Completely false statement. And pointless. Their aim was never to lay waste to Ukraine.
What was it again? Denazify Ukraine, regime change in Kiev?
They failed at those aims and so they just changed their stated objectives.
So it changes to hold the Donbass and eastern Ukraine.

If Russia did have enough conventional means to "lay waste to Ukraine" whatever that means in your opinion, they would have accomplished their aims in early 2022.

They failed to accomplish those aims. Moved the goalposts and them dug in to hold their position.

Other obvious reasons that disprove what you just stated are Russia having at least 2 rounds of massive mobilization.

Not to mention running to North Korea for ammunition.

If Russia did have that capacity, their objectives would have been complete.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Nov 19 2023 06:05pm

I'm literally quoting your own posts. You wrote those things, not me. I'm just trying to make sense of it by asking you to clarify your own words.



All of these sound like some sex fantasies and are completely made up with no sources provided.

There is literally a wikipedia article what the stated goals on 24th of February 2022 were. There are 3 main goals. You can look them up and how they are defined.



Surprisingly - regime change was not one of the goals and still isn't



They already achieved one of the stated goals by holding Donbass and Eastern Ukraine. Look up the initial goals.



Laying waste was never a goal. Goal is to figure out a ceasefire to achieve 3 initial goals declared.



Again, you should read why Russians invaded and what the goals are. There is literally 1 hour speech by Putin if you fancy explaining in detail why and how they envision achieving the 3 goals stated.



There was one mobilization round where they summoned c.a. 300k reserves.



Is that supposed to prove something? I'm not seeing it.

This post was edited by Malopox on Nov 20 2023 03:33am

The goalposts changed after they failed to take out Zelensky and got their asses handed to them at hostomel.

Are you denying that?

What were the 3 initial goals, how were they defined and how did they change?

Please attempt to rationally reason without resorting to bigotry and racism for extra points.

If you read carefully I never said their goal was to lay waste to Ukraine.
I refuted the point previously made that "Russia could reduce Ukraine to dust and ashes"

They clearly cannot do this, because if they can't complete a "limited special miltary operation" that was supposed to take days or weeks, after 2 years. Then it's a stretch to believe that thr Russian miltary is capabale of anything far exceeding that.

Read this article and let me know if it helps you better understand the topic at hand

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/putins-war-vanishing-goals#:~:text=Putin%27s%20Evolving%20Objectives&text=So%2C%20before%20the%20start%20of,of%20Luhansk%20and%20Donetsk%20oblasts.

Please reply without any over inflated sense of self righteousness or misplaced accusations of racism and bigotry.

Or, don't. I would be fully content with that also.

I'm asking you a very simple question.

You've said that the goals have changed since the retreat of Russian forces from the vicinity of Kiev. Could you please enlighten the audience - what were the initial goals, how were they defined and how did they change?



To understand how to resolve this conflict (if that's your goal ofcourse)- one has to understand the stated and implicit motivation of all parties involved, including Russia, Ukraine, EU, US, NATO and whoever else you want to add who might have a stake in this conflict by now.


This post was edited by Malopox on Nov 20 2023 04:19am

Dodged the question and posted an article by a Ukrainian propagandist who works for a US government funded think tank

You can enlighten yourself quite easily. This is not even a matter for debate, which makes it quite comical that you chose this hill to die on.

Russias own stated war aims, changed. Multiple times in fact.

This is an indisputable fact for anyone capable of pragmatism or with any shred of objectivity.

If you don't fall into that category that is 100% a you problem.