Russia invades Ukraine

Look at the amount of people trying to leave the country to avoid the draft. The average Russian knows what's up, they just don't care so much as long as it doesn't impact them directly. And the best way to do that is to go along with the party line. If some western TV station sticks a camera in their face and asks, they know that if they say they're against the wall they're in for a 2 AM door knocking.
 
Mosh said:
Thanks for the thoughts. All the various possibilities laid about by Perun are pretty much what makes this hard for me to wrap my head around. This war is a massive embarrassment to Putin no matter how you slice it and it has to be obvious to his inner circle, the oligarchs, and probably a lot of citizens on the ground. I’m sure the propaganda runs deep, but that only goes so far when you’re being dragged off the street to fight in a war was only supposed to last a couple weeks.
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Thing is, the inner circle and the oligarchs, they're all wrapped in this. When we say "Putin", we need to understand that it's not this one single man, it's his entourage too. A lot of them have apparently wagered and lost a lot in here, but still seem to think that the only way to go onward is to continue this war. Why that is, I don't know. It's true that there are a lot of clumsy oligarchs who break their necks falling down the stairs or somehow stumble and fall out of windows, but if the entire oligarchy were in opposition to Putin, he wouldn't be able to do anything.
 
The whole "oligarchs falling out of windows" thing does seem to keep people in line, but there's only so many you can kill until eventually someone just puts a bullet in you.
 
My point is, this would not be possible if the majority of the Russian oligarchs were against the war. Since it is possible, it means the majority of the oligarchs support the war. All others are just killed.
 
Its all very well Zeilinsky and the west saying we cannot let Russia win this war but i dont see any alternative. Russia will not stop until the war is won. No one is gonna stop Putin im afraid. You can halt and slow it down but ultimately theres only so far you can go without starting WW3. If Putins inner circle wanted to stop this war, they would have done already. I really dont see many alternatives.
 
Perun said:
My point is, this would not be possible if the majority of the Russian oligarchs were against the war. Since it is possible, it means the majority of the oligarchs support the war. All others are just killed.
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I wonder how much of it is "oligarchs support the war" vs "oligarchs are terrified for themselves and their families and no one wants to be the only dissenter to speak up."
 
I think it's a fair point, but I don't think the reluctance in donating western jets and tanks is what Russia would do in that case. The reluctance is wanting to keep those things out of Russian hands, plus wanting to provide Ukraine with support that doesn't involve months of training to teach. You can't just grab a MiG pilot and drop them in a F-16 and expect them to fly.
 
I think there's already floating rumours about Ukraine's pilots who were chosen to learn to fly F16 or older jets. Young, fluent in english, etc.
 
Yeah, the fact is that NATO is running out of Soviet-era stuff to send to Ukraine. So if they're going to continue to support Ukraine, then a much larger conversation needs to happen about what to send them next. I think it's fair to point out that they've received many top-of-the-line weapons systems, like HIMARS and IRIS-T which have been pivotal in their current campaigns, and it's not like all they're getting is 40 year old Soviet stuff. There are good and cogent reasons not to strip NATO's forces bare to arm Ukraine.
 
Reports now coming in that the Russian's have announced they are withdrawing from Kherson due to their inability to resupply their troops. If true (and major media sources are reporting) this would be a major coup for Ukraine and a vindication of their strategy which will regain them a major city without the bloody task of weeks of urban combat.

Of course the cynic in me worries that this is a Russian trap, the most heinous of which would involve them blowing the Nova kakhovka Dam once Ukrainian troops have entered the city and washing them away in a biblical flood. As strategically idiotic as this would be (it would wipe out the vital Crimean canal and flood plenty of settlements on the Russian side of the river) there is a powerful thread running through Russian media voices of the 'if we can't have it, no one can' type.
 
It's possible, but boy, if you think they pissed off the west before, wiping out a major dam like that would be a huge escalation of war crimes in, basically, every possible way.
 
LooseCannon said:
It's possible, but boy, if you think they pissed off the west before, wiping out a major dam like that would be a huge escalation of war crimes in, basically, every possible way.
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It’s about as big a crime as they could commit barring a nuclear strike and it would kill thousands of civilians and so it seems beyond the reach of any rational thought. But Russia’s moral compass is terribly skewed at this point and all of their recent responses to Ukrainian victories have been major retaliation against civilian targets.

I hope my cynicism is misplaced. I hope they fuck off quietly over the Dnipro River and keep going. But this war seems to keep finding ways of increasing in its intensity and cruelty.

Edit: Just watched the Russian announcement of the withdrawal and in it they specifically mention the risk of Ukrainian troops blowing the dam. And there is a tendency for the Russians to accuse others of that which they do themselves.
 
To be honest, I can't see the principal difference between them blowing that dam and them using a small (so-called "tactical") nuke. Either way, tens of thousands of people will probably die and a large area will be inhabitable for a long time.

However, at this point I won't be surprised by anything they do in terms of "scorched earth" tactics. We have seen enough of presumably rational people behaving like lunatics already.
 
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