This would be likely the worst possible outcome for Ukraine, but it's sadly feasible. The main difference is that world didn't really care about a bunch of Muslims in an unpronounceable city (Grozny) in what was legally Russian territory, while for Ukraine they do seem willing to stand up a bit more.
Thus, Kadyrov - except back then it was Ahmad Kadyrov; Ramzan is his son and successor. As the Chief Mufti of Chechnya, he was one of the most powerful figures in the traditionalist camp, and one with the most to lose from Salafism gaining ground (traditional Chechen Islam is Sufi).
Ahmad Kadyrov was all in with the rebels during the first Chechen war, officially declaring it a jihad in his capacity as a mufti. Ramzan boasted of "killing his first Russian at 16" at the time. But by 1999, the Kadyrov clan decided that Salafis are more dangerous than Russians, and switched allegiance.
That is why Russia could install that puppet government relatively easily - because they had considerable local support: not just the Kadyrov clan, but numerous others aligned with it. Ukraine also has many potential collaborators, but mostly in the East, and they are already mostly in the separatist militias. I expect that Russia will recruit from those for its occupation administration.
Chechnya didn't have direct NATO border nations and supply lines.
I don't believe this to be the normal massive asymmetric difference in firepower if NATO arms the Ukrainians enough. IF they are given sufficient drones, I believe Ukraine could actually have a firepower and battlefield advantage.
Now, I don't know for sure NATO is going to commit to such supply. I think they'll be a bit more reserved, but the more weaponry Russia use, the more NATO will supply Ukraine. NATO may decided to supply just enough to bog down Russia but not hand Ukraine a rapid victory.
I 100% believe NATO could equip Ukraine with enough weapons for certain victory. It now comes down to whether NATO does that.
Missiles: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2022/03/03/ukrain...
Turkey is supplying new drones. I bet there are more on the way. Stingers and Polish MANPADS are being supplied.
These are the publicly announced numbers. Those numbers tell me NATO will supply ample weaponry.
Ukraine is a nation of 40,000,000 people. And they appear spoiling for a fight. How many of those would train to fight? 2 million? 5 million? 10 million? If Ukraine gets 1 million volunteers and full arms support from the West, Russia is doomed.
I'll be interested to see if female fighting units start getting news like in Kurdistan. If that happens, Russia is in deep trouble.
There’s also a gigantic diaspora: I had no idea I knew so many Ukrainians. Also the amount of posts on LinkedIn where people point out some portion of their dev team is in Ukraine, and now some Product Manager in Spokane is all in on supporting Ukraine because his front-end guy is in a bunker
Those are two very different fronts. How grim.
Also curious to know how many unofficial troops from NATO countries show up. Russia’s neighbours aren’t fans, and bored Slav, Baltic, and Scandi kids who did military service and wanna be heroes showing up in great numbers isn’t outside the realm of possibility
And he emphasized: They are BADASSES. Apparently they were winning the war with Russia until Russia cut a "Red Wedding" deal with the non-muslim contingent of the Chechen resistance. I believe Chechens were in ISIS/Syria and were basically the most effective soldiers.
As you said this could become a perverse version of ISIS: a call to arms to anyone that wants a piece of Russia, from bored teenagers to other conflict regions.
Maybe it's been sufficiently long that those soldiers have finally aged out, or maybe they haven't.
If Ukraine/NATO really is offering 45000 Euros in bitcoin per Russia soldier that surrenders for POW status, then they would probably provide pay to experienced anti-Russia fighters.
If you are a -stan with issues with Russia, then this is a golden opportunity: a possible "death blow" to Russia militarily and economically, possibly cause regime change, and possibly destroy any appetite for war by oligarchs and people in Russia.
That's about two infantry divisions - not to be sneezed at.
If you read a bit more of ACOUP, it's clear that the only path to a "rapid victory" is a set battle against the Russian armed forces, resulting in a decisive defeat for Russia. Even with copious supplies from the west, Ukraine simply couldn't do that. Even if NATO decided to pile in with divisions and air-cover, a rapid victory seems unlikely.
The Turkish drones seem to be wreaking havoc on Russia already.
Chechnya population in 1992 was about 800,000. Ukraine has a population of 41,000,000.
Chechnya did not receive military or humanitarian aid, and if it did, it was not as substantial as what Ukraine is receiving now. Ukrainian allies are supplying fuel, food, vehicles, weapons, training, volunteers, humanitarian aid, intelligence, etc.
Russia back then was not sanctioned economically to the extent we see today or kicked out of the banking system. For example, the Soviet Union had banks in the SWIFT system. Now, Russia has been completely isolated: Russian companies cannot do business internationally due to being unable to transfer money or process payments, the value of Russian company stocks has gone to zero, their stock exchange ceased operations (temporarily), their population are doing bank runs, their currency is worth nothing and its economy is expected to collapse soon.
And, unlike Russian equipment where most of the equipment spending has been diverted to corrupt endeavors, Ukrainian military equipment works. Most Russian military equipment now doesn't meet their own specifications.
> Now, Russia has been completely isolated: Russian companies cannot do business internationally due to being unable to transfer money or process payments, the value of Russian company stocks has gone to zero, their stock exchange ceased operations (temporarily), their population are doing bank runs, their currency is worth nothing and its economy is expected to collapse soon.
Russian companies can do business with the world outside the "West", notably China, which is already a voracious consumer of Russian raw materials. The stocks that crashed to zero are the ones listed in Western stock exchanges, not the ones in Russia itself. Yes, the currency has halved, but it has done so many, many times before since 1990. So while the economy will certainly take a beating, it's not going to "collapse" entirely.
1. Water flow through the North Crimean Canal is restored.
2. Kyiv is surrounded from all directions. Ukranian president dies in combat.
3. Odessa is surrounded from the north, then the Russian navy attacks it from the Black sea. Population is forced to evacuate.
4. Donetsk and Luhansk become fully annexed by Russia.
5. Kharkiv is surrounded from all directions.
6. Russian economy collapses. Putin's key supporters turn against him and stage a coup.
7. Ukraine negotiates a ceasefire, then joins the European Union.
8. Unless Ukraine signed a peace treaty granting territory to Russia, Russia will be forced to give up all annexed territories.
It's always possible, but Russia started the war by recognizing their independence from Ukraine. This is the kind of thing that would happen after the war concluded ("we held a referendum and they decided to rejoin Russia"); it'd be kind of strange during a war the purpose of which is to grant them independence.
That presupposes that he joins the armed forces; at the moment, he is a non-combatant. If he is shot, that would make him a victim of assassination, not a combat casualty.
> Ukraine negotiates a ceasefire, then joins the European Union.
Wooh! Just join! It takes a while to join the EU. Ask Turkey.
That said, I sadly doubt Ukraine will survive this ordeal.
Well, not if Russian and Ukrainian diplomats can get it together and see this conflict to a amicable conclusion. Ceasefire has to be top priority for the Ukrainian diplomats (as in, liberally accept conditions that stops the war). Whatever the new arrangement for the two countries look like will also probably take weeks, if not months, to draft up and agree to.
With their risky foreign policy, NATO dared Russia, and they called their bluff on it. It is time to accept that Russia didn't hesitate, and it'd be very prudent to move to limit the damage instead. That is, NATO should refrain from making matters worse by feeding the war, as it were, by arming Ukraine's civilians and sanctioning Russian business interests, among other things.
China isn't siding with NATO, and so far, India hasn't too (it may not, since in the century gone by, Russia has bailed out India in multiple wars against CENTO / US-aided Pakistan).
In sum, this is a dangerous enough situation to escalate any further as the West has done, even if without sending its military.
I happen to believe that Russia has over-reached itself rather badly; they aren't administering any of the territory they've got troops in, including the single city they've overrun (it's being administered by the incumbent mayor). Most of their supply columns seem to be bogged down, either by resistance or by mud. The best troops they have are paras in the south, and mercenaries around Kiev. Both groups have so far failed to achieve their objectives. The rest seem to be demoralised conscripts.
You use conscripts and mercenaries as cannon-fodder at the front of your attack; I imagine Russia will bring up better equipped and trained troops once they have suppressed Ukrainian air defences, and can provide close air support.
I think it's going to be long and nasty.
In Ukraine, once the supply lines are cut, the main cities may fall. Once one city falls, the invaders will move on to other cities and start an avalanche effect.
Yes, Russia’s economy is being severely crippled. But you exaggerate the extent significantly.
Source: SWIFT itself. https://www.swift.com/news-events/news/message-swift-communi...
It's not "modern", but it is functional.
Kadyrov is totally uncontrollable, makes outrageous criminal statements, yet the Kremlin can't do anything to him because he has a very big private army. Chechen operatives act all over the country and are basically untouchable, kidnapping people even from the police custody without repercussions.
Ukraine is 20 times larger. It is impossible for the Russian forces to hold by force, the population should agree to it or a puppet regime ia installed that is accepted by the population.
Now holding the east part, that seems reasonably easy, and to me it's clearly the end goal, the rest is just putting yourself inal a strong negotiating stance.
Judging from what Putin has actually said, the end-goal is much more expansive than that. I believed that a couple of weeks ago; but recent comments to the effect that Ukraine is a bogus state have changed my mind.
We know he hates to look weak, so if he "settles" for eastern Ukraine after saying that, he's going to look weak.
Edit: some folks have mentioned several, so let me be more specific: guerrilla wars to expel an invading power. This would exclude several attempted Marxist revolutions, but good points made about Chechnya, as well as Northern Ireland and Kenya which failed to expel colonial powers.
Because failed ones don't last long enough to be remembered. There was a guerrilla insurgency in Iraq after Saddam's government fell, for example, which folded pretty quick.
But the point of this is that unpopular occupation forces trying to impose their will never really works in anything even remotely like the long-run. The only times it can work is when a genuinely popular (and not artificially propped up) leader is able to find common ground with the "enemy". For instance one of the best decisions we made after WW2 was with the leader of Japan, Emperor Hirohito. We actively avoided not only attacking him, but did not try him for war crimes, and let him retain control of the country after the war. He chose to lead Japan in a different direction following their defeat, and everybody came out all the better for it. It's very likely that had we executed him, or installed a puppet, that Japan's relation with the west would be radically different today.
The Emperor of Japan was part of a very old, very well established monarchy; his legitimacy in the office of Monarch far outweighed that of Saddam's in the office of Tyrant.
In general, the more likely reason is that most people tend to be resolutely incurious about foreign politics. There are, IIRC, 150-ish ongoing armed conflicts in the world right now (and this count is far lower than it was 50 years ago!). I suspect that even reasonably well-read Westerners would struggle to identify even a dozen of them. So people selectively remember the ones that involved the major powers (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam) while completely ignoring ones that don't (so, how about that rebellion in Aceh that failed...).
Palestine?
Modern Western countries haven't had much of a history of successful insurgencies. Hungary and Czechoslovakia were both invaded by the USSR (along with Warsaw Pact allies), and it didn't result in an insurgency. We shouldn't exclude WWII either, since that was the last time many of Western nations were invaded by outside powers. The resistance movements never seriously threatened Axis rule in Western Europe.
Everyone seems to be expecting a large Afghan style insurgency, but I think it's far from certain that it will happen.
I can think of one, and unfortunately it was the Russians who won it, but Ukraine is much bigger and better equipped.
=> Cunningham's Law (a submission earlier this week) playing out nicely in the replies.
It was a defeat, no matter what coat of paint you put on it.
I don't know if there's the same cultural will in Ukraine to absorb that kind of pummeling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80...
Result: Taliban Victory
When your reliable supply lines are all flights, costs will seriously mount up.
Plus, they had stingers. They could raid and retreat essentially forever.
The thing is, if the Ukrainian is really again a Russian regime, and it sounds like they do (if because I'm not them can't speak for them), then Russia has already lost. In time, whatever puppet state that it creates, will fall. America learnt this lesson too many times, most recently in Afghanistan.
The name John Mearsheimer has come up recently and I think one of the key points in his theory is solid: nationalism triumphs everything else, be it America branded liberalism, or communism.
When he says "nationalism", it's actually not what we often think, in his theory it's used in the narrow sense that is the need to determine one's own country's destiny, as opposed to having to obey a foreign power.
If the Russian people are unhappy enough, regimes change from within. We can see that with some of the Russian soldiers surrendering.send me to Ukraine? OK, I'll just surrender so I don't have to fight and die for a bogus cause.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ym9e7ot4t-JVBDqtK0m4n6iYPqd...
Hopefully that makes a difference. I do think it's smart to do everything we can to sanction Russia's rich. Those people have power. They're the ones backing Putin. If they start to feel the pinch, feel that the party is getting ruined because of Putin's mood and his thirst for power, they might do something about it.
Thus, over time, you can gradually create a bubble, lie by lie. I remember the early 00s - freedom of press wasn't gone overnight, they went after the more popular stuff first, and then gradually it became more and more marginalized, with the last vestiges being swiped away only now. But with every independent TV channel or newspaper erased, more and more people ended up in the bubble.
How? The oligarchs had a head's up regarding the start of the war and no doubt took measures to secure their wealth abroad and even get dual citizenship so the west can't touch them.
Well yes, sure, if we're talking about some dumb corrupt politician who blew his illicit gains frivolously on luxuries, out in the open, the second he landed on piles of cash, then yes, same how we have lottery winners who lose everything in a year and crypto speculators who also were left holding the bag, etc.
My point is that stupid and financially irresponsible people are easily parted with their money, especially if it's from illicit gains and have no knowledge how to launder it or invest it, but I can assure you that the smart money took enough timely precautions to keep their dirty wealth intact.
Apart from when the US got the UK and France to kneel and kiss the ring in 1956 with Suez when hav sanctions worked? Grenada? North Korea and Iran have been under crippling sanctions for a long time. It leads to plenty of civilian suffering but there’s not much record of success in forcing governments to do what the sanctioners want.
[Edit] Also, I don't think the Russian people have the power to overthrow their rulers. Russia is quite good at repressing dissent. My guess would be that any leadership change in Russia would come about because military leadership decided it had to happen.
They don’t have to topple the government to be effective.
That said, I do think there’s not enough public recognition of how hostile and damaging sanctions are to innocent normal people.
Not just Trump, but the entire Republican Party and its voter base. And not for no reason: the reason is that it's easier to keep Iran as a public punching bag than try to deal with real and far more difficult strategic problems like North Korea, Russia, or China, all three of which seized the opportunity to pursue their strategic goals while the U.S. was distracted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran took that opportunity, too--the wars provided both the impetus and the time to pursue a nuclear program.
I'm curious, what strategic goals did North Korea, Russia, and China achieve during that time that the US should have dealt with, and what could be have done that we haven't already?
That's one opinion.
I think people on both sides are calling the others shortsighted.
For example, what enforcement is there after the 10 year period expires? They weren't forced to forfeit or destroy their Arak facility. This means they could just start using it again.
In my view, the deal could be beneficial, but could also end poorly. The deal doesn't seem to embrace a systems thinking mindset of how all the pieces fit together. The downside is that if we allow the economy to expand and for Iran to accumulate resources during a 10 year period, then reimposing the sanctions will be less impactful (we can only hope that the people would be upset enough to pressure them goverment). In theory, the deal will benefit Iran in the power dynamics, and only benefit us if they decide to follow through in the long term. So the outcome is almost completely at the discretion of Iran, and provides them guaranteed benefit, with no guarantee to the others.
In my general experience, focusing on a single issue, or component of an issue, is the way we come to short sighted solutions. This doesn't mean that we can't do things in an iterative fashion, but we need to have a plan and vision for how that policy will work long term in relation to a variety of other policies and potential events. I don't see that type of strategic thinking with this agreement, and that's even ignoring the terrorist ties.
We all hope that, but it's not been effective for north korea and basically everywhere else. Waiting 70 years as for the Soviet does not seem an ideal outcome.
Anecdotally, there's been an HN commenter around who claims to be Russian and who buys Putin's line that something had to be done about NATO. Apparently they are not alone:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/europe/russia-reaction-war-uk...
> But Arina's mother sees it completely differently: "My mom believes everything she sees on TV," Arina says.
> "She believes that it was a necessary measure by Putin because there are weapons surrounding the country...there's a threat from the West, which is why Putin is doing this."
Sanctions may be indiscriminate, but not as indiscriminate nor as final as shelling apartment buildings. There seems to be a significant slice of the Russian population who are entirely too content with the current state of affairs, and who need to be woken up to the ungodly horror being unleashed in their name.
Maybe a rapid decline in quality of life will be enough to turn things around in Russia. Or maybe just enough people are so used to struggles there that nothing will change. North Koreans went through decades of wars and invasions—the people there haven’t known that life can be better, so they don’t feel a reason to revolt. People in Russia who were alive during pre-Putin era struggles most likely do really see him as lifting the country to a higher level. The possibility for Russia becoming a new NK-style state isn’t completely impossible.
[1] https://akarlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/life-expectan...
The end of the USSR is widely considered a humanitarian catastrophe because after the economy colapsed, people had no food, no medicines, no order, it was a wild west for several years (my wife was there, she tells me all about it)... where the hell did you "learn" that people's lives improved after the USSR fell??
Unfortunately, we have to resort to economic pain, which is quite grim even if it's not having your leg blown off and your home reduced to rubble: businesses ruined, working class populations impoverished, massive uncertainty...
It's also not guaranteed to work, as aggressors and oppressors are adept at wallowing in self-pity and inventing victimization narratives.
What's changed for me is that I've come to believe that the Russian population is a bit more at fault here for buying Putin's bullshit.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/03/putin-will-live-...
Sadly paywalled.
Most despotic leaders are not well liked by the people. There are so few examples of the people rising up to depose a despot. I actually can't even think of one that would apply in this situation.
He is probably insulated with layers of old Soviet/KGB true believers/cronies.
Somehow the common person is going to penetrate that? I just don't see it.
Are you sure? This is not at all obvious to me.
I don't think Ukraine benefits from the same natural advantage, what with its paved roads that easily grant passage to forty-mile-long Russian convoys
It's seems like it is easier to point out how Afghanistan and Vietnam were able to draw out a long-term protracted war and out-will a democracy that (to a degree) follows the changing will of the people. It's especially easier given the lack of threat to the mainland that can be manufactured.
But what about against a neighboring oligarchy like Russia? How do you out-will the singular authoritarian leader and/or his small group of oligarchs?