It isn’t necessary to kill anyone while attacking their power grid. it can be done without explosives and it can be done as a cascade failure. The Russians need to understand what’s like to lose power on a large scale.
This sort of thing has never worked in the history of warfare, and not for lack of trying. Attacking civilians, whether it’s directly or via power infrastructure or whatever, will make them pissed off at you, not at their leader.
Reports of multiple missiles from Ukraine hitting targets in Crimea
Targeting a nation’s infrastructure with the goal of disrupting their military capabilities is a legitimate military objective; that’s an unfortunate fact for civilians who happen to be served by the same local electrical service as a nearby military base. But targeting infrastructure with the specific goal of causing suffering and death among civilians is a violation of the Geneva Convention. And make no mistake, crippling the power grid, even if done without explosives, will result in civilian deaths when people can’t heat their homes or get groceries or surgery or call for emergency services.
The world is (mostly) allied against Russia right now, not just because of the illegitimacy of the invasion, but also because of the way Russia has been conducting it, i.e. seeking to demoralize the Ukrainian populace by indiscriminately bombing residences and hospitals, attacking the power grid with no clear military objective in mind, and torturing/murdering civilians en masse along the way. If you don’t care that deliberately causing the suffering and death of civilians is wrong and illegal, then you should at least understand that if Ukraine stoops to using Russia’s tactics, they will lose the support of the international community that they’ve had so far, and likely end up losing the war.
I should point out that attacks with particular military objectives may also be illegal if civilian deaths/damage are excessive compared to whatever the military objective was.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/when-are-attacks-civilian-infrastructure-war-crimes-2022-12-16/
So Russian officials and military leaders are going to be perp-walked at The Hague to answer for all those apartment building strikes in Ukraine any day now.
That’d only happen in reality if Russia itself were overrun. Russia isn’t going to just hand anyone over.
I suppose if a demonstrably egregious military leader were captured in Ukraine, he might end up at The Hague but even that is a longshot.
As Gyrate says, criminal penalties for individual Russian military personnel are unlikely, but Russia may face further sanctions as long as their military deliberately targets civilians and civilian infrastructure.
All of which is beside the point: if Ukraine targets Russian civilians/infrastructure, Ukraine’s supply of arms and aid from the US and other countries will quickly dry up, and they will lose the war.
My guess is that , no, there will not be a breaking point soon. And yes, the bombardment of the Ukrainian electric grid will continue for several more years.It’s easy to do and costs very little.
Putin has no reason to stop. He has already drafted a quarter million new soldiers, mostly from rural areas, and can probably draft another quarter million in the same way, while life goes on as normal for the only citizens Putin cares about , in Moscow and the big cities…
Putin has psychopathic Wagner soldiers on the front, and death squads to shoot deserters in the rear.
He can and will continue the war for two years–Until there’s a new government in Washington, when he expects Trump to be President again.
And by then Ukraine’s electric grid may be damaged beyond repair.
I suspect he expected Trump president in 2020. He knew, or had enough dirt on Trump that the US would not really help. Trump is anti-NATO and thinks he’s Putins friend. Trump even said that Putin’s invasion was an excellent idea.
Modding, please drop the Trump speculation. This is getting too political for the Breaking News thread.
Heh. Putin orders a 36 hour cease fire for Christmas and asks Ukraine to do the same. They basically replied “Withdraw from Ukraine first.” I agree, and I hope that Ukraine takes as much advantage of any unilateral cease fire that they can.
The spectre of war-related revolutionary sentiment runs deep in the Russian psyche, and the idea that the Ukraine War is an existential battle, not for Ukraine’s existence, but Russia’s, is a common theme of discussion among Russian commentators.
A recent example:
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1610745223113543692
Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) led to military mutinies, most famously on the battleship Potemkin, and to the Russian Revolution of 1905. Heavy Russian military losses in the First World War also led to military mutinies and to the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Defeat in the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991) by showing breakaway states that the Red Army was not invincible, and through the formation of war veteran organisations that undermined communist party authority.
So there is precedent there, and the possibility for history to repeat itself.
A lot of heads in Russia may roll. Not Putin. He’s too powerful.
There’s talk of the US providing Ukraine with Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles. While they aren’t tanks, they are capable of taking out Russian tanks.
Apparently, it’s:
20-40 German Marder IFVs
50 US Bradley M2 IFV
1 Patriot Battery
I think it’s great that we’re supplying these important armored support vehicles, but wonder why so few?
The Patriot battery is mobile, right?
Can only pull so many Ukrainians off the front lines at a time for training.
Training troops on more advanced western weapons systems has been a practical consideration all along. So far Ukraine has been sending small numbers of troops out of the country for very thorough and in-depth training, and these folks go back and train their countrymen in Ukraine. I’m sure they could do the same thing here.