It's ALWAYS useful because it allows you to protect your troops. Russia has no interest in "conquering" either as evidenced by Kharkiv and Mariupol. They are going to waste tens of thousands of lives to beat Ukraine into submission. Frankly, they have nothing else to lose because their pride and money have been nuked.

Russia has been holding back quite a lot. Their artillery could have razed Kyiv to the ground by now if they had wanted to. For the most part, the Russians have been restrained, at least until now. Kharkiv and Mariupol might be exceptions, but a simple look at the map reveals why: these two cities happen to lie at hugely important strategic locations, they are the two places the Russians need to conquer at any cost.

But yeah, I'm afraid too that the Russians will ramp up the brutality and destruction in the days and weeks to come and try to beat Ukraine into submission, get them to sign a "treaty of """"friendship""""" in which Ukraine pledges ever-lasting political "neutrality" (read: fealty to Russia) and renounces any ambitions of joining NATO or the EU.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 5 2022 10:08pm

yes. because RU is known for it honesty and transparency.
Ask the my pillow guy to save you

What does that even mean? They aren't committing as many war crimes as they can? They haven't used nuclear weapons? Congratulations I guess....

They're only "holding back" in the sense that they want to have something worth conquering and that doesn't motivate the world to immediately respond. Sure, they could easily level the entirety of Ukraine, but that kind of indiscriminate attack would basically render the whole place unusable once they have it and motivate a heavy and rapid international response. They would also have to motivate a lot more resources, and would have a lot more losses as that kind of indiscriminate attacking is messy and gives the enemy a lot more targets during.

Yes?! Seriously, what do you think will happen once this 60 km long military convoy arrives in Kyiv? There's only two outcomes: surrender or overwhelming force. I just disagree with your notion that the Russians are not interested in conquering. Mariupol and Kharkiv aren't suitable counterexamples due to their utmost geographic importance for Russia.

When I said the Russians have been holding back so far, this was not meant in a judgemental sense. ("Look, the Russians are not as evil as the dastardly western propaganda made them out to be" - it was NOT my intention to imply anything like that.)
And yes, I'm afraid that the Russians will soon unleash hell on Ukrainian cities across the country in an attempt at breaking their will to resist.




I think you overrate the likelihood of the rest of the world interfering because of war crimes. If push comes to shove, would the West really risk nuclear war with Russia over the suffering of civilians in a non-NATO, non-EU state?


If they used their artillery to lay waste to cities, they wouldn't actually risk significant own losses. But like you said, they don't want to rule over ruins.

These aren't brown people, so really blatant war crimes and wanton destruction would motivate much harsher and swifter action on all fronts. Putin is walking a fine line between getting what he wants and not having the rest of the world engage militarily and limiting the economic sanctions, and the rest of the world is walking on the razor of engaging just enough that it doesn't result in all out conflict between nuclear armed nations.

There's no easy answers. I think Putin is pretty obviously doing as much as he thinks he can get away with.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Mar 5 2022 10:48pm

The problem isn't skin color, it's that all of this is taking place in close vincinity to the EU.
Still, I really don't think that the West would risk an all-out confrontation over "ordinary atrocities", say something of the scope of Aleppo during the Syrian civil war.

Imho, the bigger risk for Putin is that too egregious and graphic war crimes would turn the rest of the world against him. The vote of the UN general assembly on the Ukraine resolution saw countries representing around half the global population abstain, most notably India and China. Until now, the invasion of Ukraine has "only" riled up the Western world against Putin/Russia. But if the war crimes get too blatant, Russia might become a true pariah. At some point, even the Chinese would have no other choice than to stop their tacit support.

I guess you're right. I just don't feel comfortable in justifying Zelensky's calls when you'd hope the goal would be to spare as many innocent lives as possible. Putin's decision is utterly condemnable, however, bad actors are not mutually exclusive (and there are mutiple in this one). Conflicts of this nature are most regrettable. On one side you are fighting to defend your sovereignty, on the other you are entangled (as pawns mind you) in a politician-made conflict. - A conflict were you risk much and gain none.