I saw some ex-general commenting on the infamous convoy today. He was saying that he was dumbfounded that it was just sitting there in the open and, apparently, unable to advance or move off the road if they should come under attack. I also read from some unconfirmed source that UA is attacking the convoy in a strategic way, picking soft supply vehicles and anti-air assets rather than offensive weapons. That would make sense. A tank is no good without fuel and food for the crew. That said, I haven’t seen much video evidence about this particular convoy being attacked. There many other videos and pictures on Twitter but, while many or most appear genuine, there no real way of verifying them. I would really love to see the back end of that convoy getting trashed. Anyone have an idea regarding Russian air power near the convoy? Anti-drone capability? 40 miles of stationary targets must be a combat pilot’s dream.
If the convoy stalls, runs out of food and fuel, then that may doom the siege. I’m not certain that’s the case, but if that happens I can see Russia pummeling Kyiv with artillery, missiles, and rockets until no buildings are standing.
At that point, Russia can claim victory and I don’t see any country, NATO, or the UN being able to do anything about it. Of course, they can continue to try to siege the capital and also use heavy bombers and cruise missiles to slowly take apart the city one highrise at a time as they are doing today.
I don’t see Putin backing down, committing suicide, or being assassinated, but paying such a high price to get Ukraine back will destroy his regime as soon as videos of Russians starving in the streets gets out.
…then however this ends or how long it takes or if there’s Putin or no Putin at the other end, a whole big trainload of members of the Armed Forces Staff will be at the least getting early retirement.
The amount of wishful thinking in this thread is insane.
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No. NATO is not going to risk a shooting war with a nuclear power, no matter how much Heinz in Hamburg and Harry in Houston may think its a good idea to rescue the poor starving and plucky Ukrainians.
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First conquer and occupy Russia and then start thinking about putting Putin, Lavrov on trial in the Hague. Did any Americans get punished for Iraq, Libya etc? Is Dubya on trial right now? Powell, Rumsfeld etc died in their beds not in a jail cell or the gallows and realistically of all the leaders in this crises, the one with the best chance of dancing in the air is Zelenskyy. (Not that I want that outcome, but that the truth).
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As for Chinese joining in sanctions, lol. Actually ROFLOL? Why would they do anything except issue
boilerplate statements of concern. This suits them just fine. The two other Superpowers locked in a confrontation, their primary enemy having to divide its focus away from Asia again.
And frankly, from what I have seen in most non N American/European news outlets (and I have been reading those a lot these past few days), the overwhelming view is that “its sad, but its the same as Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan etc. Its just a thing superpowers do.”.
No one outside Europe and N America s going to risk relations with Russia over Ukraine.
yes, I think the tactic of “death by a 1000 cuts” is appropiate for the convoy … you just need a guy or 3 (all locals) with anti-tank rockets to take out 2 or 3 soft targets from different sides of the road, spread extreme caos and run into the woods. I don’t think the russians will be comin running behind them …
the people on the convoy really must feel like having entered a shooting-range from the rear side
you seem to underestimate the “effect of momentum that is building” globally … It is “tres chic” for every single politician today to show his committment with ukr. by coming up with new sanctions or new donation of “humanitarian and defense support”
I agree, we will not se NATO in there, but if they really start killing civilians by the 1000s, you will see a lot of staff in ukr. that looks an awful lot like NATO (but isnt) 
… plausible deniability works for all, not just some …
be sure visuals of a kindergarden group being killed by .ru artillery will make the news circuit worldwide with the resulting outcry that we cannot sit there and do nothing - the ukr. are way ahead of russia in terms of winning the PR side of the war - way ahead.
bear in mind, Ukraine is a free and democratic country and can invite all sorts of countries and alliances to fight within their country without breaking any international laws.
And NATO will start seeing a lot of stuff that look like Russian and in fact is.
you mean that stuff that is causing the “worlds longest traffic jam” ™ for the better part of a week - with no place to go?
If they stay there 3 days more, I can totally see locals going up there with hamburger stands, BBQ-Grills, food trucks and souvenir pop-up stores (talk about a captive audience ;o)
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… and sunflower seeds
No idea if the predictions in this thread are accurate, but AFAICT your own extremely pessimistic predictions about this conflict have been mostly wrong so far so I don’t know why you’re still so confident in your own analysis.
This will do nothing. People keep imagining the power dynamics of Russian oligarchs as if they’re similar to American billionaires, but it’s exactly the opposite situation.
For all the complaints about the outsize power held by American billionaires under capitalism, the system does have the virtue that they could pull the plug on a dictator if they feared their own capital was threatened. In an ideal world that power lever would belong to the people, but it’s some consolation that it does exist apart from the government. This is not the case in Russia.
This is exactly the opposite to how it works with Russian oligarchs. Putin pulls their strings, not vice versa. They work for him, not vice versa. He made them, and if they get out of line, he can break them and form new oligarchs.
The correct place to apply pressure is to start with Putin himself (as has been done), and go after the dirty fortunes of his generals and military ministers. In other words, squeeze every individual who might have the power to instigate a palace coup, to put a bullet in Putin’s head, including Putin himself.
The level Putin and his Generals are at, its beyond mere money. They have outsized power and influence, stuff that money can’t buy.
Attacks on Putins and his generals personal fortune aren’t going to mean much. If they get thrown out of office, its very unlikely they can keep their fortunes…or indeed their lives. If they leave office “honorably” then fortunes are going to be a bonus over the nice dacha, Moscow apartment, luxury car that they will get from the state as retirement perks.
How are you going to enforce that?
That’s the problem with international law; it’s only as good as a country’s own intention to obey the rules, and/or the international community’s willingness to levy sanctions or wage war to get you to do it.
At this point, I’m not sure if there are sanctions left to impose, and I’m pretty sure that nobody on the enforcement side would be willing to go to conventional war and risk pushing the Russians into a corner where they feel nuclear war is their only remaining option. Treating Putin as if he’s a rational actor in this has proven not to be the best approach here lately- he may well feel that it’s worth nuking some city rather than backing down.
I think that at this point, Ukraine’s more or less on their own, except for whatever supplies the West can get to their borders. The sanctions won’t be lifted anytime soon, except in the case of regime change, and maybe not even then. But I doubt NATO will go to war over this for any reason- the stakes are too high.
I think you underestimate the ability of the oligarchs with their billions in assets being able to influence these very individuals who have the power to instigate a palace coup.
Everybody is talking about a palace coup. It’s more likely people further down the chain of command that Putin may not even personally know will begin to refuse orders to put down domestic protests or commit war crimes in Ukraine. When the yes men can’t back their assurances with actual results, they’ll just stop coming to work and Putin will be entirely cut off from control of the country. Unfortunately, that’s when the generals start running things, but at this point that seems preferable to Putin.
I’m not sure they have as much ego as Putin does; the generals could potentially be more pragmatic about things.
Would there be any international trouble if a nation sent a hospital shop to the Ukraine?
I can totally see Russians beginning to take food and fuel from the Ukrainians.
And if this happens, I can totally see many Russian soldiers getting violently ill because the stolen food was… “not good”.
If they’re not getting sick from their own rations, with expiration dates in 2015.
I wonder what happens to the families of the Russian soldiers that desert. It can’t be anything good.