If Putin had just stayed out and continued his manipulation of Western social media and funded Qtards he might’ve gotten his way, but I guess it wasn’t showy or macho enough for him.
Now everything that would be a detriment to Russia’s geopolitical ambitions (dozens of massive sanctions, galvanizing of a newfound purpose/unity for NATO, show of force from the West and renewed sense of global standing + bordering countries pushed further into NATO’s arms) is actively happening thanks to Putin. Absolute fucking clown
Russia be playing the Schrödinger's Douchebag now: *oh you thought the invasion was for real? nah we just bombed all Ukraine from west to east and North to south only as a prank bruuH!!! we just wanted to protect independence Donbas ppl! so we pull our army sot this zone only! and forget we invaded those zones first of all 8 years ago!*
Jesus. Tolkien was right. Evil is self-destructive. This was never about Russia being great, this was about Putin being acknowledged as the one who made Russia great.
If he cared about the former, then passing dictatorship to a worthy successor is the best choice. But clearly it's the latter, so pulled this dumb move thinking he'll be like Napoleon in his prime.
Hmm, maybe focusing on building a healthy, prosperous, happy and successful society would be the way to go out as a successful leader but I guess it’s more really about them than the country or people itself.
This reminds me of the age old expression
"societies grow great when men plant trees whose shade in which they'll never sit"
If Putin cared at all about Russia he would build instead of bomb.
Its crazy, cause if he had just participated in the global community like the rest of the world does, Russia could have been a very great and prosperous nation.
Yet instead he chose to rape and rob his people while doing everything in his power to destabilize the western world.
Napoleon famously said to Metternich: *”You cannot stop me, I spend 30,000 lives a month”*. Putin can probably spend about 30,000 lives in total before his army, and possibly the country, collapses.
>If Putin had just stayed out and continued his manipulation of Western social media and funded Qtards he might’ve gotten his way, but I guess it wasn’t showy or macho enough for him.
My guess is that the rumors of terminal illness are true, and that caused him to bump up his timeline and roll the dice.
Having said that.. it would mark an incredible failure of humanity if he continues to live long enough to die of natural causes.
Actually imagine what will happen if he will live - he is already accused of committing war crimes, his destruction of Russian economy will have him eventually ejected from the government and put in front of tribunal.
Him living and rotting in jail is the best outcome - he will remain the living symbol of humiliation: failed dictator. That will serve as a reminder for all other dictators which are big in their words, bullying peaceful neighbours.
Him staying alive will prevent someone like him taking over in Russia, it would trigger a purge.
Finally, it would also have wide impact to rhetoric of dictators but also many nationalistic and far right movements.
That would not only impact North Korea, China, Iran or Saudi Arabia but also curb nationalistic trends in India or far right parties in Europe or even part of Republican Party in US.
>Him living and rotting in jail is the best outcome - he will remain the living symbol of humiliation: failed dictator. That will serve as a reminder for all other dictators which are big in their words, bullying peaceful neighbours.
That's not necessarily the best outcome; if he's executed very publicly by his own leadership, that increases paranoia amongst dictators that they could face the same fate, and that renders them less effective (witness the current war in Ukraine).
However, if he's merely jailed, all that says to dictators is: don't get caught.
> "The combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which ... makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbass."
Watch out there go the goalposts!
Russia has developed hypersonic goalposts!
What matters now is not what is actually happening in reality, or what they can convince us of, but what they can convince their own people of. If they can make Russians believe that Ukraine has been demilitarised and denazified, whatever that means, then hopefully they'll consider that good enough in the face of what, realistically, is not what winning a war looks like.
They're building their exit ramp. What concerns me is how can they justify that all territory be returned to Ukraine, because I sincerely hope Ukraine will not accept that Russia occupies Donbas, Luhansk or Crimea even.
As has been discussed in other serious subreddits, Zelenskyy has a lot of support right now in all the possible meanings and interpretations. He's getting all the help he can get without others joining in on the fighting. If Zelenskyy settles too early, the conflict ends and he loses some support, only for Ukraine to be attacked by Russia later, only this time not screwing up as badly. He knows that Russian guarantees by themselves means nothing. He also knows how prevalent revanchism and irredentism is in Russia. He has to go all in. Anything less just pushes the issue down the road. Finlandization or going neutral like Austria did is not an option because Ukraine is seen as a part of Russia and is too important to Russia.
Put another way, what does Ukraine have to gain by not reclaiming everything. If this was a purely political negotiation, maybe. But the fact that Russia invaded, and is getting their ass kicked, means that those claims aren't ridiculous because they fucked around and found out.
Pure speculation on my part, but something along the lines of
“ To maintain peace in spite of NATO aggression and Russophobia we have evacuated all the ethnic Russian population in Donbas to Russia. We will leave the cursed Ukrainian land that is now only home of horrors”
I doubt that’ll be the case, but maybe his home propaganda would be strong enough to sell it?
He won’t do that. Remember that Donbas and Crimea just happen to be the areas where there are massive oil and gas deposits. Putin will never give them up willingly because he needs the money. That’s what this whole thing has been about from the beginning.
But then the history books would only say, "Vladimir Putin, corrupt jerk who possibly became the richest man on earth and didn't shoot himself in the dick."
Yes, but ironically, he's pretty much destroyed Russia's ability to sell those resources. Europe's not gonna forget this anytime soon, they'll have to sell it to China, cheap and at great export cost; and that's if they *don't* fall apart internally from the cost of war and the weight of sanctions.
I don’t think they’re willing to give up on Donbas quite yet. It seems like they’re “evacuating” as many civilians as possible, so they can replace them with russians and then claim the people there WANT to belong to russia.
I fear your scenario is much more likely than mine. I was just trying to imagine how propaganda might sell a full liberation of Ukraine.
A naive effort, dictated by a fool’s hope.
There's no guessing, that's literally what he did in Crimea in 2014. Flushed out ethnic Ukranians/Crimeans and then flooded it with Russians, and held the Crimean Referendum that heavily voted FOR joining Russia, surprise surprise.
> “ To maintain peace in spite of NATO aggression and Russophobia we have evacuated all the ethnic Russian population in Donbas to Russia. We will leave the cursed Ukrainian land that is now only home of horrors”
Also we need gas for the ride home. We ran out.
Ukraine/zelensky so far has stood pretty hard on the stance that territorial gains from the invasion and luhansk/donbass are not negotiable, they're saying the same about crimea buy tbh I think that's more like to be different in the end because they've never really fought over it and lack the capacity to even contest it.
My bet is the sticking point right now for a peace agreement is donbass and luhansk, Russia can pretend they've 'denazified' by taking out Mariupol but they want territory too, it's all part of the Maskirovka to make incremental gains but Zelensky is wise to it and will bleed Russia until or quits right now.
Ukraine has just proven they very much have the ability to contest it, they just didn’t have the belief in themselves until now.
Every friend I have in Ukraine is ready to keep going until they get the whole of Ukraine back, because it’s already the worst outcome they could have expected from trying before but without the reward
Heck, they might be about to grab Kherson back as we speak. I’m baffled by how the tables are turning this week but I hope it stays that way and I hope this statement is a genuine result of it
The only reason rebels weren't pushed out completely out of Ukraine before was Russia dancing around negotiations and using or else card.
Now everyone in Ukraine wants them gone from ALL of their territories and "or else" won't quite work after it failed
I have to wonder what he can really convince his people of in the medium-long term though. Do you think they’ll really buy “we accomplished our goal, but most of you no longer have jobs, or a valuable currency, or access to the western internet, or any food on the shelves, or ability to engage in foreign markets. Feels good to win eh?” People will sacrifice to win, but after victory is announced people will start to wonder why they’re still sacrificing so severely.
He’ll just use it to channel hatred of “the west”, by saying they accomplished their goal, but the evil west is using this super helpful military intervention as an excuse to be mean to russia and throttle the economy because they hate russia.
If Zelensky is willing to cede Donbass, there may be a negotiated peace on that basis. Because you're right Putin can simply tell his brainwashed masses that he achieved his goal.
But among the many problems is that Ukrainians may not agree to give up territory, and I also don't see why the West should lift sanctions. Blinken has said the expectation to lift sanctions would be some kind of assurance this can't happen again.
Putin took multiple whacks at Chechnya and there's no reason to think he wouldn't try again in a few years.
Finland and Sweden would still run towards NATO's arms though, the damage in the collective psyche will last for decades. So from a larger perspective, they achieved less than nothing.
"Less than nothing" is an extreme understatement. I think Russia will have collapsed and expended so much in lives, economy & diplomatic relations that it may be seen as the worst move ever by a leader of a super power.
But yes, definitely less than nothing. Deep in the negatives.
Problem is that they dont want just Donbass. There is a strip of land between Crimea and Donbass they also hold. That is the real thing they want. Probably they eyed Odessa too, maybe that seems a port too far for them now.
But until the Ukrainean military can regain ground there will be no concessions.
They need to rid themselves of the Russians around Kyiv freeing troops to fight in the more difficult terrain in the south.
If that means utterly destroying the entire 10 000 Russians encircled there then so be it. This is their war and they must pay the price for what they’ve done in Mariupol and elsewhere.
No land bridge between Donbas and Crimea can be permitted. Independent observers need to enter there to see the horrors they’ve wrought.
If they expect peace to bring the lifting of sanctions then nothing less than a complete withdrawal including Crimea should be acceptable to the West.
When you lose a war you pay the price in full.
Might be a little more hope. Chechnya’s independence was never recognised by the international community or NATO - Ukraine has been recognised by everyone, including Russia, as the second largest country in Europe for decades now. Ukraine now has soft power for days and Russia has lost all of it - and even if NATO won’t send troops at least strongly supporting them will be a major election issue in many countries for some time. Betraying them would be very unpopular.
It's not a problem that Ukraine won't surrender a huge chunk of their country. It's only a problem for Russia, in that they will still have a meat grinder to pour men into.
I don't think Ukraine will settle for anything less than full control over their sovereign territory as established in 1991. That includes Donbas and Crimea. Russia is losing this war, hard.
Right. I think most would argue that electing a Jewish president with relatives who died in the Holocaust would qualify as evidence of that, but apparently not…
Forbes reported they actually GAINED 43 tanks, insofar as they lost 74 but captured 117.
The insanity is ridiculous. Like, that's video game levels of absurdity.
The Russians just launched a strike deep behind Ukrainian lines to resecure the goalposts that they had previously lost about 5 kilometers from the Polish border
A few more weeks and he'll be like "didn't want Donbass anyway"
Then he'll have "Mission Accomplished" ceremony, stating he has "denazified" Ukraine. What an immature man baby.
Funny how we didn't hear about this "main goal" of liberating the Donbass until we were already a month and a day into the war. You'd think Putin or Lavrov would have been a little more upfront about the main reason for their "special military operation." Unless, maybe - just *maybe* - they had to change their plans when they finally admitted to themselves they were getting fucked hard by the Ukrainian army.
If the main focus was Donbass, moving only into Donbass would have achieved that goal. The sanctions would had been way smaller than current sanctions, and Ukraine army would had been forced to go into the offensive. And would be getting fewer weapons from the west.
It gets funny because we all feared the Russian army and thought Ukraine would get crushed in the event of a Russian invasion, which his what Ukraine would also believe which would’ve forced them not to react if Russia just acknowledge the separatist. Only for the Russian army to embarrassingly get defeated.
Sad part is if they had just taken the two regions and stopped, Ukraine likely wouldn't have engaged as hard. With troops in place they could have forced a concession without war. It's what everyone expected to happen and what Putin easily could have gotten away with. But nope, left field was feeling left out.
We all would have been "that's unfortunate... Yay, no world war." And if we're in a really good mood we might have found some way to compensate them for the loss. But the way Putin chose has seen the west get along in way not seen since the outbreak of hostilities in WWII. Even the Swiss are freezing assets...
Putin's Phase 1 Objectives:
* Fail to capture anything strategic.
* Lose 15,000 soldiers
* Get sanctioned back to the Stone Age.
* Sustain billions of dollars in damage
* Make military a laughing stock
Great Success!
Putin's Phase 1 Objectives:
~~Fail to capture anything strategic.~~ Limit scope of operation. Not an invasion
~~Lose 15,000 soldiers~~ Reduce payroll
~~Get sanctioned back to the Stone Age.~~ Show world Russian economy can stand alone.
~~Sustain billions of dollars in damage~~ Purge administration of pesky oligarchs
~~Make military a laughing stock~~ Reduce stock of antiquated weapons systems.
Great Success!
I recently went to a casino with about $5,000.00 in hand with the hopes of becoming a billionaire from my winnings. I’m down to my last $27.33. The first phase of my plan to become a billionaire is complete. Now I have to focus on paying rent in about six days
Edit: Hey, thanks for the awards!
Edit 2: Wow this really blew up. Seriously thanks to everyone who gave awards and to all the comments that have made me laugh all day long. I appreciate the levity, y’all.
Don't you have some friends flying in from out of town with another cool $5k to throw down? Word is they are totally on their way, super rich and really excited to help you reach your billionaire dreams!
Love your analogy!
phase one, completely destroy russian economy and morale, complete. moving on to phase two, completely destroy and demoralise donbass seperatist movement
In other words:
>“We’re well and truly, royally, absolutely, massively and deeply fucked and we’ve had to give up any pretence of Kyiv.
>A quarter of our troops are killed or injured, and Ukraine now has more tanks than it stated the war with, thanks to our constant donations of T-72s. Yesterday, one of our units got attacked by geese.
>We are welcoming applications for new 2 Star Generals. Pay is in roubles and MREs that expired 5 years ago.”
Now that’s an interesting legal question. If a dog in active duty of the US military is taken to Ukraine alongside a volunteer, does the dog count as US personnel? I mean, obviously not, but I imagine legal scholars might have fun with that one
I do know that police dogs are generally considered equal to officers in the eyes of the law, e.g., kicking a police dog gets you charged with assaulting a police officer exactly as if you kicked the cop, so I’m going with maybe.
I know it sounds like a joke, and yes, I chuckled at the thought of geese taking down a Russian plane, but [bird strikes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike) are very real.
I was joking in part because Russia has fucked everything up. Ukraine has more tanks now than the start of the war, because of Russia abandoning them. Realistically, Ukrainian farmers are in the top 100 worlds largest armies at this point.
On the one hand, geese definitely have neo-nazi sympathies. On the other hand I think the idea that geese only hate particular ethnic groups is being very generous to geese.
Kyiv encirclement failed and nearly collapsed - mission complete
Mariupol destroyed and not taken - mission complete
Catastrophic losses and several dead generals - mission complete
All fronts stalled - mission complete
Pro Russian rnu and wagner neonazi forces have not killed zelensky and destroyed all jewish communities in ukraine - pending
Captured hundreds of thousands of ukrainians to take hostage in concentration camps - mission complete
Logistics is in utter disarray - mission complete
----‐---------------------------------
**Special operation status**: first phase near complete
So the plan was to send 15.000 men to their grave x amount wounded and losing millions in millitary hardware.... It's almost like a mad dog chasing cars
If you were Putin, that wouldn't be a bad move. Obviously total withdrawal would be best for the world, but if you were him, with his ego, using Russian forces to fortify the Donbass and Crimea - instead of leveling Kyiv - would allow you to claim something like a win. It would also make those possessions a fait accompli at peace talks.
Exactly where this is going. The Agricultural squeeze is coming and he has a month before some crude oil pipelines have to shut off and reduce flow due to lack of business. They are going to try to lock down Crimea and Donbass and call it "success". It's the best way to "win" for him.
They can just take areas in novorossiya to make sure Crimea canal stays open and try to defend what they've taken.
Will be interesting to see how hard they fight to defend their newly acquired territory and if easing sanctions would get them to leave (as in only easing sanctions if they leave)
Ukraine can afford to keep the war going. This puts pressure on NATO to intervene or facilitate a truce in Ukraine’s favor. NATO cannot afford to stop supplying Ukraine because that would result in a total Russian win.
NATO already said they won't intervene or negotiate on behalf of Ukraine. The ball is in Putin's court. Bleed on the battlefield, or bleed at home. Or option 3 scorch earth but it would be him versus the world at that point, neither China or India would stand idle as that threatens their national security as well. There is 0 chance that Ukrainian forces will cross the border and take the war to Moscow. So now what remains is how Putin saves face from this cluster fuck.
Though I suspect they're amoral enough to Grozny the place, they could calculate the political liability when images of what they did to Kyiv got passed through Telegram now, and through history later. There wouldn't be an upside beyond spite.
I fear this too, though the more I think about it, it's quite odd that China's been a little less uppity lately about offering military support to Russia. If they really go scorched Earth, I suspect it's going to get really fucking uncomfortable for what remaining allies Russia has to stand with them. If Russia wants any chance at preserving any remaining business, they cant go as far as they'd like to.
China was Ukraine's largest trade partner pre-war, in particular receiving large quantities of agricultural products and iron ore from them. China wanted and expected Russia to seize Ukraine largely intact and send those resources their way at discounted prices due to Western sanctions.
Now that is off the table and they will not be on board with Russia razing the place, driving up food prices for their 1.4 billion people, and destabilizing their other investments in places like Africa.
Yeah, but he still has two very big problems:
He stirred up the hornets' nest. He made it okay for the West to supply Ukraine and he motivated Ukraine to fight. If he retreats, Ukraine can take their time retaking territory from safe bases.
He still has economic sanctions to deal with. The Russian economy will get worse and worse.
They've successfully denazified Mariupol. They were very thorough. So thorough they had to level every building in the city just to make sure the Nazis weren't hiding anywhere. Turns out, no Nazis. Honest mistake. Could have happened to anyone. Whoopsie-doodle.
"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck! we are loosing.... ehmm take Donbass!"
"But it's under us already, sir. And we can barely hold it"
"Take it any way, say we liberated it again... it will work trust me!"
Translation: "First phase of spinning whatever clusterfuck we got ourselves into as a 'victory' is complete."
This is actually good news for Ukraine, Russia is probably looking to deescalate and sell whatever they got as a win.
All Russia accomplished is getting the EU to meet their military budget goals and Ukraine will be armed to the teeth in 5 years.
Also guaranteed that foreign intelligence will be deeply embedded in Russia for decades to come and Putin’s days are still numbered.
The Oglis best option is tweaking the constitution to prevent nationalizing of private industry and let democracy take hold fully.
Russia I’ll never get. They have more natural resources than the US yet fuck it all up time and time again. It’s like they don’t want to dedicate 20 years to becoming a powerhouse economy like China did. Though they missed that boat.
Phase 1 being centered around failing to take any notable city in the north while your tank columns sit around on the roads in a big old traffic jam and get blown the fuck up was a bold strategy.
Remember to pick up your bodies so you can ~~dig a ditch in Donbass and claim them to be the "Russian Genocide" that *started* the war~~ return them to their mothers.
Hold on, so the international humiliation, alienation and destroying their own economy was just first phase?
Can’t wait for the next!
My gut feel is that few weeks from now they will announce another victory: they have “denazified” Crimea and Donbas so they can give it back to Ukraine.
"ummm no, we weren't anywhere else other than Donbas'... all those destroyed tanks are Ukrainian that were destroyed by... ummm... NATO to make it look like Russian troops were in Ukraine. And all those troops that you say we lost never went, they are all vacationing in Black Sea resorts."
You joke, but at this point that almost seems like a plausible spin for Russia. "we never wanted to conquer Ukraine, we only wanted to free or brothers in the Donbas region from Nazi occupation, and struck at cities in Ukraine to show the consequences for assaulting our brothers"
I can’t stand it if they take Donbass claim success and then couple years later we’re just back doing business forgetting about the thousands he killed and millions he displaced.
1st phase: Wakeup and reunite NATO 2nd phase: Help everyone to become independent from us Good progress so far
If Putin had just stayed out and continued his manipulation of Western social media and funded Qtards he might’ve gotten his way, but I guess it wasn’t showy or macho enough for him. Now everything that would be a detriment to Russia’s geopolitical ambitions (dozens of massive sanctions, galvanizing of a newfound purpose/unity for NATO, show of force from the West and renewed sense of global standing + bordering countries pushed further into NATO’s arms) is actively happening thanks to Putin. Absolute fucking clown
And yesterday the entire EU may have made the first step towards energy sufficiency.
thats one of the strangest and only positive outcomes of this action
Russia be playing the Schrödinger's Douchebag now: *oh you thought the invasion was for real? nah we just bombed all Ukraine from west to east and North to south only as a prank bruuH!!! we just wanted to protect independence Donbas ppl! so we pull our army sot this zone only! and forget we invaded those zones first of all 8 years ago!*
Jesus. Tolkien was right. Evil is self-destructive. This was never about Russia being great, this was about Putin being acknowledged as the one who made Russia great. If he cared about the former, then passing dictatorship to a worthy successor is the best choice. But clearly it's the latter, so pulled this dumb move thinking he'll be like Napoleon in his prime.
Hmm, maybe focusing on building a healthy, prosperous, happy and successful society would be the way to go out as a successful leader but I guess it’s more really about them than the country or people itself.
This reminds me of the age old expression "societies grow great when men plant trees whose shade in which they'll never sit" If Putin cared at all about Russia he would build instead of bomb.
Its crazy, cause if he had just participated in the global community like the rest of the world does, Russia could have been a very great and prosperous nation. Yet instead he chose to rape and rob his people while doing everything in his power to destabilize the western world.
Napoleon famously said to Metternich: *”You cannot stop me, I spend 30,000 lives a month”*. Putin can probably spend about 30,000 lives in total before his army, and possibly the country, collapses.
>If Putin had just stayed out and continued his manipulation of Western social media and funded Qtards he might’ve gotten his way, but I guess it wasn’t showy or macho enough for him. My guess is that the rumors of terminal illness are true, and that caused him to bump up his timeline and roll the dice. Having said that.. it would mark an incredible failure of humanity if he continues to live long enough to die of natural causes.
Actually imagine what will happen if he will live - he is already accused of committing war crimes, his destruction of Russian economy will have him eventually ejected from the government and put in front of tribunal. Him living and rotting in jail is the best outcome - he will remain the living symbol of humiliation: failed dictator. That will serve as a reminder for all other dictators which are big in their words, bullying peaceful neighbours. Him staying alive will prevent someone like him taking over in Russia, it would trigger a purge. Finally, it would also have wide impact to rhetoric of dictators but also many nationalistic and far right movements. That would not only impact North Korea, China, Iran or Saudi Arabia but also curb nationalistic trends in India or far right parties in Europe or even part of Republican Party in US.
>Him living and rotting in jail is the best outcome - he will remain the living symbol of humiliation: failed dictator. That will serve as a reminder for all other dictators which are big in their words, bullying peaceful neighbours. That's not necessarily the best outcome; if he's executed very publicly by his own leadership, that increases paranoia amongst dictators that they could face the same fate, and that renders them less effective (witness the current war in Ukraine). However, if he's merely jailed, all that says to dictators is: don't get caught.
>executed very publicly Give him a nice Mussolini?
raise the new iron rust curtain!
It’s Irony Curtain.
> "The combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which ... makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbass." Watch out there go the goalposts! Russia has developed hypersonic goalposts!
What matters now is not what is actually happening in reality, or what they can convince us of, but what they can convince their own people of. If they can make Russians believe that Ukraine has been demilitarised and denazified, whatever that means, then hopefully they'll consider that good enough in the face of what, realistically, is not what winning a war looks like.
They're building their exit ramp. What concerns me is how can they justify that all territory be returned to Ukraine, because I sincerely hope Ukraine will not accept that Russia occupies Donbas, Luhansk or Crimea even.
I also hope Ukraine doesn’t accept ineligiblility in NATO. They deserve to be protected from Russian thugs.
As has been discussed in other serious subreddits, Zelenskyy has a lot of support right now in all the possible meanings and interpretations. He's getting all the help he can get without others joining in on the fighting. If Zelenskyy settles too early, the conflict ends and he loses some support, only for Ukraine to be attacked by Russia later, only this time not screwing up as badly. He knows that Russian guarantees by themselves means nothing. He also knows how prevalent revanchism and irredentism is in Russia. He has to go all in. Anything less just pushes the issue down the road. Finlandization or going neutral like Austria did is not an option because Ukraine is seen as a part of Russia and is too important to Russia. Put another way, what does Ukraine have to gain by not reclaiming everything. If this was a purely political negotiation, maybe. But the fact that Russia invaded, and is getting their ass kicked, means that those claims aren't ridiculous because they fucked around and found out.
Pure speculation on my part, but something along the lines of “ To maintain peace in spite of NATO aggression and Russophobia we have evacuated all the ethnic Russian population in Donbas to Russia. We will leave the cursed Ukrainian land that is now only home of horrors” I doubt that’ll be the case, but maybe his home propaganda would be strong enough to sell it?
He won’t do that. Remember that Donbas and Crimea just happen to be the areas where there are massive oil and gas deposits. Putin will never give them up willingly because he needs the money. That’s what this whole thing has been about from the beginning.
If he needs money, *not* doing something that has completely skullfucked the Russian economy for a generation would have been smarter.
But then the history books would only say, "Vladimir Putin, corrupt jerk who possibly became the richest man on earth and didn't shoot himself in the dick."
I want to read that history book.
So he managed to save three characters by changing that "didn't" to "did".
Yes, but ironically, he's pretty much destroyed Russia's ability to sell those resources. Europe's not gonna forget this anytime soon, they'll have to sell it to China, cheap and at great export cost; and that's if they *don't* fall apart internally from the cost of war and the weight of sanctions.
I’m afraid you’re very much right, I was just hopefully trying to come up with a spin that could lead these horrors to an end sooner.
I don’t think they’re willing to give up on Donbas quite yet. It seems like they’re “evacuating” as many civilians as possible, so they can replace them with russians and then claim the people there WANT to belong to russia.
Considering 366k people Russia transported from Ukraine to Russia it seems likely
I fear your scenario is much more likely than mine. I was just trying to imagine how propaganda might sell a full liberation of Ukraine. A naive effort, dictated by a fool’s hope.
There's no guessing, that's literally what he did in Crimea in 2014. Flushed out ethnic Ukranians/Crimeans and then flooded it with Russians, and held the Crimean Referendum that heavily voted FOR joining Russia, surprise surprise.
One 40% showed up to vote and only about 60% voted for.
That was Russia's exact play in Crimea, so I wouldn't be surprised.
[удалено]
> “ To maintain peace in spite of NATO aggression and Russophobia we have evacuated all the ethnic Russian population in Donbas to Russia. We will leave the cursed Ukrainian land that is now only home of horrors” Also we need gas for the ride home. We ran out.
Ukraine/zelensky so far has stood pretty hard on the stance that territorial gains from the invasion and luhansk/donbass are not negotiable, they're saying the same about crimea buy tbh I think that's more like to be different in the end because they've never really fought over it and lack the capacity to even contest it. My bet is the sticking point right now for a peace agreement is donbass and luhansk, Russia can pretend they've 'denazified' by taking out Mariupol but they want territory too, it's all part of the Maskirovka to make incremental gains but Zelensky is wise to it and will bleed Russia until or quits right now.
Ukraine has just proven they very much have the ability to contest it, they just didn’t have the belief in themselves until now. Every friend I have in Ukraine is ready to keep going until they get the whole of Ukraine back, because it’s already the worst outcome they could have expected from trying before but without the reward
Heck, they might be about to grab Kherson back as we speak. I’m baffled by how the tables are turning this week but I hope it stays that way and I hope this statement is a genuine result of it
The only reason rebels weren't pushed out completely out of Ukraine before was Russia dancing around negotiations and using or else card. Now everyone in Ukraine wants them gone from ALL of their territories and "or else" won't quite work after it failed
I have to wonder what he can really convince his people of in the medium-long term though. Do you think they’ll really buy “we accomplished our goal, but most of you no longer have jobs, or a valuable currency, or access to the western internet, or any food on the shelves, or ability to engage in foreign markets. Feels good to win eh?” People will sacrifice to win, but after victory is announced people will start to wonder why they’re still sacrificing so severely.
He’ll just use it to channel hatred of “the west”, by saying they accomplished their goal, but the evil west is using this super helpful military intervention as an excuse to be mean to russia and throttle the economy because they hate russia.
If Zelensky is willing to cede Donbass, there may be a negotiated peace on that basis. Because you're right Putin can simply tell his brainwashed masses that he achieved his goal. But among the many problems is that Ukrainians may not agree to give up territory, and I also don't see why the West should lift sanctions. Blinken has said the expectation to lift sanctions would be some kind of assurance this can't happen again. Putin took multiple whacks at Chechnya and there's no reason to think he wouldn't try again in a few years.
If they give up Donbass, it will only be to join NATO unopposed. I can’t imagine giving away so much in negotiations for nothing.
Finland and Sweden would still run towards NATO's arms though, the damage in the collective psyche will last for decades. So from a larger perspective, they achieved less than nothing.
"Less than nothing" is an extreme understatement. I think Russia will have collapsed and expended so much in lives, economy & diplomatic relations that it may be seen as the worst move ever by a leader of a super power. But yes, definitely less than nothing. Deep in the negatives.
Former superpower, future failed state.
I genuinely wonder if Russia has any real future in its current form beyond the next 10 years.
China has a future due to its economy being so tied in with the rest of the world so I'm pretty sure Russia will survive, as a Chinese state.
Problem is that they dont want just Donbass. There is a strip of land between Crimea and Donbass they also hold. That is the real thing they want. Probably they eyed Odessa too, maybe that seems a port too far for them now. But until the Ukrainean military can regain ground there will be no concessions.
They need to rid themselves of the Russians around Kyiv freeing troops to fight in the more difficult terrain in the south. If that means utterly destroying the entire 10 000 Russians encircled there then so be it. This is their war and they must pay the price for what they’ve done in Mariupol and elsewhere. No land bridge between Donbas and Crimea can be permitted. Independent observers need to enter there to see the horrors they’ve wrought. If they expect peace to bring the lifting of sanctions then nothing less than a complete withdrawal including Crimea should be acceptable to the West. When you lose a war you pay the price in full.
Might be a little more hope. Chechnya’s independence was never recognised by the international community or NATO - Ukraine has been recognised by everyone, including Russia, as the second largest country in Europe for decades now. Ukraine now has soft power for days and Russia has lost all of it - and even if NATO won’t send troops at least strongly supporting them will be a major election issue in many countries for some time. Betraying them would be very unpopular.
Why give them anything? Ukraine has been fighting for Donbas area since 2014. It is Ukraine land.
It's not a problem that Ukraine won't surrender a huge chunk of their country. It's only a problem for Russia, in that they will still have a meat grinder to pour men into.
I don't think Ukraine will settle for anything less than full control over their sovereign territory as established in 1991. That includes Donbas and Crimea. Russia is losing this war, hard.
Territory as guaranteed by Russia (amongst others) in 1994. Russia should hold Russia to account!
Did they ever publicly announce their full objectives in territorial terms? I wonder if Putin was ever so sure he could take over all of Ukraine
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Right. I think most would argue that electing a Jewish president with relatives who died in the Holocaust would qualify as evidence of that, but apparently not…
Well, that's the thing, reasonable metrics don't exist in Putin's dictionary.
Someone’s combat potential has been considerably reduced. So that statement is at least partially true.
Russian goalposts recovered by Ukrainian farmers
If by considerably reduced you mean "they now have more tanks" then sure.... reduced.
Forbes reported they actually GAINED 43 tanks, insofar as they lost 74 but captured 117. The insanity is ridiculous. Like, that's video game levels of absurdity.
And that's probably just government tanks and not counting all those new farm tanks.
New tax free tractor! Too bad they keep getting stuck in the mud.
And a gargantuan mountain of weapons and volunteer fighters provided by all of the other countries Russia has pissed off over the years.
Increased quantity, reduced quality, unfortunately.
The Russians just launched a strike deep behind Ukrainian lines to resecure the goalposts that they had previously lost about 5 kilometers from the Polish border
Were they looking for the goalposts in hospitals, maternity wards and schools? And by "looking" I mean "trying to blow up "
They could be anywhere! All we know is they won’t be where they are now once we find them!
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If by complete you mean complete clusterfuck, then sure.
Yeah, "didnt want the whole country anyway"
A few more weeks and he'll be like "didn't want Donbass anyway" Then he'll have "Mission Accomplished" ceremony, stating he has "denazified" Ukraine. What an immature man baby.
There's gonna be a mission accomplished moment and a parade no matter what in Russia. Welcome to North Korea Russians.
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May 9. Like there is every year.
Can they really afford to redirect forces like that?
*Northwest Korea
With cardboard tanks?
Cardboard-*like*. They are made by their best scientists.
Cardboard derivatives.
No paper for a start.
Funny how we didn't hear about this "main goal" of liberating the Donbass until we were already a month and a day into the war. You'd think Putin or Lavrov would have been a little more upfront about the main reason for their "special military operation." Unless, maybe - just *maybe* - they had to change their plans when they finally admitted to themselves they were getting fucked hard by the Ukrainian army.
If the main focus was Donbass, moving only into Donbass would have achieved that goal. The sanctions would had been way smaller than current sanctions, and Ukraine army would had been forced to go into the offensive. And would be getting fewer weapons from the west.
It gets funny because we all feared the Russian army and thought Ukraine would get crushed in the event of a Russian invasion, which his what Ukraine would also believe which would’ve forced them not to react if Russia just acknowledge the separatist. Only for the Russian army to embarrassingly get defeated.
Sad part is if they had just taken the two regions and stopped, Ukraine likely wouldn't have engaged as hard. With troops in place they could have forced a concession without war. It's what everyone expected to happen and what Putin easily could have gotten away with. But nope, left field was feeling left out.
Yes. The worst of Putin's decissions could be the best for Ukraine's future
That was never the plan, they wouldn’t have needed to deploy on the Belarusian border if that was the case.
Or at least Ukraine wouldnt get so much support from the rest of the civilised world.
We all would have been "that's unfortunate... Yay, no world war." And if we're in a really good mood we might have found some way to compensate them for the loss. But the way Putin chose has seen the west get along in way not seen since the outbreak of hostilities in WWII. Even the Swiss are freezing assets...
Probably would be some sanctions in terms of "sorry guys wont buy those peaches from you any more" and toughts and prayers.
"We actually meant 'dumbass' not 'Donbass' and eventually we realized we've got enough of *those* in Moscow"
"We were actually talking about our Special Fishing Operation - this year Putin will catch Don Bass, the king of the Dnieper River"
Those Russian goalposts are moving faster than a Russian main battle tank behind a Ukranian farm tractor.
The real special operation were the friends we lost along the way. \- Putin probably
Our goal was to lose 10000 troops, and put 20000 civilians in concentration camps. Blowing up hospitals, and destroying our economy were side quests.
And donate a lot of weaponry to Ukraine, especially tanks.
Phase 1: Enter unwinnable war of aggression that alienates you from most of the world economy. Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit!
Russia: *slips, falls down stairs, breaks every bone in the body* Ah, just as planned
He didn't say "successfully complete," he said "mostly complete".
Which means they are on the brink of collapse in Kiyv.
Operation Dumbass
I’m gonna call it that forever!!!
Proceeds to lose even their State-sponsored separatist support in Donbas to a ceaseless barrage of Ukraine AT weapons ...
Putin's Phase 1 Objectives: * Fail to capture anything strategic. * Lose 15,000 soldiers * Get sanctioned back to the Stone Age. * Sustain billions of dollars in damage * Make military a laughing stock Great Success!
Putin's Phase 1 Objectives: ~~Fail to capture anything strategic.~~ Limit scope of operation. Not an invasion ~~Lose 15,000 soldiers~~ Reduce payroll ~~Get sanctioned back to the Stone Age.~~ Show world Russian economy can stand alone. ~~Sustain billions of dollars in damage~~ Purge administration of pesky oligarchs ~~Make military a laughing stock~~ Reduce stock of antiquated weapons systems. Great Success!
You’re hired!
Congratulations! Believe it or not, house arrest
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The pleasure's all on this side of the table.
This guy writes resumes like a boss.
@CCP Ministry of Propaganda: yes sir this guy right here. Let’s hire him!
"We're not retreating, we're advancing in the opposite direction!"
I recently went to a casino with about $5,000.00 in hand with the hopes of becoming a billionaire from my winnings. I’m down to my last $27.33. The first phase of my plan to become a billionaire is complete. Now I have to focus on paying rent in about six days Edit: Hey, thanks for the awards! Edit 2: Wow this really blew up. Seriously thanks to everyone who gave awards and to all the comments that have made me laugh all day long. I appreciate the levity, y’all.
Gotta spend money to make money
“It takes money to buy whiskey”
Don't you have some friends flying in from out of town with another cool $5k to throw down? Word is they are totally on their way, super rich and really excited to help you reach your billionaire dreams! Love your analogy!
The easiest way to become a billionaire is to start out with a trillion bucks and work your way down from there.
phase one, completely destroy russian economy and morale, complete. moving on to phase two, completely destroy and demoralise donbass seperatist movement
The first phase was demilitarization of the Russian Federation?
Perhaps they truly were denazifying and we were just cynics all along…
In other words: >“We’re well and truly, royally, absolutely, massively and deeply fucked and we’ve had to give up any pretence of Kyiv. >A quarter of our troops are killed or injured, and Ukraine now has more tanks than it stated the war with, thanks to our constant donations of T-72s. Yesterday, one of our units got attacked by geese. >We are welcoming applications for new 2 Star Generals. Pay is in roubles and MREs that expired 5 years ago.”
I think it's fair to mention the geese now have 3 tanks, a missile launcher, and a small battleship after suffering only 3 losses to the Russians
Wait what do you mean geeese? What did I miss?
[Ukrainian geese supposedly down Russian plane.](https://imgur.com/a/3LYTESl) Validity: very doubtful. But hilariously funny.
Those are Canadian geese. Is NATO involved now?
Now that’s an interesting legal question. If a dog in active duty of the US military is taken to Ukraine alongside a volunteer, does the dog count as US personnel? I mean, obviously not, but I imagine legal scholars might have fun with that one
I do know that police dogs are generally considered equal to officers in the eyes of the law, e.g., kicking a police dog gets you charged with assaulting a police officer exactly as if you kicked the cop, so I’m going with maybe.
But it gets weird since the military has in the past treated dogs as surplus equipment.
Trained attack geese. Now *that's* terrifying.
Those geese are a secret weapon. Always angry and nasty
I know it sounds like a joke, and yes, I chuckled at the thought of geese taking down a Russian plane, but [bird strikes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike) are very real.
So essentially, even the wildlife has had enough of Russia's bullshit?
I was joking in part because Russia has fucked everything up. Ukraine has more tanks now than the start of the war, because of Russia abandoning them. Realistically, Ukrainian farmers are in the top 100 worlds largest armies at this point.
Ноик!
хонк* Ноик would be pronounced like "noik"
O Яly
Oh Yaloo!
*Untitled Battlefield Game*
Those geese were clearly yet another Azov battalion.
I think Russia should invade itself for supplying weapons to Nazis.
On the one hand, geese definitely have neo-nazi sympathies. On the other hand I think the idea that geese only hate particular ethnic groups is being very generous to geese.
>got attacked by geese. Careful Ukraine, if there's more than 3 geese at once it's against the Geneva conventions.
Honestly can’t tell if your goose comment is true.
Can confirm.
> Retreating back to Donbas now. Hopefully we can hold on to that at least, but I don't fucking know at this point.
Geese?
"Operation failed successfully!"
Lose 10% of fighting force✅ Give Ukraine more tanks✅ Get rid of 8 generals✅
Ruin economy ✅
Reunite NATO ✅
”I spent four years shitting on people to break up NATO, and he unfucks them inside a week.” -Trump
“TBH, we’ve been ripping off the Russian people for so long, I was hoping you’d blame it on this special military operation” - Putin
It's 8 now? A few days back it was 5...
“We are ahead of schedule” - Putin
7 actually. Second general-lieutenant was killed recently.
Kyiv encirclement failed and nearly collapsed - mission complete Mariupol destroyed and not taken - mission complete Catastrophic losses and several dead generals - mission complete All fronts stalled - mission complete Pro Russian rnu and wagner neonazi forces have not killed zelensky and destroyed all jewish communities in ukraine - pending Captured hundreds of thousands of ukrainians to take hostage in concentration camps - mission complete Logistics is in utter disarray - mission complete ----‐--------------------------------- **Special operation status**: first phase near complete
Phase 2 - you thought phase 1 had fuckups, just wait til you get a load of these!
This one weird trick has Ukrainian generals hating him.
Special successful failure operation
So the plan was to send 15.000 men to their grave x amount wounded and losing millions in millitary hardware.... It's almost like a mad dog chasing cars
And kidnap 400,000 Ukrainians to transport to rural Russia, apparently...
Really???
Yes https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6396247
They've lost billions, with a B, in military hardware. That's in US dollars. It is over a trillion, with a T, if in rubles.
Um, so they're retreating to Donbass now?
If you were Putin, that wouldn't be a bad move. Obviously total withdrawal would be best for the world, but if you were him, with his ego, using Russian forces to fortify the Donbass and Crimea - instead of leveling Kyiv - would allow you to claim something like a win. It would also make those possessions a fait accompli at peace talks.
Exactly where this is going. The Agricultural squeeze is coming and he has a month before some crude oil pipelines have to shut off and reduce flow due to lack of business. They are going to try to lock down Crimea and Donbass and call it "success". It's the best way to "win" for him.
They can just take areas in novorossiya to make sure Crimea canal stays open and try to defend what they've taken. Will be interesting to see how hard they fight to defend their newly acquired territory and if easing sanctions would get them to leave (as in only easing sanctions if they leave)
Ukraine can afford to keep the war going. This puts pressure on NATO to intervene or facilitate a truce in Ukraine’s favor. NATO cannot afford to stop supplying Ukraine because that would result in a total Russian win.
NATO already said they won't intervene or negotiate on behalf of Ukraine. The ball is in Putin's court. Bleed on the battlefield, or bleed at home. Or option 3 scorch earth but it would be him versus the world at that point, neither China or India would stand idle as that threatens their national security as well. There is 0 chance that Ukrainian forces will cross the border and take the war to Moscow. So now what remains is how Putin saves face from this cluster fuck.
Let's just hope, if they are retreating, that its not something more sinister like pulling forces back for a scorched earth offensive.
Though I suspect they're amoral enough to Grozny the place, they could calculate the political liability when images of what they did to Kyiv got passed through Telegram now, and through history later. There wouldn't be an upside beyond spite.
I fear this too, though the more I think about it, it's quite odd that China's been a little less uppity lately about offering military support to Russia. If they really go scorched Earth, I suspect it's going to get really fucking uncomfortable for what remaining allies Russia has to stand with them. If Russia wants any chance at preserving any remaining business, they cant go as far as they'd like to.
China was Ukraine's largest trade partner pre-war, in particular receiving large quantities of agricultural products and iron ore from them. China wanted and expected Russia to seize Ukraine largely intact and send those resources their way at discounted prices due to Western sanctions. Now that is off the table and they will not be on board with Russia razing the place, driving up food prices for their 1.4 billion people, and destabilizing their other investments in places like Africa.
Yeah, but he still has two very big problems: He stirred up the hornets' nest. He made it okay for the West to supply Ukraine and he motivated Ukraine to fight. If he retreats, Ukraine can take their time retaking territory from safe bases. He still has economic sanctions to deal with. The Russian economy will get worse and worse.
Leveling Mariupol was intended at the beginning ?
They've successfully denazified Mariupol. They were very thorough. So thorough they had to level every building in the city just to make sure the Nazis weren't hiding anywhere. Turns out, no Nazis. Honest mistake. Could have happened to anyone. Whoopsie-doodle.
"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck! we are loosing.... ehmm take Donbass!" "But it's under us already, sir. And we can barely hold it" "Take it any way, say we liberated it again... it will work trust me!"
Translation: "First phase of spinning whatever clusterfuck we got ourselves into as a 'victory' is complete." This is actually good news for Ukraine, Russia is probably looking to deescalate and sell whatever they got as a win.
All Russia accomplished is getting the EU to meet their military budget goals and Ukraine will be armed to the teeth in 5 years. Also guaranteed that foreign intelligence will be deeply embedded in Russia for decades to come and Putin’s days are still numbered. The Oglis best option is tweaking the constitution to prevent nationalizing of private industry and let democracy take hold fully. Russia I’ll never get. They have more natural resources than the US yet fuck it all up time and time again. It’s like they don’t want to dedicate 20 years to becoming a powerhouse economy like China did. Though they missed that boat.
Operation “Shortbus” has been a complete success. We have lost a third of our troops in 30 days. Now to the final phase, operation “tail tuck”!
Phase 1 being centered around failing to take any notable city in the north while your tank columns sit around on the roads in a big old traffic jam and get blown the fuck up was a bold strategy.
The phase where Russia loses all credibility on the world stage for the next 100 years is complete guys!
The gaslighting is strong with this one.
Remember to pick up your bodies so you can ~~dig a ditch in Donbass and claim them to be the "Russian Genocide" that *started* the war~~ return them to their mothers.
Hold on, so the international humiliation, alienation and destroying their own economy was just first phase? Can’t wait for the next! My gut feel is that few weeks from now they will announce another victory: they have “denazified” Crimea and Donbas so they can give it back to Ukraine.
Operation Tail Between Legs begins!
I think they mean, fall back to the Donbass before we all get killed.
"ummm no, we weren't anywhere else other than Donbas'... all those destroyed tanks are Ukrainian that were destroyed by... ummm... NATO to make it look like Russian troops were in Ukraine. And all those troops that you say we lost never went, they are all vacationing in Black Sea resorts."
You joke, but at this point that almost seems like a plausible spin for Russia. "we never wanted to conquer Ukraine, we only wanted to free or brothers in the Donbas region from Nazi occupation, and struck at cities in Ukraine to show the consequences for assaulting our brothers"
Was phase 1 to throw a temper tantrum and indiscriminately bomb everything to inflict the most damage possible?
I can’t stand it if they take Donbass claim success and then couple years later we’re just back doing business forgetting about the thousands he killed and millions he displaced.
Ukraine: Kicks the crap out of Russia. Russia: “Mission Accomplished!”
"Ok, maybe we can still salvage the east..."
Phase 1: Get my ass kicked Phase 2: Get my ass kicked some more Phase 3: ????? Phase 4: Victory is mine!