Peter wrote:
We are all military experts now
Like we used to be pandemic experts 
Emir wrote:
Like we used to be pandemic experts
…and civilization didn’t end with Covid.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
It is also darn clear that Russia sees this development as interference by NATO, more than before. In one way, NATO is calling his bluff that if NATO entered the war, which it has done in all but boots on the ground (which clearly makes the difference), Russia would de facto be at war with all of NATO. And while that may not turn nuclear, it would also mean that Russia would start thinking of attacking outside Ukraine, to try to split NATO.All in all, Russia has totally misjudged the situation in Ukraine from the get go, thinking they would be welcome there. Otherwise, a full scale attack would have had to be very different and so would the outcome have been.
Russia keeps coming out with these statements about its views on NATO involvement and what it sees as escalatory steps, but no-one is listening and no-one cares. They invaded a neighbouring sovereign country and started a war, so they have no position to speak from. Except maybe elements of the German leadership who want to restore the pre-war status quo, no-one in the west is concerned about aggravating or upsetting Russia – nuclear war notwithstanding.
Full scale attack? This is a full scale attack. Short of nuclear weapons, Russia has done and continues to do everything it possibly can to conquer Ukraine. There are no conventional capabilities that are being held back – what you’ve seen for the last year is the sum total of what Russia’s military is capable of achieving. It is just astoundingly inept, despite being quite large.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Russia can’t afford to stop now and they won’t. My expectation is that either we will be writing “when this is over” in 10 years from now or there will be a massive escalation over the next months which will either force NATO to enter the war to save Ukraine or Ukraine being turned into burnt earth. The only way I could imagine this could end earlier would be to create a DMZ like in Korea along the whole border under UN protection. But I don’t see this happening.
Are you really under the impression that Russia has the option to press the ‘maximum effort’ button and obliterate Ukraine?
Russia is prosecuting the war with maximum effort already. There is nothing more it can do – it pours troops and tanks into the line daily, and isn’t making much progress. It launches as much missile hardware as it has at Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.
Do you really think it is presently pursuing some low-effort war?
The only escalation available to Russia now is to use nuclear weapons, and they’re not going to do that because they’ve been informed of what NATO will do if they do.
I admit that it is a bit of wishful thinking but:
Putin must really see the danger of these tanks, and the resolve of NATO, knowing there is not much he can do other than nuclear, which I think he won’t. So he may think that he’d better start to negotiate, behind the scenes? And this may have been a prime consideration of the tank-supplying countries?Now’s the time while the tanks and their crews still need time to be deployed. I know many of you here think we need to crush the guy, reconquer the Donbas and Crimea but exactly for what reason? Because he poses a threat to Europe and will make another go at us? Really? NATO has been expanded, European unity is clear, his army is in shambles, his economy is suffering, Europe is going to depend less and less on his only product, there is a brain drain going on, and NATO has demonstrated absolute military superiority in terms of hardware, and the list goes on.
‘We’ have already given up Crimea in 2014. And who the heck wants the Donbas? A mine-infested devastated area with a large pro-Russian population. If Ukraine gets it back it’s going to be a quagmire, and us in Europe paying for the ‘reconstruction’?
All that matters is a deal where the security of Ukraine as a nation is secured.
Such talks are extremely complex, with so many items on the agenda, but P may think he can get a better deal now than after being beaten out of there. I don’t care too much if such a deal would be better. The advantage is that so many more lives will be saved. And Russia will suffer tremendous consequences anyway. We’d need to be clever to help him present it as a victory of some sort ;)
OK guys, shoot ;)
aart wrote:
All that matters is a deal where the security of Ukraine as a nation is secured.
It’s all up to the Ukrainians. I’m not so sure they agree to that, ever.
LeSving wrote:
It’s all up to the Ukrainians. I’m not so sure they agree to that, ever.
In theory, yes.
In reality, when the Ukrainians kick the Russians back past the Feb 2022 borders they are going to come under a lot of western pressure to stop there and let Russia have Crimea. They may bow to that pressure, or they may not.
aart wrote:
And who the heck wants the Donbas? A mine-infested devastated area with a large pro-Russian population.
Just like other places, we might find that Donbas is less pro-Russian than anyone thought (particularly less pro-Russian than the Russians – who now fully believe their own propaganda – think the area is).
alioth wrote:
ust like other places, we might find that Donbas is less pro-Russian than anyone thought (particularly less pro-Russian than the Russians – who now fully believe their own propaganda – think the area is).
I suspect the Donbas is like many other areas in Europe (or indeed the world) where there is a hard political border, but a rather gradual change in population on either side. Think of SW France and Catalonia (Spain), North Tirol (Austria) and South Tirol (Italy), Alsace (France-Germany), pretty much the entire country of Belgium, the list goes on.
Peter wrote:
Yugoslavia?
Amongst others, yes. KFOR has protected the peace between Serbia and others in that region. People may laugh it off, but I know people who were there in the initial phase. And some places are still strictly under KFOR rule, or why else is Pristina Airport coded BIKF.
But in the end, I rather see a DMZ of the kind that has kept Korea from blowing up. That one was also agreed upon in the armistice agreemend under the leadership of UN Command.
