That’s one of the possibilities, however we’ve also seen great areas of the Internet going down due to trivial issues a couple of times, so the theory may not work so great in reality.
How hard can it be to leave a modern city without internet? My whole country mostly depends on an undersea cable that makes landfall in a touristic location (I’m going to go nearby on vacation soon, the internet is slower there than in Buenos Aires ironically).
If an enemy bombed the backbone cable in Las Toninas I probably couldn’t post this.
Delegations from Ukraine and Russia will meet on the Ukraine/Belarus border:
Russia has placed its “strategic deterrent forces” on “a special regime of combat duty”. (Deliberately vague term that includes both nuclear and conventional forces).
Minutes later, UKR and RUS diplomats agree to a meeting on the border of Ukraine and Belarus.
Western sanctions have backed Putin into a corner. Off-ramps for the Russian Federation are conceivable, but Putin’s personal fortunes are a dark, narrowing tunnel. The anxious question that I expressed a few days ago - what happens if Putin can’t win or even save face - is apparently growing closer to realization.
Specifically I fear that “escalate to deescalate” may be closer to reality. Russia backed into a corner, makes a small nuclear strike on a non-NATO member that they have beef with, so as to spook all parties into deescalation. Sound familiar?
I don’t expect much from diplomatic talks. The Russians will come in and offer to accept Ukraine’s unconditional surrender.
It is a beginning dialog that’s better than silence. I would hope Ukraine accepts nothing less than complete withdrawal by Russian forces.
I’m not sure if the Russian forces will ever pull back from Ukraine’s border.The Russian bear will be angry for a long time.
So, here’s a dumb question: has there been a “why” communicated over all this?
Like, is the Ukraine sitting over a strategic amount of oil or some othet natural resource?
Let’s say the invasion had totally gone in Russia’s favor. What did Putin hope to gain?
It’s not like Russia is crowded & running out of land.
(I can’t help but feel like this entire near-international-war has been one gigantic pissing contest.)
My take:
Putin is not as popular at home as he was. He has probably overstayed his welcome and a quick and glorious win would have won him more time as the Despot of Russia. The man who is rebuilding it back to the “Glory of the Soviet Days”.
This a sacrificing thousands or even millions so a tin-plated despot could maintain control over his country.
It looks like he miscalculated and might hasten his own end instead.
At least I sincerely hope so.
The “why” is somewhat murky, but to me it can be distilled to:
Putin/Russia believes Ukraine is within it’s sphere of influence
NATO/the EU membership for Ukraine goes against that, as does the fact that the revolution in Ukraine some years back replaced the Russian-backed government with a “Pro-Western” government.
Russia is trying to get Ukraine back in the fold.
So this is akin to beating your ex into the E.R. to get her to take you back?
Correct. It was designed from the start that if a node went down the data would still get to its destination by being routed through other nodes, if a little slower. We civilians get “backhoe fade” because robustness has been sacrificed for speed.
I recall hearing that at the start of the second Iraqi war the US military estimated that the commercial-grade Iraqi C&C system would be brought down in 12 hours. It took three days.
Those kind of analogies are not good for talking about international relationships.
More like the US blockading Cuba for going from Batista (US aligned) to Castro (URSS aligned)
It seems all of Europe has closed its airspace to the Russians. No word about the US and Canada doing the same.
I would agree with this, but I would be more specific and explicit in saying this was strictly a loss-avoidance exercise for Putin. The benefits of conquering Ukraine would be modest for hin. But having it join NATO would irreversibly destroy his posture as a worthy strongman and avatar of Russian nationalism. He fears this might lead to him being dragged through the street like Qaddafi. Ironically, his Ukraine debacle bears a real risk of accelerating that process, which will be an even more bitter pill for him to swallow.
I actually think the possibility of that is very remote… people who want a “color revolution” in Russia are deluding themselves. But a bad man who’s done a lot of bad things can’t risk losing any power at all, especially when he’s surrounded by other bad men who would like their own shot at power.
The human cost of this war will be even higher. Other countries need to donate what they can.
Quick air traffic report; there is a Boeing E-3A Sentry AWACS flight doing a Figure Eight over Eastern Poland, not all that far from the Belarus and Ukraine border. And there are two KC -135 tankers circling in Romania. Otherwise air traffic seems normal.
Given the AWACS location, while I subscribe to the “Everybody Lies” theory of wartime reporting, I think the US military may have better information than most folks do and hopefully our leaders are being well-briefed. And moreover, with the plane easily seen by anyone, the message being sent by the US/NATO is 'we’re watching and we don’t care if you like it or not…"
Random thought: does “Russo-Finnish war of 1939-40” ring a bell with anyone?
Press on.
There is a war on NATO borders. I would accused the NATO command of negligence if they didn’t have AWACS and other assets up.
I’ve seen one estimate of $20 billion/day.
Clarification: These?
I wish it was a pissing contest. Tigers in the jungle respect piss-marked boundaries. Tigers in the swamps are irrationally aggressive because their piss gets washed away. The widows of their victims ask for online help here
That “no natural borders” thing has a bad legacy. The Mongols left the Tsars needing to secure everything to the horizon, on a steppe with endless horizons. Stalin wanted everything the Tsars had: the Baltics, Findland, half of Poland. Putin obviously wants everything Stalin had.
Regardless of what some cranky kids may think, my old history prof had one thing right about Russia: it’s got a terrible inferiority complex.
Most of the natural gas that Russia sells to Europe passes through Ukraine. The pipeline constructed directly to German bypasses this and Germany just shut down the certification process.
I would suggest that Putin wants greater control of the pipelines.
Putin’s motivation for invading Russia was outlined in a speech before it happened.
Ukraine is not some remote country with a different language and culture to Russia. It is not Chechen, Syria or any if the other places where Russia has projected power. Putin regards it as a previous part of old Russia. A Russia that predates the last couple of centuries and goes back a thousand years. Ukraine and Kiev are holy places for the Russian Orthodox church where saints that are important to the Russian identity are buried. Putin wants an ancient Russia restored, that covers parts of Ukraine.
The idea of an independent Ukraine as an independent nation state is something he wishes to destroy. As far as he is concerned Ukrainian nationalist are the equivalent of Nazis and his mission is to purge Ukraine of their influence. He wants to put his own man in charge who will keep the country closely integrated with Russia and free from Western influence. I guess that would involve a great deal of brutal repression.
This may explain why he has not raised the country to the ground in the same way Russia did to Grozny.
Until a few weeks ago Putin was regarded as a strategist and tactician. A chess player probing for weaknesses in global competitors. Pretty much the Russia of the 19th century: self interested and opportunistic, carefully weighing up costs and benefits. He played his hand pretty well.
But now he seems to have changed and gone for broke to achieve this completely unrealistic dream of a consolidated Russia, surrounded by client states that will buffer Russia from western influence.
How much any of his friends support this mad project. That we do not know. He is an old KGB man and is, I am sure, at the centre of an elaborate intelligence network on the look out for any dissent. But that renders him quite isolated and surrounded by people who tell him exactly what he wants to hear.
This is very worrying. Unlike Hitler, Putin has a finger on a nuclear trigger. If he has lost his reason we can only hope there are enough sane people around him to stop WW3.
For now the Russian army has been set on fighting Ukrainians who are regarded as family and speak the same language and gave a similar culture. They really do not want to be there. They did not sign up to go and shoot Grandma.
However, the Russian army also has Chechens army units who would have no such qualms.