Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[Falco Underhill]

I think the Russians know that they've already lost. And that none of their original war aims are attainable now. Just like the US knew it had lost in Vietnam by about 1968 but still took 6 more years to extract itself. Hopefully the Russians will be quicker than the Americans in that respect.

I wonder how hard their troops in northern Ukraine around Kyiv will keep fighting now that their government has announced that taking those cities is no longer an objective. No one wants to die for a cause that your own government has abandoned.

He said from the beginning he didn't intend on occupying Kiev. Why not just admit you were wrong about his intentions from the start instead of pretending otherwise?

Their objective was "regime change" That's why they used over half their forces to invade from the north towards Kyiv and Kharkiv, sent numerous assassination squads after Zelenskyy, and had a puppet government in waiting to replace him. Look at what they did, not what they said.

He claimed from the start his objective was never to occupy Kiev and it seems to me like he's behaving according to his word. On the other hand, it looks to me like you were wrong but you can always find a way to justify it.

[Ken]

He said from the beginning he didn't intend on occupying Kiev. Why not just admit you were wrong about his intentions from the start instead of pretending otherwise?

Their objective was "regime change" That's why they used over half their forces to invade from the north towards Kyiv and Kharkiv, sent numerous assassination squads after Zelenskyy, and had a puppet government in waiting to replace him. Look at what they did, not what they said.

He claimed from the start his objective was never to occupy Kiev and it seems to me like he's behaving according to his word. On the other hand, it looks to me like you were wrong but you can always find a way to justify it.

I'm not sure what you think I was wrong about. I think it was very clear that Putin wanted regime change in Ukraine. He wanted to swap out the pro-western pro-EU and pro-NATO government in the form of Zelenskyy and his governing party for a puppet regime friendly to Russia. He said as much. I think they expected that if they installed a friendly government (They had Viktor Yanukovych who was overthrown in the Orange Revolution waiting in the wings) that they wouldn't have to be an occupying force, their puppet government would do it for them. Just like Alexander Lukashenko is currently doing in Belarus. I think Belarus was the model for what they wanted out of Ukraine.

Seizing Kyiv as the seat of government was necessary to achieve that objective. But not necessarily occupying it long-term. They expected to have a friendly puppet government in place that would "invite" the Russian forces to stay, which is different from an occupation. There are lots of American forces in South Korea and Germany but we don't call them occupiers.

That is why about half the Russian invasion force was aimed at Kyiv.

If all they had wanted to do is occupy the Donbas and create a land bridge to Crimea they could have easily accomplished that by now had they not split their forces and placed over half of them in the north to invade towards Kyiv from that direction.

[temporal1]

From the NYT:

Russia signaled on Friday that it may be reducing its war aims.

The Defense Ministry said that the goals of the “first stage of the operation” had been “mainly accomplished,”
with Ukraine’s combat power “significantly reduced.”

Maj. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said that Russia would now focus on defeating Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region.
While Russia “does not exclude” that its forces will storm major Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv, he said that taking them over was not a primary objective.

This seems like a positive development.

And, not at odds with this, posted on March 7:

Russia's demands

Only one of those would be a change of how things are in practicality and perfectly fitting with the goal of a buffer against NATO.

No one knows what’s going on in PRIVATE talks.

[Falco Underhill]

Their objective was "regime change" That's why they used over half their forces to invade from the north towards Kyiv and Kharkiv, sent numerous assassination squads after Zelenskyy, and had a puppet government in waiting to replace him. Look at what they did, not what they said.

He claimed from the start his objective was never to occupy Kiev and it seems to me like he's behaving according to his word. On the other hand, it looks to me like you were wrong but you can always find a way to justify it.

I'm not sure what you think I was wrong about. I think it was very clear that Putin wanted regime change in Ukraine. He wanted to swap out the pro-western pro-EU and pro-NATO government in the form of Zelenskyy and his governing party for a puppet regime friendly to Russia. He said as much. I think they expected that if they installed a friendly government (They had Viktor Yanukovych who was overthrown in the Orange Revolution waiting in the wings) that they wouldn't have to be an occupying force, their puppet government would do it for them. Just like Alexander Lukashenko is currently doing in Belarus. I think Belarus was the model for what they wanted out of Ukraine.

Seizing Kyiv as the seat of government was necessary to achieve that objective. But not necessarily occupying it long-term. They expected to have a friendly puppet government in place that would "invite" the Russian forces to stay, which is different from an occupation. There are lots of American forces in South Korea and Germany but we don't call them occupiers.

That is why about half the Russian invasion force was aimed at Kyiv.

If all they had wanted to do is occupy the Donbas and create a land bridge to Crimea they could have easily accomplished that by now had they not split their forces and placed over half of them in the north to invade towards Kyiv from that direction.

You claimed:

I think the Russians know that they've already lost. And that none of their original war aims are attainable now.

I think the article you quoted explained well how they achieved the goals they intended to in Kiev, so what "original war aims" are you claiming they had that they've now given up on?

[Ken]

He claimed from the start his objective was never to occupy Kiev and it seems to me like he's behaving according to his word. On the other hand, it looks to me like you were wrong but you can always find a way to justify it.

I'm not sure what you think I was wrong about. I think it was very clear that Putin wanted regime change in Ukraine. He wanted to swap out the pro-western pro-EU and pro-NATO government in the form of Zelenskyy and his governing party for a puppet regime friendly to Russia. He said as much. I think they expected that if they installed a friendly government (They had Viktor Yanukovych who was overthrown in the Orange Revolution waiting in the wings) that they wouldn't have to be an occupying force, their puppet government would do it for them. Just like Alexander Lukashenko is currently doing in Belarus. I think Belarus was the model for what they wanted out of Ukraine.

Seizing Kyiv as the seat of government was necessary to achieve that objective. But not necessarily occupying it long-term. They expected to have a friendly puppet government in place that would "invite" the Russian forces to stay, which is different from an occupation. There are lots of American forces in South Korea and Germany but we don't call them occupiers.

That is why about half the Russian invasion force was aimed at Kyiv.

If all they had wanted to do is occupy the Donbas and create a land bridge to Crimea they could have easily accomplished that by now had they not split their forces and placed over half of them in the north to invade towards Kyiv from that direction.

You claimed:

I think the Russians know that they've already lost. And that none of their original war aims are attainable now.

I think the article you quoted explained well how they achieved the goals they intended to in Kiev, so what "original war aims" are you claiming they had that they've now given up on?

(Regime change was not a primary or necessary goal.)

I believe Putin's original aims were (1) regime change to turn Ukraine into a Russian-friendly government like Belarus, and (2) establish a larger Russian claim over Ukrainian territory and absorb it into greater Russia (probably more of a long-term goal). Over the past year Putin has spoken and written at great length about how Ukraine is not an independent state or culture but part of greater Russia.

The first goal of regime change has clearly failed. Zelenskyy's stature and popularity within Ukraine has grown immensely since the invasion, both within Ukraine and on the international stage. Putin has turned Zelenskyy into a Ukrainian hero. No alternative pro-Russian puppet government would be acceptable to Ukrainians at this point. The invasion has completely hardened Ukrainian opinion on that topic. And should Russia manage to claim control over part or all of Ukraine they would face a massive insurgency of hardened fighters armed with a sea of high-tech weaponry that is pouring in from the west. The country would be completely ungovernable.

As for the second goal. The idea that Ukraine is really Russia? That goal vanished with the invasion. Putin is doing more to restore a sense of Ukrainian national identity than anything else in the past 100 years. After turning Ukrainian cities into rubble the chance that he will convince them they are Russian and not Ukrainian is basically zero. And he is also creating a Ukrainian diaspora of millions who will continue to fuel the fires of Ukrainian nationalism for years and decades to come no matter what happens in Ukraine. Just like the American Irish supported a united Ireland and supported the IRA in opposition to the British for decades and generations.

[Falco Underhill]

I don't think he ever intended on using this war to turn Ukraine into Russia.

That was never one of his stated objectives. You're inferring that from something he said and then asserting it with an almost evangelical enthusiasm that I find unwarranted by the facts. I suspect this was the same attitude of our foreign policy "experts" who got us into this mess in the first place.

[Ken]

This was Putin last month on the eve of the invasion speaking to the Russian people: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/worl ... raine.html

KYIV, Ukraine — In his speech to the Russian nation on Monday, President Vladimir V. Putin buoyed his case for codifying the cleavage of two rebel territories from Ukraine by arguing that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction.

With a conviction of an authoritarian unburdened by historical nuance, Mr. Putin declared Ukraine an invention of the Bolshevik revolutionary leader, Vladimir Lenin, who he said had mistakenly endowed Ukraine with a sense of statehood by allowing it autonomy within the newly created Soviet state.

“Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia,” Mr. Putin said. “This process began practically immediately after the 1917 revolution, and moreover Lenin and his associates did it in the sloppiest way in relation to Russia — by dividing, tearing from her pieces of her own historical territory.”

Here is analysis by the chief diplomatic correspondent for the NYT quoting Putin: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/worl ... ation.html

BRUSSELS — President Biden took office with the idea that this century’s struggle would be between the world’s democracies and autocracies.

But in waging war on Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has been driven by a different concept, ethno-nationalism. It is an idea of nationhood and identity based on language, culture and blood — a collectivist ideology with deep roots in Russian history and thought.

Mr. Putin has repeatedly asserted that Ukraine is not a real state and that the Ukrainians are not a real people, but actually Russian, part of a Slavic heartland that also includes Belarus.

“Putin wants to consolidate the civilizational border of Russia, as he calls it, and he is doing that by invading a sovereign European country,” said Ivan Vejvoda, a senior fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.

In this sense, argues Ivan Krastev, the war is one of recolonization, capturing lands ruled by the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. “Even if Ukraine were autocratic, it would not be tolerated by Putin,” he said. “He’s reconsolidating imperial nationalism.’’[/b]

In 2021 the Kremlin published Putin's essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Hi ... Ukrainians which is summarized as follows:

In the essay, Putin argues that Russians and Ukrainians, along with Belarusians, are one people, belonging to what has historically been known as the triune Russian nation. To support the claim, he describes in length his views on the history of Russia and Ukraine, concluding that Russians and Ukrainians share a common heritage and destiny.

The essay denies the existence of Ukraine as an independent nation.Noting the large number of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, Putin compares "the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia" to a use of weapons of mass destruction against Russians.

Putin openly questions the legitimacy of Ukraine's contemporary borders. According to Putin, the modern-day Ukraine occupies historically Russian lands, and is an "anti-Russia project" created by external forces since the seventeenth century, and of administrative and political decisions made during the Soviet Union. He also discusses War in Donbas, maintaining that "Kiev simply does not need Donbas".

Putin places blame for the current crisis on foreign plots and anti-Russian conspiracies. According to Putin, the decisions of the Ukrainian government are driven by a Western plot against Russia as well as by "followers of Bandera".

Putin ends the lengthy essay by asserting Russia's role in modern Ukrainian affairs.

Sometimes people do, in fact, mean what they say and should be taken at their word.

[Falco Underhill]

“Putin wants to consolidate the civilizational border of Russia, as he calls it, and he is doing that by invading a sovereign European country,” said Ivan Vejvoda, a senior fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.

The fact is had Ukraine simply agreed not to join NATO or seek nukes there would have been no invasion.

[Dan Z]

“Putin wants to consolidate the civilizational border of Russia, as he calls it, and he is doing that by invading a sovereign European country,” said Ivan Vejvoda, a senior fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.

The fact is had Ukraine simply agreed not to join NATO or seek nukes there would have been no invasion.

If she hadn't ever dated that other guy, her old boyfriend would have never had to beat her up.

[Bootstrap]

The fact is had Ukraine simply agreed not to join NATO or seek nukes there would have been no invasion.

If she hadn't ever dated that other guy, her old boyfriend would have never had to beat her up.

Or maybe it's more like those gangster movies.

"We own you. And if you go crying to the cops, let me tell you what's going to happen ..."

Gangsters don't want their victims to have other options.