Is he planning to nuke Kherson?
Russia seems to be about to rapidly withdraw all it’s military units from the city, and is carting back to Russia as much of the civilian population as it can ‘persuade’ to make the journey.
According to some commentators, the “evacuation” of Kherson has two possible explanations: one is they want to kidnap a lot of people back to Russia (they have already kidnapped hundreds of thousands from the occupied areas, according to various reports, which I find absolutely staggering behaviour in modern times) and the other is they are trying to do “ethnic cleansing of the willing” i.e. move out people who are pro-Russia (which, in parts of Ukraine, is a fair %).
Russia has to withdraw from NW of the river sometime, because with the bridges mostly blown up, they can’t reinforce their ~25k soldiers there, the temperature is falling but somebody in Russia has stolen the warm clothing, they can’t get them food or ammo, and anyway frozen / hungry soldiers are completely useless, Ukraine is killing ~300-500 per day and it won’t take long to kill the 20k+ at that rate.
And as always it all has to be shaped to look good on Russian domestic media regardless of what it looks like to anybody who hasn’t been brainwashed.
I don’t think Russia will use nukes but they might blow up that dam which would be a disaster.
The curious thing is that – in some recent survey of attitudes – much of the 3rd World still thinks Russia and China are great. Well, there are good reasons they are the 3rd World… But, looking at some N European social media, the “Russia topic” is too hot for some of them; at least within pilot communities, the countries which are solidly pro-Ukraine are surprisingly few.
they are trying to do “ethnic cleansing of the willing” i.e. move out people who are pro-Russia (which, in parts of Ukraine, is a fair %).
They will use them to reinforce other occupied territories, previously cleansed from Ukrainians. Already seen in ex-Yugoslavia wars.
What I don’t get is that unless there is some kind of enforced “Potsdam solution”, Ukraine will eventually push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine.
That bridge job – whoever did it – shows how vulnerable Crimea is.
Without complete shore of Sea of Azov occupied, Crimea is very vulnerable. It seems pretty obvious that Russians will reinforce left bank of Dnipro river leaving Kherson abandoned and possibly blowing up the upstream dams.
Ukraine, with HIMARS etc, can just sit on the other side and keep smashing them up… I see no future there for Russia.
Peter wrote:
Ukraine, with HIMARS etc, can just sit on the other side and keep smashing them up… I see no future there for Russia.
There is none. But too many of our politicians still haven’t realised it and are hesitant to give Ukraine everything they need. Supplying them with modern main battle tanks and western combat aircraft could shorten the war considerably, and the idea that Russia would retaliate with nukes because of that is laughable.
Exactly.
As I wrote above, there is way too much hesitation in a number of European countries on this topic. See how far you get in certain countries, in forums, before you get beaten up.
Logically, they must think that sacrificing Ukraine will help them. Sure; in the short term there will be cheap fuel but the long term cost – huge re-armament of Europe – will be hundreds of BN just for each major country; trillions for all of Europe. In today’s money, similar to the cost of absorbing the DDR (about a trillion DM). Well, the re-armament will likely be required anyway, but with Russia’s military largely destroyed there will be a lot more time to do it, and there may even be regime change which might change the situation.
And America isn’t going to be pulling burning chestnuts out of the fire for Europe if China has a go at Taiwan, because America will be awfully busy down there…
Just saw an interesting analysis of Russia blowing up that dam. It will render useless a key canal feeding water to Crimea. The people who mined the dam must be as thick as a plank.
