Do you think that the world will be a better, more peaceful place if Russia's capability for military intervention in foreign countries is ruined for the next 15-20 years?

I am still of the opinion that this war will end with peace negotiations, so each side taking on maximalist positions which are unacceptable to the respective other side must imho be seen in the context of setting up for said negotiations. From a game theory point of view, it makes zero sense for Ukraine to enter these negotiations with a position of "oh well, you can keep Crimea and the Donbass and the coastal stripe connecting them".

If we get to a point where the frontline is frozen, Russia is signalling readiness for reasonable concessions but Ukraine insists on sacrificing tens of thousands of soldiers to take back, say, Crimea, then your argument would have merit - but not any earlier.



Also note that this war must be seen in a larger geopolitical context - it is also about sending a signal to China with respect to Taiwan - a place which has far greater geostrategic importance than Ukraine due to its world-market-leading foundries. If the lesson China draws from this conflict is that the West is weak and that the party sitting at the beginning of supply chains (Russia/China) ultimately has more leverage than the one sitting at its end (high tech countries like NA/EU/JP/SK), then we're in for a world of hurt.

Of course it will end in some sort of peace we just don't know if it will be in months or years from now. The bolded makes sense if Russia has played all of it's cards, it hasn't though.

They could mobilize the entire Russian army instead of just 20%. They could cripple Ukraine's energy sources with winter coming, forcing millions more to move west into Europe and forcing Europe, who's already spending a ton on energy to now have to somehow subsidize Ukraine's energy grid and infrastructure during winter. No gas/electricity/water= mass exodus from cities. They could ultimately drop a nuke.

Ukraine still has a lot to lose here IMO. They can try to push and take Donbass imo but you can't predict how Russia will respond. I think too many people are just assuming they will back down and not escalate because of the events in the last week or two. Right now they are showing glimpses of what's to come with targeting of some infrastructure in mainly the east but they can expand that across all of Ukraine really. Basically my point is if Ukraine tries to go for a maximalist ask it could backfire tremendously.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Sep 14 2022 08:26pm

You still seem to operate on the premise that "Russia is infinitely stronger than Ukraine" and subsequently that "if Russia isn't winning (yet!), it's because they're not trying their best (yet!)". I think this premise is highly flawed.

To me, Russia seems like an overstretched empire. Their political and military ally Armenia is currently being overrun by the Turkey-allied and much better equipped Azerbaijan, asked Russia for help... and got told that Moscow will send some "military observers" when they actually need lots of tanks and troops - which Putin obviously cannot spare right now. Georgia is inching closer to the EU as we speak, with Russia not being able to do much about it. Within the last 30 months, there were insurrections in Belarus and Kazakhstan which had to be violently quelled with the help of Russian paramilitary forces. China continues to be Russia's frenemy and keeps ogling the vast, resource-rich eastern parts of Russia, like it has for the past 60 years. Russia simply cannot afford to send all their troops to Ukraine. And for reasons of domestic politics, Putin has so far shied away from drafting the sons of the more privileged segments of Russian society, those living in its heartland to the west of the Ural mountains, in cities like St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhni Novgorod, Kazan or Volgograd. If Putin loses the support of these people, his grip on power will erode very quickly.

Dropping nukes on Ukraine if there were no Ukrainian advances onto non-border-adjacent Russian territory would be a huge escalation and risk an overwhelming response by NATO. It would also imperil Russia's support in unaligned third world countries like India or in Africa. So the only strong lever that I see is messing with Ukraine's power and heat grid. Which might admittedly be a potent weapon. But then again... Russia has been weaponizing its gas supplies to Ukraine for over a decade, Ukraine should be prepared for that. Also note that around one quarter of Ukraine's pre-war population lives in Russia-controlled territory and another quarter already sits in Poland, Germany etc. The number of vulnerable civilians left in Ukraine is smaller than one might think.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 15 2022 03:05am

An ally of ours was invaded by their neighbor without real provocation, and you say it's immoral to provide them arms to defend themselves from a raping, torturing, murdering Russian army? That makes no sense at all.

If the Ukrainians want to give up a bunch of territory to Putin in order to end the war that he started, they can. But I don't know that we should place a bunch of pressure on them to do so, especially the way the war is going now. When Putin is ready to end the war, we should encourage a settlement that allows him to save some face, even though he doesn't deserve it.

There's no scenario where Putin and Russia don't look weak after the war is over. Putin made a historic mistake.

That premise should still be valid. The fact is there's obviously so much more targeting of infrastructure Russia could do with conventional weapons, that we must read into their motives for not doing so. If Russia were about to crack, they would be backed into a corner during a time of war. Escalation would be their out. But we can assume we'd see targeting of civilian infrastructure with conventional bombs and missiles before they're mad enough to use nukes. So if we aren't seeing that, what does it say?

And Europe and Ukraine definitely have more risk exposure heading into the winter.



They weren't an ally of ours. Their democratically elected government rejected our overtures, so the we backed a coup to overthrow their government and install a pro-US puppet regime. That was a 'real provocation', as was the 8 year siege of the breakaway regions after the coup.

All I heard LOL

Ukraine still haven't won with all the world support and Russia still the king. Imagine losing against Russia with the whole world support both financially and warfare.

LOL we sent like 10 HIMARS to Ukraine, its not like we fed 100s of billions to Ukraine like we did in IRAQ and Afghanistan, and they are raping Russians lmao

The whole world supplying them. They received hundreds billions + from worldwide support and lot of arsenal yet Russian standing strong. #GoRussia

US alone gave more than 40B: https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-does-40-billion-aid-ukraine-buy

That's what online larpers don't understand, Russia is winning against whole world funneling their effort through Ukraine. Once China step in, it's gg. If the world can't beat Russia all together, forget China.

This post was edited by SunnyvaleTrailerPark on Sep 15 2022 10:40am

What dirty ass are you pulling these numbers out of lol? The article is about 40 billion aid land lease extended throughout whole conflict, we haven't sent 40 billion to Ukraine lol, and we are biggest supporters of Ukraine all others combined didn't give Ukraine as much as we did.