Ukrainian War Developments

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Jingle Bells

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Overbom said:
Its not like Russia doesn't have the tools.to do the same. The issue is that Putin has decided against using them because the war is unpopular with the population. Millions of Russians have interpersonal relations with Ukrainians

He wanted it to be as low key as possible. Which of course backfired because he forgot to cut off communications in Ukraine...
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I would disagree.
I don't think Putin "forgot" to cut off communications in Ukraine. I think he deliberately did that.

Ukrainians, Poles, etc are very predictable people in their own media. Putin knew what they are going to do: using propaganda to make Russians look weak and ill-prepared, create for the social-media world an image of a winning Ukraine and a losing Russian forces.

In my own Chinese perspectives, this is very understandable: "借敌人之手懈怠敌人".
若欲使其灭亡，必先使其疯狂。(I don't know how to translate these accurately to English)
In fact, Putin's tactics might be very risky gamble. But so far, he did the right thing.

Just like how the whole attack against China because of the "taking in Ukrainian girls" media warfare (done by Taiwanese and other oversea 反贼）to target China ended up backfiring.

You guys (westerners) think in very straight black-or-white manners. I, for example, don't really think it was a bad thing for Russia to appear weak and full of failure on the global social media. Because this gives the world (as well as Ukrainian nationalists) a false image of Russia and the whole event. You want the enemy to think they are winning. Especially in Ukraine where the general consensus of people is that they are sick tired of war.
 
A

Abominable

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Richard Santos said:
I am reasonably certain Putin did not set out with the intention of occupying Ukraine one way or another. Rather the terms he presented to NATO was reasonable from Russian perspective, and he believed he made his seriousness clear with his deployment. he was prepared to follow through in the worst case scenario, but probably didn’t give that particularly high chance of happening.

So at the start of the Olympics I don’t believe he had made up his mind to invade Ukraine.

what he miscalculated was the American attitude, which was effectively uninterested in compromise to avoid war, only Interested in forcing Russia towards total capitulation on their initial demands.
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How could he have miscalculated the American attitude when with the initial Russian ultimate was not only zero compromise, but they didn't even acknowledge it initially? Delusional arrogance is how Americans approach everything these days. Picking Nuland to go to Russia after she embarrassed herself the last time tells you everything you need to know about the current state of American politics.

Big strategic blunder from Biden IMO. There was plenty of carrots he could have dangled at Putin. He could have just dug up the declassified Clinton documents and said, "look according to this we can't expand NATO further. Sorry Ukraine",

Ukraine's government would have been the same and it could have set the framework for solving the Crimea/Donbass issue for good. I wonder how much goodwill he's burning through to get Russia and all his pets to calm down. Should have listened to the Germans Joe. They know a thing or two about making deals with pissed off Russians.

Everyone's going to be worse off from this, except China.
Richard Santos said:
What Biden miscalculated was what Putin was truly after with his terms, and therefore what Putin would sacrafice to get it. Biden thought Putin was after restoration of the Russian territorial empire, so he estimated Putin would weigh the dubious benefit of acquiring Ukraine’s moribund demographic and miserable economy against the great cost of sanctions he could impose and find the gain to be far short of the cost.

what putin was after was the strategic depth required to secure the credibility of Russian‘s nuclear deterrence In the face of america’s abrogation of INF treaty. this is a existential concern for a hardcore but calculating Russian nationalists, and for this Putin is willimg to pay a higher price than sanctions could exact and he is probably willing to even go beyond the brink of nuclear release to secure.

the reason why Biden is making noises about de-escalating is it is dawning on him that he can’t exact a high enough price to stop Putin without risking a nuclear war. And having no ability to exact more prices from Russia for next steps Russia will undoubtedly take, America’s and NATO’s credibility will now take a hit with each further step Russia takes.
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