https://twitter.com/billroggio/status/1500806533545967619
With this coming out and more people trying to get out Kiev and some reports of Russians in the outer boroughs and it seems like it’s inching closer to the reality Kiev being encircled
This is really well put. It’s also worth pondering that a lot of the stuff the West has done so far is extremely aggressive, and it’s really unfortunate that the decision to impose all these sanctions and ship in all these weapons happened after the war started, not before. The goal is not to trick Putin into overextending himself, then ambush him with a bunch of surprise sanctions that destroy his country. The goal should have been to make it clear that invading Ukraine was a giant mistake so he could use that information to avoid doing it. Democracies don’t always work that way, but I think people are in denial about how provocative it is to be shipping in fighter jets to an active war. At a minimum, I desperately hope these moves are being paired with some sweet carrots to get Putin to agree to a peace deal.
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The fatal flaw in this argument is that it seems fairly clear Putin bought his own propaganda about Russia’s greatness. He would have happily eaten everything we’ve thrown at him, and more, if it were actually true that the Russians would be welcomed as liberators.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1500806113725501441
So if you’re Ukraine and let’s say Russia is acting in good faith in even asking. No regime change in this one, just a promise not to join NATO and the EU, giving up Crimea and the other to areas. Reject the deal and the current path is most likely a long grinding insurgency and still an open possibility to lose. If you take the deal, what are Ukraine next steps?
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Planning for the fall of Kyiv is just the bare minimum requirement for not being grossly negligent.
Also, if I was worried that Putin believed that taking Kyiv would win the war for him, I would probably leak a report about how everyone over here is gearing up for an endless bloody insurgency.
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Perhaps. Even so, it’s still less of an escalation to do stuff you’ve announced in advance.
But I don’t think you can be very sure what Putin has or hasn’t bought. Clearly he’s fucked up his calculations somewhere, but I find it more plausible that he was sold a bill of goods about the capacity of Russia’s new military than that he’s bought into the idea that Ukrainians love him. The whole point of the last 8 years is that Ukrainians hate him too much to tolerate soft vassalization through Russian-friendly puppet leaders. He’s been thinking about that reality for years now.
Sanctioning before an invasion would be punishment for pre-crime.
The US should support and fund a bloody insurgency if Kyiv falls.
I’m not saying we should have done it, but we should have told Putin that these sanctions were on the table. Back channel notes about how Germany is going to undertake a crash rearmament program if diplomacy fails in Ukraine. All the ATGMs being delivered now should have been rushed in in January. Fighter jets too if you are so inclined. (Arms sales are the biggest deal because they’re completely fine in peacetime, but a belligerent act once a war starts. Not to mention the practical risk of having NATO planes carrying missiles get shot down somewhere.)
If you’re crazy enough now to want an NFZ, its terms should have been announced before the war started.
There’s some reason to be a little ambiguous so that Russia can’t minimize the impact, but you don’t want to be so tricky that you lose all the deterrent value of your threats.
What I’m really scared of is a tactical AIDS nuke, as I’ve seen the effects on a smaller scale right here in this thread.
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I don’t think the fighter jets are all that much more provocative than 17,000 antitank missiles. Which isn’t to say doing either was a good idea.
In the article, Peskov actually says that their demands were passed over last week during the earlier rounds of talks. So the news is Russia announcing their efforts to negotiate. That seems like a positive development.
Seems like 0% chance that Ukraine goes for this. From some of the rhetoric, perhaps there’s a possibility that Putin can live with Ukraine in (or has its borders formally guarantees by) NATO, but everyone agrees to strict limits on the kinds of offensive weapons that can be stationed there. (No more than X tanks, no strategic bombers or missiles, stuff like that.)
I don’t know what can be done about Donbas. I would be interested in hearing from Ukraine-knowers about whether anything less than reestablishment of full Ukrainian control is on the table. (Some sort of referenda?).
The other potential sticking point in peace talks is war crimes. I take it as a given that Russia is not going to be turning over war criminals for punishment, but Ukraine has a lot of POWs who are guilty of war crimes that I suspect they’re not going to let go of either. Is Russia satisfied if those POWs get sent to The Hague to be dealt with by a neutral process?
The White House said after the call that Biden and European leaders “reiterated their continued concern about the Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s borders” and also discussed “preparations to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia for such actions as well as to reinforce security on NATO’s eastern flank.”
JFC, these dipshits are letting their tanks get captured by the neo-Nazis now.
https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1500819143829987333?s=21
For better or worse, no sovereign nation can stand for another nation explicitly dictating their foreign policy and/or being forced to recognize parts of their country as ‘independent states’. Even if this means signing up for millions of deaths. They would need to come up with a very clever way to structure things so that Ukraine can satisfy Russia while still saving face.
Half jokingly, take the deal, keep getting marshal plan money and weaponry, rebuild, wait for Russia to collapse, annex donbas and crimea.
https://twitter.com/nrg8000/status/1500813625875140611?s=21
This whole thread is interesting re: the meaning of “control” and the difficulties of drawing it on a map. I like the idea of having a third category of “uncontrolled” rather than assuming that all territory is held by one side or the other.
I don’t think Putin has any off ramps left tbh. This ends with him (or more likely his successor) leaving Ukraine entirely.
This is why offensive wars in the 21st century are stupid kids.
That we’re aiding the aggressor in one place doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aid the victim in another. Sure, our concern is hypocritical and maybe a little racist, that doesn’t make it wrong.
That you think clear red lines can be made that Putin won’t cross is just shockingly naive. Violating boundaries is his thing. He’s been violating norms in an escalatory manner for 20 odd years. The whole point of his extended meddling in Euro and US politics is to create a NATO that will let him invade the Baltics and Ukraine. That NATO expansion is in some quarters seen as the cause of rather than the reaction to Russian aggression is a measure of his success.
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