The Ukrainian War IV: "And von Moltke Laughed ..."

[Diuhon]

Might be a premature question, but how does Russia even begin to recover from this? their military is trashed, their work forced decimated as hundreds of thousands of men have fled the country or been fed to the meatgrinder, and they've been cut off from just about every major power economically.


Assuming things continue on as is and Ukraine ultimately wins the war, what is Russia's path forward to normalcy?

normalcy is regime change, followed by a sincere commitment to democratizing russia and its authoritarian near abroad, reintegrating them politically and economically to the rest of europe through eu and nato membership

[Continental Free States]

History gave us a great lesson for this.

It's called appeasement and does not work. Absolutely not.

I don't disagree with this sentiment, but unlike the people who call for appeasement or "do what he says so we won't have war", Chamberlain was essentially stalling for time while rebuilding the British military due to overestimating German military strength and actually did declare war on Germany when they took that one step too far.

[Picairn]

Might be a premature question, but how does Russia even begin to recover from this? their military is trashed, their work forced decimated as hundreds of thousands of men have fled the country or been fed to the meatgrinder, and they've been cut off from just about every major power economically.

Assuming things continue on as is and Ukraine ultimately wins the war, what is Russia's path forward to normalcy?

Remove Putin from power, disavow any more military adventures or imperial ambitions, reconcile with Ukraine and the West to have sanctions gradually removed, restore the sphere of influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus, rebuild and reform the military and economy, attract the refugees to come back, etc. The new post-war elite will have a lot of work to do, and none of them easy.

[Saiwania]

History gave us a great lesson for this. It's called appeasement and does not work. Absolutely not.

Is it really appeasement if we're supposed to be getting something back for it?

Russia might be convinced to let the rest of Ukraine it can't control to go into NATO if that is perceived to be inevitable. Russia has NATO countries on its border elsewhere to begin with anyways, so it doesn't add significantly to their security problems. It is more or less too late for them to stop Sweden and Finland from switching from the neutral to the NATO camp.

If Russia really believes its nuclear arsenal and the land buffer it has taken over is enough, then they won't care about Ukraine aligning with NATO if in exchange, they'll be able to keep their gains but be allowed to exit this war on relatively good terms.

Crimea, Russia can get a pass on; if historically- it was part of Russia and only mistakenly got transferred to Ukraine when it was USSR. The annexed territories nonsense is to try to establish a land bridge/corridor to Crimea and secure its water supply against sabotage up river from Ukraine, asides from also being some buffer between Russia's old borders and NATO's likely/future eastern frontier.

If Russia is sufficiently losing, they'll take more of what they can get if the offer is sweet enough from our side. But they'll also be willing to cave on some demands if they know they can't get it on their own and it'll make the best deal that can be gotten into a reality.

[Picairn]

Russian MoD confirms they have withdrawn troops from Lyman.

I was kinda hoping they'd just have thousands of POW's as they all (presumably) surrender.

Wreckages of Russian vehicles on the roads out of Lyman suggest that they had a rough night as the Ukrainians shelled the retreating column.

[Tarsonis]

Might be a premature question, but how does Russia even begin to recover from this? their military is trashed, their work forced decimated as hundreds of thousands of men have fled the country or been fed to the meatgrinder, and they've been cut off from just about every major power economically.

Assuming things continue on as is and Ukraine ultimately wins the war, what is Russia's path forward to normalcy?

Remove Putin from power, disavow any more military adventures or imperial ambitions, reconcile with Ukraine and the West to have sanctions gradually removed, restore the sphere of influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus, rebuild and reform the military and economy, attract the refugees to come back, etc. The new post-war elite will have a lot of work to do, and none of them easy.

especially when they're so allergic to stairs and windows

[Andsed]

Its definitely going to be interesting once we start getting confirmed losses from the Russian retreat. The casualties sustained during the retreat and just the fact they probably had to leave behind plenty of equipment makes this a pretty big loss in manpower and material. In addition to how it changes the strategic situation on the front.

[Vistulange]

Might be a premature question, but how does Russia even begin to recover from this? their military is trashed, their work forced decimated as hundreds of thousands of men have fled the country or been fed to the meatgrinder, and they've been cut off from just about every major power economically.


Assuming things continue on as is and Ukraine ultimately wins the war, what is Russia's path forward to normalcy?

They don't.

Not in the short and medium term, at least. Some things in the arena of international politics is based heavily upon reputation. Russia has obliterated its reputation on at least two fronts: adhering to the post-Second World War rule-based order of international affairs, and being a reliable supplier of energy.

Whether a country agrees or disagrees with the former is not the issue here. The issue is that such an order exists, for good or for ill; actors who fail to conform to it are either expected to triumph over it, or be rejected. Russia has not triumphed over the system—in other words, has not instituted a new system in which we perceive international relations—and has, quite honestly, fucked up massively trying to do so. Yes, by the way, I think that the institution of such a new paradigm in international relations was one of the intentions of the invasion. The prematurely posted RIA Novosti article gushed plenty about how the Western world had failed, how Russia would be pioneering a new era of international relations, and so forth; I think that is a fairly decent sign that Vladimir Putin's Russia had a different vision for how state-to-state interactions would work going forwards.

The second one is more straight-forward: when you're not reliable for energy, you're worthless. If your supplier gives you energy but randomly cuts power every now and then, that supplier is a crap supplier. Unfortunately for Russia, alternative suppliers exist. They aren't a monopoly, and worse, they might be in a position they don't want to be in: China may be forming a monopsony over Russian gas.

How do they recover? By removing Vladimir V. Putin and by returning Ukraine to the pre-2014 borders, pretty much. I don't think that the Western world cares at all about whether Russia is a democracy, a hybrid regime, or an authoritarian hellhole. It's not realistic to base policies on such, at least. It's not going to work out. In any case, the sanctions can be lifted when Russia turns more or less into a light North Korea, as in, a totalitarian hellhole that rambles and rants every few months, but is in practice harmless.

The question is, does the West even want to lift sanctions? If not, then Russia will not recover for many, many years, provided they do not magically go through a technological breakthrough that allows them to catch up. Frankly, I don't think sanctions should be lifted from Russia even if they withdraw entirely from Ukraine and replace Putin, but that's a matter for another post.

[Vadterland]

*huffs copium*

Ah, but foolish Westoids! The successful tactical withdrawal from Lyman shall soon be followed up with a full-on, no holds barred assault by Rossiya! The gloves are coming off, and trust me, in the next week the first glorious and entire sober wave of newly mobilized Russian soldiers will break the gay-homosex-fascist-zionist-Ukroid lines!...Definitely this week.

That or we'll finally get to see the nuclear dawn the vatniks keep prattling on about. I won't lie, the last week has probably set me on edge regarding the idea of nuclear conflict for the first genuine time in my life. Before this conflict erupted I didn't think the Russian government would be quite stupid enough to start an outright war against a neighbor, begin to lose said war against their neighbor, and before the world slide farther and farther down the rabbit hole into insanity in rationalizing or trying to cover up the losses they've suffered against said neighbor in a pointless imperialist war where they are suffering from this century's bloodiest sunk-cost fallacy in action. Now I'm worried that they're stupid enough to let the atomic genie out of the bottle as some horrific last resort now that every other method has failed them.

[San Lumen]

https://abc7ny.com/russian-consulate-va ... /12282794/

Russian Consulate in NYC vandalized with red paint, being investigated as possible bias crime

[Perikuresu]

Apparently wikipedia claims that Luhansk and Donetsk are republics, whilst Kherson and Zaporizhia are oblasts

Deepstate map shows that Lyman has been liberated

[Prima Scriptura]

Apparently wikipedia claims that Luhansk and Donetsk are republics, whilst Kherson and Zaporizhia are oblasts

Deepstate map shows that Lyman has been liberated

Russian troll farms hard at work.

[Perikuresu]

Apparently wikipedia claims that Luhansk and Donetsk are republics, whilst Kherson and Zaporizhia are oblasts

Deepstate map shows that Lyman has been liberated

Russian troll farms hard at work.

what?

[Tarsonis]

https://abc7ny.com/russian-consulate-vandalism-red-paint-upper-east-side/12282794/

Russian Consulate in NYC vandalized with red paint, being investigated as possible bias crime

boohoo

[Shetl]

For years I have been told how he was a rational leader and geopolitical mastermind, it turns out that he is a raging nationalist who wants to restore the Russian Empire by conquest, at all costs. He will plunge Russia into ruin just so he can get Ukraine back into the imperial fold. Madness.

I think he was a rational leader and geopolitical mastermind, but something changed a few years ago. Some thought it could be the pandemic isolation or old age.

Getting a divorce after 30 years of marriage is a hell of a thing, especially when you believe you are a Real Man, hard as nails, rational, and in full control of your emotions. Doesn't matter how stale the marriage was. Trying to kill a guy (who happens to be your ex-wife's new spouse's age) because he denied you something you can't have is 100% in character for a toxic male divorcee

[Picairn]

With the defeat in Lyman, the next Russian defense line (behind the Oskil river) is the Troits'ke - Svatove - Kreminna - Severodonetsk/Lysychansk line.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Well done to the Ukrainian Army on the capture of Lyman

With the defeat in Lyman, the next Russian defense line (behind the Oskil river) is the Troits'ke - Svatove - Kreminna - Severodonetsk/Lysychansk line.

Lets hope they can make another breakthrough along that line soon and force the Russians to retreat even further.

[San Lumen]

https://abc7ny.com/russian-consulate-vandalism-red-paint-upper-east-side/12282794/

Russian Consulate in NYC vandalized with red paint, being investigated as possible bias crime

boohoo

I don’t think anyone should be charged. The staff at the consulate is complicit in what’s going on in Ukraine.

[Picairn]

AP discovered 10 Russian torture sites in Izyum and reported that torture was widespread against Ukrainian POWs and civilians. Eight were killed under torture in Russian custody, all but one were civilians. At least 30 out of 447 bodies exacavated in a mass grave in the woods near Izyum have torture marks on them.

And this is just scratching the surface. More details in the article.

[The Two Jerseys]

https://abc7ny.com/russian-consulate-vandalism-red-paint-upper-east-side/12282794/

Russian Consulate in NYC vandalized with red paint, being investigated as possible bias crime

boohoo

In the words of Detective Lennie Briscoe, "File this one under 'solve after the next ice age'."

[Diuhon]

Now I'm worried that they're stupid enough to let the atomic genie out of the bottle as some horrific last resort now that every other method has failed them.

Have no fear! Sadako will loan us her surplus cranes!

[Free Algerstonia]

personally i hope that russia nukes ukraine, but the nuke is defective and does not detonate

[Tarsonis]

AP discovered 10 Russian torture sites in Izyum and reported that torture was widespread against Ukrainian POWs and civilians. Eight were killed under torture in Russian custody, all but one were civilians. At least 30 out of 447 bodies exacavated in a mass grave in the woods near Izyum have torture marks on them.

And this is just scratching the surface. More details in the article.

this is just gonna continue to be a horror show every mile the reclaim isn't it....

[Hiram Land]

60k casualties on the Russian side per Ukrainian MoD

[Corrian]

AP discovered 10 Russian torture sites in Izyum and reported that torture was widespread against Ukrainian POWs and civilians. Eight were killed under torture in Russian custody, all but one were civilians. At least 30 out of 447 bodies exacavated in a mass grave in the woods near Izyum have torture marks on them.

And this is just scratching the surface. More details in the article.

this is just gonna continue to be a horror show every mile the reclaim isn't it....

I suspect the more major cities are gonna be absolutely horrifying when they eventually get them back. I don't even want to know what they'll find in Mariupol