Funny, top politicians, newscasters and celebs have been referring to it as a “war” from the beginning.
Never mind 100,000 dead. 50,000 dead (assuming the requisite dead:wounded ratio) would mean more Russian frontline troops have been killed than have ever served in theatre. Absurd.
China and Russia have never been closer. Indeed, if the US were to stupidly *officially* enter the war, I strongly suspect that China would too.
The one exception notwithstanding, Vladimir Putin still refers to it as a "special military operation".
It does have a triggering effect. But since Russia is increasing its army to 1.5 million troops, I gather they’re preparing for what we’d all consider as “war.”
^ Inconceivable as it may be to sanctimonious Americans, dissent is robust in Russia and Putin has his strident critics.
And for some reason dissidents and critics of Putin have a tendency to end up in penal facilities or or jumping from balconies in apartment buildings. A Russian Dissident Is Sentenced in Moscow Alexei Navalny: Russia's jailed vociferous Putin critic Updated list of oligarchs and Putin critics found dead since war began
Strange that the leading cause of death in Russia is balconies. The rest of the world faces cancer and heart disease, but in Russia its balconies. Go figure.
The Western Front in Little Russia still seems to be more virulent. I would prefer my chances going one on one with a balcony.
Just a guess on my part, but Russia dramatically ramping up, militarily, suggests that they are anticipating going to war vs the US. As far as I know, no one in the US government is hinting at such, although undoubtedly some are chomping at the bit to do so. But if US does plan to enter theatre, it better ramp up and ramp up fast.
as I have stated from the beginning, the primary takeaway from this conflict has been russia is wholly Incapable of operations more than 50 miles from its border and literally no meaningful threat ( other than nuclear) to anyone. If the US were to begin direct kinetic operations against russia, it would be 100% idiocy. there is zero benefit to the US and our interests. Any political leader even considering sending US personnel to die should be immediately removed from Office
And as I have stated from the beginning — while it is fun to watch Russia goon up operation after operation, especially after all their tough talk for the last 10 years about how bad-ass and professional their armed forces were — at some point they are going to get it together and translate their enormous resource advantage into destructive force. Only a fool would have written off the Union 10 months into our Civil War based on the battlefield incompetence demonstrated to that point. Russia keeps escalating, and at some point that is going to make a decisive difference. I am not saying we need to jump right in, force on force, but we had better start ratcheting things up and at least making the Russians believe that is a possibility. The only happy ending I can see is if the Russian people rise up and take matters into their own hands (which in and of itself presents another host of bad outcomes, but let’s leave that for another day). Almost every other realistic outcome results in a form of strategic victory (and, worse, normalization of conquest) for Russia. Because here is what is not going to happen: we feed Ukraine enough material support, they push back to their January 2014 borders in a timely manner, and Russia accepts the outcome. There are lots of intermediate steps between what we are doing now and general war with Russia. We need to steadily implement these.
16 nations joining NATO, moving 1,000 km to the East, along with long-standing plans of deposing Putin belies the perception of Russian weakness. Aside: the mighty US was recently chased out of Afghanistan by goat herders. The days when the US could throw its weight around, other than by soft power or proxies is gone.
I stand on my contention that, were the US to *officially* step into Ukraine, it would be Vietnam 2.0
Maybe it’s just the nature of the questions being asked if them, but over the last few days in particular, all sides seem to be talking about potential peace talks more. Wonder if there’s some stuff happening behind the scenes and all sides are trying to prepare folks for it.
