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Ukraine IV

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tones said:
It seems to me that the only way we can stop Putin from completing sawing through the limb out on which he has climbed and causing even more destruction is somehow to give him something that he can present as a victory to the Russian population. I'm not sure what this is, but it seems essential to me.

This will be hard for the Ukranians to swallow, as they were attacked without provocation and have suffered massive loss of life and damage to infrastructure and livelihoods. If this isn't done, this dangerously unstable/deluded person could get even more extreme. I saw a Guardian report on the potential use of barrel bombs that caused so much devastation in Syria. And there there are chemical weapons and even tactical nukes. Now I don't know whether Putin is emulating the famous Nixon "crazy" act (trying to convince the other side that he is sufficiently bananas to use nukes), or whether he really is bananas, but he must not be defeated (at least in his own mind), and it's dangerous for the Americans to boast of how their intelligence has been useful in killing generals and sinking ships. Best for the Americans to emulate another US President, Teddy Roosevelt ("walk softly - and carry a big stick").
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Yes, if I were representing America in this I'd be frank enough about stuff they know already like supply of hardware, beefing up of military presence in neighbouring countries etc and make no comment on anything deniable such as military intelligence.
 
Support for war is already high in Russia, to give them sense of victory only will raise it even more. What they need is some sense that war should be great damage to them at their homes as well.
 
Having said that, the US doesn’t have one major disability Britain suffers from- they don’t have a Liz Truss in their State Department. One is dangerous enough, two would be apocalyptic.
 
anubisgrau said:
Of course Scholz met Putin in this round of negotiations but don't expect to find a plenty of details in the press. Too early. I'm sure he didn't represent Putin's standpoint in the talks but rather offered something acceptable to both sides but I'm not here to advocate the Germans (at least not on the UK forum, given their role in Brexit). There are gossips around diplomatic circles about the proposal and guarantees, but as we will read one day in someone's memoirs about they, I would leave it here.

Germans (and French FWIW) were and still are confident the proposal presented to Zelensky was much better than what we have now. I'm looking forward to host my wife's best friend this summer, I expect to hear a plentiful of valuable and non biased info. She's a top level EU diplomat who worked last 3 years in Kiev. She got badly pissed off with the US/UK attitude and their interference with the EU diplomacy so she decided to quit. Meanwhile she also accepted this is not only a war between Ukr and Rus, but something a way more complex - a direct undermining of Europe by their apparent "partners".

As for Russia being guilty for everything, I agree on many points but mind that the main violator of Minsk agreement was Ukraine, not Russia. Attacks on the occupied territories Donbas and Lugansk actually never stopped, including a plenty of cruelty towards civilians that has never been mentioned in the West. Whoever wants to read about it, a plenty of material all around. This ain't an excuse for Russian attack but it's a fact.

Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24. The Minsk agreement expired on February 21, so technically speaking, you can't breach something that has already expired. I discovered this only today, an interesting moment in the story.
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How do you make any agreement worth the paper it’s written on? Budapest memorandum gave security to Ukraine that it would be protected from attack in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. Guarantors were US, UK and Russia. That worked out well then.
 
This interview with former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent 10 years in prison after falling out with Putin, is interesting. His view is that Putin will only respond to force and treats negotiations as a sign of weakness (from 03:20). If he is correct then it is unlikely that Ukraine accepting neutrality as part of the deal Scholz was trying to arrange would have worked.


Of course, I've no way of assessing the reliability of Khodorkovsky's opinion.
 
zarniwoop said:
This interview with former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent 10 years in prison after falling out with Putin, is interesting. His view is that Putin will only respond to force and treats negotiations as a sign of weakness (from 03:20). If he is correct then it is unlikely that Ukraine accepting neutrality as part of the deal Scholz was trying to arrange would have worked.


Of course, I've no way of assessing the reliability of Khodorkovsky's opinion.
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Perhaps we haven't, but it's entirely consistent with what we think we know about Putin's psychology.
 
The evidence is that Putin does whatever he believes he can get away with. From Salisbury to Ukraine, scent bottles to tank regiments. He just takes a bite as big as he judges he can get. If that tastes good, another bigger bite is taken. No reverse gear. Hence our basic aim is ensure a bite means he bites his own tongue. How he 'sells' that to his 'public' is then his main concern. If he can do that, I'd guess he'd do so, and look to find somewhere else to bite. Better strategy than throwing toys out of pram.

The implication is that he needs to be able to 'spin' results to look like 'success' for his home crowd. That's one reason he called this a 'Police action' as that means he can spin almost any outcome at home as being what he wanted. i.e. he's taught those naughtly Nazis a 'lesson' and clearly had no intent to 'invade' the entire country at all, if he fails to get that.
 
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zarniwoop said:
This interview with former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent 10 years in prison after falling out with Putin, is interesting. His view is that Putin will only respond to force and treats negotiations as a sign of weakness (from 03:20). If he is correct then it is unlikely that Ukraine accepting neutrality as part of the deal Scholz was trying to arrange would have worked.


Of course, I've no way of assessing the reliability of Khodorkovsky's opinion.
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Of course he does, he's a bully, that's how bullies operate. Putin will carry on until he is stopped by greater force.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
The evidence is that Putin does whatever he believes he can get away with. From Salisbury to Ukraine, scent bottles to tank regiments. He just takes a bite as big as he judges he can get. If that tastes good, another bigger bite is taken. No reverse gear. Hence our basic aim is ensure a bite means he bites his own tongue. How he 'sells' that to his 'public' is then his main concern. If he can do that, I'd guess he'd do so, and look to find somewhere else to bite. Better strategy than throwing toys out of pram.

The implication is that he needs to be able to 'spin' results to look like 'success' for his home crowd. That's one reason he called this a 'Police action' as that means he can spin almost any outcome at home as being what he wanted. i.e. he's taught those naughtly Nazis a 'lesson' and clearly had no intent to 'invade' the entire country at all, if he fails to get that.
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With Georgia, he came in, smashed the place up a bit ( particularly US supplied defence infrastructure), stole a bit of land then left. The issue though is, when will he come back? I think someone already drew the analogy with the ‘Vikings’.

There’s probably only one or two ways of getting him out and getting him to stay out and I’m afraid both are drastic.
 
tones said:
It seems to me that the only way we can stop Putin from completing sawing through the limb out on which he has climbed and causing even more destruction is somehow to give him something that he can present as a victory to the Russian population. I'm not sure what this is, but it seems essential to me.

This will be hard for the Ukranians to swallow, as they were attacked without provocation and have suffered massive loss of life and damage to infrastructure and livelihoods. If this isn't done, this dangerously unstable/deluded person could get even more extreme. I saw a Guardian report on the potential use of barrel bombs that caused so much devastation in Syria. And there there are chemical weapons and even tactical nukes. Now I don't know whether Putin is emulating the famous Nixon "crazy" act (trying to convince the other side that he is sufficiently bananas to use nukes), or whether he really is bananas, but he must not be defeated (at least in his own mind), and it's dangerous for the Americans to boast of how their intelligence has been useful in killing generals and sinking ships. Best for the Americans to emulate another US President, Teddy Roosevelt ("walk softly - and carry a big stick").
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i get where you are coming from, but if he is allowed to have something that he can sell as a victory, what’s to stop him taking another bite out of a neighbouring country when he sees fit?

allowing him to claim a victory could be seen as appeasement.
 
NeilR said:
i get where you are coming from, but if he is allowed to have something that he can sell as a victory, what’s to stop him taking another bite out of a neighbouring country when he sees fit?

allowing him to claim a victory could be seen as appeasement.
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I can see that point, and indeed Anne Applebaum, in the article to which I referred in #1285 above, says in effect that Putin can be trusted roughly as far as I can throw the Matterhorn and must be defeated. However, given the relative sizes of Russia and Ukraine, and Putin's apparent willingness to inherit a country-sized ruin, I worry about the immense further destruction that may be wreaked on poor Ukraine by a megalomaniac determined to have his own way. Do we fight to the last Ukranian?
 
tones said:
I can see that point, and indeed Anne Applebaum, in the article to which I referred in #1285 above, says in effect that Putin can be trusted roughly as far as I can throw the Matterhorn and must be defeated. However, given the relative sizes of Russia and Ukraine, and Putin's apparent willingness to inherit a country-sized ruin, I worry about the immense further destruction that may be wreaked on poor Ukraine by a megalomaniac determined to have his own way. Do we fight to the last Ukranian?
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Ukraine will determine their own fate.
 
I found this video interesting, it is about how the Ukrainian artillery carry out their targeting. I hope not to war porny

 
tones said:
I can see that point, and indeed Anne Applebaum, in the article to which I referred in #1285 above, says in effect that Putin can be trusted roughly as far as I can throw the Matterhorn and must be defeated. However, given the relative sizes of Russia and Ukraine, and Putin's apparent willingness to inherit a country-sized ruin, I worry about the immense further destruction that may be wreaked on poor Ukraine by a megalomaniac determined to have his own way. Do we fight to the last Ukranian?
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I fear that it may not go to the last Ukrainian, but it will take a lot longer than we anticipate or hope, there will be a lot more destruction than anyone wants outside Russia, and a lot more deaths. On both sides. I think this could last for years.
 
Hook said:
Hope this now former Russian diplomat has hired a food taster.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-u...and-politics-2019b1448217f57e68d2b18b6727bf99
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That’s a great piece! He’ll have to defect or it’s 15 years for defaming the Russian military- for starters. You just hope there are those far higher up the food chain ready to bail. His comments about Lavrov are spot on- Lavrov was there for the great, if temporary rapprochement with the West and the global economy, now he more resembles the scumbag ‘von’ Ribbentrop. He has to go down with the ship and its master but he probably already knows that so he’ll fight to the last drop of other people’s blood.
 
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