Can you explain what you think this means and why you find it ominous?
russia withdrew planes/helis so they would not blow up should UKR retaliate in/against Belorus for they were attacked from there …
my hunch is Putin will try to muddy the waters of his vanity war by push-shoving Belorus into the war (hoping UKR will retaliate) … similar things might be happening with the Wagner troops at the polish border (kerfuffles, provocations, incursions into poland, etc…)…
it would def. help his cause should a 2nd front be opened up in the north of UKR
hopefully UKR is smart enough to not retaliate directly, but indirectly through the Russian Patriotic Fron (or what they are called) … proxy-wars behind the fig-leaves of plausible deniability.
Case In Point: in the past 2-3 days the war escalated tremendously, possibly b/c both parties - due to lack of military success - chose “Stunts” over “Substance”
I don’t believe this is true. To pose a threat in the north, Putin would have to deploy troops in the north, but all his troops are already deployed in the east and south. The bits of Wagner that are in Belarus are without heavy equipment and so not a real threat to do anything more than a bit of harassment. The Belarusian army is not very capable, and according to rumour would mutiny or stage a coup against Lukashenko before joining the war. The Ukrainians have prepared defenses in the north (and much of the Belarus border is extremely difficult terrain, which is advantage defender) and should there be fighting would have no need to go on the offensive. In this war so far, the defending side has generally come out significantly ahead. Opening a new front where Ukraine would have no desire to play offense would be help the Ukrainian cause, not the Russian cause.
while I mostly agree with your assessment, it would bring troops (russian side!) that are now 100% unproductive yet have to be paid/cared for/fed/etc… into the theater. So in a way, they convert unproductive work into productive work.
The russians couldn’t care less if they (Wagners and Belorus troops) die or are not really all that effective, as this necesitates sending a couple of 1000 of UKR troops with some light to medium armament up there (and the whole works, like a supply chain and feeding those). And what they have to send up there, cannot take part in the eastern and southern counteroffense.
So IMHO it would dillute the UKRs more than the RU, as the RU would bring new BeloRU meat to the table.
Of course Luka knows this … and that he might end up like Ceauscescou in the near future
If Putin was playing a rational game, then I agree w @Gorsnak’s assessment. Net, net, Russia loses if they start an incursion or even just an artillery duel across the Belarussian border.
The problem is Putin so far seems to be playing a non-rational game. Whether he’s nutso or whether he’s being comprehensively lied to by his minions, or more likely both, the bottom line is that we (and UKR) cannot blithely assume Putin will not do something harmful to his larger interests. But that something will still be destructive to UKR and will demand a proportionate + 10% response.
Yes, Russia is stretched thin. But UKR and the West is also stretched thin. More fronts, more players, and more complexity is unhelpful for UKR & the West too.
It will also make winding the war down and putting the peacetime toothpaste back in the tube even harder. If you believe (as I do) that at this point Putin is mostly just a nihilist vandal wildly swinging his baseball bat in the china shop of Eastern Europe while cackling gleefully, well … making the ensuing peace as hard as possible is right up that alley.
reminds me a bit of the story, where a (drunk) guy harasses a one-legged guy to the degree of starting a fight with him.
Oddly enough, the one legged guy kicks his ass pretty good and beats the drunk guy down …
as soon as the drunk guy manages to get up again, he brushes off, walks over to a motorcycle gang and starts to fight them …
results were predictable - he was beaten to pulp …
next day, when asked what happened - he got smacked by a mean MC-gang …
so, Putin being this drunk guy, gets his ass handed over by a one legged guy (UKR), and starts to pick a fight with the MC-gang (NATO), b/c his honor system would allow to be kicked by 10 or 20 big guys … but not by the one legged guy.
that scenario is my main worry … and that is a potential end-game - as irrational as it might seem
To be clear, I wasn’t saying that Putin wouldn’t re-open the northern front, just that doing so would be detrimental to the Russian position rather than favourable. At this point it seems that Putin is not only not acting rationally, but that he’s also operating on incomplete/incorrect information, likely due to shooting the messenger often enough that messengers now tell him what he wants to hear rather than the truth.
Yeah. Sorry if I seemed to put words in your mouth.
Pushing Belarus into the conflict would be a big gamble because it might precipitate an anti-Lukashenko revolt. And then the Russians would have to invade a second country. This threat is probably the reason Belarus didn’t join Russia in the initial invasion - Lukashenko is simply not strong enough at home. Though maybe the presence of Wagner changes things.