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I am gaining the impression that the Russians will maintain close control over the eastern border, the southern littoral, and possibly the entire Dnieper valley up to Belarus, including Kiev, perhaps in the framework of a peace treaty and new federal constitution, sham or not, while the western half centered around Lviv will come into the western fold supervised closely by Poland and the US, with some help from Hungary and Slovakia; German businesses will operate, but the Germans won’t be allowed to make any foreign policy and military decisions.
And therein will lie a Cold Peace/War. So, yes, on that basis, business as usual a year from now.
Just an impression, I really don’t know.
And that's how it historically was, starting from the 1600ies at least.
And that's how it should be, as far as I am concerned, because those are the inseparable places of the Russian culture/history, that were alienated from her for the last 30 years, as the result of the 90ies and what took place there.
The Westernmost part of Ukraine is alien to Russia and always was ( again - historically so,) and should be up for grabs now. ( Again.)
But now I am looking at Moldova (at least the part that used to belong to Russia) -I have forgotten about the existence of that place all together.
I wonder now if Putin will decide to take chunk of that land too.
What many people don't understand is that Russian military is VERY skillful and knowledgeable - it's top notch actually when calculating the potential strategic dangers for the state security/borders, and what routs/roads lead where to strategic points within Russia.
They calculate where they want to draw the borders with this idea in mind, in spite of any "international condemnations."
I think that lesson with Finland's borders and subsequent death of million people in St. Petersburg ( then Leningrad) was a good lesson in "strategic planning." ( Not that Russians didn't try to NEGOTIATE with Finland first, what lands they needed from Finland to assure the security of Leningrad, but of course Finns refused to cooperate. But THIS part is always conveniently overlooked - everyone in the West is only talking about the "cowardly Russian attack on innocent Finland," which was not all that "innocent" during the WWII.)
Of course this sentiment of the "border security" that Russia was always so preoccupied with, is often not understood by the countries like US or Great Britain, that are surrounded by the natural water barrier, but for Russia it's a whole different story.
And when it comes to the calculations of the Russian military commanders - they'll step on anyone's "rights" in order to assure the security of the Russian state.
( One needs to get familiar with the Russian folk fairy tale "Teremok" to get the idea of the "Bear mentality" lol.)
And now as they say "God works in mysterious ways" - Russia is becoming the stronghold of the "conservative ideas" in the cultural "Christendom," while the wokesters are on attack all over the proverbial "West."
P.S. Obviously, I am not a hypocrite and I don't want to live in Putin's Russia.
But what I see happening here is bigger than "Putin."
Among Vladimir Putin's first acts were to have his government take control of the major TV networks so he could control information there, and then he altered the constitution so that we would personally choose the heads of the oblasts (states) in Russia, rather than them being chosen by democratic elections, greatly increasing his power. And of course he had the constitution changed to allow him to be president for life. Russia has only been a pseudo-democracy ever since he seized power.
Oh come on - most so called western democracies are really oligarchies under tight control of big money and corporations, especially the US - unless you are not a billionaire or sponsored by billionaires you have no chance on winning elections.
Not that Russia is much different, but why would it be if post-Soviet state was built essentially by US agents under Yeltsin.
Oh come on - most so called western democracies are really oligarchies under tight control of big money and corporations, especially the US - unless you are not a billionaire or sponsored by billionaires you have no chance on winning elections.
Not that Russia is much different, but why would it be if post-Soviet state was built essentially by US agents under Yeltsin.
I think that lesson with Finland's borders and subsequent death of million people in St. Petersburg ( then Leningrad) was a good lesson in "strategic planning." ( Not that Russians didn't try to NEGOTIATE with Finland first, what lands they needed from Finland to assure the security of Leningrad, but of course Finns refused to cooperate. But THIS part is always conveniently overlooked - everyone in the West is only talking about the "cowardly Russian attack on innocent Finland," which was not all that "innocent" during the WWII.)
Of course this sentiment of the "border security" that Russia was always so preoccupied with, is often not understood by the countries like US or Great Britain, that are surrounded by the natural water barrier, but for Russia it's a whole different story.
Wait I'am not sure I get you right.
You think a country like Finland have to give you part of his territory because you don't fell in security?
So russia is totally legitimate to invade other country and annex territory?
Also, not a single source mentions anything about the suffering of animals in those hard times. Be it pets of citizens or stray cats and dogs. But hey these are the same people who "euthanize" their own animals, I guess the nazi accusations from Russia towards the west are getting more and more credibility.
But what I see happening here is bigger than "Putin."
This conflict says more about the USA who prop the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution with Victoria Nuland handling out cups of coffee while making all sorts of wild promises of US support to the protestors.
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Who is Victoria Nuland? Most Americans have never heard of her, because the U.S. corporate media's foreign policy coverage is a wasteland. Most Americans have no idea that President-elect Biden's pick for deputy secretary of state for political affairs is stuck in the quicksand of 1950s U.S.-Russia Cold War politics and dreams of continued NATO expansion, an arms race on steroids and further encirclement of Russia.
Nor do they know that from 2003 to 2005, during the hostile U.S. military occupation of Iraq, Nuland was a foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney, the Darth Vader of the Bush administration.
You can bet, however, that the people of Ukraine have heard of neocon Nuland. Many have even heard the leaked four-minute audio of her saying "**** the EU" during a February 2014 phone call with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt.
During the infamous call on which Nuland and Pyatt appeared to be plotting to replace or undermine elected Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, Nuland expressed her not-so-diplomatic disgust with the European Union for favoring former heavyweight boxer and austerity champ Vitali Klitschko to take over as prime minister, instead of the U.S. first choice, Artseniy Yatsenyuk, who indeed took power after Yanukovych was ousted about three weeks later. . . .
The "**** the EU" call went viral, as an embarrassed State Department, never denying the call's authenticity, blamed the Russians for tapping the phone, much as the NSA has tapped the phones of European allies. . . . .
Despite outrage from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, no one fired Nuland, but her potty mouth upstaged the more serious story: the U.S. plot to overthrow Ukraine's elected government — and America's responsibility for a civil war that has killed at least 13,000 people and left Ukraine the poorest country in Europe. . . .
After protests in Kyiv's Maidan Square turned into battles with police in February 2014, Yanukovych and the Western-backed opposition signed an agreement brokered by France, Germany and Poland to form a national unity government and hold new elections by the end of the year.
But that was not good enough for the neo-Nazis and extreme right-wing forces the U.S. had helped to unleash. A violent mob led by the Right Sector militia marched on and invaded the parliament building, a scene no longer difficult for Americans to imagine. Yanukovych and his members of parliament fled for their lives.
The majority Russian-speaking provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine, triggering a bloody civil war between U.S.-backed and Russian-backed forces that still rages in 2021.
Nuland also wants to confront Russia with an aggressive NATO. Since her days as U.S. ambassador to NATO during President George W. Bush's second term, she has been a supporter of NATO's expansion all the way up to Russia's border. She calls for "permanent bases along NATO's eastern border."
There aren't many good-paying jobs in Russia - the economy has been a casualty of the rule of Putin and his oligarch cronies. No business can really rise above the suffocating corruption. I guess being a Kremlin internet troll is good work if you can get it, for them.
As opposed to the Yeltsin years when it was all sunshine? The roots of Putin can be found in Yeltsin's failures.
I was watching an SNL episode from 1993 the other day (mid 90s SNL will always be the best to me) and the cold opening was a skit which was riffing off the movie Indecent Proposal that was a big hit at the time. But in the skit it was Bill Clinton offering Yeltsin American aid worth 1 billion dollars if he could screw Yeltsin's wife. Yeltsin's wife urges him that it's worth doing it for the money the country needs so badly, so Yeltsin agrees. At the end of the skit, Clinton screwed Yeltsin's wife, but Congress vetoed the aid package to Yeltsin's chagrin.
That was how Russia was seen in the 90s, a joke, a poor, humiliated country desperate for Western help. I think that Russians were always going to respond by looking for a strong man leader, and so it's not shocking the majority has stood behind him for so long there.
The oligarchs existed well before Putin, of course, and we (the West) were until about Tuesday morning or so more than happy to deal with them, to have them live in the West End of London, to have them own beachfront mansions in L.A. or Miami etc.
Oligarchs of course also exist in Ukraine and they will exist there no matter how the war ends. Do people think Ukraine turned into the Netherlands in 2014? It's still cowboy Eastern Europe, one way or another.
Why would the Russian economy take a huge hit? It’s a natural resources economy. Germany will buy all the natural gas the Russians can pump to them. The west will buy any and all oil they produce and all the minerals they dig out of the ground. The west doesn’t have the political will to send troops. The United States will only deploy military where they have overwhelming superiority. US troops in the Ukraine is a political impossibility.
So I think Putin will grab as much of the Ukraine as he can get away with, what’s left of the Ukraine will be forced to sign a sham “peace treaty”, and it will be business as usual a year from now.
Wait I'am not sure I get you right.
You think a country like Finland have to give you part of his territory because you don't fell in security?
No, Finland doesn't have to give to Russia anything - they are definitely free to fight for what is theirs.
But it's only logical for the Russian commanders to try to negotiate, (or to take by force if negotiations fail) the territory, IF they feel that millions of their people are in potential mortal danger. Which, alas, was confirmed.
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So russia is totally legitimate to invade other country and annex territory?
Let me ask you even more interesting question.
(Knowing what we know now about the siege of Leningrad, that took lives of million people.)
If those lands that Russians were trying to negotiate were ceded to them, ( or conquered) and the siege would have never taken place ( thus) saving million people, would it be "totally legitimate for Russia to annex that Finnish territory?"
Yes/No and explanations for both versions please.
P.S. Meanwhile, I am going to make yet another post on Donbass ( Donetsk) and such city as Kharkov, and where I see the difference.
All is pretty clear. ( I can go back to that and expand it a bit further later if needed.)
Bottom line - it's a blue collar region ( miners, steel workers,) who are more likely to take guns and to stand up for their rights, when the freedom of choice was clearly taken away from them with the help of the West.
Even when Putin's Russia was nowhere on the horizon to help, these people went for resistance no matter what.
(And obviously, the Western media walled them with silence, until Russia stepped in and then they became "pro-Russian separatists" in Western media and "terrorists" in Ukrainian one.
But let's look now at yet another Russian-speaking city in Ukrainian South-East - such place as Kharkov.
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