They want Ukraine specifically. It’s not about increasing the total amount of Russian-controlled landmass. It’s not about any minerals under Ukraine. It’s because (1) control of Ukraine improves Russia’s security situation, and (2) Russia feels entitled to Ukraine, and (3) Russia’s leader feels like swinging his dick.
It is inevitable. It was inevitable the moment Putin parked half of Russia’s BTGs on the Ukraine border. You don’t pay for a dinner that big and then settle for just putting in the tip. Folks are failing to appreciate how incredibly expensive that kind of deployment is.
It’s remotely possible that Putin thought he was going to get the absurd concessions he asked for. That would have made things worthwhile. But it’s more likely that he was always going to move on Ukraine, and decided that Feb 2022 had to be the moment, and put out some fake diplomacy as pretext. It’s the same playbook as when he invaded Georgia and the Donbas.
We’re talking about the ‘attack is imminent in next few days’ rhetoric, not the deployment of troops or planned exercises. You’d think if they really had credible information to that effect, they would share it with Ukraine.
Who’s to say they haven’t. The US, Ukraine, Russia, and every other government involved is saying in public what they need to say. What they say or think or communicate in private is another matter. Why do you think what Ukraine releases for public consumption is any less propaganda than what the US and Russia say?
We’ve been providing them with a lot of man-portable ATGMs and shoulder-launched SAMs. Will they make a difference? Sure. They will, assuming they are employed correctly and at the right time, hurt the Russians. If they used the ATGMs against, say, logistics targets like trucks and such, it could hurt the Russians badly, or at least slow them down.
This isn’t going to stop Russia from pretty much taking over southeastern Ukraine, however. What it might do is hurt them enough to give them pause, and probably enough to make them think twice about going any further into Ukraine, especially the parts that don’t have a large ethnic Russian population.
Yes. For one thing, Russia hasn’t been spending a year or so terrorizing and assassinating Ukrainian military and civil personnel to undermine their entire system. In addition, Ukraine isn’t a bunch of disparate tribes that are only loosely tied together with no sense of national identity. Their military, while not first-rate, also has a sense of itself as a national defense force, not a collection of people just thrown together or collecting a paycheck. There are a lot of differences between the people in Ukraine and those in Afghanistan. All that said, the Russians still will have military superiority on nearly every level. They have a lot more aircraft, helicopters, tanks, APCs, and the like. While they don’t have as many troops (if you are counting Ukraine’s reserves), their troops and equipment are both more modern and better trained and equipped.
What Ukraine is probably hoping to do (aside from hoping that Russia doesn’t invade at all and this is all some sort of weird bluff) is to make the cost of taking their territory prohibitively expensive further west Russia plans to go. The territories currently in rebellion will be fairly easy for Russia to take. Most of the eastern part of Ukraine, up to the Dnieper would be…well, not easy, but doable. Beyond that it will get progressively more difficult, at least IMHO and FWIW. Taking Kyiv would be very costly both in military and political terms for Russia.
I’m going to drop out of this thread for a while. This discussion is too unproductive. Too many people prefer to believe what they choose to believe rather than what the facts indicate.
Let’s wait and see who gets to say ‘I told you so’.
I realize you dropped out of the discussion so won’t be responding, but this is incorrect. They ARE preparing. The trouble is, there is only so much they can, realistically, do. If they forward deploy a lot of their forces they could be caught flat-footed, as the Russians have myriad attack vectors. They can’t even effectively forward deploy their portable ATGM teams effectively at this point. So, saying they ‘would need to prepare’ is both wrong and misleading…they are preparing, but they aren’t in a position to defend every foot of eastern Ukraine. The differences in force levels are simply too great and there are too many ways the Russians can come at them for Ukraine to do so.
As for what they are saying, again, they are trying to de-escalate this whole thing. It’s really not that much of a mystery, nor does it prove your case or whatever that Ukrainian officials are downplaying this whole thing. Again, the reality is whatever they are saying, they are pretty obviously taking this very seriously in what they are doing.
You might also want to consider why the west is saying what they are saying. I get the impression some in this thread seem to think they are making this all up or something. I think the reality is that the intelligence that Russia is massing troops and logistics is pretty incontrovertible. Simply, anyone who doesn’t see it is happening is deliberately got their head in the sand. But until Putin et al actually pulls the trigger, this can still be deescalated. What the west is trying to do is make sure the Russians know we are watching, and we see what they are doing. So, any attempt at some sort of false flag or staged incident to pull in the Russian troops on the border that just happen to be there because of training isn’t going to fly. We have laid out what the consequences of invasion are and that we are following exactly what they are doing and are watching them.
Zelensky backed Trump on the perfect call, even as the transcripts became available for all to see and clearly showed Trump being a slimeball.
The man’s doing what he needs to do to help his country, not to win a truth award or a sainthood. If the need of the day changes from day-to-day, I don’t fault him for shifting.
There really isn’t a downside to Ukraine’s down-playing or even criticizing the west wrt intel evidence, and there are a few upsides to that strategy from Ukraine’s perspective. The short answer is that Ukraine still hopes to de-escalate the conflict, and so downplaying the situation plays into their hands. If Russia backs down, then they were saying that all along. If not, then they weren’t the ones who were talking about an invasion, and look how shocked and surprised we are that those nasty Russians invaded!!
So it’s probably going to happen Wednesday. I predict Ukraine surrenders by Friday and the price for peace is going to be a Russian puppet government as well as a sizeable chunk of land. Not much the US can do to prevent it but I hope the consequences are severe.
I definitely don’t agree that Ukraine surrenders, unless by that you mean concedes the eastern parts of their territory, or perhaps doesn’t even try and defend them especially wrt those of majority ethnic Russian populations that are also currently in rebellion.
I do agree that I hope the US and the west (and really, everyone who isn’t China or Russia itself) make the consequences severe. Guess we’ll see on that, assuming this happens, which seems more likely as this thing drags on.
It will be Europe who really pays the price for this, though I’m sure everyone is going to feel the burn to some extent. We already are, actually, as at least part of the current climbing price of oil is due to this situation.
Someone should tell Zelensky that. He seems to have forgotten over the weekend.
I see from the link that Sage_Rat posted that “Ukranian officials” have already tried to walk back Zelensky’s statement. Seems some are still trying to walk an unwalkable line.
Hopefully, the Russians are in as much disagreement among themselves about what their adversaries are really thinking or intending as we in this thread are. If so, “mission accomplished!”
