Ukraine LC Debates, Arguments and Terrible Memes

[VoteForSocialists]

@pvn

there’s no off-ramp. Not for putin, at least. Biden is signalling to would-be coupsters inside russia. That’s the off-ramp.

here’s what i said about off-ramps and whether putin can accept that he has to take them.

in March Ukraine, Russia, and the West - #6916 by VoteForSocialists

but i don’t see any outs for putin right now, barring an offramp of his own choosing. he will have to mobilize and he is prepared to use his nuclear threats. he has said that for years. he doesn’t err on the conservative side. his miscalculations are almost always catastrophic.

and April (patting myself on the back for calling out izyum and kherson)

@VoteForSocialists

how is this for an offramp to putin: nato enters the conflict, restores ukraine’s control of donbass. Putin retreats or doesn’t, but gets to write off the defeat on the west. sanctions are lifted 5 years after he dies and the hague speaks. take it or leave it.

@VoteForSocialists

there are no off-ramps because putin never created any. even abandoning kyiv didn’t create a deescalation. what territory can he even hold next month? will he have to retreat in izyum or kherson to hold mariupol? they have achieved none of their objectives during or since the blitzkrieg. and i posited earlier they currently achieved the objective of holding the water canal to crimea, but that’s relatively minor compared to a city.

and May

@VoteForSocialists

putin’s offramp is facing a 3-day war by nato’s eastern flank only and retreating having lost to the big and powerful nato, rather than to the lowly ukrainian farmers and miners.

@VoteForSocialists

there are millions of examples like that, and now they compound with catastrophic errors in judgement that are accelerating putin’s current crisis. and i would argue there are no longer any off-ramps for him because he never took any of the last 20 that were offered.

i still think that a palace coup is very unlikely, a lot of people would have to make a pact ahead of time, and quickly create an offramp to negotiate with ukraine and the west. a lone kingslayer would be in immediate danger from knives out.

regional mutiny is possible, and it would be interesting to see if aany police or rosgvardia join the protesters, but it’s a long shot that whole detachments do this, and they would face state forces brought from other regions. right now it looks like putin would have enough power to survive that, but you never know in russia. corruption is a double edged sword. remote chance of civil conflict driving putin into an offramp. more likely kadyrov putting down dissenters in neighboring republics, and zolotov doing the same elsewhere.

there is a gigantic internal police force, also a big part of state budget, and even the war hasn’t reduced the money spent on them. sanctions will eventually whittle that down, but not quickly, it’s a multiyear process at this rate. alternatively putin could make another blunder and start mobilizing his police force for the war. that would embolden and accelerate internal protests.