throwaway62654
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If Russia's current strategy does not work, it would be idiotic for it to keep its current strategy, so it will adapt.
This gave me an interesting thought. Either Putin thinks retreating is deadly for him or not. If he does he will keep sending more forces to be steadily destroyed. If he doesn't retaking Crimea wouldn't trigger nuclear response by default as he will hope to conquer it again later.
... (read 447 more words →)I'm so confused. So the endgame you would like is that Russia nukes Ukraine, but Ukraine keeps fighting Russia (who has nukes, and is willing to use them). Does this keep going until there is no Ukranian left to fight, at which point
Sure, it's biased. The point mostly was that my personal experience confirms the reasons why the polls cited in the original post are even more biased.
The idea that Putin would just accept Crimea as being Ukrainian without planning another attack to take it back seems strange to me.
He won't. I don't even know if retaking Crimea is a wise strategy. Ukrainian military may well decide to not proceed to Crimea because of nuclear risk. My point was that any attempt at peace without Putin giving up something of value would play directly into his hands.
If Putin "doesn't care that much" about sanctions, isn't it pretty stupid that the West is shooting themselves in the foot, and the developing world in the face, by still applying heavy sanctions?
Sanctions turned out to be pretty underwhelming. And surely, one can easily see that the portfolio of sanctions could be much more effective. Personally I think some sanctions are needed but much better thought through.
Maybe not, but better than not trying at all.
If you mean something like we tell Putin "If you do the referendum with the UN supervision and allow pro-Ukrainian people in Crimea to freely and publicly debate with pro-Russian people, then we would recognize Crimea as Russian... (read 456 more words →)
Putin already showed willingness to increase number of people fighting. Russia lacks time to train them. Given enough time it would train them much better. There's no major obstacles to an another round of mobilization. Also number of active soldiers in Russian army is more than a million. Only ~200K of them were used in the invasion. Russian economy is going strong (just -3% this year according to IMF). Only ~5% of Russian GDP is spent on military this year. Usually it spent around 4% of its GDP. You know, looking at those numbers I start to question even more where this whole narrative of "Russia is losing, don't corner Putin" is coming from.
In comparison Ukraine lost more than a third of its GDP and spends almost half of the remaining part on the military.
(a) There's nothing valuable Putin would willingly give in exchange for repealing sanctions. He doesn't care that much. And potential marginal increase in Putin's support doesn't matter either. The goal of sanctions is not to incentivize regime change. The goal is to make it a bit more difficult for him to wage the war.
Asylum and financial rewards for defecting Russian soldiers were announced by Ukraine in the beginning of the invasion. But I don't know how well it works in practice.
(b) Putin will never allow an election or a referendum that he doesn't control.
(c) Russian constitution now says Donetsk and Luhansk are parts of Russia.
(d) This is something that may end up... (read more)
The idea that if Ukraine only manages to retake all its former territory that means it's safe from future attacks from Russia is faulty especially if there's a lot of resistance in Crimea to Ukrainian rule.
The idea that if Ukraine make a peace deal with Russia means it's safe from future attacks from Russia is even more faulty. In fact Ukraine made a peace deal with Russia in 2015. And I'm not even talking about Budapest Memorandum.
I think if you believe that the borders of Ukraine don't matter and what matters is nuclear risk, then it's useful to be able to make a peace deal that does not back Putin into a corner where using nuclear weapons is the only thing that might keep him in power.
Borders don't matter in and of themselves. But they matter to Putin. Somewhat. Therefore they can be used as a tool to prevent him from being encouraged to continue his conquest.
I don't see better options. What would you suggest?
It's pretty hard to disincentivise anyone to fight. Ukrainian population wouldn't accept defeat. Putin can't either. Both will fight regardless of whether they see themselves prevailing eventually. It's worth noting that Putin probably cornered himself by formally annexing more territories on purpose.
One would think that maybe we can make some kind of a peace deal. Maybe Ukraine recognizes Crimea as Russian in exchange for stopping hostilities? The problem is it's not the first time. The first time was in 2014. No one responded to the annexation of Crimea. Just a couple of months later Russian agents start a war in Donbass. Then in 2015... (read more)
I've talked to a number of people living in Crimea over the years. Some were pro-Russian, some were pro-Ukrainian, some undecided. Here are some observations.
People weren't particularly afraid of Ukraine. But since 2014 literally everyone is afraid to say openly anything that's not supportive of Russia. Fear is everywhere. So much for accurate polling data. Since February 2022 people became much more afraid of Russia. I talked to people who fled Crimea after the announcement of mobilization. They were in panic.
Since 2014 a lot of people left Crimea. Instead a lot of Russians moved to Crimea. People living in Crimea now and Crimean people in 2014 are two completely different sets of... (read more)
You just have to twist my words and make such an offensive response, don't you? To restate - the siege of Mariupol didn't stop Ukraine from defending Ukraine.
We're afraid he may start a nuclear war. That's pretty bad already. And he clearly gets worse with time. Yet you want to give him an opportunity to build a bigger army. To eventually give it to a successor who you think will be even worse.
Actions speak. I know Ukrainians who were hiding from military enlistment... (read more)