I think it’s going to be a full occupation. You need to think about the big picture. This whole thing was planned out in advance. Occupying territory that’s already occupied by Russian-friendly forces is a thing you grab as a target of opportunity, not the goal for a buildup like this.
I was naively hopeful earlier ITT that Ukraine could put up some kind of fight, but everything I’ve read says they’re going to get wiped, hard.
The real question is why would Putin prefer to not have a puppet government in Kyiv rather than having it? I can’t think of a good reason. Concern about being overstretched occupying the whole country, but doubt Putin thinks that way. In particular, I doubt the West will be willing to bankroll/arm an insurgency against an occupation, so there’s less prospect of it turning into Afghanistan. (And to be clear, we should absolutely not be supporting an insurgency.)
I just noticed this as I’m tracking a flight to go pick someone up. Pretty wild seeing all the southerly route with a ton of flights bunched up, but I also don’t have an idea what it normally looks like
I don’t don’t really know anything about military strategy but after thinking about it some more, I agree. At first I thought some of the surrounding forces might be there just to keep Ukrainian forces from moving to help in the separatist areas. But he has to go all the way as he can’t tolerate ongoing attacks from outside those areas and the only way to prevent them is to force surrender of the Ukrainian military.
