Quote (Black XistenZ @ Sep 15 2022 01:33pm)
Russia doesn't have an infinite stockpile of high-range, high-quality guided missiles. But that's the type of missile they need to target infrastructure deep in Ukraine's territory, outside the range of their artillery. It's also the reason why they've been using anti-ship missiles to attack land targets for months now. Similarly, they have been unable to establish air supremacy; they have to be scared for their precious jets every time they send them over Ukraine-controlled territory to strike targets like the dam at Kryvyi Rih today. Thus, Russia's lack of more strikes against infrastructure can be explained by the weakness of their military just as well as by "benevolent" restraint. Given the pitiful performance of their troops in this war so far, weakness to me seems far more plausible than restraint.
They might be limited on missiles but they're clearly not using them to target civilian infrastructure in population centers like Kiev. That's restraint, for whatever reason. Water, electric, etc utilities- they are defenseless and immobile and large targets. We can't explain that as a lack of military capacity when they're clearly striking shit tons of missiles elsewhere deep in Ukraine, and aren't shooting at and missing those infrastructure targets. Not to mention, conventional bombers could be flying in to destroy them. Would they be at risk of anti-air defenses? Sure, but units on the ground are being lost too.
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Wrong. You keep repeating this point which fits the Russian narrative on the genesis of this war ("Ukraine wanted to stay with Russia, so the evil West staged an astroturfed coup"), but it's flat out untrue. Ukraine's government was not united in dismissing the West. It was one branch of their government, the executive (represented by Russia-aligned president Yanukovych), which rejected our overtures while another branch, the legislative (represented by their parliament), supported them.
That's like saying that if the January 6th rioters had overthrown the executive and reinstalled Donald Trump that would not be a coup because its 'just one branch of government'.
There was a clear democratic process in Ukraine and the power to conduct international diplomacy rested largely with the president.
No excuses, no beating around the bush here. It was a US-backed coup to overthrow a democratically elected government and install a regime favorable to the west, with the CIA and state department micromanaging the post-coup government and replacing the Russia-aligned oligarchy with a Western-aligned oligarchy. Which was so transparent and blatant that they installed a CIA director and Joe Biden's crackhead son on the board of Burisma. We can debate just how deep the neo-nazi elements of that revolution went and how involved they were with the 8 year siege and later full blown war in the east, but denying it was a coup is like denying that water is wet