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?

The cold war is over. The US hasn't been particularly interested in Russia for decades. — frank

That's simply not true, the neo-con's and war hawks have constantly talked about preventing any regional "competitor" from emerging for decades, in which they have no problem explicitly citing Russia as an example. Arming Syrian "resistance" to push Syria into a failed state was a direct threat to Russia's military bases and port there.

US constantly blames Russia for cyber crimes ... simply because they blamed Russia for the previous cyber crimes. "Leaks" of banking and other information embarrassing to Russia. Supporting a violent anti-democratic coup in Ukraine that threatens directly Russian borders and their most important warm water port. The only reason Nord Stream 2 wasn't put online is due to US meddling (otherwise Germans want cheaper gas).

Now, you can say Russia is evil and therefore United States is right to treat it as an enemy all these years. However, it's in fact simply bizarre to say Russia is evil but United States has not been opposing this evil ... if United States is good.

However, my question was, assuming you win the argument about self defence, ok, what then?

Why does it matter? What decisions follow from being convinced Russia is not acting in self defence with a preemptive strike to avoid appeasing Nazis?

Actually you did: — frank

Obviously @Benkei can explain things again, however, to have a go at it, he does not say Russia has a right to invade Ukraine, merely pointing out the reasons for doing so.

However, if you want a rights based discussion, then it can be proposed Russia has a right to self defence, and the US is constantly threatening Russia and attacking and undermining it's defensive capacity since decades, funding bioweapons labs and Nazi's in Ukraine, and so Russia is preemptively striking Ukraine under the same right US had to preemptively strike Iraq over it's WMD's.

Now, let's say you successfully argue (at least to your own satisfaction) against the proposal Russia is acting in self defence: why would that matter? what changes?

The alternative moral and political framework to complaining about rights, is focusing on decision making.

The key word in this alternative perspective is "policy" which simply represents some political decision.

What is our policy vis-a-vis Ukraine? I.e. what decisions are available and what is the best decision?

Ukraine's rights don't matter if we don't have a policy to enforce those rights; it's just pointless babbling.

Indeed, by complaining about a right Ukraine has and not enforcing it, we are disrespecting Ukraine's rights just as much as the Russians.

Note I got you to backtrack your implication that Russia has an implicit right to invade Ukraine, to: nobody really respects sovereignty. — frank

@Benkei is simply trying to explain the obvious, which is that rights and decision making aren't the same thing.

It doesn't matter what Russia's and Ukraine's rights are ... if we can't enforce them.

The confusion between rights as a legal framework enforced by the state, and a moral concept applicable in all circumstances to focus on condemnation rather than decision making (and a framework of thinking that takes the state not only for granted but is the origination and precondition of "goodness" if "rights" are good and cannot exist without the state), is essentially the bane of liberalism.

Simply having a right to do something doesn't make it a good decision, nor good for society.

A right existing in some legal apparatus does not make it by definition moral.

Complaining about rights as a substitute to good decisions, is by definition a bad decision.

The harms caused by enforcing any given right may outweigh the benefits.

Oh and here of course is a useful idiot echoing the generals' line with his trenchant "analysis": — SophistiCat

How is it "echoing" if I said the same trenchant "analysis" weeks before.

Of note (4 weeks and a day ago) "Kremlin can stop anytime and just consolidate the land grabs they've made so far, say 'enough war' we have achieved our security objectives and to demonstrate our 'peaceful intentions' are ending the war here, and declare victory" and "The parallels with Iraq and Afghanistan don't really make any sense as Russia isn't trying to "nation build" in an entirely different and hostile culture."

Also 29 days ago:

And again, Russia has already achieved key strategic objectives and can declare a magnanimous new peace now at anytime and declare victory. — boethius

Likewise 29 days ago:

This is definitely a risky move by the Kremlin, so could indeed fail; but with at least some strategic gains in Ukraine (that Russia has already solidified) I wouldn't say there's actual chance now for military failure (Kremlin can stop anytime and just consolidate the land grabs they've made so far, say "enough war" we have achieved our security objectives and to demonstrate our "peaceful intentions" are ending the war here, and declare victory).

The large size of Ukraine makes total occupation difficult / impossible, but, the large size of Ukraine makes a lot of land grabbing easy. For the same reason Russia can't easily occupy all of Ukraine, Ukraine cannot easily defend all of Ukraine.

Definitely full scale rebellion in Russia would be a failure or then failing to re-orient their economy towards China integration. I'm definitely not saying these aren't risky things, just presenting the arguments and, indeed, potential facts in which success is possible.

In particular, the Western media is basically just in a circle of saying Putin is failing because the Western media doesn't like Putin like "a lot" now ... but that was already the case from Putin's perspective.

Putin's not some youtube influencer living in fear of being cancelled by Western media corporations. — boethius

and,

Preparing in advance for "total sanctions" is not necessarily a sign they are unexpected. They are also not yet total; only some banks are shutoff from SWIFT and Western corporation "abandoning" Russia ... only matters if there's no replacement in Russia or China. — boethius

and,

The Russian army is shelling cities to the ground and already achieved a key strategic goal of linking Crimera to Russian territory. Russia may pay a price for these land grabs, but all military analyst agree whatever Russia takes it will keep. There was no insurgency in Crimea, citizens were in the least ambivalent about Russian control; hence, Russia simply keeping such territory and leaving insurgent territory and so having conventional fronts is a perfectly acceptable endgame. The parallels with Iraq and Afghanistan don't really make any sense as Russia isn't trying to "nation build" in an entirely different and hostile culture. — boethius

and

Western media takes it as a foregone conclusion that this was a "miscalculation" by Putin ... because it's played so poorly in the Western press and Western nations have flocked to offer moral support and a bit of hardware and economic sanctions.

However, the Kremlin has been preparing itself for this exact threat by the West since 2014, building redundancies for all critical systems and scaling up economic ties with China. — boethius

All analysis stated 29 days ago.

Now, certainly Russia would have achieved more militarily if it could and accepted Ukrainians complete capitulation if they did, but already 4 weeks ago they had achieved enough military objectives to simply say they achieved what they set out to achieve (and, consolidating those gains, in particular conquering Mariupol, in 4 weeks is a reasonable military time frame).

If Russia now accomplishes effective encirclement of the Eastern front ... which may be somewhat functionally being achieved now through air strikes on supply lines (it is 1000km trip from Poland to the Eastern front), then that would be the last strategic objective I pointed out Russians clearly trying to accomplish.

So, withdrawing from Kiev could be due to "weakness" and "losing" or it could be due to achieving the core objectives and exposing troops to harassment around Kiev no longer serves a purpose so they are being withdrawn to reduce losses (i.e. if they now calculate they can complete their remaining goals in the East with less losses even if Kiev troops are freed-up to redeploy to the East--such as due to degrading military infrastructure and capacity in the East--then there's no further reason to have troops near Kiev in exposed salients).

Likewise, withdrawing around Kiev is maybe the first steps to a peace agreement.

28 Days ago:

Yes, obviously discussing the stated reason for something is relevant. You can argue is purely propaganda if you want, but it's obviously relevant to the situation.

"I just don't get your position here.. I guess my question to you is do you agree with Putin's use of force to takeover a country? — schopenhauer1"

I'm presenting the counter argument to the Western media narrative, understand the counter-party perspective, which is the basis of negotiation; which I think is preferable to more bloodshed. — boethius

26 Days ago:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

25 days ago:

Their strategy is pretty simple:

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

Ah. Concrete evidence... yeah, that's a problem during a war, it is hard to know what's going on. Once this passes, we'll have the facts. — Manuel

We're in agreement here. If people were making strong claims that this was all somehow "genius 4 D chess" by the Russians, I'd point out the flaws in that argument as well.

Clearly it's a big mess, and there's losses and victories and significantly so on both sides, but I think also clearly that Russians have thought things through pretty carefully (at least top level Kremlin point of view ... not the conscript who knows nothing point of view).

Not to say "they got it right" or will succeed, but I think there's enough preparatory action to conclude they certainly have thought about things. From the Kremlins point of view, losses are certainly regrettable (no general wants to see burnt out equipment and dead soldiers) ... however, we really don't know what they feel are acceptable losses to achieve what they set out to achieve.

Since the war there's this narrative of Russia blundering into a fiasco. However, before the war there was a narrative of Putin wanting to "leave his mark on history" ... one way or another, he clearly has now. There are clearly massive risks being taken on in basically every sphere of Russian society, government and international relations. However, there are massive gains to be had from a strategic point of view as well.

What you say about proximity and people talking to each other and all the rest, yes, this makes the whole situation even more strange. — Manuel

Military, especially involving conscripts, in peace time is very, very, information leaky thing. Once a total war starts, then it's possible to impose strict communications, organise D day and even trick the Nazi's into thinking something totally different.

But then there are reports of many Russian soldiers entering Ukraine simply not knowing what they were doing there, approaching civilians and asking for directions and the like. — Manuel

This would be the downside of the surprise invasion. Organising a smooth invasion involving over a hundred thousand people is a super complicated thing, lot's of moving parts, and takes a lot of time. However, if the enemy knows your plan, you aren't necessarily gaining anything by doing your homework in this kind of situation.

But, if you just sort of gather people together, even your own troops think it's all just for show and a bullshit exercise (which is a default assumption about nearly everything in the military), and then suddenly invade. The whole chain of command needs to create orders in literally a few days for everyone. And the invasion was on 4 fronts.

It's also totally normal that the lower rank you are the less you know. During my time as a conscript it was made pretty clear the less we conscripts know the better. Everyone's on a need to know basis, and for sure conscript needs to know basically zero. Indeed, if everything the conscript believes about the operation is actually false, that's even better as then it just confuses the enemy when they get captured.

Of course, some units won't encounter any resistance at all so they'll just keep going until they have no gas and are lost.

What was clear is that the basic idea of the initial invasion is mostly just "go" until resistance is encountered. The only planned major urban battles is for Kershon and Mariupol which both have obvious strategic advantages to take. In the case of Kershon, military analysts concluded it was clearly overrun by experienced urban combat soldiers in a well planned operation.

Otherwise, Russians just take towns and cities that offer no resistance and go around cities that do offer resistance.

The "battle" for Karkiev is going since day one, but there's never been any real attempt to enter the city, they just go back and forth on the outskirts, apply pressure, Ukrainians defend, Russians shell, repeat.

Even knowing the Russians don't really plan to enter other major cities doesn't really help, since if you move out too many troops to elsewhere then Russians will seize that opportunity.

Russians don't believe in GPS based warfare since their plan is to blow up the GPS satellites. Indeed, in a real WWIII scenario that stays conventional for some reason, likely the first thing Russia will do is deny space by blowing up enough satellites to cause the cascading exponential destruction of all satellites and also make even venturing out into space nearly impossible for decades.

And only certain people are given maps, and even then you can still get lost with a map.

Point is, low-rank soldiers having little information, even given explanations, is pretty normal. And clearly the war is super chaotic so there's going to be big mistakes made by local commanders.

My problem is that a nation knowingly going to war with these kind of sanctions, does not fit into the "rational agent" idea, as in I don't think Putin would've been that irrational. After all, NATO now has a reason to exist, whereas it was struggling before. — Manuel

Agreed, "bringing NATO together" is a negative consequence of the War. However, the war has also brought Russia and China closer together.

Russia doesn't really care about much about NATO unity as such, that's what the nuclear weapons are for.

Rather, in a rational interpretation of Russias actions, at least, Russia cares about the USA attacks on Russian interests.

Putin has basically talked about this non-stop for 2 decades. The West response was "yeah, well, what are you going to do."

Putin would then explain (diplomatically) it would eventually get violent, that's what he's going to do. And that's what he's done. Putin's concerns were dismissed before because Russia had few strategic options ... so Putin works on solving those strategic concerns and then does exactly what he's said he's going to do if the West keeps treating Russia as the enemy.

The sanctions hurt Russia, but they also hurt the West and make the existing inflation problem even worse: pressing into an open wound.

Even if the Ukrainians "fight well" and even if it's concluded they get some concessions for fighting well and good for them and the Russians had serious losses: Russia will rapidly recover and improve it's military capability and most other countries in its sphere of influence would rather avoid a war than fight the kind of war Ukrainians have fought and are fighting.

And, consider the consequences on Ukrainian society.

Millions of refugees may not return to Ukraine, and the longer the war drags on the less Ukrainians will go back. The West's sudden concern for Ukraine may suddenly "need to be realistic" when it comes to rebuilding Ukraine and fixing its war financing. True, the entire country is not Mariopul, but there's still a lot of rebuilding to do, lives to put back together.

I'm not saying Russian elites were completely clueless or had no idea, but, I do think they very much over-estimated how easy this would be by a lot. — Manuel

It's certainly possible, I just don't see any concrete evidence. There's often focus on single lines of speeches or then that things were a surprise to junior officers who knew basically day before.

However, it's not like invading Iraq or Afghanistan who have literally zero intelligence capability in terms of spying on US planning, and things can be worked out in exhaustive detail and everyone know "their roll".

Ukraine has US backing and intelligence backing, that's a pretty massive asset. Indeed, over confidence would be planning it for months, not giving a shit who knows about it, and then just rolling in.

For, soldiers in peace time talk with their friends, who will be constantly asking "you think there will be a war" etc. and in the electronic age that's super easy to spy on. If you want the invasion to be a secret you can't have the rank and file telling their friends and family "something is going down", you want them to continue to be like "just normal bullshit". So your choices are to shut all that down and "get serious" in which to plan in secret but it's obviously not a secret, or then do what the Russians did and slowly build up so their own soldiers are none-the-wiser and then plan all the details in literally a handful of days, except maybe a few key things (like moving out of Crimea and taking Kershon).

So, the initial plan could be over confidence ... or could be extreme caution about US intelligence capabilities. A good plan is not so great if your opponent knows about it and is able to plan an even better plan. And, if the intelligence "environment" is such that the movement of 200 000 troops can literally be tracked on publicly available sat info, maybe the surprise shit show invasion and then learn by doing, is a good strategy.

Yes, there's losses, but there could have been more losses making a more detailed plan at every level that the CIA knows about and makes an even better counter plan with the Ukrainians. Worse, had the Ukrainians pinned down Russian forces in Crimea, maybe there's just as much losses but nothing to show for it; that's the nightmare scenario that generals would be worried about.

Another example would be Putin's essay on Ukrainian "artificialness".

If Russia managed to takeover all of Ukraine uncontested, that essay is a basis to just annex all of Ukraine, or then half of it.

But if that doesn't happen, it can be interpreted as just the historical reasons leading to this sort of civil and regional crisis, that arbitrary line drawings (such as just "giving" Crimea to Ukraine) and Dombas being massively ethnic Russians, is just a why the tensions occurred and why Crimea should be Russian and Dombas should be independent.

At the same time, it also provides legal cover for "defending" what is in effect Russian soil, in addition to the purely propaganda value.

Point of these strategic and reasoning ambiguities that can be reinterpreted to fit whatever happens after the war, is that it's difficult to assume it's an accident, just being stupid and not hedging all sorts of risks that were clearly very real and have revealed themselves to be very real.

And the other point, is that delusional tyrannies don't talk and plan in this way, but rather make delusional regional, if not world, conquering speeches.

Now, that's not arguing it's a "good plan" just pointing out things clearly were at least thought out and there was and is a plan. But if people deny there's any plan, claim Putin is irrational, everything is an unmitigated disaster etc. and pointing out potential reasons for any decisions can be dismissed off hand, then the discussion can scarcely progress to the point of considering what plans Russia may have had or has and the chances of success.

Which is just lunacy, even if you consider Russia "the enemy" and "evil", indeed even more so, the idea evaluating your evil enemy's goals and chances of success is somehow helping the enemy rather than inviting defeat, is truly remarkable framework of reasoning.

Of course, so stating only begs the question, of how weak does a political system need to be that the mere acknowledgement of the enemy as even potentially rational pursuing some objective in a thought out way, is the name that cannot be named and risks being some sort of self fulfilling prophecy to even consider one's enemy has some coherent plan to attack you.

The other things mentioned, like alternatives to Swift, nationalizing foreign companies, etc., look to me to be more of a reaction than pre-planned. It's not as if they have many alternatives, they couldn't well not do anything. — Manuel

There simply did not exist any alternatives to SWIFT at all before Russia and China made 2 after 2014 and the first round of sanctions and American analysts and official continuously hyping up the SWIFT as the "nuclear option" when it came to sanctions.

Now, I'm not saying their plan is succeeding, just pointing out that if you take mitigatory action about a risk beforehand, it's not a surprise (even if you thought it was low probability).

It seems clear to me they've thought through the fundamental military, intelligence, economic and diplomatic issues. Not to say having a plan guarantees success, or that achieving their military goals was at a reasonable cost and so on.

However, the idea that people who state goals, achieve those goals, didn't even have a plan to do so, makes no sense. Anyone who's ever been involved in institutional planning has literally zero stories of things being achieved despite zero planning, and even counter productive bad planning, to do so.

As to the probability the Russians assigned to Ukraine simply capitulating, we simply don't know. But they clearly had a plan in place in the event that didn't happen.

And, critically, as there's these chaotic manoeuvres in the North, the Russian military simply rolls out of Crimea uncontested, and rolls through Sough Ukraine though Kershon achieving a strategically critical bridge head East of the Dnieper river and rolls all the way to Dombas and connects their land bridge.

If those were the objectives (which "land bridge" to Crimea was more-or-less a consensus, before the war, of analysts as the "maximum ambition" Russia may try to achieve militarily) focus on the North clearly helped achieve that.

Then weeks of artillery to break down the dug-in Dombas line, missile strikes on key targets, committing to one single large urban combat operation that is strategically and symbolically critical, observing the Ukrainian supply system under a false sense of security to then plan an efficient bombing campaign, is simply not a bad plan.

Likewise, offering minimal conditions (just making the status quo de jure) and then the Ukrainians rejecting that, makes it a far easier sell to the home audience.

Which is I think the major point of that policy, that the minimum conditions the Kremlin has specifically asked in public are genuinely supported by ordinary Russians (keeping Crimea, recognising Dombas independence, and neutrality). Now, certainly the Kremlin will take more if they can, but their main political objective is "support the troops" remains a strong sentiment.

Certainly they would have just taken Kiev if they could, I'm not saying they predicted this current situation in advance, only that they clearly hedged their bets and made sure to be able to explain the operations in the North as simply undertaken to support the core objectives in the South that ordinary Russians agree with (Crimea should have water, and Dombas independence).

However, being able to set the bar of achievement to whatever was accomplished post festum ... that's just startup 101.

The issue not being surprised vs. not being surprised at the sanctions, it's being surprised by the extent of them, which is a different issue. — Manuel

But again, they took preparatory action such as make an alternative to Swift, isolate all sorts of industries, build a fleet of nuclear ice breakers to export gas out the Arctic, and most importantly make a "strong friendship" with China before invading.

Maybe Putin and the Kremlin did not predict the West would push sanctions and escalate arms shipments to the point of the EU locking itself into more expensive gas contracts and also put themselves in danger of an energy crisis that would cause an immediate recession (allowing US and China to take market share) ... because it's self-harm for a dubiously established ideological cause of which there's no guarantee home populations will care much of "it was the Russians!" as a reason for all domestic woes.

However, they clearly had a plan to deal with severe sanctions or they would not have created alternatives (such as banking) and secured essential supplies and trading relationships (such as China, India and Taiwan).

As for "the humanity" of Instagram existing Russia ... maybe the Kremlin doesn't actually like a large part of their population using an IT system controlled by a hostile power and is happy to see it go, which the shock and disruption of a war is the context to cut Russians cold turkey from these foreign controlled intelligence gathering systems ... which, we were just told today could be "weaponised".

And, likewise for the sanctions.

The idea the Kremlin has been taken completely by surprise by the sanctions and economy is in free fall, would make sense if the Kremlin took no steps to protect itself from sanctions.

If you want to argue someone is completely surprised by a risk occurring, it sort of goes with that argument pointing out they took no preparatory action.

It's like it starts to rain, and I take out my umbrella, and you accuse me of not having a plan in case it rains because I'd prefer it to be sunny.

Everything indicates it was the plan. You do not need to defend the strategic blunders if the Kremlin. — Olivier5

How'd they close the land bridge to Crimea within a few days and encircle Mariupol (the whole of their primary ideological opponent) ... without a plan?

If the plan was just to just assume total capitulation of Ukrainian forces faced with confused conscripts wandering around, and unexpected resistance created an unmitigated disaster ... how did the Russians accomplish anything?

Now, not to say Russian's plan was "the best" or the costs-benefit is positive, but they clearly had a plan in the event Ukraine made serious resistance.

If, in the first days and weeks of the war, when we were told Ukrainian resistance was a total surprise to the Russians and they're all confused, and morale terrible, and they're falling apart, it then happened; ok, that would be one thing. But the predicted disaster due to low morale and no plan etc. simply hasn't happened.

So it echoes @Isaac's comment about the idea the US goal and activity in the pursuit of that goal to collapse the Soviet Union had nothing to do with the Soviet Unions collapse.

If Russia had no plan and it's a total disaster, how has anything been accomplished at all?

And it's not convoluted to point out the goals people explicitly state ahead of time, point out to those goals being achieved, and then fit the steps taken to achieve those goals into some coherent plan.

It's much more convoluted to say people had goals, but not what they state (which sure, people can be lying, but that's a more convoluted theory ... especially ...), and no plan but they somehow achieved their stated goals as some sort of consolation prize offered or taken in an improvised way.

Yeah I don't know what's up with their website. — jamalrob

Web is also fragmenting, I can't access rt.com ... even though it's apparently not legally banned here, but I'm still not allowed to see it.

Of course, internet was already seriously fragmented with the great firewall technology, and seems that approach will be exported to a lot of the world now.

Exactly, and that plan failed disastrously. — Olivier5

That's not a plan, it's just a priori wish of pretty much any engagement.

Ukrainians would have preferred the Russians to just immediately capitulate as soon as they encountered brave resistance ... yet you're not saying Ukraines plan went disastrously because.

Preferring your opponent to just give up is not really a "plan", it's certainly not a warfare plan.

Now, had the Russians didn't amass the troops needed to accomplish the goals they stated, then, ok, they had delusional wishful thinking and sent in some random troops without a plan under the assumption Ukraine would just capitulate without a fight. But that's not the scenario.

Indeed, the only reason that Russia has "a lot" of losses to discuss ... is because they committed a lot of forces to the fight and kept fighting.

That is truly an absurd statement. — Olivier5

By conquer I mean through urban warfare.

Of course, if Zelenskyy simply capitulated or then Ukrainian forces just surrendered, that would have been preferred.

Almost no one actually prefers an adversary to fight rather than just give up.

However, considering Russia amassed the troops necessary to achieve their stated core objectives (which did not include conquering Kiev in Urban combat) then maybe they had a plan to win the fight (what they wanted to win in a fight) if Ukraine chose to fight.

As for the encirclement of Kiev.

It could be Russians did not want to cut off all access to Kiev or it could be that they would have liked to but advancing became too costly. However, if they achieve their land bridge, and take the rest of Dombas, and destroy Azov in Mariupol, and blowup all the Ukrainian critical logistical network and military infrastructure (by forcing resupply on 4 fronts), then encircling Kiev may have been deemed unnecessary.

In other words, if there is no objective to take Kiev in Urban combat, then encircling Kiev entirely is not really necessary if the general purpose is to just tie-up lots of troops to defend Kiev and force a lot of supplies to go to Kiev.

Likewise, Ukraine will fight fiercely to prevent total encirclement of the capital, so if it's not a core objective then it makes sense a stalemate does arise, as the whole purpose of a pin-down operation is to lower overall losses of your forces.

Again, I would agree that the Russian military would have encircled all of Kiev if they were simply allowed, but there's no reason to assume it was a core objective.

Now, you may say the very low list of objective announced at the start of the war, and essentially hasn't changed, is that the Kremlin were hedging their bets and intended to get more but failed.

Maybe true ... but the very fact someone hedges their bets is that they know ahead of time they may not get everything they want.

Likewise, it's been repeated many, many times that the Russians have tried but failed to kill Zelenskyy.

However, some analysists have pointed out that the Soviets killing the president of Afghanistan was a big mistake when they invaded and one of the contributing factors to a prolonged insurgency.

Hence, maybe the Russians learned from that and it's better to not kill the leader of the country you're invading so that there's possibility of legitimate peace terms. If you kill the recognised legitimate leader, you have have no one to negotiate with that both internal and external actors will largely recognise as legitimate.