Ukraine Always Get What You Want

Russia-Ukraine war latest: Moscow says warship ‘seriously damaged’ after explosion, warns Nato over Sweden and Finland – live | Ukraine | The Guardian

 

So in one month, Russia has been unable to totally take control of a city the size of Hartford it has had surrounded during that time. That's not winning. Neither is having your biggest warship sent to the bottom by an opponent with no warships at all.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...raine-founders-ominous-rhetoric-gains-ground/


After a month of fighting, the architects of Moscow’s war against Ukraine had to explain to Russians why Kyiv had not fallen. That’s when the most menacing rhetoric began.

On state television, a military analyst doubled down on Russia’s need to win and called for concentration camps for Ukrainians opposed to the invasion.

Two days later, the head of the defense committee in the lower house of parliament said it would take 30 to 40 years to “reeducate” Ukrainians.

And on a talk show, the editor in chief of the English-language television news network RT described Ukrainians’ determination to defend their country as “collective insanity.”

“It’s no accident we call them Nazis,” said Margarita Simonyan, who also heads the Kremlin-backed media group that operates the Sputnik and RIA Novosti news agencies. “What makes you a Nazi is your bestial nature, your bestial hatred and your bestial willingness to tear out the eyes of children on the basis of nationality.”

 

The price keeps going up, certainly.

But if Putin gets in settlement what he demanded last December, he wins.

Again, only Putin knows what Putin is willing to pay.

 

All true.

 

Economically, Russia has lots of oil and gas. That will keep it from falling into utter destitution despite Western sanctions that aren't likely to end anytime soon without the war ending on close to Ukrainian terms, but its economy will continue to degrade. It won't be Putin and pals who feel that, they'll steal as much as ever, so falling living standards. Militarily and diplomatically, it has many nuclear weapons and not much else. Threatening doomsday is not an ideal way of advancing one's interests. Russia is a dictatorship with considerable public support, but said public is not likely to like living under a semi-permanent sense of imminent annihilation. Oh, yeah, Russia now faces an expanded hostile military alliance on its western and northern borders. It's hard to see all that as a price worth paying for part of Ukraine. I mean, if you go out and pay $100,000 for a Ford Focus, who won, you or the dealer?

 

How many Ukrainians did you kill to get it?

 

Oh, I forgot to mention one thing, thanks for reminding me. Thanks to Putin's war crimes, the part of Russia's western border that isn't facing the expanded hostile military alliance faces a country that's now Russia's permanent bitter enemy, one that's now heavily armed and reorganized on a wartime basis. Before the invasion, Ukraine was ready to make concessions to Putin to avoid war. He has yet to gain what he could have gotten without fighting. And of course, it's not Ukrainians who're dying in the war, it's Russia's best troops. War's always horrible and this one more than most. That's all on Putin. But countries usually fight wars to advance or defend what they regard as vital interests. None of Putin's own interests have been advanced nor defended so far in Ukraine.

 

Ukraine conflict death toll: what we know

 

With the war increasingly moving to East Ukraine, the terrain and conditions are different. Much more open, better tank and artillery country. The hit and run tactics that the Ukrainians have had success with will be much more difficult. Yes, we're giving them better, more advanced systems, but we are also giving them weapons that are better suited to the type of fighting that they will be doing.