War in Ukraine

Russia has been angling for over 25 years to have a friendly government in Kyiv, much as you describe with Belarus today and Afghanistan circa 1979. That's well documented. To a degree, they've had success with that. I'm not sure what makes you think it's different now, other than some faulty intelligence. Russia already has ports on the Black Sea. Already had it's naval station in Crimea. Besides the intel you received which stated conquest was the goal, what evidence do you have that Ukraine was viewed any differently than a vassal state arrangement?

 

I’ve told you many times. The testimony of POWs captured as well as the maps they were carrying. The fact that they sent two armored spearheads at Kyiv that were beaten militarily (it was not a feint). The fact that that they sent the flower of their airborne forces, subsequently destroyed, to take Antonov Airport outside of Kyiv. This was a line of operation for taking the capital, also not indicative of a feint. The special operation, also defeated, to decapitate Ukraine’s government in the early hours of the operation. I don’t dispute and never have that Russia would have placed a puppet government in charge of a Ukrainian rump state. But it still would have been by conquest as opposed to by subterfuge like with Belarus. They needed (still need, actually, but clearly not going to get it now) a physical link between Russia proper and what it views as its territory in Transnistria. Conquest was also the only way to access Odessa, another clear military objective that Russia tried and failed to take, and to cut off any remaining Ukrainian resistance from NATO aid.

Your only “evidence” that Russia was not trying to march to the borders of Moldova and NATO is: 1. That they failed; that’s about as useful as saying Hitler was not trying to conquer the Soviet Union because he did not manage to do it. 2. That they did not send enough troops initially to occupy the whole country; they sent as many troops as (they thought) their logistical capabilities could keep in supply for the first phase, and as it turned out they still sent too many. 3. Russia would have to be stupid to think such a plan would work; well, maybe in fact they were stupid, and clearly Putin believed his military was more effective and proficient than it was.

All of your “evidence” is easily explainable. All of mine has to be dismissed and willfully ignored as a series of lies that only matches the physical artifacts by sheer coincidence. The facts are that Putin was trying to take Ukraine in a lightning campaign that would give him part of Russia back, as he sees it; put NATO on notice about a resurgent Russia; and green light China to make its move on Taiwan after the West completely failed to stop Russia. Putin failed, and he is now trying to limit his objectives and get out of this morass with face intact. But believe what you want for now if you think it helps with your domestic political agenda. Fact is, no matter who is President in a few years the whole truth of what we knew and when we knew it is going to be declassified, and anyone trying to deny Putin’s original plans then is just going to look like an idiot.

 

Russians are working on raising the rusting wreckage of landing ship Novocherkassk from the sea floor. Talk about getting desperate--the ship is apparently in pieces. Maybe they will claim that the elusive Ukrainian prisoners were on board.

"Landing ship look almost like ship. Need welding and paint. Found 65 Ukraine prisoners on board--all drowned in Black Sea, causing hole in back of head from deep sea pressure."

Russians raise wreckage of landing ship Novocherkassk from seabed in Crimea — photo

 

Is this where you get your unbiased news about Russia?

 

Yeah, okay, he had a plan of mystic conquest that lasted all of four weeks which he has completely abandoned, yet has fought a trench war of attrition in the southeast for the past two years. Even if you believe the first part, he’s obviously much more married to the idea of holding serve in the southeast than he is conquest of the remainder of Ukraine. So I’m not even sure the debate has relevance at this juncture. It’s not as if Russia haven’t taken way more losses in the southeast than they did with the four week foree in the north. Most leaders wouldn’t abandon a plan of total occupation in four weeks and settle for all the spilt blood of the past two years in the southeast. It was a feint, even if the original plan was to take Kyiv, as it achieved the objective of the same. Allowing Russian forces to entrench in the south and east.

 

There is a maxim. That quantity has a quality of its very own but I wonder if that applies here.

 

So in your mind they are entrenched precisely where they intended to be two years ago, and their objective since then has just been to cause attrition to the enemy until he begs for peace? Do I have that straight?

 

Not at all. As I have always stated, they would have loved to march on into Kyiv unimpeded and taken out the central government from there. But they were not married to that mission and are content with the current positions for the most part, as they achieve their objective which has been to keep Ukraine out of NATO. I agree they would love to have Odesa, but I don’t see any overly aggressive moves towards anything and it’s been two years. I am not surprised at all if they told their soldiers that total occupation was the plan. Shoot for the stars and hit the moon. Why would you tell your troops anything different in that scenario?

 

Ukrainian soldiers have high praise for the British Challenger tanks. So the tanks are getting some use in the war. They say that the tanks do a good job of blasting through fortified positions. The accuracy of the main gun is much better than the Russian tanks they had been used to.

Members of Ukraine's 82nd Air Assault Brigade praise the British Challenger 2 tank

 

Russian bloggers are frustrated at Russian troops' lack of skill when dealing with drone attacks on armored columns, and they blame Russia's military leadership for allowing it to happen.

Pro-Kremlin supporters are fuming after footage appears to show Ukrainian drones decimating an entire Russian armored column

 

Russia is desperately throwing manpower at Avdiivka to try to conquer the city. Russian soldiers are crawling through the sewers trying to survive and get through the city alive. Forbes estimates that Russia is losing 13 soldiers for every single soldier that Ukraine is losing in Avdiivka.

Russian troops emerged from a sewer only to be struck by a drone, Ukraine says

 

Russian soldiers' wives are staging more protests outside the Kremlin. Putin has responded by arresting dozens of journalists.

Wives of Russian soldiers stage another protest near Kremlin, as police detain scores of journalists

 

So having all of Scandinavia joining nato doesn’t make this a mistake? Do you think or just spout nonsense.

 

How is it that you know what missions Russia was "married to" and which ones they weren't? Were you in the Kremlin when they made those decisions? The truth is, you are just guessing as to what Russia's objectives are. The differences between your guesses and ours is that you are willing to believe the propaganda and lies that the Kremlin has been putting out. The rest of us know a lot more history of the Russian government, and put far more stock in their actions than their words. We also seem to understand economics and warfare a lot better than you do. All you are doing is mental gymnastics to try and justify Russia's decisions in this war. And, BTW, you are grasping at straws.

The truth is, Putin has no Plan B. He is totally committed to conquering ALL of Ukraine. His actions have demonstrated this. He has made no overtures for peace--all of that has come from the west. Whether he does it all in one war, or is forced to do it in two, is the only question. If Putin makes any kind of peace while in control of 20% of Ukraine, you can bet your ass that there will be an excuse to start the second war after Russia rebuilds its military and masses troops for an exercise on its new border with Ukraine. The only thing that might stop it is the death of Putin, but if he has placed equally deranged people in position to take over for him when he dies, the dream will continue.

There have been no "aggressive moves" by Russia because they cannot make any aggressive moves. Their most skilled military personnel (special forces, etc.) that would be required for aggressive moves are mostly dead. Their weapons systems are inferior to Ukraine's. They still don't have air superiority, which would be very helpful for an aggressive move. They are obviously trying to get Ukraine to run out of ammo, so they can break through Ukraine's lines.

 

There was a show called the Great which was a heavily fictionalized retelling of Catherine the great and her marriage to Peter the Great’s idiot son. The actions of Putin almost mirror Peter the ungreat

 

What we know about the early days of the present conflict …

Russia could not have expected to steamroll hundreds of thousands of troops, with tens of thousands of troops, in a country the size of Texas.

Early negotiations, which might have left Ukraine largely intact, were scuttled, by the West, which enjoined Ukraine to fight to the finish.

 

That's not what the Ukrainians think. Russia continues to use older and older tanks in the war. They say that Russia is producing more like 20 tanks a month, and dragging 50 tanks out of mothballs. Ukraine says it destroys 120 tanks a month, and says the situation with artillery is even worse for Russia.

Russia forced to use ancient tanks as materiel fails en masse in Ukraine, veteran says

 

You truly think Russia is “content” with the way this war has gone? (Let’s not. Forget that they initially believed that they would complete the conquest in four weeks.)

 

Absolutely, yes. The irony is, they are doing to Ukraine exactly what certain posters here think we are doing to Russia. We’ve already seen the splintering within Ukraine’s chain of command and there are only so many middle-aged men they can abduct and force into conscription. I can see a scenario where the military gets fed up with Zelenskyy taking marching orders from the west instead of listening to his military commanders in the field.

 

Sure. That was their original war plan. Fail for several years. Suffer unforeseen casualties. Get embarrassed in the field. Show the failure of their weaponry to the world. All to place themselves in a stalemate and war of attrition where their only hope for victory is time and Western political change.

And all because they were scared of Nazis, and scared of NATO expansion that was never a reality.

That was always their plan. Good stuff.