President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Ukraine's partners "are afraid of Russia losing the war" and would like Kyiv "to win in such a way that Russia does not lose," Zelensky said in a meeting with journalists attended by the Kyiv Independent.
President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Ukraine's partners "are afraid of Russia losing the war" and would like Kyiv "to win in such a way that Russia does not lose," Zelensky said in a meeting with journalists attended by the Kyiv Independent.
Kyiv's allies "fear" Russia's loss in the war against Ukraine because it would involve "unpredictable geopolitics," according to Zelensky. "I don't think it works that way. For Ukraine to win, we need to be given everything with which one can win," he said.
His statement came on May 16 amid Russia's large-scale offensive in Kharkiv Oblast and ongoing heavy battles further east. In a week, Russian troops managed to advance as far as 10 kilometers in the northern part of Kharkiv Oblast, according to Zelensky.
For the US maybe, but I don't think it is profitabel for Europe.
Refugees aren't cheap (even though ukrainian people might integrate easier than others and later add value), a good part of money for weapon purchases flows towards America since they have more immediate capacities, and long term we do want to integrate Ukraine, which means Europe will ultimately bear a significant chunk of rebuilding costs.
This seems to be the sad realpolitik truth. It explains how some of the aid has been given.
Enough to keep grinding down the Kremlin's war machine, not enough to actually take the Kremlin out of the fight.
In a more utilitarian analysis, this might be the best for the greatest number of people. From an empathetic human perspective... it's pretty fucking dark to see young Ukrainian men dying for this. Still better than living under the Kremlin's boot.
I understand the math but disgusted at the moral/ethics.
Destruction would potentially cause post WWI vibe, could create a massive migration issue, cause further suffering or the development of horrible black market bullshit or anything in between, that power vacuum would be awful.
Burn out would probably cause more revolutionary thinking and inspire a change in direction.
Fuck. I honestly just want people to not fuckin die.
I'm assuming the West's analysis is that there's no better political reality inside Russia in sight, even with Putin gone, so they're better off just declawing the bear. Which to a large degree has already happened..
Meanwhile the upside is that the collective West gets to try tactics and weapons for modern warfare (drones, ai, analysis) and get ready for the next fight. They also gained a fight-ready, trained ally in Ukraine and a sharper focus in Europe of what's at stake and everything that that involves (eg energy and supply chain independence).
The downside is obviously the deaths of Ukrainians in the front line, but I don't know how many of them could be prevented without NATO getting properly involved.
I think it's more down to the fact that regime change initiated from the outside doesn't go well. And if the west tries to take out Putin directly there's a very high likelihood of it resulting in a nuclear war.
The sanctions the west has in place are designed to nudge some powerful people within Russia to take out Putin. Problem is Putin has been around long enough that he's been able to make it extremely difficult for someone to make a coup happen.
Meanwhile the upside is that the collective West gets to try tactics and weapons for modern warfare (drones, ai, analysis) and get ready for the next fight.
Russia also gets this experience. And we can get this kind of information from more traditional sources (ie. Israel) without Russia getting it.
It would be better for the West if Putin was gone, but that needs to be done by Russian, and that's easier said than done.
I wouldn't look for too much nefarious intent for things that can be explained by regime change being hard to pull off (and very risky when it's a nuclear power) and war is not a simple thing.
The goal is to provide enough aid to Ukraine to defeat the invading army without providing so much aid that Ukraine becomes an existential threat to Russia. There being an existential threat to a nuclear power can have some bad outcomes. So it's a balancing act for the West. This is what Zelensky is alluding to with “to win in such a way that Russia does not lose.”
And of course there's a lot of shenanigans involving Russian assets in the west doing everything they can to sabotage aid efforts. That's a significant factor in all of this that shouldn't be ignored. Providing military aid to Urkaine is a no-brainer for geopolitical interests, but no-brain Russian shills are doing their best to block it.
A long drawn out war of attrition isn't actually in the best interests for the West. Russia gains experience, improves their weaponry and has ample opportunities to test that technology in the battlefield. They've been updating the battlefield doctrine to include ways to effectively use new technologies like drones. This isn't something the West wants.
Best outcome for the West is Ukraine drives out the Russian Military, and there's a peace agreement that resolves all disputed territory which would pave the way for Ukraine to join NATO. The longer the war drags on, the longer it will be before Ukraine is part of NATO.
I know that Russia has threatened the use of nukes, but I find it hard to believe they'd actually follow through. Seems like a red line that would activate more direct action from lots of other countries against Russia. Then again, red lines have been made pretty flexible in the past, including recently.
That's a nice way of calling people helping you cowards for doing it half hearted cuz they're also afraid of your opponent. I think the message was sent.
He MUST know how much influence Russia has in the halls of power and media of his allies as well.
Ukraine fights a war on MANY fronts. Not all of them with bullets.
It's true, and they're not wrong, nuclear Yugoslavia would be scary. Unfortunately I don't think there's an alternative, Putin rang a bell that can't be un-rung.
when they decided to violate the Budapest Memorandum everything went out the door, including russia's future. it's going to be very, very hard to ever get back to the economic or industrial positions they occupied previously.
their people will suffer, and the only way it will end is if they hang putin from a light pole.
Unfortunately even that wouldn't solve it. There is no successor. This is on purpose so there's no motive to hang Putin from a light pole. If he goes, it's nuclear-armed Yugoslavia, or at least musical chairs coups, because there's so many people with an equally legitimate claim to the throne.
Short of time travel there's no obvious way to keep things normal. The "lose nicely" thing is basically fueled by wishful thinking that maybe, if the West is nice and measured enough, we'll get lucky. (Which you could argue is what got us here)
What economic positions did they occupy, exactly? All they had were raw resources - coal, oil, gas, and maybe wheat. They can't produce anything else of value.
It's not what we expected, but everyone will agree geopolitics is much improved. This time, he not only smokes in the white house, but has an arm fall off somewhere unfortunate. /s
The west is legit afraid of Russia's collapse because once again someone will have to bail Russia out and it'll either be another 1988 mess or a new toy for China.
What will happen to Russia once it's fully in "war economy" and loses the war?
The west is legit afraid of Russia’s collapse because once again someone will have to bail Russia out
Yeah… that’s not what happened at all. What happened was the Western capitalist neocolonial plundering of the post-Soviet states through neoliberal shock therapy. And that’s why the US especially hates Putin: he kicked the plunderers out of Russia, interrupting their plundering.
It's really a matter of Ukraine hanging on for as long as it takes for the price of oil and gas to collapse again. That's the only thing that can get Russia to stop.
Oil and gas collapsed because of reduced demand from the pandemic and Putin refusing to cut production so he could tank US oil. Oil isnt likely to collapse again anytime soon.
So much of the current internal domestic Russian zeitgeist is the idea of national strength compared to other nations. Pride comes with their strongman. If they are finally faced with the truth that neither Russia or its strongman are strong, it could lead to Russia/Russians trying to assert it in other ways to try to rationalize it. Or Russia could simply collapse from within orphaning hundreds of nuclear warheads leading to opportunists selling warheads to the highest bidders. The only thing worse than Russia having nuclear weapons is every two-bit terrorist or backwater dictator getting their hands on them.
Keep in mind none of this in my mind means we stop supporting Ukraine economically and militarily. Russia made its bed. We can't choose our actions based upon trying to save Russia from itself.
I once mentioned how Billionaires will eventually get Nuclear Weapons and was ridiculed. Turns out it’ll happen sooner than I thought. Truly a carrot and stick situation.
I think that's one of the meanings. If a Russian loss led to the sudden collapse of the Russian state or a radical retraction of the Russian economy, who knows what the consequences would be?
I don't think that's a justification for not letting Russia lose, but it is a big bag of who-the-fuck-knows.
While we really don't want a state with thousands of nukes to splinter, I doubt that any policy writers in DC feel that way, given the eulogies they gave to Navalny, a guy who had politics somewhere around Mussolini's and made Putin look like a dove.
But also the fact that we have like 8000 tanks in the desert that we're not sending tells me that they'd rather fight Russia to the last drop of Ukrainian blood than actually break Russia so who knows.
I don't think so, not necessarily. It means that the existence of russia stops some countries from doing some things, if you remove russia, those countries will not be counterbalanced anymore
Probably a broader umbrella of bad stuff. If Putin goes, there's no real successors, so it's kind of anyone's game to be the next dictator, and chaos potential is very high. This is actually by design, as a form of coup-proofing.
It might not be MAD, and in fact probably won't be directly, but massive proliferation? Sure, lots of people would trade a lot of guns for a nuke. One of the splinter states invading NATO directly? Could also happen. Russian oil and gas going off the market really fast, and putting Europe in a tough spot? Almost certain, at least to some degree. And then at the end of it, who knows what the map of Eurasia looks like.
When they say unpredictable, they mean unpredictable, and they have great reason to be wary of unpredictability.
This is and always has been a proxy war and a siege meant to exhaust Russian resources slowly and without rapidly escalating to more destructive methods.
Unfortunately this is a big part of why the first big summer counter-offensive by Ukraine stalled; NATO delayed aid by just enough that it guarunteed the war would drag out.
Personally I think it's about money for the industrial military complex. If the war had ended quickly while Ukraine had men, momentum and the initiative it would mean less money for industrialists.
Even US generals like Patreaus were predicting the delay by the Biden admin on F-16s etc. would lead to a massively protracted conflict.
It makes one ashamed that when our country finally does have a righteous cause for our massive military complex our leaders are still playing grab ass trying to make a buck while Ukrainians are fighting to exist. It's one of Biden's (and NATOs) biggest failures.
Ukraine is currently under siege. That's who is being sieged. The proxy war is because no one in the West wants a direct conflict between two nuclear powers. Russia is being bled by a thousand cuts here. They've lost over 70% of their stockpiles, probably more like 80-90% at this point, so far and every day that Putler continues his war, it adds more years of Russia ceasing to be a global power at any level.
I don't think it started as a proxy war. Russia just decided to be stupid, but at this point it may very well be a proxy war in fact.
It's to pretty much everyone's benefit (except Ukraine's) for this to drag out for a nice long time. The more manpower and material Russia and their allies burns up in this stupidity, the longer the rest of Europe can breath freely. It gives them time to rebuild the armies that they have allowed to atrophy. There's probably more to it and it's callus as fuck, but that's the math I see.
People forgot quickly how hesitant the European countries were, and still are, to send equipment to Ukraine. Germany didn't send anything but helmets for a long while. They also cancelled North Stream, leading to increased inflation and lessened economic competitive viability. If anything, the proxy war is exhausting both Russian and European economies, with the US and China ready to scoop up the scraps in preparation for their intensifying trade war.
Yes and in return Ukraine eliminated all nuclear weapons. This will be an example used for the future for why countries will NEVER agree to denuclearize regardless of the language in a “treaty”.
This is true. Russia saber rattling about using nuclear weapons, doesn't mean much. Putin knows this would not lead to victory and likely would end up with him losing power and likely life.
The scary time is what he will do when he will see his power slipping. Thankfully in 1992 Gorbachev managed to handle it peacefully. Hopefully when it happens it will end up similarly.
The outcome of the war in Ukraine has always been a game of chicken, being which side is willing to escalate to nuclear weapons, and whether the other side may or may not back down. The logic of escalation has always been that no possible gain exceeds the losses caused by a nuclear exchange. The Madman theory ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory ) is about convincing one's opponent that is one is not rational, and is willing to use nuclear weapons despite the losses. The threat then, is that Putin, seeing himself politically vulnerable because of his losses, but still powerful enough to command the military to use nuclear weapons, would demonstrate his willingness to use nuclear weapons, even if not directly against a military target, in a demonstration (perhaps in the Black Sea) or an exoatmospheric test.
If you think Russian would nuke “their land” or at best a “bordered neighbour”. You’ve lost the plot. Also the title of their ag industry “lost plots”…
You are entirely wrong. Russian doctrine with nuclear weapons has cases in which nuclear weapons would be detonated as area deniability. You nuke an ingress route, it will keep infantry and tanks from being able to attack in that direction.
They also had doctrine about losing land and essentially turning it into a Carthage situation and making it completely unlivable.
Nuclear war is a very real possibility. If Putin becomes desperate enough, he will try to go to the very edge of brinksmanship. In this situation, with launch on warning, any perceived provocation could rapidly escalate. As the fear of a preemptive strike increases, so does the probability of a preemptive strike. Rationality gives way to fear. This is the logic and danger of brinksmanship: that the more you rely on it, the more likely it is to escalate out of control before one side backs down.
There's also concern about how much aid they can politically muster, long term. Really, that and an eventual shortage of Ukrainian troops are the main concerns.
I mean we can mock Putin's supposed manchild attitude as much as we like, but when this manchild is armed with nuclear weapons, that's when we gotta be careful.
That's a poor analysis and untrue. Ukraine doesn't have the soldiers to defend their positions anymore. They will not be able to stop the Russian advance. You'll see soon enough. How many Ukrainians need to die still?
Make an agreement to make the "disputed areas" independent of both russia and ukraine. Nobody wins. Enforce it with a pact that would draw in Nato but forbids them from joining Nato.
If they'd be true independence aspiring breakaway regions, Russia shouldn't have a problem with neutrally supervised original population referendums but alas