How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Beleg85]

9 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Galeev went into detail why he felt that Russia was similar to South America than other places. Heres the ending, rest of the thread, he was discussing the stat that 80% of the population was Russian in Russia by pointing out decent chunk is mixed, or Mestizo and self-identification is a very important part of ethnic group identification. Not sure if hes correct regarding his premise, but I was wondering why he felt that way. 

He is Tatar, so there is a lot personal crusade element in his posts. On the other side, this view (of ethnic minorities in Russia) is rarely present in western discourse. It is better to compare most RUS minorities to USA native populations, though.

I would be very very cautious about predicting any cracks in Russia along ethinc lines except maybe Dagestani/Chechen pockets in North Caucasus (where religious self-identification comes into play as well). USSR did a solid job at mixing everything in giant pot, and most of these peoples didn't have their own polities or have them too short to mean anything. They are generally sparsely populated, dependant on Moscow in most financial aspects, have close to zero chances to survive alone etc. But most of all, they are Russians too.

So if anybody expects Syberian Bolivar to appear- well, there are several good alternative history books with that theme...

 

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Beleg85

[panzermartin]

25 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

He is Tatar, so there is a lot personal crusade element in his posts. On the other side, this view (of ethnic minorities in Russia) is rarely present in western discourse. It is better to compare most RUS minorities to USA native populations, though.

I would be very very cautious about predicting any cracks in Russia along ethinc lines except maybe Dagestani/Chechen pockets in North Caucasus (where religious self-identification comes into play as well). USSR did a solid job at mixing everything in giant pot, and most of these peoples didn't have their own polities or have them too short to mean anything. They are generally sparsely populated, dependant on Moscow in most financial aspects, have close to zero chances to survive alone etc. But most of all, they are Russians too.

So if anybody expects Syberian Bolivar to appear- well, there are several good alternative history books with that theme...

 

 

This. 

I'm constantly reading here about predictions on Russia breaking up in an ethnic puzzle and I have my scratching head moments.  

Why a group of russian speaking people  depending on the hand that feeds to survive , will somehow have the desire to go autonomous in the middle of nowhere. 

This could only had a chance to happen with external intervention and support from another country but this is Tom Clancy material as well. 

[Beleg85]

Ukraine has 4 more HIMARS. Nice, it brings up their number to 16 (?).

Also, interesting article about Medvedev transformation from fake moderate to even more fake hawk:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/01/dmitry-medvedev-journey-liberal-anti-west-hawk-russia

[FancyCat]

59 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

He is Tatar, so there is a lot personal crusade element in his posts. On the other side, this view (of ethnic minorities in Russia) is rarely present in western discourse. It is better to compare most RUS minorities to USA native populations, though.

I would be very very cautious about predicting any cracks in Russia along ethinc lines except maybe Dagestani/Chechen pockets in North Caucasus (where religious self-identification comes into play as well). USSR did a solid job at mixing everything in giant pot, and most of these peoples didn't have their own polities or have them too short to mean anything. They are generally sparsely populated, dependant on Moscow in most financial aspects, have close to zero chances to survive alone etc. But most of all, they are Russians too.

So if anybody expects Syberian Bolivar to appear- well, there are several good alternative history books with that theme...

 

 

 

17 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

This. 

I'm constantly reading here about predictions on Russia breaking up in an ethnic puzzle and I have my scratching head moments.  

Why a group of russian speaking people  depending on the hand that feeds to survive , will somehow have the desire to go autonomous in the middle of nowhere. 

This could only had a chance to happen with external intervention and support from another country but this is Tom Clancy material as well. 

 

Tbf, Galeev has expressed his belief that Russia will not breakup along ethnic lines or tensions, but due to economic factors causing regions to veer away from policies set by Moscow. 

"Russians too", "Russian speaking people" I mean Bolivar came from a wholly Spanish aristocratic bloodline. His defining feature was being born not in Spain but his blood was Spanish, Spanish nobility no less. Out of all people to mention, his inspiration from enlightenment ideals make him a poor ethnic rebeller.

On that note, I'm not sure how reading Galeev's thread that compares the population of "Russians too", "Russian speaking people" to mestizos, Spanish speakers, and the concept of self-identity, and how rebalancing of power centers and political, economic factors promoting differing identities (he uses Tatarstan as a example) meshes with the expressions both of you give indicating Russian now, Russian forever.

The breakup of the Spanish Empire had a huge amount to do with political aspects such as lack of representation and control from the metropole. Economic aspects like again, the extraction of wealth to the central entity. Compare that to Russia, where huge wealth is extracted to the same metropole, and I can see how Galeev has some points.

[Battlefront.com]

34 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

This. 

I'm constantly reading here about predictions on Russia breaking up in an ethnic puzzle and I have my scratching head moments.  

Well...

34 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Why a group of russian speaking people  depending on the hand that feeds to survive , will somehow have the desire to go autonomous in the middle of nowhere. 

This could only had a chance to happen with external intervention and support from another country but this is Tom Clancy material as well.

Not quite

There are a lot of ethnic tensions within the Russian Federation that, as stated above, go unreported in Western media.  Certainly not reported in Russian media.  But they are there.  How serious they are, though, is not well understood because Russian insists that nobody be able to assess it.

First, dispense with the notion that they all have a common Russian language and Russian culture.  Not true.  Even outside of the Caucuses, which has a wide diversity of very anti-Russian cultures (including genuine supporters of ISIS), this is not always the case.  What is the case is that Russia has populated all regions with European origin Russians who do, definitely, consider themselves "Russian First".  That was a deliberate policy from the days of the Tzar and continued on through the Soviet era.  Population relocations are also part of the mix and have not completely ceased under Russian Federation rule.

But there's also hundreds of Russian ethnicities that are distinct enough that are "Russia Second", if that.  There was even some derogatory commentary from some Russian first hand source (either a Nat like Girkin or one of the reports from the front) that many of the soldiers coming to fight there from the hinterlands of Russia do NOT SPEAK RUSSIAN.  This is not surprising for a guy who lives next to "bilingual" Quebec and often experiences Quebecois who do not speak English.  Depending on where you go that is even more the rule than the exception.

Some of these ethnicities are directly related to independent countries that broke away from the Soviet Union.  Which itself indicates that the ethnic divides are real, because whatever argument you make about Russian Federation relations with ethnicities sounds very similar to the one made by people in 1989 that turned out to be flat out wrong.

Will be get the equivalent of a Bolivar or other revolutionary figure somewhere in Russia's hinterland?  Yes, absolutely.  Count on there being more than one as well.  And the more Russian racism and contempt for the hinterlands is highlighted by the war, oppression, and the declining capabilities of the central Russian government, the more likely there will be successes outside of the Caucuses.  Within the caucuses?  Count on there being major problems for Russian authority there for sure and much sooner than anywhere else.

In short... Russia's got a lot of problems you're not seeing.  But they are there and Putin is making the tensions worse, not better.

The Soviet Union broke up when nobody said it would.  Not even Tom Clancy.  And yet it did.

Steve

[Grigb]

Girkin published a new assessment. Well, if you read the map there is not much new - mostly confirmation of what we already see. I updated the map. The new info is in grey shade (just noticed slight mistake - Sands is in fact Pisky settlement).

 

Regarding Kherson there is still not much data. Here is Girkin assessment

Quote

Kherson front - in the area of the enemy's bridgehead on the Ingulets River - relative calm. Our troops have not yet managed to eliminate the bridgehead, and the Ukrainians have not managed to expand it. The sides exchange artillery and missile strikes, and assault aircraft (helicopters) periodically work on the bridgehead from our side.

I have no reliable news on other fronts.

 Discussion: The most interesting part - he has news from Kherson, but he does not have news from Kharkiv-Izum direction. Not even a simple statement that there were not any changes. That means something is happening there or is going to happen. Obviously, it is regarding RU plans because he would not be quiet regarding UKR plans. Also, there are not many options there - either RU attacks or retreats.

My gut feeling Steve @Battlefront.com is right - it is slow moving disaster there.  They could be planning a retreat right now. I already posted UKR claim that in vicinities of Brazhkivka (South of Izum) 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade captured several Guard vehicles (from parade vehicles), including possible 150th Moto Rifle Division Banner left by retreating RU. 
 

 

 

[billbindc]

Language is a *very* slippery stand in for political identity: https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/03/29/absolute-majority-supports-ukrainian-being-the-only-state-language-in-ukraine-poll/

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Tbf, Galeev has expressed his belief that Russia will not breakup along ethnic lines or tensions, but due to economic factors causing regions to veer away from policies set by Moscow. 

Thanks for cross posting this when I was making the above, because I forgot to emphasize this point!

The ethnic/cultural divides are likely to be secondary factors.  Economic deterioration and heavy handed security policies are going to be the major source of problems in these areas.  The ethnic/cultural aspects, however, will come into play in determining the geography of the unrest.  Because of the diversity the FSB is going to have to stamp out dozens of distinctly separate movements with their own nuances based on language and traditions. 

There will be no silver bullet strategy for dealing with the coming unrest.  Instead, the Russian authorities (political and security) will require a lot of smart people making well informed decisions independently based on conditions on the ground.  Show of hands... who here thinks this is likely?  Anybody?  Even ONE of you?  OK, good, we've all obviously been paying close enough attention to Russia's degree of extreme authoritarian incompetence to know this is not even remotely possible.

With that in mind...

General dissatisfaction with Russia's decline will manifest itself in different ways in different places.  Russian authorities will attempt a one-size-fits-all approach to quelling the problems, but do very little to solve them.  This in turn will create more problems that will be incorrectly and ineffectively dealt with, which in turn will make the locals even less likely to shut up and do as they are told.  In each region there will be a look to assert more local control because that is what people do in times of crisis... they look inward, not outward.  These divisions are almost certainly going to fall naturally upon ethnic lines because the Russian Federation is inherently set up this way.  What happens in each area will likely be different than another, but they will share a common set of grievances that they believe the central Russian government can not address.  At some point we will have Soviet Union Breakup Version 2.0.  Which regions try to bolt entirely and which regions try for a new relationship with Moscow is way outside of my area of expertise.  I just know the counts for both will be greater than zero.

Steve

[Grigb]

Regarding RU unfortunately I do not have time to discuss (believe map is more important).  But RU are not exactly the same. There are noticeable cultural differences. Souther RU are more like UKR (that's why central RU Media cannot accept LDNR citizens as RU - they are Southerners, they are second class of citizens by default). Central RU is what you know as RU. Siberians are tougher and harder than soft Central /Souther RU. Ural RU is in between Central RU and Siberians. 

All these differences played little role when life was acceptable together. Putin changed the dynamic. I already talked about how he replaced local RU police heads with more loyal to him but corrupt who cared little about locals. The same happened with local governments. They became extremely corrupt and cared little about locals and used local resources to pump out money from regions partly to Kremlin partly to their pockets.

Putin is proving that living together makes life worse.

[danfrodo]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks for cross posting this when I was making the above, because I forgot to emphasize this point!

The ethnic/cultural divides are likely to be secondary factors.  Economic deterioration and heavy handed security policies are going to be the major source of problems in these areas.  The ethnic/cultural aspects, however, will come into play in determining the geography of the unrest.  Because of the diversity the FSB is going to have to stamp out dozens of distinctly separate movements with their own nuances based on language and traditions. 

There will be no silver bullet strategy for dealing with the coming unrest.  Instead, the Russian authorities (political and security) will require a lot of smart people making well informed decisions independently based on conditions on the ground.  Show of hands... who here thinks this is likely?  Anybody?  Even ONE of you?  OK, good, we've all obviously been paying close enough attention to Russia's degree of extreme authoritarian incompetence to know this is not even remotely possible.

With that in mind...

General dissatisfaction with Russia's decline will manifest itself in different ways in different places.  Russian authorities will attempt a one-size-fits-all approach to quelling the problems, but do very little to solve them.  This in turn will create more problems that will be incorrectly and ineffectively dealt with, which in turn will make the locals even less likely to shut up and do as they are told.  In each region there will be a look to assert more local control because that is what people do in times of crisis... they look inward, not outward.  These divisions are almost certainly going to fall naturally upon ethnic lines because the Russian Federation is inherently set up this way.  What happens in each area will likely be different than another, but they will share a common set of grievances that they believe the central Russian government can not address.  At some point we will have Soviet Union Breakup Version 2.0.  Which regions try to bolt entirely and which regions try for a new relationship with Moscow is way outside of my area of expertise.  I just know the counts for both will be greater than zero.

Steve

Last time I checked the confederates and the yankees all spoke english, yet US civil war.  I am w steve on this.  A charismatic leader who emerges in siberia due to a power vacuum saying "we could have all the oil money for ourselves!" is my personal dream.   

[FancyCat]

Something else to consider, Spanish America was Spanish speaking, and had 90% of indigenous populations wiped out. That the population at independence was Spanish speaking, and indigenous crushed, means we cannot wholly use ethnicity as the source for independence. Nationalism, or creation of identities, is a essential part of the breakup of the Spanish Empire. The change of local and regional elites from loyalty to the Crown to creating new identities is part of this breakup.

To express that Siberians by virtue of being Russian, Russian speaking, will forever willingly tie themselves to Moscow thick and thin would be silly, especially considering the extraction of wealth from the region and the potential self-interest of local/regional elites in establishing identities to separate from Moscow in a bid to retain more wealth and power as Moscow's ability to control declines.

[Bulletpoint]

Today, I read some stock market analytics guy predict that since the Russians are running out of steam in Ukraine, they will soon just dig in and fortify their gains, and then the Ukrainians will be forced to accept permanently losing the two "republics" and Crimea.

And then in his assesment, we will have peace and the EU will have oil and gas, and markets will rally etc. and it will be the glorious good old days again.

I'm sure most of us here agree with his first point, that it's very likely that the Russians will run out of steam soon, but do you agree that they will be able to defend their gains just by digging in?

Is the Ukrainian army really unable to mount a serious counteroffensive?

[FancyCat]

Ukraine has identified a weakness in the rail line from Kherson to Crimea. Brylivka was attacked, train destroyed there. Likely will keep occurring.

 

 

[Erwin]

8 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Today, I read some stock market analytics guy predict that since the Russians are running out of steam in Ukraine, they will soon just dig in and fortify their gains, and then the Ukrainians will be forced to accept permanently losing the two "republics" and Crimea.

And then in his assesment, we will have peace and the EU will have oil and gas, and markets will rally etc. and it will be the glorious good old days again.

I would reverse those concepts.  First... Europe's population will get fed up with energy shortages and power outages this coming winter and 2nd, the west will stop wanting to pour billions (trillions) into Ukraine when only a year ago Ukraine was calculated to be almost as corrupt and run by corrupt oligarchs who steal the nation's wealth as Russia.  Think about what happened to our money in Afghanistan, Iraq etc.   

Pressure will be put on Europe's and our pols to make Zelensky "negotiate" a settlement.  Both sides will claim victory (to their own populations) of course.  But, Russia will be left in charge of valuable Ukraine resources.  It is likely that after a suitable pause to allow the west to forget about Ukraine, Russia will continue to nibble around Ukraine's edges making it less and less a viable state  These likely scenarios/possibilities are far more likely to occur in the short term than any dissolution of Russia.  

The main challenge continues to be China.  One of the reasons we do not want to deploy too many advanced weapons systems to Ukraine is that China is using this war to figure out counter measures.  China is also studying how the west's sanctions have worked on Russia and positioning its economy and making counter measures so that it can better deal with future sanctions when it takes action vs Taiwan.  Meanwhile the BRIC organization continues to grow as more nations hostile to the US/west apply to join to create an economic and financial alternative to the western organizations.

[FancyCat]

8 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Think about what happened to our money in Afghanistan, Iraq etc.   

The main challenge continues to be China.  One of the reasons we do not want to deploy too many advanced weapons systems to Ukraine is that China is using this war to figure out counter measures. 

The amount of money saved by the West as a result of Ukraine showing the world how unfit the Russian military is to compete conventionally vs NATO illustrates how much the money sent to Ukraine has paid off vs other prior conflicts.

As for China figuring out counter measures, I would argue that this war serves very importantly for teaching the West how to engage in a modern intensive peer conflict and whatever China gains from watching Western tech be used, the West is gaining similar knowledge from how the war is being waged in Ukraine.

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, panzermartin said:

This. 

I'm constantly reading here about predictions on Russia breaking up in an ethnic puzzle and I have my scratching head moments.  

Why a group of russian speaking people  depending on the hand that feeds to survive , will somehow have the desire to go autonomous in the middle of nowhere. 

This could only had a chance to happen with external intervention and support from another country but this is Tom Clancy material as well. 

 

I would simply point out that A) This bleeping war IS a Tom Clancy novel and b) There is no shortage of other players. Indeed Azerbaijan is more or less conquering Armenia as we speak.  Ans China is eventually going to pull its head out of its rear end and realize that it can fight a losing war for Taiwan and destroy the world economy in the process, or it can take over a quarter of Russia while waving a Ukrainian flag and be congratulated for doing so. From the standpoint of the, very few, people in the area in question it is somewhat better to belong to the oppressive dictatorship that at least feeds you regularly, and paves a road occasionally. 

[dan/california]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So my advice is get to know the sources.  This is deep in the Gray camp (The Strategy Bridge is the name of his book), which is not a bad thing but a lot from this camp take Clausewitz to an unhealthy extreme.  It is like when people translate Nostradamus, seeing things that are not there.  Further, translating these leaps of logic into practical application that works in pretty much random in success rates.  That said, there is some very good stuff here but we need to spend less time trying to cram it into Clausewitzian doctrine and saying “see!?”, and more time applying to actual modern warfare.  The Clausewitzian priesthoods waste energy trying to defend their system, that would be better spent moving forward.

I have counter-notes but no time to post them now.  That all said, it is worth reading Antoine Bosquette’s book “Scientific Way of Warfare”.

The way he repeatedly tries to shove everything back into Clausewitz is clearly overdone. The more interesting part is comparing war to the weather/climate at a mathematical level. In particular, we know a lot about the physics of the weather, and yet we are very bad at predicting it. A little better than fifty years ago, and a lot better than a hundred, but still very bad at it.

[billbindc]

26 minutes ago, Erwin said:

I would reverse those concepts.  First... Europe's population will get fed up with energy shortages and power outages this coming winter and 2nd, the west will stop wanting to pour billions (trillions) into Ukraine when only a year ago Ukraine was calculated to be almost as corrupt and run by corrupt oligarchs who steal the nation's wealth as Russia.  Think about what happened to our money in Afghanistan, Iraq etc.   

Pressure will be put on Europe's and our pols to make Zelensky "negotiate" a settlement.  Both sides will claim victory (to their own populations) of course.  But, Russia will be left in charge of valuable Ukraine resources.  It is likely that after a suitable pause to allow the west to forget about Ukraine, Russia will continue to nibble around Ukraine's edges making it less and less a viable state  These likely scenarios/possibilities are far more likely to occur in the short term than any dissolution of Russia.  

The main challenge continues to be China.  One of the reasons we do not want to deploy too many advanced weapons systems to Ukraine is that China is using this war to figure out counter measures.  China is also studying how the west's sanctions have worked on Russia and positioning its economy and making counter measures so that it can better deal with future sanctions when it takes action vs Taiwan.  Meanwhile the BRIC organization continues to grow as more nations hostile to the US/west apply to join to create an economic and financial alternative to the western organizations.

Some key foundational truths to consider: 

1. Nobody ever honestly thought Afghanistan was a vital interest.

2. Everybody sees peace in Europe as a vital interest.

3. Nobody believes that Russia will stick to any peace deal that it is in any shape to challenge.

4. Everybody sees what happens in Ukraine as linked to what China believes it can do in re to Taiwan.

I am quite sure there will be unhappiness this winter in Europe. I'm sure that attention will wax and wane. But Putin made the cardinal mistake of creating a situation in which the geopolitical incentives and penalties are entirely obvious and inescapable to his enemies. Worse, a successful Ukrainian effort is possible if only Poland and the US give it wholehearted support. So, I get the pessimism and I don't disagree with the stressors you identify but none of them counterbalance the need to stop Russia now or make sure China doesn't use the precedent later.

 

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

24 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

The amount of money saved by the West as a result of Ukraine showing the world how unfit the Russian military is to compete conventionally vs NATO illustrates how much the money sent to Ukraine has paid off vs other prior conflicts.

And yet so far the reaction from NATO has been the opposite: MORE defense spending.

7 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 Ans China is eventually going to pull its head out of its rear end and realize that it can fight a losing war for Taiwan and destroy the world economy in the process, or it can take over a quarter of Russia while waving a Ukrainian flag and be congratulated for doing so.

An energy-independent China would be bad news for Taiwan.

[billbindc]

1 minute ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

And yet so far the reaction from NATO has been the opposite: MORE defense spending.

An energy-independent China would be bad news for Taiwan.

An energy independent China is a very long way away. 

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-changing-oil-strategy-and-its-foreign-policy-implications/

 

[Grigb]

Not everything is according to the plan, Khodakovsky:

Quote

In the foreseeable plane, we observe battles of local importance. Having run into a number of fairly large cities, we have reduced the pace of progress - and this is normal for the current situation. Let me remind you that just Eastern Mariupol we "hacked" for about a month, coming close to its border. Therefore, do not expect a victorious report from the army about the capture of a particular city about once a week - reports on rocket and artillery successes will become the main agenda for now.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, intense work is underway to prepare for the second stage of the operation. Wether the enemy will provoke an avalanche with his counteroffensive, or we ourselves will become the initiators - it is not so important. It is important that the success of this stage determine many positions not only in war, but also in politics. It will not be easy, you will have to strain all available forces, but [we] need to consolidate [fix] and multiply the achieved result.

Discussion: stopped cold by UKR resistance RU decided to demolish the UKR cities to the ground. The top 12 most terrifying words in the Russian Language are: I'm from Russian government, and I'm here to save you.

 

[Beleg85]

Ok, some note to those above.

1. Ethincity needs polity to manifest itself in serious way. Or a history of polity (= some form of statehood) to build upon, even if this polity is mythical. Now, such functional politites are outsie Russian borders and very rarely inside (Chechnya may be by far the only one currently). Sorry, but Kumyks, Mordvinians, Yakuts and myriads of others, while treasure troves for folklorists, have almost no such state identity to build upon. Local guys playing some polo games or club of older women singing songs of their ancestors are yet not enough to think about real autonomy or independence. In other words, they are not political nations in modern meaning.

2. Our view of ethnicty is very often grounded in binaries, which are in turn firmly grounded in European history. But this is in fact rare in human history. You can be both a local Buryat and belong to wider Russian cultural sphere. While you guys are right about Russian superiority complexes and hidden racial stereotypes in state structures, they are by no means absolute. Look at the commander of RUS Armed Forces or many businessmen (Azeri, Tatars, Chechen etc.).

3."Slavic" people are very intermingled in various regions with other ethnicities. Usually, while cities are almost universally "slavic", towns may be more mixed and countryside the least. There are also milions of people who are of mxied origin as well. Overall, minorities constitute only 80+% of Russian population. Many of them are phisically indistingusheable from Russian majority (for example Marians, Mordvins, people in Kuban etc.) and not necessarly view themselves as separate from rest of Russia.

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The ethnic/cultural divides are likely to be secondary factors.  Economic deterioration and heavy handed security policies are going to be the major source of problems in these areas.  The ethnic/cultural aspects, however, will come into play in determining the geography of the unrest.  Because of the diversity the FSB is going to have to stamp out dozens of distinctly separate movements with their own nuances based on language and traditions. 

There will be no silver bullet strategy for dealing with the coming unrest.  Instead, the Russian authorities (political and security) will require a lot of smart people making well informed decisions independently based on conditions on the ground.  Show of hands... who here thinks this is likely?  Anybody?  Even ONE of you?  OK, good, we've all obviously been paying close enough attention to Russia's degree of extreme authoritarian incompetence to know this is not even remotely possible.

That is more probable process. However, to claim true autonomy and independence (that is my menaing of crack by nationalities) one needs much more than local dissatisfaction. Even during massively harsh years of 1917-21 only "outer ring" of Russian empire even tried to think that way. Most people stayed inside Russian polity, or didn't simply care enough.

Anyway, entire idea of "Syberian naton" is almost as old as Russian empire itself, and has at least 200 years.

Of course, it's Russia so anything can happen due to inner paradoxes.

EDIT Ok, several new posts appeared claryfying what "crack by nationalities" mean. so topic needs more discussions in future.

Edited August 1, 2022 by Beleg85

[dan/california]

11 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

And yet so far the reaction from NATO has been the opposite: MORE defense spending.

An energy-independent China would be bad news for Taiwan.

The single biggest question of the 21st century is whether we can teach China the fundamental lesson it took a catastrophic war to teach Japan, without having said catastrophic war. To whit is about 8 orders of magnitude cheaper to buy an Island than it is conquer it. I mean at this point it isn't that most Hawaiian golf pros speak Japanese, it is that they are starting not to speak english.

[Vanir Ausf B]

11 minutes ago, billbindc said:

An energy independent China is a very long way away. 

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-changing-oil-strategy-and-its-foreign-policy-implications/

 

I am not going to read that whole article, but if it says that taking over Russia's eastern oil and gas reserves wouldn't greatly alleviate their reliance on middle eastern supply chains then by all means, let them have Siberia. Heck, let them take everything east of Moscow.

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Today, I read some stock market analytics guy predict that since the Russians are running out of steam in Ukraine, they will soon just dig in and fortify their gains, and then the Ukrainians will be forced to accept permanently losing the two "republics" and Crimea.

And then in his assesment, we will have peace and the EU will have oil and gas, and markets will rally etc. and it will be the glorious good old days again.

I'm sure most of us here agree with his first point, that it's very likely that the Russians will run out of steam soon, but do you agree that they will be able to defend their gains just by digging in?

Is the Ukrainian army really unable to mount a serious counteroffensive?

Well, I'll let the military experts make predictions here. No offense meant but why should a stock market analyst have more expertise in that regard than my hairdresser?

Edit: Sorry, I mean it is perfectly ok to consider what others have to say, expert or not, I'm just always mildly irritated l, especially by the media, that somehow people are considered above average knowledgeable in a field, just because they are experts in a different field.

Edited August 1, 2022 by Butschi