Whats up with all the Russian fast jets falling out the sky this past week? Are they taking more risks flying closer in range of Ukrainian air defence?

Anyway heres Belarussian special forces fucking up some asbestos

I'm inclined to believe the friendly fire explanations just because the shoot downs tend to be deep in Russian skies far from the supposed reach of UA antiair. Its drunk ruskies with itchy trigger fingers

Some of the footage going around makes me question the command structure
There's a video of two UA tanks just going on an unescorted solo mission into Lastochkyno, before Russia fully captured it today. Ukrainian forces had already withdrawn, the UA tanks are just driving straight into entrenched Russian positions and take several hits and lob a few rounds at buildings before driving away on fire
Why are armor units being sent so erratically and pointlessly? Who's in command? Surely someone had to notice that Russian troops had already raised their flag in the village and were swarming the area

Don't you already think the command structure are Nazis? Kind of flogging a dead horse at this point.

Nazis, aside from Hitler, were generally a very competent command structure. The whole world association game of dumbing down every conversation to good vs bad labels loses all semblance of nuance like that.
Anyway;


https://time.com/6695261/ukraine-forever-war-danger/

Op ed in Time about the futility of the current warpath.
If the US pushes for peace negotiations in the next few months, Ukraine may be able to retain ~80% of its current territory, holding critical farmlands even in the Donbas and end the war- besides the obvious saving of blood and treasure. And it could do that by just trying to kick territorial negotiations down the road indefinitely and not require the west to recognize the reality of the DPR/LPR/Crimea being annexed by Russia, just stalling that as one of those frozen conflict lines and internationally unrecognized but clearly established areas of control. The alternative is looking grimmer. Russia has clear designs on everything east of the Dnipro, Putin isn't being coy about that, and with all the counteroffensive salients being collapsed in the last week alone there's a very real potential for Russian breakout or western Ukraine imploding politically. There's certainly a much higher chance of the government in Kyiv collapsing and Russia taking the whole of the country, than there is of Ukraine ever retaking the separatist regions.

Imho, the key section of the article is this one:


Yup, but it's imho highly doubtful that Russia would be willing to give up on these plans right now, with the momentum on their side and crucial military supplies to Ukraine hanging in the air. Why the fuck would Russia stop doing what they're doing at this point in time, unless a negotiated peace gives them nearly everything they want, inculding turning Ukraine into a defenseless corpse and a de facto vassal state? Why would they settle for less than that while they believe they can get this outcome on the battlefield?

It goes back to what I've already been saying months ago: the time for peace talks is after Ukraine successfully fights back the next proper offensive of Russia, the next Russian attempt at taking meaningful amounts of territory. Then and only then will Russian leadership consider the risks and costs of a continuation of the war and perhaps settle for a true compromise along the lies from the quote. If Ukraine proves unable to accomplish such a defense, they're fucked either way and will get their proverbial cheeks clapped, no matter if it's on the battlefield or at the negotiating table.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 24 2024 06:30pm

Russia still needs to fight a costly war to gain a relatively meager amount of territory and resources. The main strategic vulnerability of the separatist regions is what, water supply?
Putin is still paying a high price for the war now and faces the same questions about the cost vs reward of an operation much of the subordinate structure was drawn into somewhat unaware.
The thing is, Russia was never really proactive about trying to impose its will on Ukraine in the first place. Putin wasn't some hardcore irredentist trying to rebuild an empire, the status quo ante was an independent Ukraine only loosely in their sphere of influence. Russia could have tried to twist Ukraine at any point in the post cold war era, they didn't until the US tried to bring it into the west by force. Because its simply not worth it for Russia like its not worth it for us. The poorer half of the poorest country in Europe, missing the significant chunk of natural resources Russia already annexed. Hungry mouths to feed that would gladly suckle off the EU welfare state, and it probably serves Russia's longterm geopolitical interests to freely give away everything west of the Dnipro even if they could seize it.

The point being, between the costs of attrition and the real lack of reward, Russia has some pretty thin margins to actually make real gains between now and any negotiations. Putin has already manuevered Russia into an advantageous position for peace talks, successfully fought an offensive and taken a good chunk of what he wants. There's still significant lands at risk, and western Ukraine could still try to sue for peace in hopes of retaining the Donbas farmlands, because if the lines continue to collapse that's precisely what Russia is going to seize in coming months or years at this rate. But at heavy cost to Russia. And thus it can be in both the west's interests and Russia's interests to end the war and let Ukraine retain some lands it would lose if the conflict continued.

I just don't see it happening. All land claimed by the Republics will be taken by Russia. What's the point of capturing population centers, but not the farmlands that support them?

The idea that Ukraine has any leverage with which to bargain at this point is silly. In spite of hundreds of billions gifted to Ukraine in weapons and cash, all they've done is get pushed back and back. In spite of active conscription of Ukrainian males wiping out their working aged male population, Russia is achieving it's goals.

To date, Putin still hasn't shifted his stated goals to liberate the Repubilcs, and get concessions from Kiev not to join NATO. Why would he suddenly be willing to concede anything? What leverage does Ukraine have? A willingness to drop their entire population into the meat grinder willy nilly? That won't bother Russia much. They'll just shift their goal to reclaiming the entire Ukraine, and find themselves in possession of 10m+ additional breeding age women. How does Ukraine win, at this point?

The only threat the west has that would provide any leverage for Ukraine is direct US involvement. Knowing that will likely spark nuclear warfare, how likely do you think that threat is to be acted on?

Heh..

The Syrian War proved beyond any doubt that Putin was acutely aware of the geopolitical risk of absorbing a poor, radicalized and unproductive population and weaponized it against the EU. It was a conscious move on his part to turn a hose of migrants against Europe to weaken the union, and look how it worked. Maybe Russia was willing to seize western Ukraine if it could be annexed without much of a fight like the blitzkrieg showed, but that might have more to do with a willingness to put up with the west as opposed to the cost of the prolonged war he knew would come otherwise. Now that it has come to pass, why would Putin want to take west Ukraine? He wants what's east of the Dnipro, he could even covet Odessa as a strategic port, but the rest of the country is basically mudwading elbonians from dilbert.

This isn't necessarily disagreeing with you. Putin already has population centers in the east, those who are ethnic Russians and absorbed freely into the motherland. He won't need to spend decades subjugating a bunch of hostile western Ukrainians in their population centers. And he wants the Donbas farmlands, not just to support the DPR/LPR/Crimea but for their long term strategic importance as a natural resource. So while Putin absolutely does want to force concession from Kyiv to stave off NATO and secure his border post-war, there's still plenty of concessions Putin would be willing to make simply on western Ukraine's leverage as a useless welfare state. I don't think Putin is going to see it as a war to capture Ukrainian women for his soldiers to claim as war wives, I think Putin is going to see it as slicing up Ukraine and taking the rich bounty for Russia and handing all the liability over to the EU and watching them squirm under the weight of yet another wave of net negative migration

Which of course is the same shit I've been saying since day one, this is just Syrian War 2.0 and its not even a chess match, its checkers