It isn't that strange actually. Russia as usual follows the "escalate to de-escalate" strategy
Ukrainian War Developments
- Thread starter james smith esq
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Yeah, I agreed with most of your post. The bit I didn't agree with was the YOLO bit, the only place you can make that case that happening was on the Kiev front. On that front it seems that Ukrainian forces did collapse and it was an open road to Kiev.
However you can make good arguments for why it was important to get to Kiev as quickly as possible. There was the capture of the airport, although it's unclear right now if they really were unsupported or not. A lot of disinformation floating around about that operation.
Ultimately the Russian army traded old tanks and vehicles breaking down for the opportunity to have a sword on the neck of the Kiev regime by day 3 of the operation. I don't think they expected to have so many break down, but it's an irrelevant point given the position they are in.
Capture Kiev in 3 days... What must someone be smoking to believe that is actually possible? Only under extremely hubristic and arrogant assumptions that the Ukrainians were not going to fight...
Based on the tweet interestingly they're not hiding its in Donetsk but I guess most people aren't going to research who controls Donetsk for the past 8 years and how the attack was done.
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I apologize if it's already been mentioned, but reports are coming out that the Russians have captured Rubizhne in Luhansk (eastern front). That's an important win for them and it puts that much more pressure on Severodonetsk, which will probably fall within a week. Once that's done, the Russians would pretty much control all of Luhansk, one of their key objectives.
Lethe
Captain
If Russia succeeds in consolidating control of Ukraine -- and that is a very big 'if' -- then, given the de facto state of economic war that has been declared on Russia, I think it is entirely plausible that Moscow will at least consider revising the dispensation of the Baltic states. Not only would doing so serve more or less the same purpose as the invasion of Ukraine, but if successful it would break the back of NATO by revealing it as a paper tiger. However, under these circumstances, I believe that Washington would use tactical nuclear weapons. This is why the west cannot allow Russia to succeed in consolidating control of Ukraine in the first place.
There are now multiple generations of western leaders who have no experience in dealing with complex strategic realities in which interests must be clearly assessed in light of power considerations. These leaders live in a world of rhetorical moralism and foreign policy decisions undertaken without regard for their consequences -- because there usually aren't any.
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Whatever the West can use, Russia will use 10 times more if it is threatened. And if the West gets the courage to enter a nuclear exchange war with Russia then Putin will happily oblige it.
After all, who has the most to lose from a nuclear exchange? The combined almost $40 trillion Western economies or the $1.5 trillion Russian economy?
Similarly, who will lose the most, the West's 800 million population or Russia's 150 million people?
In both cases, the biggest loser is the West not Russia. As such, we can conclude that from power dynamics, Russia's nuclear threat is much more of a deterrence against the West than the other way around
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