Ukrainian War Developments

Footage of the air assault on Gostomel on the first day of the war. I think I might have seen this footage before because I felt amazed by the scale and the balls on VDV, good that the footage surfaced again.

Still brave though it may be, it's still best if you do SEAD properly rather than YOLOing like that.

Phead128 said:

In Putin's infamous speech before invasion, half the speech was anti-NATO provocation, the other half was 'blood and soil' rhetoric and Ukraine didn't have a right to exist. That can be construed as eliminating Ukraine right to statehood or at very least regime change.

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I’m referring to the Feb 24th one () The one you are referring to is the Feb 22nd one (). He made multiple speeches prior to the “real” invasion. The objective of the “operation” as of now is “to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation”, aka “liberate” Donbass. Whether or not they will annex Ukraine as a whole is a different story.

ZeEa5KPul said:

That's just not good enough. Going after the Donbass alone is worse than doing nothing. That's just inviting the Ukrainian government to say, "Alright, you know what, take the patches of dirt with Russians on them and get lost. We relinquish our claims on Crimea and the Donbass and we're joining NATO."

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The problem is not limited to this factor alone.

Even if Ukraine were still at war in Donbass, the NATO-Ukraine relationship would only get stronger. People fall for the tale that Ukraine only had two options with NATO: member or non-member.

This is far from the truth.

ZeEa5KPul said:

That's just not good enough. Going after the Donbass alone is worse than doing nothing. That's just inviting the Ukrainian government to say, "Alright, you know what, take the patches of dirt with Russians on them and get lost. We relinquish our claims on Crimea and the Donbass and we're joining NATO."

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You know NATO charter forbids membership to nations engaged in any war (e.g., Russo-Ukrainian war including Crimea and 8-year proxy war). Just by sitting on DNR/LNR indefinitely with Russian peacekeepers, you can defacto prevent NATO membership without seeking a dejure legally-binding treaty to cement neutrality. When NATO and Ukraine refused a legally-binding treaty, Putin gambled on a blitzkrieg to surround the capital hoping it would sue for peace, and sign a treaty. Given the economic costs involved, why not do regime change or atleast annex bigger territory.

Suetham said:

The problem is not limited to this factor alone.

Even if Ukraine were still at war in Donbass, the NATO-Ukraine relationship would only get stronger. People fall for the tale that Ukraine only had two options with NATO: member or non-member.

This is far from the truth.

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With the amount of weapons pouring in, joint exercises, and "enhanced opportunities status", you would be forgiven for thinking Ukraine is in all actuality a de facto NATO member

siegecrossbow said:

If Putin stopped doing anything after recognizing Donbass independence then he would've made tremendous geopolitical gains. Instead he opted for a suicidal geopolitical gamble that's the equivalent of playing with Russian roulette.

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What benefit would Putin have gained from just recognising Donbass? The majority of sanctions were put in place after that recognition, and the territories gained are tiny. Most of Donetsk's population would still have been under occupation.

What he could have done was de-escalated after the build up on the border and sought assurances that Ukraine would adhere to the Minsk agreement and would cancel the operation they had planned. Recognising Donbass alone would have changed very little on the ground and Russia would still have been punished.

If anything, the west's initial sanctions on Russia for just recognising a bit of land they defacto already controlled turned out to be a big overraction. Putin saw them, and thought f.. it, may as well take the whole country if they are going to be like that. My guess is they didn't expect Putin to invade the whole of the Ukraine.

LawLeadsToPeace said:

Whether or not they will annex Ukraine as a whole is a different story.

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According to what I read about Russian strategy, hardly Russian strategy is to annex Ukraine. This is just a fallacy without concrete evidence.


The strategy about Donbass is clear in the link I posted in the post-812813 comment.

Botnet said:

With the amount of weapons pouring in, joint exercises, and "enhanced opportunities status", you would be forgiven for thinking Ukraine is in all actuality a de facto NATO member

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This is what formal neutrality looks like. Paper neutrality is just a promise.


Might as well consider Sweden and Finland as defacto NATO members as well, despite formal neutrality declarations.

Phead128 said:

You know NATO charter forbids membership to nations engaged in any war (e.g., Russo-Ukrainian war including Crimea and 8-year proxy war). Just by sitting on DNR/LNR indefinitely with Russian peacekeepers, you can defacto prevent NATO membership without seeking a dejure legally-binding treaty to cement neutrality. When NATO and Ukraine refused a legally-binding treaty, Putin gambled on a blitzkrieg to surround the capital hoping it would sue for peace, and sign a treaty. Given the economic costs involved, why not do regime change or atleast annex bigger territory.

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There's no war in the DNR/LNR is Ukraine recognizes their independence. Of course that's difficult to do, but that's the correct play from their perspective - sacrifice their claim on territory they're never going to get in exchange for NATO membership.

People keep harping on what Putin initially intended for propaganda purposes, but any proper analyst would recognize that what Putin thought would happen in the beginning doesn't matter now. This is the situation as it stands and woulda coulda shoulda is irrelevant. Where does Russia go from here is the relevant question.

Abominable said:

What benefit would Putin have gained from just recognising Donbass? The majority of sanctions were put in place after that recognition, and the territories gained are tiny.

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Correction: Majority of sanctions we're after the bombs started flying over most Ukrainian cities, which occured few days after DNR/LNR independence.

After Russia sent peacekeepers to DNR/LNR, US restricted all US trade and investment into DNR/LNR, but did not extend significant sanctions yet to Russia proper. It withheld majority of sanctions to have a full hand to play if and when Russia expanded the war further into Ukraine.