How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

1 minute ago, sross112 said:

It probably all depends on how far to the future the western influencers are looking. They will probably be split somewhat along the lines that we have seen so far. Some want to try to "normalize" relations as soon as possible and will push for 2014 borders. Those that are looking at the long game will probably prefer the 1991 borders.

Europe is much more dependent on Russia than the U.S, i mean, the U.S benefits from being able to export LNG to Europe for example. So it's understandable for Germany and France to be more cautious when looking at a stalemate in Ukraine, but in the same vein, Ukraine has absolutely illustrated the ability to overtake Russia, and as seen in the recent statements of Macron and Scholz, Putin has been steadily slamming their fingers with the door and illustrating that for all the rhetoric and prior explanations, Russian goals for Ukraine is just purely to turn the current European and international order to dust. In the more aggressive minded members of NATO sitting on their hands and letting Russia show its cards, Russia is looking worse and worse, and Ukraine looking more and more right, and I think reluctance is fading away. 

There is something to be said for ensuring Russia does not freak out. I think Germany and France will adopt more cautious stances still, like the U.S with long range missiles, purely to keep Russia thinking it has a chance still. On one hand, its very painful for Ukraine, on the other, the longer Putin and co can sit in denial that they lost, if they really are screwed in to a mindset of nuclear chicken if they don't get their way in Ukraine, the longer before they start throwing the chicken around, the better for Ukraine and the West. 

The day may come where the West may break resolve, the longer Ukraine gets aid, the more chances it can simply ignore Western requests and push forward and the calculus for Ukraine vs Russia is a lot different than the West vs Russia. Russia can claim escalation dominance against the West. It cannot claim so vs Ukraine as any folding on Ukraine's side means the destruction of their state. (Russia can claim to be ready to nuke Ukraine as much as it wants, the moment Ukraine folds, Russia can forever pursue nuclear escalation to threaten Ukraine into submission, and after pulling a gun right to Ukraine's head in February, Ukraine really can't expect anything less than that) 

[dan/california]

 

6 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

 

Yeah, we need less not make him mad, and more crush Russia's hopes of victory utterly.

 

4 hours ago, DesertFox said:

 

 

The response to anew Lada is going to become "I  am so sorry for your loss".

4 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Russian draw dodgers as refugees is a complicated subject.

• We do not want to give protection to the Russians powerful classes while main population suffers.
• If we "evacuate" the opposition from Russia who is left to drive change?
• We want to protect any possible Russian opposition if they face impossible odds.
• humanitarian reasons.
• pretty wanted migrants. Working age somewhat well off people.

Bad regimes whose unhappiest people can leave last a lot longer than ones where they can't. Cuba is exhibit A. But yes the balancing act is complicated.

4 hours ago, Huba said:

No discussion here, they will have to manage that at some point. We know very well what it took to break the spiral of hate between DE and it's neihgbors, and in case of RU we are very, very far from it. IMO at this point all we could expect is that UA hate towards Russians is managed to a degree that they won't reciprocate with committing atrocities - and they are managing that pretty well IMO. Expecting anything more of them would be unfair. 
The way I see it, UA and RU will be having a kind of a Korean situation in the foreseeable future, complete with barbed wire and minefields. It is up to RU to try to change that, not on UA, and I just can't imagine them doing what it takes to normalize, not in a decade or two.

What he said!

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'm not going to be around much today as I'm in the middle of traveling.  In fact, I'm going to be an hour late for something because of our friends in Russia making things more interesting than what I need to do.

OK, so we have some of the information we've been waiting for:

1. Whatever hiccup happened yesterday it is resolved for now.  Whatever it was, it did not likely change the purpose of the announcement itself.  At most it might have created the need for Putin and/or Shoigu to voice some sort of position that a faction wanted to hear.
2. Russian leadership is showing no signs of trying to find a realistic way out of this war.  It is instead committed to national suicide for a cause that was lost long ago with zero hopes of reversals of fortune.
3. The chosen course is, as with everything out of the Kremlin, something that was inevitable given the utter lack of reason in the minds of Putin and those pushing for destroying Ukraine.
4. Russia will annex all territory under Russian control at a minimum.  It is probable that conscripts will be stationed there in some way.  As noted already, there's plenty of flexibility for such deployments to become combat roles, overtly or covertly.
5. Now we will see if Putin's fear of mobilization was justified.  And soon.  We might see massive protests starting tomorrow, for example.  However, I think it is more likely that reaction to this news will take a while to blossom into something large scale.
6. The men getting called back to service are as likely to be motivated to dodge as they are to proactively show up for service.  This is going to create quite a problem for quickly and efficiently getting more bodies to the front.
7. The shift of Navalny's organization to call upon Russian citizens to commit acts of violence is significant.  I expect we will see attacks on "low hanging fruit" such as recruitment offices, billboards, and other such things.  I do not think we'll see much more than that unless the general situation turns violent.

Steve

The only effective means of protest is railroad sabotage. It actually has an effect, even at a relatively small scale, and you might get away with it. There needs to be a significant effort to push this message. At least until the opposition can put a crowd of hundreds of thousands into the streets of Moscow. 100% agreement otherwise, they are going to throw bad soldiers after good ones until much of the territory beyond the Urals cans just stop taking Moscow's calls, drop a couple of railway bridges, and go on about their existence.

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

Summer of 1917 would like a word...

This, this, this. The biggest threat to the regime is unhappy draftees who think it i safer to fight the Russian regime than the Ukrainians. An epic round of mass surrenders would be almost as bad.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Hehe... yeah, and there is that too

Since the beginning of the war we have struggled to find anything "good" to say about the Russian prospects in this war.  And I'm talking about REAL things, not all the nonsensical and illogical things people suggested (e.g. they can just make more tanks, they have endless manpower, etc.).  It is always important to look for such things to minimize surprise and plan appropriately.  Putin's big announcement is not a surprise at all and has already been kicked to the curb 5+months since it was first discussed.

The Russians suck at war.  They really need to get a hobby.

Steve

And everything they just announced is going to make it worse, as the average unit quality plummets.

1 hour ago, Huba said:

All right, so what is Putin's grand strategy now? IMO this guy get's it right, broadly. I don't believe RU is counting at actually beating Ukraine into submission, it is about saving as much from the conquered territory and somehow freezing the conflict:

 

I just don't think the Chinese are going to provide enough support to move the needle. The Russian performance has been so awful Xi just can't support it with a straight face. And a completely failed Russian state is less of an effective ally, but easier to exploit at a profit.

56 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

All war is negotiation and sacrifice - all war is negotiation with sacrifice.

So Putin dropped the 'mobilization' boogey man, kinda.  And of course threatened nuclear war without saying it...oh my.

Well I think Phase 2-3 of this war were positioning for endgame - Russia's point "Imma gonna take the Donbas, cause that was what I wanted all along...well that plus Kherson and everything I did not lose in Phase I".  And Ukraine's counter-point "No you are not."  This could have gone on for some time longer but clearly things are coming to a head in Moscow.

So I think this is endgame.  What does a soft-mobilization/slightly-louder-threat-of-nuclear-war-based-on-bizarro -annexation-internal-legalities-that-no-one-else-is-going-to-recognize-for-a-century, really tell us?

- Well first it tells us that Russia is desperate. Putin and the gang are opening themselves up to significant political exposure here.  You average Russian may, or may not, have actually supported this war but they all had the luxury of staying out of it - changing that is a major shift.  We are already hearing rumblings in opposition, who knows how far that will go; however, we do know that Putin would not have pulled on this lever if Russia was winning.  This is a pretty clear sign of losses and the impact it is having on his war machine.

- Next, this is not an escalation, it is desperation.  This is an attempt to preserve military capability in the field and re-assert a status quo, not raise enough forces to re-take Kyiv.  In short, whatever the UA is doing, it is working very well.

- Russia is clearly on the defensive, and likely will stay there until this is over.  Throwing 300,000 conscripts in any variation is not going to create offensive military capability - unable to create positive decision, so at best negative and null (i.e. denial).  This signals a shift into a strategy of exhaustion, annihilation for the Russians has left the building.  This puts Russia a couple rungs above an insurgency as far as military strategy goes.  They are going to try and dig in an hold on to what they have until the other side gets tired.

-  We could be heading towards a nuclear decision point.  The battlefield use of nuclear weapons has always been a grey area in warfare.  It is an escalation but the West and USSR went around and around on whether one could have a limited nuclear war.  I suspect that Putin might be thinking about testing the norms around this by declaring all the territory they have taken as "mother Russia" - we freakin knew that Russian doctrine and law were useless to refer to because autocrats just move the goalposts.  So I suspect the redline is the Crimea, and maybe somewhere in the LNR/DPR.  If the UA push that far, we might actually see Putin try to go that way - I say "try" because he 1) might already be removed from power by then, or 2) someone will put a bullet in his dome before they drag Russia into a doomsday scenario.  If one does go off well it won't be the end of days, tactical nuclear weapons can effect a couple grid squares and were designed for heavy armor concentrations at Fulda - this war is far to spread out.  We will likely lose our minds in the West and the response will be key to what happens next. I suspect conventional escalation or other options to send a strong signal to Russia that they will be the first country in history to lose a strategic nuclear war.  Regardless, if Russia employs a nuclear weapon, we are off the map, beyond the Cuban Missile crisis; however, I also still think this actually happening is a long shot.  For those in Europe and NA, I would not start getting too excited until strange looking Patriot systems start being deployed around major urban areas and/or in the Canadian north.

  So the biggest question on the table is - "what does endgame look like?"  This is in the weird political space as militarily Ukraine has demonstrated that given time they can likely retake everything back to the pre-2014 border - the question is do they want to?  Do they need to?  Putting emotions to one side - I suspect the West will be putting a lot of incentives for Ukraine to push to 2014 borders and then stop.  Why?  Well some possible reasons:

- DNR and LNR are burned out wrecks with large sections of the population that clearly do not want to be Ukrainian, so let em go.  Ukraine gains nothing but a couple Northern Ireland scenarios if they re-occupy, that and a massive reconstruction bill.  Walk away and wish them luck with their sugar daddy.

- Crimea.  Here we could see "neutral and open" tossed around a lot more.  Without Sevastopol Russia is pretty much cut out of the Black Sea, and if they are out of the Black Sea they are out of the Med.  If Russia is going to go nuclear, it will be over Crimea...and to this guy over in NA, it is not worth it.

- Ok, so that is the unthinkable "bad", what is the carrot?  Fast tracked entry in NATO - this entire bullsh#t goes away if Ukraine has Article 5 to lean on, because that is simply too big to fail for the West.  Hell Ukraine is already armed better than most NATO nations, with NATO STANAG equipment.  Their training is US/UK standard and I have no doubt we have already built most of their ISR infrastructure.  Ukraine in NATO next week is a clear win for the west. 

Next, entry into the EU.  Bureaucratic nightmare that it is, this would cement Ukraine into Europe economically and set them up for post-war success.

Last, a reconstruction plan to rival Marshal.  The West commits hundreds of billions to turn Ukraine into a shining example of what our money can do as a counter-point to China's game these last 15 years or so.

As to Russia?  Well it made its bed. Sanctions stay in place until 1) reparation deal is cut and in motion, 2) war crimes of all sorts are investigated and prosecuted and 3) Putin regime is gone enough that we can pretend whoever replaces it is clean...or clean enough. If Russia refuses any of the above, well enjoy being a Chinese satellite with a Cold War Soviet standard of living and we will see you again in 30 years - we will risk manage Russia, we are good at that in the West.

So What War?  Well UA will likely focus on taking bights out of Donbas just to ensure 300,000 Russian conscripts don't feel left out.  They will re-take Kherson and push south over the Dnipro up to the Crimean border.  And Melitopol, cut that stupid land bridge and box the Russians and their cronies back to where they were before this nonsense started.

Anyway, crazy days and keep your head up because it might get crazier.

 

If the Russians can stabilize their front and start losing territory in an organized and military fashion this might work. But the Russians haven't done ANYTHING in an organized military faction. All the steps the Russians are taking to generate more manpower make their force less effective, and less motivated, less responsive to orders, and generally much worse by any military metric you would care to apply. There is a GREAT risk that at some this ever more pitiful excuse for an army rotus/surrenders in mass. A medium big piece of it just DID. The Ukrainians aren't going to stop at the 2014 lines with the Russians are in full rout unless the West is prepared to write some truly LARGE checks.

56 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

And I just threw up in my mouth a bit.

We need to choose up sides in the big post war multiplayer CM tournament based on musical taste. We are going to get multi player per side co-op, right?

9 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

My understanding was that LDPR and Crimea contain millions of Ukrainians who lived there for decades and don't want to be part of Russia or fake republics. Telling them "sorry guys, you're not worth it, maybe the Russians will let you go" is not a very good.

Also strategically, if Russia keeps even a square kilometer of Ukraine after this is over, they still won. If Russian war criminals never end in court, they still won. They gained territory, they hurt Ukraine, killing several hundreds of thousands of people while losing 50k and invented new levels of barbarity and they got away with it - at cost of losing some tanks and some sanctions, which nobody will even think about in five years.

It might not look like it now, but in history books it will look like a win. This war started in 2014 on 2014 Ukraine borders and if it ends behind them, it is still win for Russia. And giving Russia a win just means we will see a repeat of this soon.

I agree with most of this, it is REALLY important that Russia unambiguously lose. And we are still treating this whole mess as something that will respond to small tweaks in a predictable manner. I am just not sure that is the case.

[The_MonkeyKing]

Just now, dan/california said:

Yeah, we need less not make him mad, and more crush Russia's hopes of victory utterly.

I will be disappointed if we wont see any major counter escalation from the west now.

[The_Capt]

18 minutes ago, Huba said:

But if RU collapses, then all bets are off, it's just really hard to predict with any certainty.

And I will do you one better - we in the west do not want Russia to totally collapse.  We definitely want regime change and for the current lot to be held accountable for egregious crimes against humanity.  We want stability and re-normalization because it is what we are selling.  We want a transition of power in Russia, and we want it to be as bloodless as possible.

We have gone over this, a Russia in complete freefall is the exact opposite of stability and re-normalization.  To the point that if it happens in its darkest incarnation, we could be talking western intervention.  For the West this has always been about defeat of Russia in Ukraine. Not total defeat of Russia as a nation.  We want it contained, restrained and on a short leash.  We want it selling LNG to make reparation payments, we want it in between us and China, not in their back pocket.  

Now what we get is very likely another story. 

Edited September 21, 2022 by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, dan/california said:

The Ukrainians aren't going to stop at the 2014 lines with the Russians are in full rout unless the West is prepared to write some truly LARGE checks.

So how does $150B sound?  Worth more than the entire Donbas itself.

https://diplomacy.state.gov/exhibits/diplomacy-is-our-mission/the-marshall-plan/#:~:text=Under the Marshall Plan%2C the,nations between 1948 and 1951.

Now that commitment is on us in the West, we start going soft on it, hey fill your boots.  It likely will not matter where the lines on the map wind up if we do not reconstruct Ukraine on a scale the matches or exceeds post-WW2.  A shattered Ukraine will be picked up by China or fall apart and then what was the entire point of our support in this war?

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, DesertFox said:

Maybe that helps to keep you from conscription?

 

 

Yeah, but this could be Rosgvardiya studying up on how to make sure a protestor goes down to the pavement hard.  I'm kidding.  "How to crack a skull" is more their thing.

Steve

[Butschi]

38 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

There is tons of incentive for Ukraine to go all the way, but I think the West is actually more than fine with Ukraine going all the way,

This probably varies from member state to member state but by and large I have the impression that the EU is not interested in a prolonged war. For various reasons, economical ones for certain but among others also for fear of nuclear escalation.

Since Ukraine is dependent on Western support - militarily now and regarding the EU more importantly for rebuilding later (and just for joining EU) I think there are also incentives to compromise at some point. Not saying where and what that point will be exactly.

55 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

U.S projection of power into the Caucasus no?

Don't voice that too loudly in this context because you are just playing into the hands of everyone who says that this whole mess is just there to further US geostrategic interests.

[Letter from Prague]

NATO-friendly Ukraine with Crimea would also make Turkey slightly less important, which might be useful since it is pretty unstable lately.

Of course, if the West pushes Ukraine to appease Russia by giving up Crimea, sacrificing millions of people in the process, there will likely not be NATO-friendly Ukraine, and I'm not sure how nations like Poland or Estonia might look at this. It might cause more fracture in EU and NATO.

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

And I will do you one better - we in the west do not want Russia to totally collapse.  We definitely want regime change and for the current lot to be held accountable for egregious crimes against humanity.  We want stability and re-normalization because it is what we are selling.  We want a transition of power in Russia, and we want it to be as bloodless as possible.

We have gone over this, a Russia in complete freefall is the exact opposite of stability and re-normalization.  To the point that if it happens in its darkest incarnation, we could be talking western intervention.  For the West this has always been about defeat of Russia in Ukraine. Not total defeat of Russia as a nation.  We want it contained, restrained and on a short leash.  We want it selling LNG to make reparation payments, we want it in between us and China, not in their back pocket.  

Now what we get is very likely another story. 

I had dinner last night with a recently retired US Army Colonel who spent most of his career in military intelligence.  Two other retired US Army guys in the mix.  We all agreed that regime change is going to be messy enough and lots of very bad things can happen.  Administrative collapse makes all that go up exponentially.  We've discussed all of this here, and frankly I've yet to find a scenario that is anything other than scary.  That was the consensus at the table (that and the beer and food were quite good!).

Ukraine is Russia's neighbor.  It needs to be mindful of the various scenarios and consider how they impact their own quality of life.  Some of the scenarios are quite awful for Ukraine, others just crappy.  The best scenario for Ukraine is a regime change that produces some sort of ceasefire and no administrative collapse at the Kremlin level.  I say "best" because every realistic scenario we've come up with here is much worse.

A sci-fi book I read a while back had Humans invading an enemy stronghold planet for the first time.  They started taking it over and thinking everything was going to be great in a week or so when they finished mopping up.  What they didn't know was the enemy had rigged the core of the planet to explode.  Boom, all gone.

There's probably several axioms out there advising the time to be most cautious is the time right before you think victory is in hand.  We're nearly at that point.

Steve

[The_MonkeyKing]

live stream from a smallish anti war demonstration in Moscow (they stated taking people away already):

and st Petersburg:

Edited September 21, 2022 by The_MonkeyKing

[Bulletpoint]

30 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

I will be disappointed if we wont see any major counter escalation from the west now.

Do we even need to?

It's like a fight where the some guy approaches you with a knife, and you then draw your pistol. He responds by drawing another knife. Do you really need to draw your second pistol?

[kraze]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yeah, but this could be Rosgvardiya studying up on how to make sure a protestor goes down to the pavement hard.  I'm kidding.  "How to crack a skull" is more their thing.

Steve

Can't be Rosgvardiya, they don't have many hands left themselves.

[kraze]

7 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

live stream from a smallish anti war demonstration in Moscow (they stated taking people away already):

 

If I point out that 100 "protesters" idly watch a single guy being grabbed by three out of few surviving members of OMOH - and it's the reason why so called russian "opposition" deserves zero sympathy - will it be racist or very racist?

[The_MonkeyKing]

2 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Do we even need to?

It's like a fight where the some guy approaches you with a knife, and you then draw your pistol. He responds by drawing another knife. Do you really need to draw your second pistol?

"Russia is never as strong as she looks; Russia is never as weak as she looks."

This mobilization is again going to prolong the conflict possibly significantly. I would like all that suffering and lives to be spared. One way to counter act the effect of this mobilization is to expand the aid Ukraine is getting.

Long range missiles, long-range air defense, western air force modernization getting started and equipping mechanized formations with western kit please now.

[The_MonkeyKing]

2 minutes ago, kraze said:

If I point out that 100 "protesters" idly watch a single guy being grabbed by three out of few surviving members of OMOH - and it's the reason why so called russian "opposition" deserves zero sympathy - will it be racist or very racist?

I think they know what will happen if they resist. Escalation dominance...

[Letter from Prague]

Also, "West does not have appetite for long war" - West holds all the cards in their hands to make this war shorter. 20 more HIMARS. More arty. More cars, IFVs and tanks. Planes even if Ukraine has to return them.

I wish my country was stronger and we could do more. We already sent what we had I'm pretty sure.

Edited September 21, 2022 by Letter from Prague

[Battlefront.com]

I've said this before, now I'll say it again.

A frozen conflict only stays frozen if both parties are incentivized to keep it that way.  At the present time Ukraine has no incentive to freeze the conflict and, so far, Russia hasn't managed to figure out a way to change Ukraine's mind about that.  The Mobilization Lite announcement was mostly for domestic audience so that's not going to change the equation in any real way.

Russia has successfully used frozen conflicts to buy time to shape events to more conclusively get whatever the now frozen conflict failed to achieve.  Sometimes it's worked for them, other times not. 

Ukraine has the ability to freeze this conflict at a time of its choosing and shape events into something less likely to produce the worst outcomes for them long term.  I think it is very shortsighted to not use this tool if conditions warrant.

I would advise Ukraine to take back all 2022 territory and then pause (not the word PAUSE) to really ponder the conditions as they are at that time.  Do not go on the defensive, just pause taking more territory.  For example, have backroom discussions with Russia and say that they need to agree to a ceasefire in the next 24 hours or the Kerch bridge falls into the sea 1 minute after the deadline.  Since Russia knows Ukraine can do it, and there's nothing Russia can do to prevent it, it's entirely possible the war will freeze at least temporarily.

If Russia doesn't agree to freezing the conflict, then fine... keep at them by degrading their ability to administer Ukraine's lands.  This is not just HIMARSing all military targets in sight and partisan activities, it's also about information warfare and backroom discussions with the locals in Donbas.

Then take what comes after that.

Pausing the war on Ukraine's terms is not incompatible with victory.  Blindly charging ahead in some form of bloodlust might be incompatible with victory.

Steve

[sburke]

another window mishap

Russian Aviation Scientist Anatoly Gerashchenko Falls to His Death in Latest Plunge Mystery (thedailybeast.com)

An aviation expert has become the latest Russian official to fall to his death in mysterious circumstances.

Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI), died in a mysterious fall inside the institute’s headquarters in the Russian capital on Tuesday.

The organization’s press office released a statement describing the 73-year-old’s death as “the result of an accident,” adding that his untimely demise was a “a colossal loss for the MAI and the scientific and pedagogical community.”

Russian news outlet Izvestia, citing an unnamed source, reported that Gerashchenko “fell from a great height” and careened down several flights of stairs. He was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene.

Edited September 21, 2022 by sburke

[Letter from Prague]

2 minutes ago, sburke said:

Russian Aviation Scientist Anatoly Gerashchenko Falls to His Death in Latest Plunge Mystery (thedailybeast.com)

Plunge mystery sounds like "plunger mystery" and that is something I never want in my life.

In other news:

Latvia says it won't offer refuge to Russians fleeing mobilisation

Lithuania will not give visas to Russians fleeing mobilisation

aaaaand surprising noone China calls for ‘ceasefire through dialogue’ following Putin speech on Ukraine 

[Bulletpoint]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I've said this before, now I'll say it again.

A frozen conflict only stays frozen if both parties are incentivized to keep it that way.  At the present time Ukraine has no incentive to freeze the conflict and, so far, Russia hasn't managed to figure out a way to change Ukraine's mind about that.  The Mobilization Lite announcement was mostly for domestic audience so that's not going to change the equation in any real way.

Russia has successfully used frozen conflicts to buy time to shape events to more conclusively get whatever the now frozen conflict failed to achieve.  Sometimes it's worked for them, other times not. 

Ukraine has the ability to freeze this conflict at a time of its choosing and shape events into something less likely to produce the worst outcomes for them long term.  I think it is very shortsighted to not use this tool if conditions warrant.

I would advise Ukraine to take back all 2022 territory and then pause (not the word PAUSE) to really ponder the conditions as they are at that time.  Do not go on the defensive, just pause taking more territory.  For example, have backroom discussions with Russia and say that they need to agree to a ceasefire in the next 24 hours or the Kerch bridge falls into the sea 1 minute after the deadline.  Since Russia knows Ukraine can do it, and there's nothing Russia can do to prevent it, it's entirely possible the war will freeze at least temporarily.

If Russia doesn't agree to freezing the conflict, then fine... keep at them by degrading their ability to administer Ukraine's lands.  This is not just HIMARSing all military targets in sight and partisan activities, it's also about information warfare and backroom discussions with the locals in Donbas.

Then take what comes after that.

Pausing the war on Ukraine's terms is not incompatible with victory.  Blindly charging ahead in some form of bloodlust might be incompatible with victory.

Steve

Maybe I'm just daft or uninformed, but what would Ukraine gain from freezing the conflict just when they are finally rolling back the Russians? Why would it produce worse outcomes for them down the road?

[sross112]

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

Russian news outlet Izvestia, citing an unnamed source, reported that Gerashchenko “fell from a great height” and careened down several flights of stairs. He was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene.

Lots of reasons that falling from a great height can be explained away as accidental. Falling down A flight of stairs is also a common accident, falling down multiple flights of stairs unassisted is pretty much impossible under any kind of normal circumstances. Falling from a great height and then falling down multiple flights of stairs unassisted just ain't going to happen.

So Russia? Definitely suicide.

[kraze]

9 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

I think they know what will happen if they resist. Escalation dominance...

You are right - 3 guys will beat up 100. 30:1 advantage is not enough - I guess more protesters are needed. Navalny needs to announce partial mobilization immediately.

[The_MonkeyKing]

Just now, kraze said:

You are right - 3 guys will beat up 100. 30:1 advantage is not enough - I guess more protesters are needed. Navalny needs to announce partial mobilization immediately.

Those cops have friends. 

[kraze]

1 minute ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Those cops have friends. 

Maybe russians should get some friends too instead of killing them?

Or at least watch a how-to guide on YT?

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

Just now, kraze said:

Maybe russians should get some friends too instead of killing them?

Or at least watch a how-to guide on YT?

 

We have seen how popular uprisings go. It gets bloody for the guys without guns and tanks.

Only good outcomes if the guys with guns have at least partial change of heart.