You can't just lob a hundred dollar word out like that! I spent several moments trying to figure out what your typo was before allowing the possibility that you didn't have one.
a relationship in which one state or other polity controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy
I'm reasonably sure we were taught about suzerainty ("suzeranitate" in Romanian) during high school history lessons.
For example, in early 20th (late 19th?) century, the UK recognized the suzerainty of China over Tibet.
It basically meant “British India’s borders end at the Tibetan border, and we won’t do business with anyone in the Tibetan side of the border without running it by the Chinese first.”
Then in the early 21st Century the UK recognized the sovereignty of China over Tibet in exchange for Chinese money to some international orgs.
But all that happened was the British position became more precise.
It’s a compromise word to recognize the reality in the ground, while kicking diplomatic issues down the road.
Parts of the modern day Indian/China border are referred to as the “line of actual control.”
This is a 19th century war with 21st century weapons. It's from the bad old days when various European states built empires - the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the British Empire, Imperial Russia, and the Imperial State of Germany. For most of the 18th and 19th century, and up to WWI, there were wars around the fringes of those empires. Not hugely destructive ones, because nobody had enough firepower.
Putin seems to want to go back to that era. Not, as some people think, to the USSR era. Read that accidentally posted Russian victory press release.[1]
It's a good time to look at 19th century European history and the runup to WWI. What's happening is all too similar.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20...
And we hope that it doesn’t turn into a 20th century war with 21st century weapons.
Very little of the weapons involved are actually 21st century. Most are 20th century.
Dr Who - The Androids of Tara
Princess Strella (Mary Tamm), nor Romana(also Mary Tamm), would ever willingly pledge their suzerainty to Count Grendel of Gracht(Peter Jeffrey), which is why he tried to set up a shotgun wedding.
DOCTOR: Romana?
ZADEK: That's the Princess Strella.
(Grendel moves behind her.)
STRELLA: (deadpan) I, Princess Strella, descendant of the Royal Kings of Tara, Mistress of the domains of Thorvald, Mortgarde and Freya, do humbly offer my loyalty to the King and do hereby recognise his SUZERAINTY over me and all whom I command.
(Strella kneels. The Doctor grabs the sceptre and runs down the steps.)
DOCTOR: No!
(Everyone gasps as he hits Strella over the head with the sceptre!)
"sovereign, ruler," 1807, from French suzerain (14c., Old French suserain), noun use of adjective meaning "sovereign but not supreme,"
Sovereign but not supreme is a good way to remember it, it’s like a baby name of ‘supreme’ :)
What dictionary is your source of truth? I've been using Webster [1] but I feel like there's probably a better option.
This word was new to me, but looking it up I wanted to say "Yes" but have since changed to "no". Definition:
Suzerainty (American accent: soo-zer-en-tee) happens when a country X has its own government but cannot act independently because of a more powerful country Y. This more powerful country Y is called the suzerain and can usually control the foreign relations of X (how X interacts with other countries).
When it comes to foreign policy in the US, it is mostly handled at the federal level. States are more likely to strike deals with foreign companies than foreign governments. OTOH the federal government is not equivalent to a distinct country and is made up of representatives from the states.
One thing I don't like about the US system is that all our representatives spend a huge amount of time in Washington D.C., away from the people they "represent". And then the lobbyists have a single destination to convince a lot of people to support their stuff. It might be better if they all stayed in their home states and handled congressing electronically on zoom or something.
Lobbyists can easily create big zoom meetings that still get everyone virtually in one spot.
;)
Imagine if the Iraq or Afghanistan insurgencies had had access to an endless supply of top-of-the-line weapons, orders of magnitude more funding, and 'safe zones' where they could operate without the US attacking them... as far as I can tell, Russia is all but guaranteed a bloody and expensive quagmire until they withdraw.
It seems like Putin went on tilt. It's hard to fathom any rational justification for this.
It can only be because they think that it's essential to strike now; they think that if they leave it, terminal decline is inevitable.
This is a military operation that's been planned for years; by 'now', I mean 'this decade'. I imagine they saw the European gas crisis as an opportunity, and one that would slip away quickly if they didn't seize it. That's why it's happened this spring.
That long column: that's mostly logistics for the planned long siege of Kiev. I think those guys have barely begun.
Say Ukraine survives or becomes an Afghanistan-like insurgency power. But now they are rife with guns, warlords, and no national institution or government to organize everything....
Nature abhors vacuums. Especially if those vacuums are easy to fill.
What do you think will happen if Russia backs down?
Ukraine already borders 4 EU members (Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland).
At least destabilizing Ukraine is necessary to prevent near-term, rapid decline for the Russian Federation. Ukraine's energy production potential and proximity to Europe make them a likely serious competitor, at a time when renewables are already putting pressure on petrostates like Russia.
Russia made Ukrainian resources in the East difficult to exploit with their fomenting or fabricating a persistent rebellion out that way, and seized most of Ukraine's substantial resources in the Black Sea when they took Crimea outright—but Crimea's dependent on Ukrainian fresh water, which has quite literally dried up for obvious reasons, and Russia's having a hell of a time (that is, spending huge amounts of money to limited effect) supporting Crimea without holding some of the mainland.
This is part of a series of actions aimed at creating short- and mid-term economic stability for Russia, while also improving their strategic situation. I would guess that an acceptable, if not perfect, outcome for them would be bringing the Eastern ~1/3 to 1/2 of Ukraine under Russian control, and it looks like they may yet manage to play their hand to effect such a partition, despite their bizarrely-inept invasion.
It does appear that they've blundered, overall, and not just though military fuck-ups—the sanctions are likely causing a ton of pain, NATO and the EU are more united against them than they've been in a long time and are re-arming (as in Germany), and they managed to bump energy independence way up the priority list for the EU. However, there are good reasons for them to (have tried to) do what they're doing.
I don't know if you're fully aware of what effect the sanctions are having or going to have on Russia, but anything resembling economic stability is absolutely NOT it.
Russia will face a humanitarian crisis, perhaps almost as severe as Ukraine itself, especially in its poorer regions, with anything resembling a tech industry evaporating nearly overnight, and massive unemployment following.
These effects will not dissipate in the short or mid-term.
At least I don't see them being resolved unless they massively pivot to selling petro-chemicals to China instead.
Having the Ukrainian legitimate government agree to surrender to save Kiev (or “just” Khariv) from such a fate isn't completely impossible to imagine. And giving infantry weapons isn't going to be enough to stop Putin from doing so if he wanted. I don't know how many FОАВ[1] the Russian air force has at its disposal, but Javelin aren't gonna help against that…
And after this hypothetical surrender from the Ukrainian government, setting up a bloody dictatorship with a special police arresting, torturing and executing whoever is suspected to belong to the insurgency, relying on pro-russian locals to provide intelligence is not an impossible feat unfortunately…
That being said, that doesn't mean I approve US invasion of Irak in any way (because I do not), it just feels you're comparing Pearl Harbor with Stalingrad… (Ok, not literally, because there is a two orders of magnitude difference between Pearl Harbor and Stalingrad, but you get the idea).
That's a fair statement. Depleted Uranium is a gift that keeps on giving.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-depleted-uranium-as-ma_b_3...
https://www.nuclear-risks.org/en/hibakusha-worldwide/falluja...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Iraqi_populat...
Yet, “in terms of city leveling” Fallujah and Grozny are not comparable. That's it.
Their stated objective in Ukraine is not to take Kyiv, let's hope it's true.
Exactly, like the the capital of your country for instance. Noting that I'm not talking about defeating an insurgency with it, just overthrow the legitimate government and put a pro-russian dictatorship in charge. Exterminating the insurgents would then be the job of the local dictator. Obviously it's not guaranteed, but torture, kidnapping, and assassination have proven an effective mean of counter-insurgency… In real life the bad guy sometimes win…
And the sanctions Russia is under will be nothing like the ones that will be heaped on top.
Europe is highly sensitive about local conflicts, especially after what happened to Srebrenica. Grozny didn't really count since it was:
a) an internal war
b) at the end of Europe
If Putin flattens a major European city (for Europe any city above ~2m or so is major), the outrage in Europe will be huge. Even bigger than it is now.
Ukraine is not in NATO. And I'm afraid if NATO and EU have to choose between a direct military confrontation of nuclear-capable powers and a genocide of 40-million-and-dwidling Ukrainian population, they'd choose the latter as long as Putin keeps this contained in Ukraine.
Would it turn Russia into Greater North Korea? Absolutely. Would it cause outrage and grave concern? You bet. Would it make NATO to move in and stop it? Unlikely at the moment.
But in Europe that outrage will also be from a place of fear: maybe Russia will do it to you, too. So it will be longer lasting and a more intense and probably a truer feeling. Not fake outrage.
And even if it were, no NATO member will set foot in Ukraine while this war and the following insurgency are happening.
What will happen is, depending on how hard Putin pushes, the reaction will be just as strong. More attacks targeting civilians? More weapons sent to Ukraine. Harder sanctions, with actual teeth. I wouldn't be shocked if by next winter 60%+ of the gas supply for Western Europe will be covered from other vendors, more or less bankrupting Russia (a huge percentage of Russian exports are raw materials, primarily oil and gas).
you will be shocked to discover that Russia is going to fuel China's economy instead [1]
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-28/gazprom-p...
If the mission changes to kill as many civilians as possible, the army is going to have an even worse morale problem and the international community will come up with a creative solution like giving part of Poland to Ukraine, giving Ukrainian citizenship to anyone within that part of Poland and then launching attacks with all the military resources that just happen to now be in Ukraine.
starting to see videos of explosives being lobbed at unarmed people. These do not seem like crowd-control munitions: https://twitter.com/aldin_ww/status/1499059624250646538
On a more historic note, it took the Soviets a couple of days before they ran over people with tanks during the January Events in Vilnius: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_(Lithuania)#Tim... note how they also claimed it was acting against a "nationalist" (equivalent to "nazi" in the USSR) government.
> If the mission changes to kill as many civilians as possible, the army is going to have an even worse morale problem
I agree. This is indeed one of the biggest challenge the Russian army will face if they decide to do so.
> the international community will come up with a creative solution like giving part of Poland to Ukraine, giving Ukrainian citizenship to anyone within that part of Poland and then launching attacks with all the military resources that just happen to now be in Ukraine.
This is hilarious, I love it. Never gonna happen, but I love the creativity here. This is “thinking out of the box”.
[EDIT] Further caveat that it'd have to be before substantial Russian ground forces reach that part of the country. This is still a low-likelihood scenario, but certainly far more likely than declaring part of Poland to be in Ukraine (?!)
That doesn't explain this, though:
> Vastly outmatched by Russia's military, in terms of raw numbers and firepower, Ukraine's own air force is still flying and its air defenses are still deemed to be viable - a fact that is baffling military experts.
> After the opening salvos of the war on Feb. 24, analysts expected the Russian military to try to immediately destroy Ukraine's air force and air defenses.
> That would have been "the logical and widely anticipated next step, as seen in almost every military conflict since 1938," wrote the RUSI think-tank in London, in an article called "The Mysterious Case of the Missing Russian Air Force."
> Instead, Ukrainian air force fighter jets are still carrying out low-level, defensive counter-air and ground-attack sorties. Russia is still flying through contested airspace.
...
> Did they really launch this invasion on the assumption that the people of Ukraine would just roll over and accept foreign rule?
It seems like it. I've seen videos of captured Russians where they claimed they were lied to and told the Ukrainians would welcome them. IIRC, their invasion of Crimea wasn't met with much resistance, and maybe they assumed it would be the same this time.
Also, if they'd been faster they might have had more success. I've seen reports that the Russian military has been acting in risk-averse ways that gave the Ukrainians time to organize more effective resistance.
It's unclear to me how much of that time Ukraine used to prepare. If they did, they didn't telegraph it.
What I read was the Russian amphibious landing in the south was done 30-40 miles away from the target city (or kilometers, can't remember the unit). Apparently they wanted the space to get organized. However that meant the city had extra time to prepare after the actual invasion started.
Everything from land forces, to the navy, to the air force, to the intelligence, to the propaganda unit is performing poorly.
And the West has exhibited superior intelligence and PR by all means. The Ukrainian army is much better trained and organized than expected (probably some Western help in their training, or just the psychological hardening caused by the conflict from 2014), and the population is 100% hostile to the invasion.
Yes there is a degree of restraint because they are trying to take the country over, they cannot burn it to the ground, but they don’t really seem to care about civilians and keep committing war crimes, just now they directly bombed near a hotel and train station, people trying to flee the country.
Saying they are ‘pro-civillian’ seems far fetched and doesn’t seem to match the facts
The British government is leading a 38-nation referral of Russia to the ICC to probe war crimes and a direct quote from the British Government foreign secretary just now reads: “Putin’s military machine is targeting civilians indiscriminately and tearing through towns across Ukraine"
I've just read that the explosion near Kiev's train station (if that's what you're talking about) was due to a Russian missile that got intercepted by Ukrainian defense.
It would make zero sense for Russians to be using their weapons against anything non-military at this point given that, if reports are true, there's still plenty of Ukrainian military resistance to be dealt with.
NATO used cluster bombs in the 1990s bombing of Serbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni%C5%A1_cluster_bombing. If it is a war crime now, it was a war crime then, where are the prosecutions of those responsible? It has been 20 years and I don't see anyone being held accountable.
I think we are now seeing a clearer picture of what happens when there is a conflict in an urban area. In the past we got to see a video from a plane guiding a bomb to the building from above (Iraq wars) and assumed it was an isolated military installation. Then we saw news footage of residential buildings in various states of destruction and just never associated that with the above video of bombs dropping on buildings. If you drop bombs near residential area, there will be destruction in that residential area. Look at what truck bomb did in Oklahoma City bombing - that was one makeshift (but large) bomb that detonated outside a building and according to Wikipedia "The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings, and destroyed or burned 86 cars".
Maybe this war will finally get people to see how destructive and wasteful they are but somehow I doubt it.
Now? Have you heard of Stalingrad?
THERE IS NO VICTORY FOR REGULAR PEOPLE IN THESE CONFLICTS. THEY LOST EVERYTHING.
It seems to be impossible to explain to most people that war is bad for them and the only people who "win" are the politicians and their rich sponsors. I will count myself lucky if I manage to die before we get into a nuclear war.
We have to understand this before we can cope with what is happening? Asking a bit much, in my opinion.
And have you perhaps heard: Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
Russia has made a strategic decision to avoid heavy bombers due to the high likelihood of civilian casualties.
Some platoon commander launched a rocket barrage for whatever reason. Command discipline isn’t perfect, especially among new recruits, so individual deviations are to be expected.
Because we look in different places. TikTok and FB posts are isolated incidents and don't offer meaningful statistics. I'm sure if I want to see dead Ukrainians I can find that on Russian media sites. None of it is meaningful to the big picture. We really can't see the big picture numbers.
/s/Azov Battalion/Ukrainian National Guard/
Would be nice if Europe and the US would seize Putin and associates' accounts and donate them to Ukraine.
I agree with this. Ukraine already has sustained tremendous damage, and of course it will get much worse before this ends. Take everything possible from Russia and give it over to Ukraine to help rebuild. Assuming they win. God I hope they win.
IMHO, RF should give Cuban and other territories, confiscated by USSR, back to Ukraine as compensation for 8 years of war and massive destruction of Ukrainian cities.
All that excuses nothing.
This is my take as well.
The obvious contrast is their handling of Kiev versus how they utterly flattened Grozny.
It's clear to me that in the early days Russia was hoping for a quick and decisive win. They'd decapitate the government, install a puppet regime, and then hope the public would roll over.
That hasn't happened and we're now entering a much more bloody phase of indiscriminate bombing/shelling of the civilian population.
The Russian Army didn't initially flatten Grozny with artillery either. It was only after a failed assault that they switched to methodical urban destruction.
Which is why racheting up sanctions and worse ASAP is important...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1994%E2%80...
I have this info from one of the journalist who were close to Belarus border in the beginning of the invasion. First he wrote article about how hopeless situation is because he rode a few hours to Kiev before seeing first defense. But after two days all the attacks on Kiev stopped so it probably was smart strategy to make supply lines too long to defend them. Even on Monday he reported that only shelling he saw was from Ukrainian army.
Iirc Ukraine had a government that was subordinate to Russia as recently as 2014. Belarus is still a Russian puppet. The Transnistria region of Moldova to Ukraine's south is largely welcoming of Russian military control.
Doesn't seem too outlandish for them to assume that to me.
Edit: works with Yandex translate
This doesn't explain Russia's lack of air superiority as well as the hypothesis proposed by the paper on which this article is based [1]: a lack of precision munitions, the risk of Ground Force SAMs causing friendly fire due to bad coordination between the branches and a lack of pilot training leading to those planes not being battle ready.
[1] https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...
maybe the plan is: d) cut ukraine in half, let a weaker and beaten 'neutral' western Ukraine be the new NATO buffer, and eastern Ukraine is annexed?
That doesn't apply to apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, etc. The shelling is very intense in multiple cities.
So yes, most Russians aren't directly firing on people in the street, but in larger cities they're destroying their homes and local infrastructure.
Look Im pro Ukraine. Out of interest I joined a bunch of Telegram groups that are “pro Russian” to see how both sides see the conflict. There is a lot of information you’re missing out on if you just look at mainstream news. Like the school thing. Maybe I’m being redpilled. It was a weird eye opening experience for me.
Edit: here it is https://www.reddit.com/r/warinukraine/comments/t52e62/ukrain...
There’s also another video of a school attack aftermath. Dead Ukrainian solders in the school. Looks like it was close quarter combat.
Putin wants the sanctions to be over. His next move will be to create devastation in Ukraine and hold civilians as hostages for the lifting of the sanctions.
In anycase, Russia will controll South of Ukraine, link up with Transnistria and even if they don't take Kyiev and don't force Kyiev into peace negociations, the will secure such a strong position that absolute control won't matter
I'd say he's going to invade Moldova in the next few days (once Odessa is taken) and make a big show of how easily they took it to restore morale, and very soon after they're going to plunge in Ukraine's back and make a big push for Kyiev.
I think they might abandon installing a puppet government, but in that case they will bring devastation to Ukraine and keep the whole Black Sea coast, and just let Ucraine fester.
But why "modern tyranny"? Wars like that are not a novelty... or is it about taking civilians as hostages?
The Emperor Putler has no clothes.
Any victories for Ukrainian forces may be short lived, as Russia seems to be using this opportunity to guage hot and cold zones.
Is the above an inaccurate perception?
Surely they asked for cechen, mercenary, bielorusian and even Kazhatanian troops just to join the 85% of non commited troops, because it makes perfect sense to bring troops from thousands and thousands of km instead of using your non-commited troops that you have already staged.
They did not commit all, and russia doctrine is recon by fire and they don't give a fuck about their conscripts lives, but what you see is what Russia got.
They didn't switch to demolish cities because they are evil.
They ran out of precision munitions and the ukrainian had their asses handed to them so they switched to siege warfare.
You are seeing the true face of the russian army, subpar by all standards, but enough for the butcher in Kremlin.
[0] http://www.iswresearch.org/2022/03/russian-offensive-campaig...
We can't ignore the 50+ years of lies about various conflicts around the world and the coups/ assassinations where the public was purposely misled. This isn't new and ridiculing the observation is unproductive. Ignore history at your own peril.
I will say, Russia has probably increased their forces at this point but it may not be as much as claimed by the DOD.
Other than explaining away russian embarrasment of the way things are going.
I don't think it's that simple.
Sure, conscripts were told to expect a welcome in streets lined with natives waving Russian flags. Maybe some in high command even thought that was a possibility. But they have backup plans; we've seen only the first click of the ratchet. Escalate, pause; escalate, pause. This happened in Chechnya too.
Putin didn't invent this approach. And Putin didn't invent the idea that Ukraine is not a separate state, but a part of Russia.
He's written history books, I gather; I might be interested in reading one, but I suspect they're hard to get hold of just now.
Russia formed when Oleg from Novgorod killed Ascold and Dir (rulers of Kyїv) in 852AD, captured Kyїv, then called it as «mother of (new) Russian cities».
When Moscow tsar Petro I captured original Russia (now Ukraine), he appended «tsar of all Russia» to his tittle. Then Catherine II renamed Moscow kingdom to Russian Empire.
So, in short, RF is Russian, not Russia.
> Their options seems to be (a) beat a hasty retreat; (b) impose a bloody total subjugation of the population; (c) face a decades-long insurgency that will bleed them dry.
> We need to find a variant of (a) that allows Putin to save face, because his default will be (b).
This is precisely the conclusion I've come to.
I think the only (a) is give him some territory. That seems unlikely. Perhaps retake all of Crimea and then give him part of it?
I'm really worried about (b). I have 3 friends/coworkers there.
they do not. Their policy is not pro-civilian at all. These are facts that you can see on the streets, no fog of war here. They are are bombing residential areas for DAYS without stopping. And I know, my best friends are in Kyiv and Kharkiv how.
Also there was a missile strike on the railway in Kyiv where people are evacuated. Civilian people.
Not sure why you think they are pro-civilian even on some level.
It is, when you compare it with syria or chechnya.
They're hitting a lot of hospitals and civilian infrastructure. As per their typical operating procedures, c.f. Syria.
Russia probably wants eastern Ukraine (and let's admit it, Donbass and Donetsk are not Ukrainian anymore since 8 years), but has no interest in occupying the western part, only in ensuring it stays neutral geopolitically.
People talking about Russia planning to invade Finland or other countries next are completely delusional. Russia is a small economy and has no chance of winning an open conflict with NATO. You may not like Putin but he's definitely not suicidal.
Two world wars were fought over this issue of just rolling tanks into people's backyards and then staking claim to the land. The sole purpose of these agreements, to which Russia is a signatory (and a founding member of the U.N.) is to prevent exactly what they are doing. It's bad enough the response to Russia's 2009 invasion of Georgia and 2014 invasion of Ukraine came with tepid responses - but it's not OK to just roll over and change borders as an exchange for stopping aggressive war. It would be rewarding that behavior.
The sanctions on Russia should persist as long as Russia occupies Ukraine. This is what they've previously agreed to.
Donbass and Donetsk are not Ukraine since 8 years, in fact Ukraine bombed and harassed them for years, killing civilians and destroying residential areas, without managing to pull them back. Ukraine is permanently split in 2, like it or not. The west can hide their head under the sand for 8 more years, the situation won't change.
> The sanctions on Russia should persist as long as Russia occupies Ukraine. This is what they've previously agreed to.
That's probably what Russia hopes, as the sanctions are going to cause devastating economical damage in Europe. Russia can just turn to China and other Eurasia countries to sell gas and oil, we don't have alternatives. Without Russia's gas, both Germany and Italy will suffer heavy consequences, dragging Europe with them.
We haven't even seen the sanctions Russia will apply on us. We're not going to like it, trust me. And I have NO intention f sacrificing myself because Biden or the european burocrats (who never gave a single fuck about me) ask for it.
I seriously hope this situation will cause a break up between Europe and the USA. It's time for an Eurasia era.
He literally went on a 45 minute rant about how Ukraine isn't a country right before this started.
[1] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/putin-urges-ukraine-military-to-o...
Years ago, I was also suprised to hear people in Crimea celebrating post-Russian take over. This topic was never covered (at least I had seen no mention) in American media during the Crimean invasion.
And yes, many in Eastern Ukraine considered themselves more Russian than Ukrainian. No more: https://on.ft.com/35jWHzB
Yep there is substance in some Russian points
- Ukraine is, somewhat, artificial as a country (bear with me)
- In Crimea a lot of people celebrated the takeover. The referendum was rigged but there was a tangible popular support
- In Donbass some people are not really fans of the Ukrainian government. I know people from Donetsk that prefer the Russians
- People in Donbass suffered from continuous shelling from Ukrainian forces (I don't want to emphasize the "Nazi" affiliation of the Azov brigade because it's a propaganda point but yes, there have been incidents and civilians suffered). Donbass reminds me of Hamas controlled Gaza Strip and I can see both sides
- Yes EU and the US pushed for bringing Ukraine into the West and funded their people there
- There is definitely a very high level of corruption in Ukraine, especially in the political echelon. Some EU-friendly policies have been obtained by corruption
That said I agree with most of the criticism of Putin's regime too. And of course invading a country that is becoming more democratic precisely because they want to defend themselves from you is a crime.
And Ukraine is a bit artificial (not 100% artificial but it's not a country with an established culture and identity) but it's exactly those events, like this war, that make it more and more real. The Ukrainian identity is becoming stronger and stronger hour by hour.
Recognize the annexation of Crimea and promise immediate sanctions rollbacks the moment the last Russian troop leaves Ukraine (other than Donbas and Luhansk, that ship has sailed).
You don't change any of the context that led Russia to invade in the first place. You leave intact an aggressor who has repeatedly and consistently expanded. You gave them Crimea and hoped that would appease them. You tolerated their aggressions in eastern Ukraine. Now you will just give them Donbas and Luhansk and hope once again to appease them?
That strategy might be better accepted if the world hadn't seen 1938-1939.
This tactic worked well for 8 years in the case of Ukraine and was heavily (really heavily) promoted by François Hollande and Angela Merkel.
IMHO, it's good to stick to a tactic with proven track record. The main idea is to feed the monster with virgins. Give them Crimea, then Donbas, then Belarus, then South Ukraine, then Eastern Ukraine, then Central Ukraine, then Western Ukraine, then Georgia, then Finland, etc., etc., etc. With a few years between each scarification, this can keep the monster satiated for a long time, so it will be a problem of your children, while you keep a comfortable style of life. For bang per $, this is the cheapest and safest option for most Europeans and Americans.
There is no "and then" with NATO member sovereign territory.
Ukraine is only being invaded by Russia because it isn't a NATO member.
Russia was willing to invade Ukraine, for some land. Russia isn't willing to invade 28 European countries + US + Canada, for some land.
Where did you even get this idea? Russia is the largest country in the entire world, encompassing 1/8th of the inhabitable land on Earth ALONE. Why would they get in a fight with the entire world to get a few more hundred squared kilometers of dirt? That doesn't make the remotest sense.
Russia keeps the money pit dear to the hearts of many Russians and doesn't become a Chinese vassal state. Ukraine ends the bloodshed and saves their sovereignty for the cost of what they have already lost.
There will be sticking points, for sure, notably around Putin himself, reparations, and yes, the status of DPR and LPR, but I hold out hope that they don't forestall a potential deal.
I can't see the Russian leadership backing down from their stated goals. That means they have to subdue Ukraine, and probably Finland, Estonia and Poland too. If they don't win in at least Ukraine, then they have lost badly, and their economy is destroyed.
I don't think they'll settle now for a piece of Crimea or a piece of Donbas. The entire story is that the whole of Ukraine is a bogus state.
That would be a hell of an escalation. Emphasis on hell. Estonia and Poland are NATO members, which means WW3. And attacking Finland, though not yet a NATO member, would probably invite the largest response from Europe in memory. World war indeed.
Customarily, it's been called a "World War" when both sides have participants from multiple nations. As far as I'm aware, Russia's only ally would be Belarus, which looks to me like a Russian province in all but name.
"WWIII" is a term that also refers to Global Thermonuclear War; if that's what you meant, then I apologise for being pedantic.
[Edit] No attack on Poland or the Baltic states is possible without first subduing Ukraine; so I don't think that's at all imminent. But I wouldn't be surprised if Russia pops a tactical nuke or two in Ukraine, then all bets will be off.
An empty, derelict Ukraine would serve nearly as well as a puppet state for this purpose.
1. It's worth reading some geography and history. Russia has been invaded a lot, and has a justifiable fear of invasion. Sure, the West might not want to invade now, but who can predict what the situation will be in 2070 or 2170?
2. Putin also wants to maintain the viability of Russia's warm-water port at Sevastopol. The Crimean peninsula was formerly supplied with water by a canal from Ukraine, but that was blocked after Russia annexed Crimea, and Crimea is now desperately short of water. And there is the small matter of major unexploited gas fields in the Black Sea between Crimea and (the rest of) Ukraine...
One of the first thing the Russians did was unblock that canal that Ukraine cemented. That plus them sending cannon fodder to the nord and what seems like better troops south + east starts to feel like this whole war is more about a resource grab than to "prevent invasion from the west". I could maybe understand one madman feeling like he wants to rebuild the past USSR glory but if it's all about the money that can be made from oil/gas then it's clear it's not just him driving this.
As a way of self-preservation. USSR lost 13K people in 10 years of Afghanistan war. Russia has already lost 6K in 7 days of Ukraine war. Ukrainians are fighting in whatever way they can and tearing Russians a new one. Among the first questions they ask Russian POWs is "Did you shoot?"
>I speculate that Russian airforce weaponry is not generally high-precision,
Russia is running out of high precision weapons, and this one of the reason of them starting to use older non high precision weapons and thus corresponding rise in civilian hits (with the other reason being is that they have already stricken most of the military targets, and the Ukrainians resistance not only didn't decrease, instead it grew tremendously, and so Russians are moving onto non-military targets like civil government offices, TV station, etc).
> Again, we've seen counterexamples which could be explained by all of the above reasons, plus the possibility of friendly fire from failed Ukrainian air defences
stay strong, don't fall for Putin's propaganda.
Wrt. the original article - Russia doesn't have much of new hardware which it has been showcasing over the last years. Most of Russian hardware like planes and armor are somewhat modernized old USSR hardware, and even that mostly is not working due to lacking parts, bad technical service, etc. Now spread this over large territory as you can't leave airforce say in Far East naked. So whatever Russia could have mustered without severe impact to its overall military capability over the whole territory was barely enough only for the originally planned Blitzkrieg, and the Blitzkrieg has utterly failed.
We must define "efforts" or "avoid" very differently. At the very start of the invasion, there was a video of Russian tanks deliberately trying to run over civilian cars.
Oh, it's a Ukrainian tank. Pfft, it was in a accident, let's not talk about it.
That's why I don't read/watch news, especially nowadays.
i can't even remember where i read that now so take it with a grain of salt
Firstly, we should be mindful that the fog of war is now in play, and a good amount of what we think we know is unverifiable. With that caveat out of the way...
It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid attacking civilians directly. Counterexamples exist and could be explained by rogue units, incompetence, or hot-blooded revenge on local resistance.
I speculate that Russian airforce weaponry is not generally high-precision, and the order to avoid targeting civilians implies restraint on use of indiscriminate bombing. Again, we've seen counterexamples which could be explained by all of the above reasons, plus the possibility of friendly fire from failed Ukrainian air defences.
I can only imagine that the "pro-civilian" policy is part of a plan to eventually install a pro-Russia government that has some semblance of consent from the people.
But I cannot fathom how they expect that suzerainty to operate in the face of mass popular resistance.
Did they really launch this invasion on the assumption that the people of Ukraine would just roll over and accept foreign rule?
Their options seem to be (a) beat a hasty retreat; (b) impose a bloody total subjugation of the population; (c) face a decades-long insurgency that will bleed them dry.
We need to find a variant of (a) that allows Putin to save face, because his default will be (b).