Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

[Alastor]

Putins failure to deliver Bakhmut despite disproportionate effort has made him look weak, and lying a bout it makes him look desperate. Prigozhins contradictory message makes the Russian effort seem ill coordinated. Ukraine are a long way from this level of propaganda disconnection.

Putin's failure to correctly read the situation before the invasion and the subsequent failure of the Kiev offensive last year was what destroyed much of his prestige. The difficulties capturing Bakhmut pale in comparison to that. Once your prestige is destroyed, once your momentum derails, recovering is much much harder. So Ukraine better be careful with their declarations. If there is no spring offensive, or if there is a floundering one, this won't play out well.

[PointOfViewGun]

Putin's failure to correctly read the situation before the invasion and the subsequent failure of the Kiev offensive last year was what destroyed much of his prestige. The difficulties capturing Bakhmut pale in comparison to that. Once your prestige is destroyed, once your momentum derails, recovering is much much harder. So Ukraine better be careful with their declarations. If there is no spring offensive, or if there is a floundering one, this won't play out well.

Can you link to the comments you made on massive Russian offensive that never happened this year that was supposed to happen months ago? I'd like to read onto that.

[Coughdrop addict]

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-enc...eports-1801670

Ukrainian troops were able to semi-encircle the city of Bakhmut and fight Russian forces in the area, according to Hanna Maliar, the Ukrainian deputy defense minister, on Sunday.
"The enemy failed to surround Bakhmut and they lost part of the dominant heights around the city. This means that the advance of our troops in the suburbs along the flanks, which is still ongoing, makes it very difficult for the enemy to stay in Bakhmut.Our troops took the city in a semi-encirclement, which gives us the opportunity to destroy the enemy. Therefore, the enemy [Russia] has to defend itself in the part of the city it controls," Maliar wrote on Telegram.
The deputy defense minister added in her post that Ukrainian troops still have control over industrial and infrastructure facilities, and the private sector in the Litak area in Bakhmut.

Fear not! Russia will throw more untrained and unarmed conscripts at the problem! That'll fix things!

[Laser101]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielm...secession/amp/

According to Forbes significant numbers of Russian speaking peoples in Ukraine exist outside of Russian controlled Donbass. 30% in Kyiv alone.

So why are they still there Laser?

Ethnicity and language are two different concepts. For instance, most people in Ireland speak English, but they would of course consider themselves ethnically Irish, not British. The Ulster Unionists conversely would not consider themselves ethnically Irish, even though they also mostly speak English.

Ukraine is dominantly ethnic Ukrainian everywhere except Crimea, even if a lot of ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian (although thanks to the war a lot of them are abandoning it).

And yet they fully allow Russian minorities to exist inside their territories and are not being ethnically cleansed out. Odd huh?

They tolerate them to a point, in no small part due to the EU's insistence. However, relations between the West and Russia are considerably worse than they were back in the 90s (which is Putin's fault, to be clear).

This is all assumption and nothing more.

It's an assumption based on past patterns regarding ethnic groups likely to encourage irredentism by a foreign aggressor.

[Cyclops]

I am very worried by the possibility we will blunder into another Kosovo, but I think the US involvement might keep Kyiv clean here? Or the EU? Or am I a hopeless optimist...

Putin's failure to correctly read the situation before the invasion and the subsequent failure of the Kiev offensive last year was what destroyed much of his prestige. The difficulties capturing Bakhmut pale in comparison to that. Once your prestige is destroyed, once your momentum derails, recovering is much much harder. So Ukraine better be careful with their declarations. If there is no spring offensive, or if there is a floundering one, this won't play out well.

Yes I agree. US assistance to Kyiv is opportunist, albeit welcome and (accidentally?) virtuous (especially compared to, say, the dirty Yemen war), and if the narrative shifted Ukraine could be dropped.

Integrating into a stable EU membership pathway would be a sensible way to redress that volatility-Zelenskyy has played conservatively and effectively even allowing for the aces he's been dealt.

Neither side wants to overplay their hand but the propaganda beast has to be fed, victories found or invented.

[Vanoi]

Ethnicity and language are two different concepts. For instance, most people in Ireland speak English, but they would of course consider themselves ethnically Irish, not British. The Ulster Unionists conversely would not consider themselves ethnically Irish, even though they also mostly speak English.

Irrelevant. Ethnic Russian do exist in outside of Donbass in Ukrainian controlled areas.

Ukraine is dominantly ethnic Ukrainian everywhere except Crimea, even if a lot of ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian (although thanks to the war a lot of them are abandoning it)

Dominate? No one denied that. You did just prove there are still significant amounts of ethnic Russians again who live outside of Donbass. It's irrelevant whenever they are the majority or not.

They tolerate them to a point, in no small part due to the EU's insistence. However, relations between the West and Russia are considerably worse than they were back in the 90s (which is Putin's fault, to be clear)

Nothing in your own link indicates that they are second class citizens. They seem to enjoy the very same rights as Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. Definitely no ethnic cleansing or atrocities.

It's an assumption based on past patterns regarding ethnic groups likely to encourage irredentism by a foreign aggressor.

By your own logic Germany is likely to conduct genocide again because did it in the past. Sorry but this isn't the 1940s and1950s.

[Kyriakos]

Putin's failure to correctly read the situation before the invasion and the subsequent failure of the Kiev offensive last year was what destroyed much of his prestige. The difficulties capturing Bakhmut pale in comparison to that. Once your prestige is destroyed, once your momentum derails, recovering is much much harder. So Ukraine better be careful with their declarations. If there is no spring offensive, or if there is a floundering one, this won't play out well.

Maybe losing Bahmut is a success for Ukraine. If so, they have succeeded to lose way over 1/5 of their territory already. China did something similar, in its war with Japan, but in that case you had ww2 looming.

[conon394]

Maybe losing Bahmut is a success for Ukraine. If so, they have succeeded to lose way over 1/5 of their territory already

Well one thing is clear it can't be considered a success for Russia.

China did something similar, in its war with Japan, but in that case you had ww2 looming.

Not a bad analogy. Seeing as Japans investment in its beyond stupid war in China never had any possibility of producing returning even a pence on the pound in investment of blood and treasure and JApan clung to land ignored actual opportunities.

[Kyriakos]

Well one thing is clear it can't be considered a success for Russia.

[/FONT]

Not a bad analogy. Seeing as Japans investment in its beyond stupid war in China never had any possibility of producing returning even a pence on the pound in investment of blood and treasure and JApan clung to land ignored actual opportunities.

If it's not a bad analogy, you should expect ww3 (Japan didn't abandon the war with China either). Which with nukes won't be like ww2 :S
For better or worse, world war tends to happen cyclically. Particularly when the social situation in major countries is untenable. Some will win, some will lose, and those left alive at least can hope it will be better in the new interwar period of a few decades (not even 80 years have passed since ww2 - eg Biden was alive before even the nazis got encircled in Stalingrad )

[conon394]

If it's not a bad analogy, you should expect ww3 (Japan didn't abandon the war with China either). Which with nukes won't be like ww2 :S
For better or worse, world war tends to happen cyclically. Particularly when the social situation in major countries is untenable. Some will win, some will lose, and those left alive at least can hope it will be better in the new interwar period of a few decades (not even 80 years have passed since ww2 - eg Biden was alive before even the nazis got encircled in Stalingrad )

Stop being silly. China and RUssia backing the North in Vietnam did not produce WW3. Nor Korea. What is with the panic attack. Besides the analogy I meant is Russia doubling down on a loose loose venture. WW2 was hard the result of Japan's invasion of China.

Biden might be old but he running the best Democratic Admin since LBJ I can deal with his age.

[Kyriakos]

Stop being silly. China and RUssia backing the North in Vietnam did not produce WW3. Nor Korea. What is with the panic attack.

Biden might be old but he running the best Democratic Admin since LBJ I can deal with his age.

Not many governments in Europe cared about Vietnam/Korea either. Imagine if it could never be abandoned to the "enemy" side, sanction China and send more stuff to the (non-enemy) Vietnamese/Koreans
Ie you have the tendency to not observe rather crucial differences.

[conon394]

Not many governments in Europe cared about Vietnam/Korea either. Imagine if it could never be abandoned to the "enemy" side, sanction China and send more stuff to the (non-enemy) Vietnamese/Koreans

I am lost? You do know who voted for the UN backed defense of Korea right and have at least looked at who participated on the 'UN' side looks a fair bit of Europe. On Vietnam not sure how Europe could what sanction CHina at the time the the Communist block was kinda not participating in the World economy mostly. But I see no crucial difference between Vietnam and Ukraine. The US with domino theory thinking went in viewing a loss as critical as anything IR zealots come up with for Russia now and China and Russia said meh - we are all in with absolute US defeat in Nam.

[Kyriakos]

So you are ok with half of Korea/Ukraine in Russia's sphere?

[nhytgbvfeco2]

Kyriakos, do you like, realise, that the Vietnam war lasted for 19 years? And that's not counting the first stage? And that the Korea war lasted for 3 years, at the end of which the borders returned to pretty much prewar borders with minor territorial changes?

[Nebaki]

So you are ok with half of Korea/Ukraine in Russia's sphere?

Aren't you ok with half of Cyprus/Thrace in Greece's sphere?

[Kyriakos]

Kyriakos, do you like, realise, that the Vietnam war lasted for 19 years? And that's not counting the first stage? And that the Korea war lasted for 3 years, at the end of which the borders returned to pretty much prewar borders with minor territorial changes?

I wasn't the one who mentioned those wars. Yet it is interesting that the claim was about how much the "west" cared, which I tried to show wasn't similar to the current war => imo risk of ww is higher here than in Korea/Vietnam.

[Laser101]

Irrelevant. Ethnic Russian do exist in outside of Donbass in Ukrainian controlled areas.


Dominate? No one denied that. You did just prove there are still significant amounts of ethnic Russians again who live outside of Donbass. It's irrelevant whenever they are the majority or not.

It matters because a numerically marginal ethnic minority who are culturally and linguistically almost indistinguishable from the majority population can simply be absorbed, whereas a more significant one cannot. Again to reuse the Ireland analogy, there aren't many issues with the Irish in Britain or British in the Republic, yet in Northern Ireland this distinction suddenly matters a great deal.
To put it bluntly, Russians elsewhere in Ukraine are in no position to cause issues for Ukrainian rule; Russians in Crimea and (to a lesser degree) Donbas are. Incidentally, the same point applies re: ethnic Ukrainians in Russia, who have not been systematically targeted to anywhere near the same degree as Ukrainian loyalists in occupied Ukraine.

Nothing in your own link indicates that they are second class citizens. They seem to enjoy the very same rights as Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. Definitely no ethnic cleansing or atrocities.

Because the EU really wouldn't like that, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred mostly peacefully, so the Balts were never pushed to that point.

By your own logic Germany is likely to conduct genocide again because did it in the past. Sorry but this isn't the 1940s and1950s.

It's not a question of who is doing it but the conditions that lead them to do so, and the likely near-future circumstances of Ukraine aren't very different from those of Poland or Czechoslovakia after WW2 (barring the Soviet occupation obviously). For both countries, the problem was the presence of a minority with a history of disloyalty attached to an external aggressor who had just invaded and ravaged much of the country.
There have been such events more recently (as in the Yugoslav wars).

[Cyclops]

I wasn't the one who mentioned those wars. Yet it is interesting that the claim was about how much the "west" cared, which I tried to show wasn't similar to the current war => imo risk of ww is higher here than in Korea/Vietnam.

I strongly disagree, in the 50's and 60's there were strong advocates for a first strike against the Soviet Union in the US administration. Soviet equipment was in some areas on par with US tech, and in the missile race they went ahead at times, eg Sputnik.

The tech gap is far wider now, the economc and diplomatic gap is even greater and Russia is not seen as an existential threat to the US like the USSR was.

Given the abysmal performance of Russian missile and air forces, including the "hyper" sonic missile debacle, it seems Russia would be unlikely to be able to hold up its side of a world war. Doesn't their one (1) carrier emit smoke every time it moves?

These days the best the Russians can do is a weekly claim to have captured Bakhmut and exciting news stories about radioactive clouds and bioweapon labs that somehow fail to materialise.

Going back to Korea, Stalin tricked the US into backing a war on the border of red China, which distracted US efforts against the USSR directly while putting a lid on Chinese claims to the Amur river basin for many decades. Superb devious statecraft from Stalin, great courage and dedication from the NATO, NK and Red Chinese forces.

We are not seeing anything on that level in this conflict. Instead an ex-intel officer (cream of the KGB) has been outsmarted by an 80 year old timeserving hack and a comedian. Poor Russian troops **** away their numerical advantage with sheer incompetence as their opponent upgrades well beyond their ability to cope.

[Kyriakos]

Tbf, Biden barely has a functional brain; he can't outsmart anyone ^^

[Vanoi]

Tbf, Biden barely has a functional brain; he can't outsmart anyone ^^

So Putin is losing out to a guy who barely has a functional brain?