Yes. Its clear Putin wants the entire country and views his quickest path in getting there is through a decapitation strike of the current Ukrainian government. He's doesn't appear interested in "just" taking southern parts of Ukraine and allowing a democratic Ukrainian government to remain intact in Kiev.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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Yes. Its clear Putin wants the entire country and views his quickest path in getting there is through a decapitation strike of the current Ukrainian government. He's doesn't appear interested in "just" taking southern parts of Ukraine and allowing a democratic Ukrainian government to remain intact in Kiev.
No, he was Yeltsin's protege and not particularly anti-western to start with. At least as far as I know.
They did when the Soviet Union broke up. They destroyed Russia with the help of some Russians. Their economy was devastated. Starvation came.
That's what brought Putin to power and what we see today. The next man could be worse.
No he wasn't. He offered his hand and the Americans slapped it down. By the way even Yeltsin has become anti western when he discovered he was led up the garden path. He was just incompetent and too drunk to do anything else apart from being drunk all the time.
Why do you think the Americans would change all of a sudden?
But he already recognized LNR and DNR (and Crimea has already joined Russia), if he keeps the rest intact it's almost inevitable that they choose a pro-EU government. I think he will try to topple the government, but will still work on establishing some kind of autonomy for the South-Eastern parts in case things go wrong again for him with the central government.
Highly unlikely given the pro-democracy sentiment that has taken shape in Russia in recent years. Putin's regime is simply an extension of the corruption inherent in the KGB controlled Soviet era, of which Putin was heavily influenced by. He has simply codified that corruption into a new system that benefits only him a few elites he chooses to surround himself with.
At this time he has to stay. I think he needs to be ready to get away from Kiev at very short notice. He is not going to end the same way as Saddam or Gaddafi for sure.
Spot on. Very unlikely that the next Russian president is going to be worse than Putin.
None of Donbas or Crimea are internationally recognized as Russia (especially not Donbas). If the Putin regime were to collapse tomorrow, all three would immediately go back to Ukraine.
I don't think Putin has the resources to fight a protracted insurgency in Ukraine, so he may simply set up a stooge leader in Kiev and do to all of Ukraine, what he's done to Donbas since 2014 - create a frozen conflict that he can sock-puppet from afar and in the process create a massive Putin friendly buffer between Russia and NATO. That could be a potential "out" for him in all of this, but it still wouldn't remove him from international pariah status, nor would it remove the harshest sanctions, nor would any western nation ever want to do business with him again.
The Russians would never become the poodle of anyone. Whether they have democracy or not. This is where the problem starts always. Nothing to do with democracy. The Saudis do have not even an election. They have invaded Yemen and hammering everything there with the help of West. No sanctions on them at all.
Day one over and I have no idea whatsoever as to Putin's goal. He can't possibly hold Ukraine because it's too big. A puppet government won't last without Russian backing and that would probably mean a protracted insurgency which can't be what he's aiming for. So he can't hold it militarily, he can't hold it politically with military backing, which means that the only thing that seems to make sense is he's using the threat of complete destruction to force Ukraine into some kind of water tight recognition of Russia's right to decide Ukrainian matters. Which also makes little sense because once the troops are out, how much is that agreement worth? That's why I never thought he would launch a fullscale invasion because it makes no fecking sense (even from the perspective of him wanting to control the country monarchic style, it is something he cannot practically do).
Depends on the type of collapse. Every Russian politician, from pro-Putin right-wing nationalist, anti-Putin even more right-wing nationalists, whatever Navalny is, the Putin-controlled Communists ...all support him over Crimea.
For whom?
Nor are the Saudis sitting atop the world' largest nuke stockpile, nor is Yemen on NATO's doorstep, so you can se why there would be a massive disparity in how the US and NATO view Russia/Ukraine compared to other far off conflicts.
He wants to recreate the Soviet Union and take back everything he feels belongs to him. That's it. He's a tyrant who wants more power. Thinking he won't do this or that or it won't be that bad is just being naive. Start looking at him like how people think about Hitler. It is the same.
Yeah, but even taking that view (Putin=Hitler) it still makes no sense. Hitler could hold the areas he was taking because he was prepared to systematically murder everyone who lived in those areas. And even then, there were enormous resistance campaigns across the entire continent. Plus the Russian army is no Wehrmacht. Even with its nuclear weapons, it's nowhere near the level of the Nazi machine in terms of relative dominance. Hitler had three times the number of Russian troops in one single front (the highly trained front that went to war against the Soviets in 41).
This will depend on the next leader, if he continues on Putin's steps then nobody can do anything, unless they negotiate with Russia about returning them.
But I'm not talking about when Putin is no longer around, I'm talking about the next government that will be elected if Zelensky is ousted (Putin can't just install a government for long without any elections). If they do elections then Putin won't let LNR or DNR or Crimea take part in the elections (because he doesn't consider them as parts of Ukraine anymore) and only the remaining parts will participate, which are predominantly pro-EU, so he can't get somebody like Yanukovic elected this way anymore and he needs a backup plan for the rest of Novorussiya, especially the south, if things go wrong again in the central government.
Now you can see why the majority of the people in the world think it's pure hypocrisy in what they all say.
Saudis sitting on top of all the oil. Hammering another non white people. People in the west look at it only from their own self interest and say rest of the international community. In fact the majority of the international community don't support these wars. Be it American or Russian. Or the Saudis.
Sanctions?! They're helping them!
Elections under Putin wouldn't work in either case since no one would recognize them as legitimate and everyone would view whichever stooge/puppet Putin emplaces, as just that.
Its not hypocrisy when you see the world for what it truly is - a dominance hierarchy where the most powerful states can do whatever they want, especially the most powerful one. Putin's Russia, as a major nuke power, can also do what it wants, and pay a penalty of sanctions by entities that are more powerful than it is.
He needs them though as an attempt to maintain calm and stability. He doesn't care about the world at the moment, he cares about avoiding too much unrest and anger among the people.
It is hypocrisy when they all talk about it as if they all are purer than a new born baby.
It's ridiculous to even think he can (1) capture Ukraine. (2). Hold an election and majority of the people would vote.
International politics is full of double standards based on how powerful a state is. You just have to come to grips with this as its not going to change anytime soon.
Thank you and that's something we agree.
This.
It has never been, and never will be, about 'morality' or 'international law', these are just empty words used to galvanize the masses in the direction the leaders want them to. It's in the end just a power struggle.
Has anyone got any information that's reliable on the current military situation?
The ironic thing is, this is exactly how I view the world (including both Western and non-Western incursions/invasions) but it is precisely this view, and it is correct, which people find most troublesome. I think it is because it threatens all of their carefully cultivated myths about why we do what we do (all the reasons we give for what we do as opposed to the mechanics of the action itself: because we can).
Is there a chance that someone within the (wider) inner circle just offs Putin, like Brutus did with Cesar?
(Unfortunately there seems to be no historical tendency for tyrants to be removed by someone from within their own power sphere.)
(Unfortunately there seems to be no historical tendency for tyrants to be removed by someone from within their own power sphere.)
This looks like something straight out of Red Alert command & conquer games. Feck me not another war. Not only I cant stand kids and eldery crying in the middle of war, this also affects the stocks market and I fecking hate it. As if the pandemic isnt enough. Yeah right protect humanity against a virus but then kill each other.
They all have made a collective decision. He is not a dictator in the real sense like Hitler. The military brass has to agree to this too.
Hard to get reliable information right now, but it seems Russia is focusing on Kiev today.
Maybe, this was always the plan? Attack like hell from everywhere in the hope that Ukraine disperse their forces, but the real target could be Kiev?