You said Russia were bluffing. They aren’t.
I said Russia weren’t going to invade the Ukraine after slowly building up troops and putting the whole World on notice. They aren’t.
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You said it was all for show. You were wrong.
Where is the evidence of Russian withdrawals?
Why has the Russian Duma voted to put the issue of recognition of the puppet regimes of the DNR and LNR to Putin for recognition?
They could well do, they’ve done it before. I don’t think anyone will be proved right or wrong in the end here, it could go either way and the outcome can still be influenced in one direction or another.
Whatever happens I’m sure someone will claim they were right about it on TFK.
Latvian Foreign Affairs Minister:
Are there Russian troops in the Crimea at the moment?
Which the US deliberately leaked early on and kept updated to the international community.
If this is an actual withdrawal of troops, Putin has achieved fuck all. This whole “prestige” argument is a nonsense, he didn’t get anything of importance and Ukraine’s sovereignty is now seriously on the table internationally. When he took the Crimea he took the world by surprise. Nobody will believe a false flag operation now. I don’t think it actually helps him that energy prices and inflation generally have already soared. The political and economic hit of that has already been felt in Europe and Germany seem to have grown some balls now.
The fact that they mentioned their “standard” military exercises would end in the coming days yesterday after the move by various countries on their Embassies and the leaking of a potential Wednesday operation doesn’t seem to be an accident. The West basically gave him a date to put up or shut up and he seems to have blinked. The statement today I posted above was laughable.
There is some talk that this withdrawal is bullshit and we shall see. You do never know with Putin but I don’t actually see what great strategic move he can make now.
Putin doesnt want a war. He just wants an unstable, nu-NATO’d Ukraine.
I didn’t say he wanted a war. But I think this idea that he wouldn’t have invaded is hilarious when he basically did it before.
There’s no guarantees here on the fundamental issues they have with EU and NATO membership. The whole energy thing has finally been faced into by European nations after the rampant inflation - the fear we had and the card he had has been diminished because we are already experiencing a shitshow. Domestically and internationally he was relying on the US being good little boys and trying to just do this diplomatically behind closed doors. That gave him options like false flag operations. It will be difficult to pull that now.
He’s had the West dancing to his tune for years but just don’t see it here.
Putin cannot get what he wants without war. The threat of war has produced nothing for him. Even while not being in the EU or NATO Ukraine is irrevocably turning towards the west and away from Russia. With every passing day, Russia becomes more of a pariah with the Ukrainian public.
False flag ahoy.
It’s not over yet.
There will be no war and there never was going to be a war, for two reasons. Not alone would Ukraine fight (with NATO and US backing), they would fight a guerrilla war for decades if they had to. The Russian economy is smaller than Italy, no way could they sustain a military adventure for decades. They learned this lesson in Afghanistan, one of the reasons leading to the breakup of the USSR. The second reason is Russia would not invade without Xi giving the green light, and there is no way China would support a long term losing proposition. China will fight future wars by stealth not direct conflict.
Russia’s basic demand is they don’t want any more countries on their border joining NATO, specifically Ukraine and Georgia. They are more emboldened now as they have China’s support on this question. They will continue to posture and threaten if there is movement on this issue by the US/NATO. I suspect they have been given an assurance behind the scenes that it is not going to happen.
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Game theory 101
There will be no war thankfully.
Putin’s minimum demands are not available via “diplomacy”. Putin’s minimum demand is the destabilisation of the Ukrainian state and polity via veto power for the DNR/LNR to ensure re-orientation away from the west and towards a Russian sphere of influence.
If Putin recognises the DNR/LNR as independent, that is a complete demolition of the Minsk agreement (which is a joke anyway). The DNR and LNR also claim jurisdiction over the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (provinces), most of which are not in their possession.
It would also be a recognition that he cannot attain his minimum demands via “diplomacy”.
It is possible, far from certain, but possible, that Putin has decided that invading Kiev is unattainable right now. That would not mean that an invasion and occupation elsewhere in Ukraine is off the table. That would probably include the coastal strip linking Donbas and Crimea, possibly as the entirety of the coast down as far as the Moldovan border, including Odessa, ie. the same territorial aims as the failed 2014 “Novorossiya” active measures. If false flags are still being manufactured, as in Luhansk currently, invasion remains very much on the table.
But even if Putin successfully invaded and landlocked a rump Ukrainian state, that still leaves the rump Ukrainian state still bordering Russia, still a western orientated democracy, and more hostile to Russia than ever.
There might be a lag here too
The next two weeks are critical.
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There already is a war. There has been a war for the last eight years.