That was some very purposeful misreading to be able to blackpaint Ukraine, while shifting focus away from the topic.
> instead forcing millions into the meat grinder against their will,
How is the weather in St. Petersburg? This is a text book example of projection.
As instructed, you should continue with false balance and whatabboutisms.
---
Oh wait.
I hope you are getting paid for this kind of stuff instead of being someone that died in a ton of psychological mindfucks. If the latter, you do their work.
Sure, but I made sure to be VERY obvious about it, both for the first point and my last point.
I find people in general to be quite smart, I doubt anyone was genuinely convinced I didn't know you were referring to the US President's children.
> while shifting focus away from the topic.
I hope not. There's even quite an important point that gets lost when reading it out of context:
> blackpaint Ukraine
Absolutely not.
Whom I'm greatly displeased by are the previous US administration, the European leaders and Zelensky. Trump just going in and immediately making significant progress during the negotiations proves, that any of them could have stopped this slaughter whenever they wanted.
There was always the question whether Russia's constant pleas for negotiations both prior and during the war were nothing but macabre PR. And yet the moment a genuine chance presented itself, they agreed to it immediately.
Compared to our countries' leaders our own insight into politics is nothing but a joke. And even if they're unsure, they can just pick up the phone and just try.
Yet none of them did. These demons happily sacrificed the lifes of millions of people on the altar of their virtue.
Ukraine could have had so much. They were offered back all of theit eastern territories and even negotiations regarding the future of Crimea (although those would have been likely derailed) in exchange for keeping neutrality, downsizing their armed forces to 250k people and not allowing any permanent foreign military bases. Russia tried to sneak in veto rights on foreign military exercises on Ukrainian territory, but I doubt there was no way to negotiate that down.
Now, years later, all of that is gone. The country is destroyed, everywhere just death, death and more death and Russia short-circuited and pulled the probably worst geopolitical decision of the 21st century by annexing Ukraine's eastern territories.
And all of these leaders knew very well how this war would progress. It is happening right next to the Russian heartland, where 80% of its population lives. They knew that Russia cannot back down without negotiating an orderly procedure first, even if they suddenly gave up on all their goals and wanted to.
And yet here we are, accusing the one guy who actually tries to put an end to this senseless killing, of only seeing the world in terms of a handful of peers and lacking any compassion.
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I'm only aware of Trump Jr. mocking Zelensky, not anyone else, but I've already asked below if I'm mistaken about that.
But it doesn't matter. The President's children do not reflect upon the President. And actions speak louder than words. What matters is saving people's lifes.
These are a lot of words for the same concept I've pushed above much more strongly, IMO.
> How is the weather in St. Petersburg?
7m of snow, no end in sight and a polar bear drank my vodka supply.
Ukraine could have had so much. They were offered back all of theit eastern territories and even negotiations regarding the future of Crimea (although those would have been likely derailed) in exchange for keeping neutrality, downsizing their armed forces to 250k people and not allowing any permanent foreign military bases.
Or, in other words, a surrender. Disband your army, isolate yourself from allies, and we - the pathologically lying dictatorship that just violated countless prior agreements with by invading - give a pinky promise not to slaughter you.
On 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland, Hitler made a speech in Reichstag where he complained about the very same thing: Poland had been unreasonable by rejecting Hitler's peaceful proposals for limitation of armaments and even full disarmament. A tale as old as history. Invaders always prefer to invade unopposed.
I've been wrong about the 250k troops. That was Ukraine's position at the negotiating table, while Russia's position was 85k. Negotiations on that were still going on.
Yes, it was a surrender, but the conditions were infinitely better than anything achievable right now.
And before the war the conditions were even better, basically just the continuation of Minsk and rejection of NATO membership (as demanded by Putin during the call with Macron just before the invasion).
The conditions were obviously going to get worse and worse the longer this conflict dragged on, but much more importantly:
Yes, it was a surrender, but the conditions were infinitely better than anything achievable right now.
That's where most people, especially Ukrainians, disagree with you. Russia's goal is the complete destruction of Ukraine as an independent country and the eradication of Ukrainians as an ethnicity. Russians already attempted this in the 1930s by starving several million Ukrainians to death through artificial famines. Currently, they are doing their best in occupied areas to root out anything Ukrainian.
Your suggestion to surrender is as good as telling Jews to stop resisting and voluntarily hop on a train to a death camp. Anything is better than certain death.
> Russia's goal is the complete destruction of Ukraine as an independent country and the eradication of Ukrainians as an ethnicity.
Just what would be the motivation behind that?
As an ethnicity, there is little to no difference between eastern Ukrainians and Russians. The Soviet Union even actively preserved local languages like Ukrainian, although they cracked down very harshly on anything culturally they considered at odds with Marxism, like the Orthodox Church, but that wasn't targeted any more against Ukraine compared to other Soviey member states.
> Russians already attempted this in the 1930s by starving several million Ukrainians to death through artificial famines.
Even if this opinion is popular nowadays it's highly misleading.
What caused the holodomor was that agricultural areas and Ukraine in general was highly FAVORED by the Soviets.
Ukraine got a high priority on all the things the Soviets thought of as GOOD. Specifically related to the holodomor:
- Collectivization of farming and industry
- Execution of 'greedy factory and farm owners depriving the proletariat of the fruits of their labor' and those colaborating with them to sabotage communism
- Development and implementation of Marxist sciences, soon after developing into Lysenkoism
- Management of production by implementing quotas based on last year's performance
- Oversight over all production processes, labor and property by party commissars, enforcing the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
- Strict reporting duties to the party management
And in 1928, when the implementation of these policies rapidly accelerated in Ukraine and, to a lesser degree, in other agricultural areas, they seemed like a great success.
The "kulaks" left large amounts of their fields without crops or crops they would later destroy, according to the communists 'to oppress the proletariat and cause the periodic famines', and since of all of the kulaks and their "supporters" had to keep absolutely silent or were executed otherwise, nobody told the Marxists about crop rotation.
Which worked out great in the beginning. The farms could be expanded onto the unused farmland, priority was given to high yield crops like grains and the harvests shot through the roof. And this carried on for another year, despite the soils already starting to be depleted, because the seeds from the previous year stored a lot of the macro and micro nutrients the plants would require throughout their growth.
The Marxists felt greatly vindicated in their believes and the "revolutionary discovery" of Marxist science, that "certain types of seasonal variation of crops could be converted into others by just keeping to grow it throughout the seasons on the same field", allowing for further simplification of growing and storage procedures on the collective farms, created a giant almost nationwide crop monoculture.
Thanks to modern pesticides and fertilizers monocultures have become favored again, but back then this was a catastrophe.
The soil was depleted, the stored nutrients in seeds were depleted, there were unfavorable weather conditions and pests and crop diseases began rapidly spreading throughout the monoculture, accelerated by the weakened plants.
So while the quota was even more increased due to last year's great performance, harvests began decreasing, initially slowly, but soon rapidly.
The Soviet commissars went to the farms to check what was happening and found farmers just throwing aside crops (the ones with diseases) and hungry people, who suffered under the bad harvest combined with high quotas, coming to collect these crops. Of course, as is Communist tradition, these people were quickly executed or shipped of to "internment" camps and collective farms were heavily guarded.
But both soils and seeds became more and more nutrient depleted, the grain quality kept decreasing, requiring more to achieve the same nutritional value, crop diseases became ever more prevalent and harvests were about to hit rock bottom.
The communists, as always convinced by the perfection of their ideology, came to the conclusion that the kulaks and their supporters were sabotaging Communism. As vindictive as demanded by their ideology, they immediately started measures to root out the problem. Collective farms "subverted by the kulaks" had their quotas skyrocketed and leaving them or trading with them was forbidden.
Afraid to end up being targeted next when not meeting their quota, other farms and their officials collected grains from where ever they could, including from normal people, emergency reserves and even seeds for the next year and crops with diseases were cleaned up and included in the shipments.
People became sick due to the low quality and quantity of crops and malnutritioned, they could work less and less effectively, there were still all of the previous unresolved problems and on top of that the emergency rations (except for those managed directly by the party in secret) were gone.
I was born and educated in the USSR. I was in middle school at the height of one of the many Russification campaigns, which went as far as forbidding us, the students, from speaking our native language among ourselves even during recess. We were ordered to "speak like humans", that is, in Russian, and were physically punished if we didn't obey. So please forgive me if I refuse to believe the commie fairy tales about the preservation of local languages. The reality was anything but.
Nor can I offer an entirely rational explanation for why Russians want to murder Ukrainians, why Germans gassed millions of Jews, or why many other such horrible crimes have been committed throughout history. Why are Russians destroying Ukrainian libraries in occupied territories? Why would a sane, rational person burn books?
As for the Holodomor, I'd like to repeat an older comment of mine: a) Stalin and other top-ranking officials were aware of the food shortages in Ukraine, b) they knew that their policies were going to make things worse, c) they still adopted those policies, and d) they expressed satisfaction with the outcome. They deliberately allowed millions of people to die of starvation to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
The utterly criminal intent becomes very clear when examined at the personal level.
If someone came to your city, confiscated all food, harshly punished any attempts to store even a minimal amount for basic survival, caused a horrific starvation that killed many people, drove survivors to such insanity that parents ate the flesh off their children, and still blocked all foreign aid and prevented people from leaving, then how would you call it if not deliberate mass murder?
How is it any different from Germans locking Jews up in ghettos and letting them starve to death? It isn't, at that's why the Holodomor has seen gradual international recognition as genocide, most notably by the European Parliament, which represents 450 million Europeans from 27 countries.
> I was born and educated in the USSR. I was in middle school at the height of one of the many Russification campaigns, which went as far as forbidding us, the students, from speaking our native language among ourselves even during recess.
I guess it's naive for me to assume there was a common situation throughout the entire SU.
My Grandpa was a German living along the Danube and then dragged off by the Communists to a remote village in Uzbekistan, because his dad was pressed into the Wehrmacht.
They were taught in German, Russian and the local language in school. And that was under the definitively very kind hearted but bit austere communist scholar Stalin /s. When Stalin finally made his greatest contribution to mankind (fueled by paranoia, wiping out the Extremists in the Party around him and then going to hell), Gramps got a chance to become a German teacher.
And I guess, after thinking about it for a bit, that might be where our differences in accounts are coming from. Gramps obviously wouldn't ever have seen a school from the inside, that didn't teach multiple languages. Also he despised anything Russian to the point, he refused to talk to any of his own children in anything but German.
And his favorite joke was:
> A war veteran was applying to join the Communist Party. The examiners were greatly pleased by his many achievements to further the people's causes during the war. The only problem were his rather poor educational credentials, which was also shown by the misspelling of the Party: KPS.
> So the examiners told him: "You'd be a great fit and your rapid advancement would be assured, but you need to learn how to spell the name of our Party. Not S, but SS."
> Veteran: "Nein, I've already been in the SS."
Apparently got detained several times over it, so I guess he wasn't holding back. Also applied for travel to Germany every single year, which "surprisingly" wasn't even granted once. Not sure why the Communists kept him around as a teacher...
> We were ordered to "speak like humans"
Apparently that was the attitude of the Russians living in the major cities all over the SU. Never been told any more about it, tho.
Dragging ears, beatings and sending students to the back of the food line during cotton harvest was definitely encouraged for all kinds of disobedience.
> why Germans gassed millions of Jews
The Nazis blamed the Jews for the German Revolution in 1918.
I really dont know the leadup to this claim, the strong dislike of Jews at this point in time in general or how it was managed to sell this to the German people.
It's just not being taught, which is s huge mistake in my opinion. There is very little understanding among Germans on how this situation could have escalated to this absurd degree and therefore also absolutely 0 awareness for potential trends in a similar direction.
Nowadays "Nazis" and "Fascists" are just whoever the left currently intends to purge the most and people can't name a single of the Nazis' policies except "Hitler killed Jews" and "Hitler built the Autobahn." Which is a very sad and, tbh, dangerous state.
I've thought of just reading Hitler's (and his associates') books, speeches and laws myself, but they're ... not very pleasant to read and of questionable value, since the Nazi leadership did seem to believe very little about their own drivel and just spouted whatever they thought would get them in power.
> Why are Russians destroying Ukrainian libraries in occupied territories?
Havent heard about this, but they're emptying museums with the excuse of protecting historic artifacts. Can't really judge this until the war is over, Ukraine asks Russia to return these objects and makes preparations to receive and store them. Then we'll see how much there is to Russia's clakms on this.
> Why would a sane, rational person burn books?
Not a good look if done by Russians, it'd be different if done by the LPR/DPR militias. Same situation as Ukraine getting rid of Russian books. These two sides have been killing each other over a language dispute for quite some time.
Also, it's less about the destruction of knowledge and culture, rather than symbolic. People will just download an ebook nowadays.
> a) Stalin and other top-ranking officials were aware of the food shortages in Ukraine, b) they knew that their policies were going to make things worse, c) they still adopted those policies, and d) they expressed satisfaction with the outcome. They deliberately allowed millions of people to die of starvation to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
a) Yes, but the information they received was often falsified (due to people not daring to admit the failures of collective policies, I guess) and delayed through the process. They still knew, but very convinced of being sabotaged.
b) I dont know of any evidence they intended to worsen the situation for the general population. They certainly intended to make the situation much worse for anyone they thought of trying to sabotage Communism. But that's just a matter of ideology. Germany nowadays arrests anyone showing any Nazi affiliated symbolism, Communists shot everyone showing a slightly furrowed eyebrows during the Party's declarations.
c) It's a death cult. Of course a Communist would never spare a perceived opponent.
d) actually never heard about this. I know they declared the agricultural revolution a great success, trying to brush the holodomor under the carpet (replacing dead population with Russians, preventing people from fleeing, rejecting foreign aid under the pretense that everything is ok, suppressing the release of any details, ...) in pursuit of Communist ideological perfection, but that'd be important to know about. Do you have any links saved? Otherwise I just go digging myself
> to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
For some the latter is certainly true and Stalin was indeed worried about Ukrainian nationalism (since the only major difference between the leftist ideologies of the Second International, Nazism, Fascism and Communism, was their disagreement on whether nationalism (Engels) or internationalism (Marx) was more suited to overthrow capitalism).
But mass starvation generally wasn't how the Communists tried to impose "the dictatorship of the people". They usually relied on violent mobs, kidnappings and assassinations where they weren't already in power and executing people, disappearing people into internment camps and informers among the population where they already took over.
In fact I'd highly doubt they would deliberately sabotage their collectivization pilot project.
Communists are aweful people with 0 respect for human life, but they'd never risk any information on Communist collectivization being anything but a great success spreading.
> [...] then how would you call it if not deliberate mass murder?
A Communist pilot project, resulting in an apocalyptic famine, combined with ensuring the angelic purity of Communism.
If I build a bridge, it collapses with many people on it and I open a dam upstream to flood away all the people and evidence, I didn't intent to kill these people, nor did I try to specifically target the population of this town. The people might survive the flood or not, all I would have cared about is getting rid of the evidence.
What I would have been, is an awful bridge designer, bottom of the barrel human and a severe ideological narcissist with 0 regard a for human life. There might be many mass-murderers with a much more superior moral compass, but all that would be important to me is successfully having saved the reputation of my bridges being the utmost superior and infallible.
> How is it any different from Germans locking Jews up in ghettos and letting them starve to death?
The Nazis desired the utter destruction of the Jewish population in Europe and deliberately designed an efficient system to pull off their genocide.
The Communists desired the best future for the future of their population, designed their perfect system and graciously bestowed it upon the agrcultural regions at gunpoint, unsurprisingly killed millions, and then were concerned about other regions not entirely embracing Communist dictates anymore if they became aware of potential minor flaws in the Party's interpretation of Marxism.
It's not entirely clear which of these two sides of the coin is worse, the Nazis, who would have killed entire population subgroups ever so often, or the Communists, who would have observed their ideology killing millions of people ever so often and would have started reflecting on additional writings of various Marxist authors to devine up the perfect adjustment to their ideology, which sadly wasn't real Communism before, but now it definitively is and if you got any questions about it, the execution wall is right over there.
> that's why the Holodomor has seen gradual international recognition as genocide, most notably by the European Parliament, which represents 450 million Europeans from 27 countries.
Sadly the resolution of the EU is loaded up with ideological drivel and opportunism.
Furthermore, it just barely recognizes that the holodomor affected many other regions and calls to crack down on anything perceived as historical revisionism.
I have no problem with people widening the definition of a genocide in order to fit the atrocity that is the holodomor, and leftist collectivism in general, into it. What I dislike is people actively revising history or misrepresenting it by projecting modern or temporally or spatially separated concepts in general onto it.
You do realize of course that the Russians had already signed the Budapest Memorandum in which the Russian Federation would not use military or economic force against Ukraine except in self defence?
Or Russia's insistence that the Little Green Men in Crimea were not Russians forces, in spite of the fact that somehow these militiamen had the cutting edge of issued Russian Army equipment.
And that the invasion of Ukraine was justified in removing Nazis. As if somehow the single Azov Brigade was somehow actually in control of Ukraine.
This whole argument that Ukraine and the EU could stop this slaughter is inane. What exactly would make you think think Russia's promises about a peace agreement are worth any more then the agreement they've already willingly broken? What makes you think they're telling the truth this time around when they have been disinclined to do so thus far?
> You do realize of course that the Russians had already signed the Budapest Memorandum in which the Russian Federation would not use military or economic force against Ukraine except in self defence?
Not only military, but also economic and political coercion.
In hindsight it was a huge mistake when the US established it as not binding in order to sanction Belarus in 2013.
> Or Russia's insistence that the Little Green Men in Crimea were not Russians forces
I'm not sure on this, but it not unlikely Russia could not officially act until the "Republic of Crimea" requested it.
That's why local militias from overseas were decided by themselves to organize an "election" about whether the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence or on the other hand if the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence. And afterwards these militias finally got to join the Russian forces, for which they all had completed the necessary paperwork years ago.
> And that the invasion of Ukraine was justified in removing Nazis.
This completely breaks my mind as well. Sure, Ukraine has a very ... odd ... relationship with their Nazi past, but Putin was acting as if the Nazis from the dark side of the moon had descended upon Ukraine. And then this issue is turned into a "btw. footnote" during all negotiation attempts.
Also him going on Tucker and starting to ramble about the Cro Magnon making "Rus! Rus!" noises when hunting after mammoths on the future territory of Ukraine.
What sent me down the rabbit hole of what is probably actually going on was Gorbachev telling journalists that "he's rewatched Putins speech on the 2007 Munich Security Conference" when asked why this war is happening. That was just before his death.
On the other hand, we shouldn't underestimate Putin. The guy had unrestricted access to some of the world's best intelligence services for decades, hundreds of analysts looking at every situation from every angle, a direct line of communication to absolutely anyone he wants, unmatched political experience and worst of all, he's devilish smart.
There's probably not a single person on earth who could figure out Putin's true intentions and ways of thinking if he intended to keep them hidden.
> What exactly would make you think think Russia's promises about a peace agreement are worth any more then the agreement they've already willingly broken?
These agreements do not exist in a vacuum. There are motivations behind this war and these might be perfectly addressable via peaceful means. That the US and Russia are now talking makes this even more likely.
Most people dont believe this, but Russia doesnt want Ukrainian territory except for Crimea (due to its strategic control over the Strait of Kerch, I assume). This is because of the utter mess it'll cause in the future.
Even before the current war (2022) Ukraine was the single most mined country in the world. The amount of explosives out in the open is beyond mind boggling and the war was just making it ever more worse.
Then there's the wide spread destruction caused by the Donbass conflict since 2014 and the huge amounts of weapons floating around.
Now you annex that territory. Suddenly you've got yourself a whole army of well trained, well armed and very disgruntled former Ukrainians.
So on top of all the previous problems you've signed yourself up for, you've now got yourself an entire new population of people relying on welfare, because all of the economy in their area was destroyed, millions of homeless, because their cities were destroyed, and many of them are willing to launch the largest insurgency of the century against you and are perfectly trained and equipped to do so.
Every piece of Ukraine Russia tries to gobble up will poison it for decades.
IMO Russia is genuinely scared of Ukraine joining NATO, hence when Ukraine joined the NATO EOP program (used by Sweden and Finland to join NATO) Russia began preparing the 2022 invasion.
>That's why local militias from overseas were decided by themselves to organize an "election" about whether the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence or on the other hand if the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence. And afterwards these militias finally got to join the Russian forces, for which they all had completed the necessary paperwork years ago.
> This completely breaks my mind as well. Sure, Ukraine has a very ... odd ... relationship with their Nazi past, but Putin was acting as if the Nazis from the dark side of the moon had descended upon Ukraine. And then this issue is turned into a "btw. footnote" during all negotiation attempts.
The best theory I've heard, and admittedly these theories put forward by American, is that Putin is lying about the Nazi's. To him at least, part of his world view appears to be in effect that there is Ukraine. In short that Ukraine is a mistake done by Lenin forced about by a anti Russian agenda of some kind, and that erasing the imagine imaginary line between Ukraine and Russia is necessary to return Russia to the world stage like it was it was part of the USSR.
No idea how true it is but it makes more sense then any other explanation I've heard thus far. And the Kremlin has published an essay by Putin that seems to support that world view even if he's very flowery about it. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
That and there's the theory that Putin himself was being fed in effect bad intelligence about both the readiness of his own armed forces as well as the general attitude of Ukrainians towards Russians; namely that the Ukrainians would welcome Russian liberation. Not so much out of malice, but the fact that a lot of folks were telling Putin what they thought he wanted to hear. Given what Putin did to his rivals, not too hard to make a guess why they wouldn't want to give him bad news.
>Most people dont believe this, but Russia doesnt want Ukrainian territory except for Crimea (due to its strategic control over the Strait of Kerch, I assume). This is because of the utter mess it'll cause in the future.
... Ooookay. ...So I've got a really big problem with that theory. Mostly because the actions that Russian military has taken indicates that they want nothing short but to take Ukraine in it's entirety, but were ill prepared for what they got.
But suppose you say is true. What purpose does seizing and holding does Kherson serve to in keeping the control over Crimea and the Strait of Kerch, exactly? It's on the other side of Crimea from Russia. Why attempt go even further and seize Odessa?
Why open a northern front in the Kharkiv Oblast? It's on the opposite side of Ukraine.
Why try to open a front from Belarus into Kyiv?
That's an awful lot of fronts to open up to try take territory that Russia does not want.
>IMO Russia is genuinely scared of Ukraine joining NATO, hence when Ukraine joined the NATO EOP program (used by Sweden and Finland to join NATO) Russia began preparing the 2022 invasion.
First, neither Sweden nor Finland entered into the EOP until after 2014. They were interoperable and friendly, but the EOP didn't happen until May in 2014. Directly in response to the rhe Russian annexation of was more or less done in April of 2014.
Second, Russia got that when they seized Crimea. Ukraine couldn't join even if they wanted at that point by NATO's own rules without renouncing control of Crimea.
> Neither Sweden nor Finland entered into the EOP until after 2014. They were interoperable and friendly, but the EOP didn't happen until May in 2014. Directly in response to the rhe Russian annexation of was more or less done in April of 2014.
Yes, but it prepared them to pull the trigger on joining NATO at any time. It dont blame them and honestly, I don't think Russia cares very much, even if they complain a bit.
The Russia-Finland border is very sparsely populated and it's easily one of the least traversable terrains world wide, excluding mountain ranges and oceans. It's nothing but hills, swamps, lakes, forrest swamps and hill swamps.
The point is: Joining the EOP program is a huge warning sign that you're about to join NATO at any moment.
> Russia got that when they seized Crimea. Ukraine couldn't join even if they wanted at that point by NATO's own rules without renouncing control of Crimea
They could have just given up on Crimea, signed the NATO deal and immediately renewed their claims.
Also, these "rules" are loose guidelines at best. Plenty of countries have joined NATO with ongoing border conflicts. Prime example: Greece and Turkey.
> Putin said that the little green men were Russian military.
Yup, after the fact, probably when it became more feasible to deal with the internal political and bureaucratic fallout.
Hence the intense irony.
> In short that Ukraine is a mistake done by Lenin forced about by a anti Russian agenda of some kind, and that erasing the imagine imaginary line between Ukraine and Russia is necessary to return Russia to the world stage like it was it was part of the USSR.
Putin LOVES to present himself as a hobby historian, but the historical claims Russia has on Ukraine don't make any sense from a practical viewpoint, since these arguments wont add absolutely any weight to Russia trying to further their cause just about anywhere. Especially because the political history of the region is complex enough to challenge just about any claims.
Then there is the catastrophic state of the region even before 2022, before 2014 and even 2004.
Russia is a huge country with incredible wealth, but sparsely populated (beyond the Ukraine-Moscow region), which makes sufficient development of its subregions feasible. People like to laugh at an apparent lack of indoor plumbing in Russia, but that's just because some people want to live that way and often have for generations. There are still many nomads in Russia, secluded villages with little to no contact to the outside for decades, semi-nomadic people moving every few years and pulling up new temporary housing and other variations of people living simple lives.
If you want to live in a higher developed area, there's little stopping you from doing so. What's hard to escape in Russia are the Soviet style apartments and buying yourself into the top cities. Below that and up to that the social mobility is great, easily one of the best worldwide. Beyond thaf, you're screwed, unless you've got good contacts with capable contractors (or VERY deep pockets).
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But now enter the mess that's Ukraine. Much more densly populated, atrociously developed, basically no industry, hardly any profitable natural ressources (all hard and expensive to extract), the social mobility of Hellen Keller, about as well organized as a puzzle tossed from the 10th floor and walking on a random field has a lethality rate of about 20% per 10m.
Taking over responsibility for that catastrophe is signing yourself up for bankruptcy by thousand cuts.
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If Russia were aiming for there former USSR glory, step one would be Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Then Belarus. Most of these countries could be incorporated entirely through political moves, causing little to no international retaliation.
And only then would Ukraine or Georgia be brought to the chopping block. These countries have very high geostrategic value, but also extreme conflict potential, and not only in the military sense.
E.g. Ukraine is both for the US and the EU easy to bully around, if necessary. They're not going to stop buying gas from it, as long as relevant to the markets and available. And Russia can also easily bully Ukraine if necessary, under normal conditions Ukraine isn't going to stop buying gas from Russia. But if Russia and all these other EU/NATO states were to have yet another conflict with eachother, Russia could kiss that revenue good bye.
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And then there's the fact that the USSR failed but just recently before. People dont look favorably on it, neither in Russia nor anywhere else. The risk of people becoming maliciously compliant or outright striking, on top of the various political, social and institutional challenges, is just way too large. It's a good way go turn yourself into a failed state within but a few months.
And Putin would yet again face the reverse version of what he previously called the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century": Millions of people without any national representation being stuck in foreign nations.
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Putin is old and very popular in Russia. I doubt he's going to throw that away over a mission he's not only too old to complete himself, but is also almost certainly going to fail and turn Russia into a failed state.
> That and there's the theory that Putin himself was being fed in effect bad intelligence about both the readiness of his own armed forces as well as the general attitude of Ukrainians towards Russians
Maybe, but the guy has been at the top for too long and has been VERY successfully managing one of the most challenging nations on Earth. With a bureaucracy he's pretty much built himself from scratch after that infamous meeting with the oligarchs, which caused them to resign from politics over night.
The state of the Russian forces was atrocious, but despite all the pandering, it became obvious the military was never a high priority for Russia. They poured a lot of money into research projects/scams, had conscription (who cant be used in conflicts if no war is officially declared ("SMO" ...)) and a rather tiny professional army, that invaded Ukraine in 2022 (+2014, I guess). And a giant Soviet arsenal.
Putin might have been misled, but I think it's more likely that he just ran out of good options. You can almost hear him become desperate and slightly depressed during his call with President Macron just before the invasion. Also the constant begging for guarantees Ukraine wont join NATO during the months before.
I think he knew quite well that his gamble on Ukraine handling this like Georgia in 2008 was VERY risky.
> Given what Putin did to his rivals, not too hard to make a guess why they wouldn't want to give him bad news.
Heard a theory he does that to people who break certain agreements with him. Like Prigozhin. Made a public agreement with Putin not to return to Russia, but then kept cruising around Russia in his private jet for weeks, very publicly.
And for some reason just about anyone involved in the Chechens' raids against Russia during the second Chechen war. Guess there's a personal vendetta hidden somewhere.
> What purpose does seizing and holding does Kherson serve to in keeping the control over Crimea and the Strait of Kerch, exactly?
Quite an important one. The Kerch bridge is highly vulnerable and has little capacity, both for transport and utilities. A land connection would rectify this and Russia gave that very high priority during the beginning of the war. While the units in the north acted rather passively during the start of the invasion (some really bad apples excluded), the southern units went all in straight away.
Also Crimea was running out of water and Ukraine refused to negotiate about reopening the canal supplying 80% of Crimea's water (understandably, although in hindsight it was probably a bad idea). Crimea was absolutely screwed without that canal, many people not having anymore access to fresh water just before the invasion and the economy was in free fall. Russia took over the dam blocking the canal on day 1 and destroyed it on day 3.
> Why attempt go even further and seize Odessa?
I've seen speculations of connecting to Transnistria, but am not convinced that was the primary objective.
We just don't know, but if I had to guess there were 2 important objectives:
1. Taking over the large shipyards with its giant dry docks located along the Ukrainian coast east of Crimea. The docks there were among the largest the Soviets ever built.
2. Turning Ukraine into a landlocked country, then offering it sweetheart deals to achieve strong political control.
Might have also joined the captured area to Transnistria to convince Moldova to finally push ahead with the gradual reunification. In exchange for significant political influence, ofc. Clarification: Moldova isn't trying to sabotage any such efforts, the Transnistrian side absolutely is. But Transnistria will do as Russia commands and Moldova is constantly infighting with itself on a large variety of issues regarding both Romania and Transnistria. And Russia has an undisclosed, but obvious, interest in keeping Moldova away from Romania, at least until there's a favorable deal on Transnistria.
> Why open a northern front in the Kharkiv Oblast?
In the beginning: Overwhelming Kyiv by attacking from multiple directions.
Now: Most of the Ukrainian units are heavily entrenched in the Donbass making advancing very very difficult. Why advance at all? Because the more Ukraine needs to rebuild fortifications and set up new logistics, the more vulnerable they become.
Some of the areas in the Donbass have been built up for a decade. Russia obviously doesn't disclose any of this, but I'd imagine it to be an utter nightmare to push Ukraine out of there.
So the best option is probably making Ukraine move some of its forces elsewhere.
.
You could also make the argument that Kharkiv could act as a buffer towards the Russian heartland and shield for the unified deep water system, but the DPR and LPR are WAY more important in that potential role.
> Why try to open a front from Belarus into Kyiv?
Pressure Kyiv, end it quickly. Apparently there were also plans to put pressure on Lviv, but either that was a myth, fizzled out or is being kept hidden very well.
> That's an awful lot of fronts to open up to try take territory that Russia does not want.
But way too few people to hold it. When Ukraine started preparing its counter offensive and Russia built its own fortifications, Russia heavily reduced the width and depth of its frontline. We dont have any accurate numbers for any phase of the war, but Putin mentioned that the Russian forces were distributed extremely sparsely on a much too long frontline. Wagner and later the adsorption of other PMCs rectified that a bit, but if Prigozhin is to be believed, the Russians didn't treat them ... very kindly when they still were a separate force.
