> The Russian forces seem to be trying to encircle or assault Kyiv.
Yes, but although Putin is a bloody bastard, he's not stupid.
His plan isn't to take entire control of Ukraine militarily but to swap the legit government with a puppet one he would control at will. Once he succeed, which is a matter of a few days, he'll gradually withdraw most of the forces, things will slowly return to normal and in a few years Ukraine will essentially (if not effectively) annex itself to Russia, with both the EU and US doing nothing but economic sanctions Putin and the oligarchs were long prepared against. Most of Europe depends on Russian gas, which means the moment those sanctions become too harsh is the moment he'll either cut our supply or further raise the prices (my last heating bill already doubled). That's his guarantee against any real action.
I'm sorry, but Ukrainian people are screwed.
You missed the step where he needs to brutalize population into submission. This will take time and mountains of corpses. He can’t just put a puppet there and call it a day. Puppet will be dead by week after. No he has to occupy the country and crush the opposition.
> No he has to occupy the country and crush the opposition.
In a country the size of Ukraine, controlling cities isn't easy, the risk of transforming the conflict into a guerrilla is too dangerous. Tanks would have to level down entire cities block by block to get full control, and that would likely result in a bloodshed with lots of casualties also among Russians. As much as Putin acts like a dictator, he still need some kind of support from his own people and pro-Russia Ukrainians.
As a disgruntled climate scientist, I think Europe needs to get off natural gas by 1990. It’s not as if the security benefits weren’t obvious when we all were buying from the Arab world, or the wider global security destabilization caused by climate change.
The cancellation of the NS2 pipeline has been a silver lining, even if it's hard to compare the long-term quanta of brutality a given amount of CO2 leads to vs the short term brutality of war.
It's not enough: they need to actively get rid of the parts of it that are built. The problem with sanctions at the moment is Russia is betting that once they win, give it a few years and business sycophants will be arguing that Ukraine is "ancient history we can't let hold back THE ECONOMY".
> Shutting down atomic power in Germany was such a brilliant move.
What's done is done. Europe has enough wind potential to power the world [1]. Add solar [2], batteries, transmission, pumped hydro, remaining operational nuclear, and electrify everything (EVs, heat pumps, etc). Fill the remainder with LNG shipments from the US in the short term [3]. It's a national defense/security/sovereignty issue now to get off of Russian gas, and it should be treated as such with regards to allocation of resources to speed the effort.
Europe does not have enough wind power potential to power the world, by a very large margin. To power France with wind, not just electricity but all energy needs including oil, natgas, etc... you would need one large windmill for every single square kilometer of the country...
I confirmed it’s in SciHub if you want to grab a copy.
> The continuous development of onshore wind farms is an important feature of the European transition towards an energy system powered by distributed renewables and low-carbon resources. This study assesses and simulates potential for future onshore wind turbine installations throughout Europe. The study depicts, via maps, all the national and regional socio-technical restrictions and regulations for wind project development using spatial analysis conducted through GIS. The inputs for the analyses were based on an original dataset compiled from satellites and public databases relating to electricity, planning, and other dimensions. Taking into consideration socio-technical constraints, which restricts 54% of the combined land area in Europe, the study reveals a nameplate capacity of 52.5 TW of untapped onshore wind power potential in Europe - equivalent to 1 MW per 16 European citizens – a supply that would be sufficient to cover the global all-sector energy demand from now through to 2050. The study offers a more rigorous, multi-dimensional, and granular atlas of onshore wind energy development that can assist with future energy policy, research, and planning.
"Global" in this context means all of Europe, not all of earth. 1 MW per 16 European citizens is not remotely close to enough power for the entire earth.
Wind power is useful but not directly comparable to gas or nuclear, for obvious reasons. You can't store the wind or the electricity generated from it.
Everyone who had eyes and was watching the natural gas situation in Germany and other countries to the east of it, would see that even a few years ago.
Yeah, this has been my frustration for a while. Honestly, at this point just buy natural gas from a country that isn't helmed by a warlord. Similarly, Germany decommissioning its nuclear reactors isn't helping matters. I genuinely wonder what short term solutions are feasible with respect to decreasing dependence on Russian gas--can Europe ramp up production of heat pumps or similar? Is "Norway expanding its natural gas capacity" a reasonable short term option? Would love to hear from people who know anything about this.
Gas is important, but what is more important is the nuclear arsenal.
The US, China, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, are effectively untouchable by conventional military means, because they are able and willing to unleash nuclear holocaust in return - no matter what they do.
Those two don't have the resources to project significantly (like superpowers), nor the pressure of border conflict (like the others I mentioned). So their nuclear capabilities are somewhat irrelevant.
Not sure why you think North Korea and Pakistan can project and not France and UK which both have nuclear attack submarines. The heart of nuclear detterrence lies in those submarines that can cause second strike MAD.
Sorry but being insulting is not going to make your argument more convincing. Pretending that somehow NK and Pakistan have more nuclear capabilities that FR or UK is a joke.
> His plan isn't to take entire control of Ukraine militarily but to swap the legit government with a puppet one he would control at will. Once he succeed, which is a matter of a few days,he'll gradually withdraw most of the forces, things will slowly return to normal and in a few years Ukraine will essentially (if not effectively) annex itself to Russia
I wouldn't be so certain. I don't think Ukrainians would just comply, many of them would fight against such a thing and would know the new regime is fake. Furthermore, Kyiv is a big city with peculiar geography. Urban fighting is hell, and if Ukraine decides to make a principled stand there it could take weeks of bloody fighting before it falls; and if Ukraine's government evacuates to Lviv in time, and continues the fight from there, it might result in a long struggle, regardless of who gets installed in Kyiv by Putin.
Oh and we don't know how the Russian public will react if the war gets to an urban bloodbath going for weeks or months.
Genuine question: how much does Russian public opinion matter? It's not like Russia has free elections. Iran's Islamic Republic seems pretty secure despite low public approval. I'm sure public opinion is important, but I don't understand its role in a dictatorship.
> Genuine question: how much does Russian public opinion matter
If it didn't matter, internal Russian propaganda organs wouldn't be firing on all cylinders. The press is not just a 'jobs' program.
Every government requires the consent of the governed. Democracies, semi-democracies, dictatorships, autocracies, theocracies, all of them only work because people believe in them.
For this reason, all forms of government put a lot of effort into manufacturing consent among the people they govern.
Popular opinion in a dictatorship matters very little. Much more important is the opinion of other people in power. Those might see how unpopular the dictator is with the masses as an opportunity and 'forget' to deploy some security measures...
There's a reason sanctions are being applied to rich families.
If Putin would be seen as a brutal murderer by many russians, then chance are that there are some who could try to assassinate him, like there were many assassination attempts to Hitler.
It matters of course, because if the people get pissed enough they'll topple the dictatorship, especially if the security services get disenchanted as well.
what if Russia used chemical weapons? doesn't hurt physical infrastructure, provokes shock and fear, kills or incapacitates a lot of people, denies tons of area to the Ukrainians.
I'm not sure Russia has much left to lose politically by stooping to that.
That's such a straightforward narrative, but then why has no major power ever been able to annex and occupy an unwilling nation before?
Everywhere Russia has taken to date was already a separatist region, but I'm really racking my brain to think of times when a country 'just simply annexed' another area by force since the fall of the Raj.
Western Sahara has a population similar to Huntsville Alabama's metro region, so I guess you are right, but I hope you also see why that situation is very different from this one.
As for Tibet, repeating an earlier comment:
Tibet was under control of the Qing Dynasty (i.e. China) until its end in 1912.
From 1912-1950, Tibet (due to its remoteness) acted as an de facto independent region, despite Western legal precedent stating it was still under the control of Beijing.
When attempting to get de jure independence from China in 1951, China asserted control over the region.
Yeah, having trouble thinking of one since '57. Examples abound from the first half of the 20th century (and certainly before then), but less so in the latter half.
Smaller states, though, yes. But not major powers. This may have more to do with shifting priorities for major powers, than with anything else.
Population size doesn’t matter. What only matters is strong army willing to repeal aggressor. What could help Ukraine is that Russian soldiers don’t want to fight for Putin and oligarchs.
Tibet was under control of the Qing Dynasty (i.e. China) until its end in 1912.
From 1912-1950, Tibet (due to its remoteness) acted as an de facto independent region, despite Western legal precedent stating it was still under the control of Beijing.
When attempting to get de jure independence from China in 1951, China asserted control over the region.
Nobody likes to admit it, but yeah. It all boils down to might makes right; if you revolt or otherwise cause a ruckus and win then it becomes the right path of history - see: USA, etc.
Yes, but although Putin is a bloody bastard, he's not stupid. His plan isn't to take entire control of Ukraine militarily but to swap the legit government with a puppet one he would control at will. Once he succeed, which is a matter of a few days, he'll gradually withdraw most of the forces, things will slowly return to normal and in a few years Ukraine will essentially (if not effectively) annex itself to Russia, with both the EU and US doing nothing but economic sanctions Putin and the oligarchs were long prepared against. Most of Europe depends on Russian gas, which means the moment those sanctions become too harsh is the moment he'll either cut our supply or further raise the prices (my last heating bill already doubled). That's his guarantee against any real action. I'm sorry, but Ukrainian people are screwed.