacks will continue,” Stoltenberg said during an interview with co-anchor Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“And we are also concerned about potential increased attacks especially in the south and in the east. So this is not a real withdrawal but more a shift in the strategy, focusing more on the south and the east,” he added.

Stoltenberg discounted the idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin is scaling back his goals for the war that began six weeks ago. — NATO chief says Russia shifting strategy: ‘This is not a real withdrawal’

NATO's said it, so it must be true, right?

What follows has the same meaning: "I went to the shop yesterday, right. So, I was in the shop, I picked up this bottle. I dropped it and it exploded on the ground. I was so embarrassed. — Olivier5

Sure, nothing prevents you from placing everything in the past tense; it's just not obligatory in English and even the exception.

However, we're agreed that in many, many pages of analysis I carried out 4 weeks ago, the only criticism you can find is about grammar choices (that are not even grammar mistakes, but very idiosyncratic to English speech and writing).

Additionally, a criticism of grammar reinterpreting the conversation at that moment as being focused on to what extent "exactly" Russian forces will encircle Kiev without any intention of trying to conquer Kiev ... rather than the the Western media, and many here, claiming that the Russian column is on its way to a disastrous invasion of Kiev proper and they can't even get there! But once they do, oh boy, urban combat will make quick work of these bumbling fools stuck in the mud.

The only thing they leave out, or don't realise, is that multiple limited excursions and manoeuvres is a good idea to make appear like a full scale invasion. — boethius

The authors also don't include a second order analysis of what affect their, and similar, analysis may have on the Kremlin's decision making (regardless of whether the Kremlin have made the same conclusions independently or then just read the authors publicly available paper).

And, to be clear.

Losses experienced around Kiev is certainly a factor in the current Russian withdrawal.

However, if the purpose was to apply political pressure and tie-up Ukrainian manpower and resources (dig in around and within Kiev and committing to fierce fighting, through artillery and high casualty, in both defence and counter offensives), then whether this manoeuvre was successful or not, in military terms, will depend on successes elsewhere in the "battle space", such as holding the Crimea land bridge and, most of all, encircling Ukrainian forces on the Dombas line.

Withdrawing from around Kiev simply minimises losses if Russian generals calculate those forces can no longer effectively reinforce Ukrainian lines in the East anyways (there is no need to tie up people who cannot be effectively redeployed elsewhere).

The Russian salient West of Kiev is the most exposed, farthest from the Russian border and air cover, and not only closest to Polish resupply but also closest to the largest city that can easily house the most amount of Ukrainian troops relatively comfortably. I.e. even if Ukrainian forces cannot undertake significant armoured counter-offensive manoeuvres, they can still inflict the most harassing losses on the Russian salient West of Kiev, and if it no longer serves much of a strategic purpose, then it is simply optimum use of one's forces to withdraw that salient.

The current phase of the war could be "Russia is losing".

Or it could be that Russia is consolidating its gains to minimise vulnerability to Ukrainian weapons and tactics, stabilising the situation to see if a peace deal can be reached, and preparing for the next phase of warfare if peace is not reached (which could include new offensives employing lessons learned so far, or then setting up heavily defended lines that Ukrainians cannot easily assault, and withdrawing from positions that cannot be easily defended, due to positional or then man-power considerations).

This is not how the English language works.

For example:

"I went to the shop yesterday, right. So, I'm in the shop, I pickup this bottle. I drop it and it explodes on the ground. I was so embarrassed."

It was written last year. I didn't bother reading it. — Olivier5

Again, context matters.

If you care enough about an article to cite it, you should respect the authors enough to read it and be somewhat confident to convey their meaning accurately (as much effort as you'd consider honorable in other people reporting your own words).

More fundamentally, however, your dismissal of this analysis "last year" neatly exposes your addiction to the news cycle.

As I've already explained in previous comments, theories about the fog of war (what we see today) are fraught with both bias, propaganda and overfitting sparse and dubious data points.

What provides far more insight are theories about the situation before the fog of war descends.

For several reasons:

1. The further into the past a theory is proposed, and more it comes true, the more predictive power it has.

2. Analysis is much higher quality, generally speaking, in a stable situation. Not only does each analyst in the conversation have no particular pressure to come to any conclusions, as the situation isn't changing much, but as importantly each analyst can respond and scrutinise other analysts about a situation that is not chaotically changing, and key facts are far easier to verify in a slowly changing situation than a rapidly changing one. Once chaos emerges, there is high pressure to come to conclusions rapidly for the purposes of decision making or the influencing of perceptions, and each response and rebuttal to previous analysis must take into account what has been changing since (people are no longer really talking about the same thing, as the situation changes between proposal and response: what was a good decision an hour ago, may no longer be a good decision now; so past analysis may have been correct, but new factors must now be taken into consideration - this sort of mental tracking of a changing context and what was a good and bad idea at what time and for what reasons and what, if anything, can be preserved given the new situation, is a cognitively challenging task ... for most people).

3. War, in particular, solicits intense amounts of propaganda and each side deliberately trying to deceive the other and shape public perception.

4. Active war creates significant amount of reporting of details (sparse data points) that not only do we not know is true, but are largely distracting for the purposes of analysis. Only insight into the large structures and factors have any predictive power; we obviously cannot predict every step, vehicle loss, advance, casualties and so on, in a war; so details on the ground have very limited insight and predictive power.

Hence, analysis undertaken in the past, in a calm and stable environment involving multiple people and even open scrutiny, will be higher quality.

The authors of the article in question, for example, do include full scale invasion in their analysis, explain the reasons it's a bad idea, explain the difficulties of limited excursion (response of the West maybe significant and so costs far outweigh the gains of a limited excursion), and correctly develop an "in-between" strategy that Russia does then utilise.

Although the authors can argue that their analysis of likelihood was correct (what they said was most likely was in fact most likely, but sometimes unlikely things happen), the counter argument to that is their own analysis more-or-less explains why Russia's current strategy is the optimum choice.

The only thing they leave out, or don't realise, is that multiple limited excursions and manoeuvres is a good idea to make appear like a full scale invasion.

In particular, if the Kremlin simply accepts ahead of time that pretty much any incursion into "unoccupied Ukraine" will be met with severe sanctions and Western arms supplies, that the West is bent on that, then there is zero value at all in a small limited excursion in the hopes of small and limited sanctions (sanctions will be severe and also arms will flood into Ukraine anyways).

Additionally, if the goal is to demolish Ukrainian war infrastructure, then a full scale invasion (that seems foolhardy) is an optimum choice in baiting the Ukrainians into a total war response and therefore opportunity to eviscerate their force potential long term.

In other words, escalate to a full invasion to then deescalate to just keeping a land bridge to Crimea that solves "a real problem" for Putin.

Escalate to deescalate, as @ssu has correctly informed us.

You mean ***was*** under siege? Ukrainian troops have retaken the entire Kyiv oblast. — Olivier5

Read the context:

Be that as it may, the Russians can be argued to have functionally encircle Kiev with only 1 remaining road for supply, and the remaining south route in range of artillery.

Kiev is arguably under siege. Few sieges in history are "perfect". — boethius

"Can be argued to have"

Key word "why". I'm explaining what Russia was attempting to lay siege to the capital.

Media even started to report Kiev as under siege, encircled, shelling everywhere.

So, if you want to argue it's not a "true siege" or "100% encirclement", sure.

What's important, however, is the the military, political and social dynamic did change once Russia more-or-less encircled and laid siege to Kiev.

In the build up to Russia cutting off the West highway, if you're able to remember 4 weeks ago, there was still talk of potential NATO no fly zone or even just accepting Ukraine into NATO spontaneously etc.

After media at least reported Kiev as "basically" encircled and under siege, mood started to change, NATO taken off the table, deescalation. — boethius

I am explaining analysis that was about the present when it was written, but in the past now.

The context of what I am explaining is clear, and in English present tense can be indefinite (not clear what time you're talking about, hence context matters.

Zelensky is now seen as a hero the world over and quite probably in Ukraine as well. Good job Vlad! — Olivier5

If you bother to read the context, the article predicts Russia is unlikely to undertake a full scale invasion - and if so, super limited incursions such as only in Dombas - and in that context the Russian buildup or then very limited incursions is to undermine Zelenskyy.

However, what the article gets right is:

The operation to establish a land bridge from Rostov to Crimea is likely the most attractive to Putin in this respect. It solves a real problem for him by giving him control of the Dnepr-Crimea canal ,which he badly needs to get fresh water to occupied Crimea. It would do fearful damage to the Ukrainian economy by disrupting key transportation routes from eastern Ukraine to the west. He could halt operations upon obtaining an important gain, such as seizing the canal and the area around it or after taking the strategic city of Mariupol just beyond the boundary of occupied Donbas. — PUTIN’S MILITARY OPTIONS

Likewise, article also gets right:

Likely Ukrainian Initial Responses to Full-Scale Invasion

The Ukrainian military will almost certainly fight against such an invasion, for which it is now preparing.19 Whatever doubts and reservations military personnel might have about their leaders or their prospects, the appearance of enemy mechanized columns driving into one’s country tends to concentrate thought and galvanize initial resistance. It collapses complexities and creates binary choices. Military officers and personnel are conditioned to choose to fight in such circumstances, and usually do, at least at first. There is no reason to think the Ukrainian military will perform differently in this case. — PUTIN’S MILITARY OPTIONS

However, what the article gets wrong is that a full scale invasion for the purposes - not of occupation and dealing with insurgency in major cities - but for securing the land bridge and solve "a real problem", is one way to do it.

That being said, the article does go over the possibility of multiple parallel incursions, what it calls "Course of Actions subordinate to Course of Action I" (sub-COA's; COA I is the full scale invasion).

But he might also execute several of these sub-COAs on their own to achieve independent objectives without intending to go all the way to full-scale invasion. We will consider the major sub-COAs here ordered by the likelihood we assess for each and laying out the separate objectives each might pursue beyond setting conditions for the full-scale invasion. — PUTIN’S MILITARY OPTIONS

So, correct analysis after all, only fails to mention the Russians could choose to have so many of the parallel "sub-COA's" that it appears to be a full scale invasion, but it's not.

The reason for doing so is more-or-less presented in the article, in that Western reaction is likely to be fairly strong (at least sanction wise) and a limited incursion to test Ukrainian and Western resolve and then pulling back has a lot of drawbacks (but the article mistakingly concludes that's more likely than major incursions anyways).

As for Zelenskyy, what would major incursions cause?

It would cause panic and crisis in Kyiv and drive Zelensky to plead for NATO help that would be unlikely to come — PUTIN’S MILITARY OPTIONS

Correct.

As an anarchist the root cause of this war and the wars you mention is the sovereign nation state system as we currently know it, from my point of view.

As a geopolitical realist, insofar as we have this system of nation states, these sorts of wars are essentially inevitable.

Everything is complicated and the process of contextualising why things happen, to try to really be sure who's to blame, is essentially an endless task.

In the current Western narrative Putin is essentially the only moral agent on the planet at the moment responsible for any outcome whatsoever, and everyone else involved is Putin's personal victim.

For example, Zelenskyy is certainly an agent in this narrative, indeed a hero and blameless, yet not morally responsible for anything that happens whatsoever. Indeed, if you have no responsibility you are by definition blameless.

NATO has the right to send arms, indeed the duty to do so, but likewise zero responsibility for the actual outcome of doing so.

The ratio of Ukrainian soldiers killed per Russians killed would matter if Ukraine was actually any kind of threat to Russia and diminishing Ukraine's military capability somehow benefitted Russia. — RogueAI

I agree from the perspective you are talking about.

However, just as the US mentions 100 to 1 kill ratios to explain military performance was great in Afghanistan, I am simply pointing out Russian military can use the same metric.

I have mostly been analysing the Russian perspective, so the cost-benefit from the Russian perspective maybe "worth it" if the casualties aren't too high and military performance was good in terms of ratios of things destroyed: yes you destroyed a bunch of our shit, but we also destroyed a bunch of your shit.

The importance of the the cost-benefit analysis from the Russian perspective is that it's the Russian perspective that will influence the ordinary Russian's opinion and whether they are for or against the war medium and long term (and military cost-benefit will tie into whether the economic sanctions were worth it etc.).

However, I agree that from the perspective of humanity the war is completely unnecessary.

Analysis pointing out the Kremlin can point to to the land bridge as an achievement, is relevant in evaluating if the Kremlin can convince normal Russians the war was worth it, which (regardless of what we think) has immense political repercussions (just like public opinion changing about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars being worth it had immense political repercussions regardless of what we may think, regardless of what is true).

Achievements have to be measured against the costs. Russia will have wrecked it's economy, become a pariah state, suffered grievous military losses, and united the West against it for a security guarantee it didn't need and small amounts of land it already nominally controlled. — RogueAI

In this context I am using achievement simply to mean what was accomplished. I.e. what is there to show for the costs, which I make clear many times I agree are very real (military, economic and political).

The prediction, 4 weeks ago, was simply that given Russia already achieved its land bridge at that time it has a decent accomplishment and could stop there if it wanted to and be able to sell it as "mission accomplished", at least to the home audience which is what matters most (to the Kremlin).

Now, to evaluate if, even in purely military or purely imperialistic terms, the war was "worth it". Yes, I totally agree we need to compare the achievements against the costs.

However, right now we don't really know how many Russians have died, we don't really know how many would be too many for ordinary Russians, and we don't really know the outcome of all the economic sanctions and geo-political consequences.

We have evidence of a lot of tank losses (more tanks than many decent armies have total); however, it's not completely clear to me what Russian generals think of their tank losses. There's lot's of reports of abandonment of vehicles (which are then lit on fire).

Since the Kremlin wants to minimise losses of soldiers and has a lot of tanks, orders could be to just light vehicles on fire, run away and get a new tank.

Since the ATGM's are clearly proving the vulnerability to at least T-72 era of tanks, Russian generals may not care much about them (there are becoming obsolete and so may as well use them while there still effective, and if you have a lot to spare in such a context, then survivability of the tank doesn't matter much, but rather survivability of the crew; and this is not at all clear to me from Tank loss pictures, even video of ATGM hits, if the crew survived or not).

For, it's not as simple as saying tank costs 10 million Euro and is destroyed by a 100 000 Euro missile. Equipment depreciates in value, so if something was purchased decades ago at 10 million Euro, it may have a present value of 100 000 Euros or less, and so generals order them to be abandoned easily rather than protected as an important asset.

Other reason I pause for thought about the tanks, is that the same situation happened in Syria of significant tanks losses (social media flooded with ATGM hits and burned out tanks), and same vibe that it must be unsustainable amount of losses of equipment and tank crews going by the social media ... but the Russians kept advancing anyways. So, it was certainly rumoured something wasn't as it seemed, and there were a lot of decoys.

Of course, even if some tanks were abandoned and had little value to the Russian military, no disputing there are significant amount of losses of all kinds of equipment, including fighter aircraft.

But, I think we can all agree it is the soldier deaths that are most important, and we don't really know this number.

However, we also need to know Ukrainian soldier deaths as well. Even if Russians have lost a lot, if they can point to having killed twice or three time, etc., as many Ukrainians, then this can be some form of "military performance" measure (US uses this metric all the time to evaluate performance).

For the economic and geo-political costs we don't really know.

However, right now Kremlin has kept China as a close supporter and also has kept good terms with India, who are at best neutral if not supporting Russia. Idea of no-fly zone has been abandoned, Ukraine in NATO has been abandoned, the economic sanctions did not go as far as to oil and gas and minerals.

The newest sanction tension is Russia demanding Roubles. However, at the end of the day that really doesn't matter, and the Europeans panicking about it may already be political useful in several ways.

Okay, it can remain an established fact only for me, no problem. — Olivier5

What you cite are not predictions.

The prediction is that Russia will simply end it's offensives at some point and declare it achieved its objectives; as, the land bridge, which it already achieved at that point, is already a major strategic achievement.

You cite yourself the context of the words that precede and follow "once", which is a conditional word.

I am explaining a potential alternative purpose for the column North of Kiev.

At that time, if you remember 4 weeks ago, the Western narrative was the purpose of that column was to roll into Kiev and start an urban combat offensive to take the city but that it "got stuck" due to Russian incompetence.

An alternative narrative to the Western media narrative, that I present, was that the purpose of the column was not to start an urban combat operation to take Kiev, but to encircle Kiev. I make clear that motivation for Ukraine to avoid that is extremely high so the Russians are being cautious and slow to avoid a counter offensive that routs the whole column. I.e. they weren't just bogged down in incompetence, but protecting the salient and the column which serves as a giant parking lot. The evidence for that being the column is sitting there for days and Ukrainians haven't destroyed it despite the immense motivation to do so.

In my exchanges with @ssu I make it very clear, several times, that I am proposing a different perspective, but that maybe the Western media narrative is right and Russian morale will collapse and the Russians will be routed and revolution will break out in Moscow. That is clearly not "impossible". Likewise, in purely military terms, I make it clear that Ukraine could have some big military surprise and counter offensive (some new weapon or tactic that I don't, and presumably the Russians don't, expect).

Be that as it may, the Russians can be argued to have functionally encircle Kiev with only 1 remaining road for supply, and the remaining south route in range of artillery.

Kiev is arguably under siege. Few sieges in history are "perfect".

Likewise:

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. — boethius

Key word "why". I'm explaining what Russia was attempting to lay siege to the capital.

Media even started to report Kiev as under siege, encircled, shelling everywhere.

So, if you want to argue it's not a "true siege" or "100% encirclement", sure.

What's important, however, is the the military, political and social dynamic did change once Russia more-or-less encircled and laid siege to Kiev.

In the build up to Russia cutting off the West highway, if you're able to remember 4 weeks ago, there was still talk of potential NATO no fly zone or even just accepting Ukraine into NATO spontaneously etc.

After media at least reported Kiev as "basically" encircled and under siege, mood started to change, NATO taken off the table, deescalation.

Since Ukraine not joining NATO was one of the major political objectives, and the purpose of encircling Kiev (in my alternative analysis to the Western media at that time) is to apply political pressure ... then Ukraine taking NATO off the table is reasonable to be met with stopping the encirclement, starting up talks, and pulling back from Kiev (as the major political objective is achieved: no one now talks about or has any belief whatsoever Ukraine will ever join NATO).

It's called "analysis" and, as I've already mentioned, if @ssu and the Western media was arguing my position, and no one arguing Ukraine could achieve anything militarily, I'd argue that, and I'd argue that Ukraines perspective needs to be understood (even if it maybe doesn't make sense to us), as otherwise there would be no debate, no possibility to submit any position to scrutiny if everyone just "agrees" (as @Isaac very succinctly describes is the Western media and social media environment now).

They failed to surround Kyiv and could only shell its suburbs. — Olivier5

I use the word surround rather than encircle, and use the word "pressure" rather than siege for a reason.

If the goal is not to take Kiev, just tie-up troops, then the purpose is to simply occupy as many Ukrainians as possible rather than reach some specific location on the map, which becomes secondary.

If the other territorial objectives are achieved, or no longer require tying-up Ukrainians in Kiev, and withdrawal maybe part of a peace negotiation process ... then that is not "losing hope".

Now, if Russians retreat from around Kiev, and then also from Dombas and then also from Mariupol and then also from Crimea, then, definitely they've "lost hope".

Manoeuvres and strategic objectives are not the same thing.

If taking and occupying—and failing to deal with an insurgency in a giant city that every military analyst pointed out would be obvious—Kiev was not a strategic objective, then it is simply a manoeuvre for the purposes of accomplishing the strategic objectives that are elsewhere. So, the success of the manoeuvre must be judged on the success of strategic accomplishments elsewhere in the "war theatre" to evaluate the "performance".

Russians committed resources to manoeuvres around Kiev, but Ukraine also committed resources to defend Kiev, resources that were not deployed in the East. If Ukraine committed far more resources and time to defending Kiev than Russia did attacking it, then this is a net-positive in terms of optimising force deployment.

And "pressure" is a typical military term and it's a typical military manoeuvre to pressure one position to prevent those troops reinforcing the position of which the plan is to take.

Since a defender may not know which position is simply being pressured with hardly enough troops to take it, and which position there's a manoeuvre to take, it is obliged to defend both positions more-or-less equally (or then guess what the plan is or then abandon one position to commit to the other).

And I mention many times the whole point of a multi front war is to spread the enemy forces thin and I also point out that Russia could encircle the forces in the East in several different ways, and that it's no accident that they all seem equally likely as far as we can tell.

I am sorry I started this. You have shown that are quite capable of holding both sides of this imaginary argument that you are having with yourself, so you don't need me here. I'll continue to ignore you as I did before. — SophistiCat

Sure, maybe if your position isn't clear and you refuse to formulate it succinctly, then for the sake of argument and the discussion moving forward, others need to formulate the closest thing.

They've sent a 40 km armor column to simply surround Kiev, creating the required pressure on leadership to sign the deal they want, who will say they Ukrainians fought with honour, blah blah blah, but the bloodshed must end and the page must be turned ... sad, sad, sad ... end of speech — boethius

This is exactly what they did.

They "surrounded" Kiev and put pressure on leadership to get the deal they want.

The first weeks of the war were "Ukraine has a right to join NATO!" ... there's none of that talk anymore.

This is called "analysis": of what the purpose of the 40km convoy was, to get the deal they want.

The prediction in that statement is that the convoy was not intended for Urban combat in Kiev to try to take the capital ... which they didn't do.

If there is a peace deal along the lines of what Russia wants, then the analysis simply tracks how Russia accomplished that.

However, I make very clear in my exchanges with @ssu that things can fall apart for Russia any moment and that Ukraine may have some surprise in store and rout the Russians, or then revolution at home etc. Only, that I do not personally see how Ukraine can "win" against Russia.

What predictions did you even make that turned true? That the Russian forces would easily surround Kyiv? — Olivier5

Feel free to quote what I actually say if you want to discuss what I actually say.

LOL. The mage Boethius is with us. — Olivier5

These predictions were completely obvious and @Isaac and plenty of commentators on the internet made the exact same predictions.

Russia rolls through South Ukraine in a couple of days and takes the entire coast of the Azov sea and connects Crimea to Russia by land, "The" major military objective that plenty of analysts mentioned, before the war, could be the purpose of the Russian military buildup (indeed, one expert viewed the land bridge as likely the "most" ambition the Russian military may have considering the force size; indeed, the very reason everyone knows the term "land bridge", a term rarely employed, is because it was talked about for months during the coverage of the buildup).

It's only a surprise now and people interpreting these predictions as echoing Russia "saving face" by "scaling down their objectives" due to a entirely madeup narrative by the Western media.

It's only in the Western media that colonels and generals paraded through talk shows explaining Russia's goal of conquering all of Ukraine, what Putin is thinking and state of mind, what Russian soldiers feel, and why they don't have enough troops to accomplish what they've set out to do and it's going to be Russia's Afghanistan etc.

So yeah, if you're hooked on what the Western media is selling, I do understand how reality seems like magic to you.

You are projecting. I never asserted anything of the sort. You, on the other hand, in arguing the opposite point, find it necessary to give ridiculous rationalizations for Russian campaign's failings. — SophistiCat

In the same sentence that you deny ever saying Ukraine has "won" anything ... you claim pointing out Russia achieving it's stated objectives is the campaign's failings?

And again, Russia has failed but Ukraine hasn't made them fail and won in that sense?

But why, in arguing this obvious point (against whom?), do you find it necessary to give ridiculous rationalizations even for the campaign's obvious failings? — SophistiCat

It's not me saying what they achieved are their goals.

Russia literally states the goals at the start of the campaign, and now has largely achieved them, with the extra military achievement of connecting Crimea to Russian territory. So, has actually achieved more than what they stated were their demands weeks ago, that if not met they would achieve by force.

In the same comment you have taken issue with, I explain that of course it can be argued that the costs outweigh the benefits (military, political, economic, social etc.)

Now you seem just to be back peddling to say they have made "narrow" achievements.

But, however you qualify it, these achievements are what Russia explicitly stated it wanted.

So, that's, nominally at least, achieving one's goals.

I have not rationalised anything; I have simply pointed out what Russia said it wanted, and pointed out it has now largely achieved on the ground.

It's you rationalising that it's a Russian failure nonetheless. Which, sure, you are free to argue that Russia really had way more ambitions in Ukraine than it stated, many more secret goals, and now has lost in secret with respect to those secret goals ... but, Russians being overconfident and incompetent but also sly and crafty, only ever stated very limited military objectives since they simply forgot to boast about their overconfidence going in (they were too incompetent to sort out boasting about their overconfidence), and that's now played out well for them after Ukrainian chastisement. Lucky Russians? Is the argument?

I'll even lend you my rifle. — Isaac

And my axe.

(Also just a loan; I expect it to be returned and not carelessly left somewhere in Mordor)

I finally understand this land bridge thing. So there will have to be a border and a passage through the Eastern regions? Sounds risky, prone to guerilla attacks. — FreeEmotion

I completely agree Russia has taken immense risks.

However, letting the situation fester (8 years of war in Dombas, eventual Ukrainian de facto, if not formal, integration into NATO; more and more advanced missiles they can just build themselves anyways, who knows what actual Nazi's will do etc.), so there are also risks (from their perspective) of not acting.

But for guerilla attacks on the land bridge (a relatively tiny region that can be passified, certainly easier than all of Ukraine), there was already a front all the way around the Dombas in addition to Ukrainian access to the Azov sea that could cause all sorts of military mischief to Russia.

So, if there's no peace settlement and it returns to years of opposing trench style WWI combat, Russia is now in a much better military position, with additional benefits from this war that includes possible peace. One big obstacle for peace was Azov.

There's no evidence Zelenskyy "liked" or "likes" Azov brigade. There's a story of him trying to go and reason with them and they threatened to kill him if he made peace with Russia. They are also on tape saying that if the Ukrainian military ever came to disarm them they would kill them all. So, removing Azov from the equation may make long term peace more, and not less, likely, even with a large acrimonious and destructive war ... that also allowed Russia's full military potential to intervene to degrade Ukrainians WWI trench warfare capacity, and send more than "volunteers" to help their Dombas friends.

Also isn't the Euro-Russia-Ukraine econo/miltary block a real threat to American economic power? — FreeEmotion

Yes, US is explicit in their policy (plenty of video of their "think tank" people discussing exactly this), that if ever Russia and EU were allowed to economically integrate this would be a threat to American hegemony.

The real threat to American power on the global stage is not China or Russia, but the EU.

Only the EU has both the economic clout and legal and cultural conditions to serve as a foundation and arbiter for world trade. Russia does not have the economic clout, and for cultural and legal reason, China can never play this roll (at least in its current configuration).

The EU, however, could serve as a foundation for world economic activity in a more peaceful way that actually solves problems (like environmental armageddon) with far higher mutual benefit to all parties involved. This is the US nightmare scenario and the reasons for treating Russia as an enemy to drive a wedge with the EU (and also reason for interfering in EU democratic processes since WWII).

The US "service" to the world is its military, therefore peace is the enemy.

To protect the world from itself, the world must remain at all costs a dangerous place.

It says they have a right to defend themselves and we have the right to help them anyway we can. — Olivier5

This is exactly the archetypical bane of liberalism I mention above.

For, if Ukrainians deciding to continue to fight "for their rights" rather than accept the minimal peace terms offered weeks ago (no-NATO, Dombas independence, recognition of Crimea), simply resulted in immense suffering for Ukrainians, degradation of their long term military capacity (and potential for self defence in the future), and short and long term economic damages (again, fundamental for self defense in the future) as well as loss of population that may not ever return in this scenario (but whom may have never left or then returned immediately if the war ended weeks ago) ... is this a good decision even for the purpose of self defence?

Likewise, if our "doing what we can" for Ukraine but not enough to provoke a dangerous escalation with Russia (i.e. not enough for Russia to be unable to achieve it's core objectives at acceptable losses)... how does this actually help Ukrainian self defence at all?

Furthermore, if the purpose of the arms shipments is not to actually help Ukraine defend it's "entire territory" (i.e. retake Crimea and Dombas) but, really, just to start a new profitable cold war and bleed Russia a bit (but not too much to avoid nuclear escalation), and also improve EU demographics with nice white immigrants that can be more easily assimilated ... is justifying this policy (i.e. the actual decision) under the pretence of rights also a right in itself for US and NATO to pursue their self interest?

Yes, I know you've dumped a lot of bullshit commentary in this thread. I stopped paying attention a long time ago - I just chanced on that delusional passage because it was quoted by someone else. — SophistiCat

How is predicting, 4 weeks ago, exactly what the Russians now do, bullshit?

It was obvious 4 weeks ago that they could just consolidate their land grab of a land bridge to Crimea (that they already achieved), destroy Azov, and declare core objectives achieved. With Ukraine now acknowledging not only will it never join NATO ... but Zelenskyy already asked and NATO said it would never be actually allowed to join, before the war! The biggest stated purpose for the war has been achieved as well.

Sure, you can disagree with Russia's moral justifications, and you can argue the cost outweighs the benefits to Russia (in direct military terms or then economic or political costs) ... but to argue they haven't achieved anything militarily and the Ukrainians have in some way "won" just doesn't make any sense.

And to be clear, I am not saying the military achievements are intrinsic justification or by definition worth it. I have repeated many time and made clear there has been serious costs, and I am completely willing to engage in a debate about whether the costs outweigh the benefits.

Point being, even if we all agreed Ukraine was acting in self defence and not Russia.

So what?

NATO could go send boots on the ground to enforce Ukraine's rights.

Ok, well, if we all agree NATO isn't and shouldn't do that ... what does that say about our respect for Ukrainian rights?