How could they even do that? I don’t mean in a moral outrage sense; I mean as in how would it be physically possible? They tried and failed already, and that was before everything they had was ground down by over four years of war.
It would pointless even if it worked. Ukraine has had four years to plan for evacuation of all key institutions based in Kyiv.
I can see a couple of ways:
- Ukrainians may also be ground down by four years of war and thus unable to stop a serious offensive, I don’t think it’s the case but I may be mistaken.
- Russia mobilizes WWII style and simply swamps the Ukrainian army with enough troops to neutralize the advantages Ukraine had last time.
Putin has to do something because the offensive has completely stalled. And surrender is not an option for him.
There’s some good insight on this from the excellent Anders Puck Nielsen:
A new wave of Russian mobilization has been predicted for years without ever materializing. This time the indicators are more concrete — and once the Duma elections are over in September, Putin has an obvious window to make the decision.
But mobilization is not a straightforward solution for him. It is expensive, and it pulls men out of an economy that is already short of workers. And above all, there is the question of how he intends to use the new soldiers to actually make a difference on the frontline.
Armed with what, and in what vehicles? Putin is already short of everything except bodies. Even more bodies won’t fix that.
This is the breaking-news thread.
You want the ukraine-invasion in Politics & Elections
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