Prediction Thread: When Will Russia Conquer Ukraine

[BeBMan]

How do people at war get cease fires and peace treaties if they dont stop fighting? From Russia's POV the USA stole Ukraine with a coup, but yes, if you attack people and lose, the loss of territory is often part of the equation. In this case we over threw the Ukrainian govt and attacked eastern Ukrainians who wouldn't join the party. That went on for 8 years and now the attackers got invaded. Ukraine will do what we say, does Biden want peace or war?

shhhh.... I think he wants war... everything is going according to plan.

Care to explain - just as one example - how violence in Donbas 2014 legitimizes Putin sending little green men into Crimea, then anexxing it? Did you ever look on a map of Ukraine?

[Berzerker]

Crimea is home to Russia's black sea fleet and has various military installations along with a largely Russian population. Iow, Putin would have responded much more aggressively if Ukraine attacked it. So I figure Obama limited their war on 'separatists' to the east. The coup is why Putin moved on Crimea, the coup backers attacked the east so he helped them.

[BeBMan]

Thx for admitting that there was no military attack on Crimea by Ukraine, and that Putin acted in response to what is essentially a domestic policy issue of Ukraine. Which means Russia started military action, not Ukraine.

[Uncle Sparky]

Murals in Poznan, Poland

Spoiler:

[Trillion]

No, Russia will not conquer Ukraine. Just get a bunch of people killed as usual.

[BeBMan]

Murals in Poznan, Poland

Spoiler:

I liked this one:

[BeBMan]

This sounds hopeful:

Are Russians and Ukrainians making progress in their talks about the war? We’ve been given some indications that maybe they are.

“I think that we’ll achieve some results literally in a matter of days,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian negotiator and adviser to President Volodymir Zelensky, said.

He cautioned, however, that Ukraine would not “concede in principle on any positions”.

“Russia now understands this. Russia is already beginning to talk constructively,” he added.

From Russia, Leonid Slutsky was quoted as saying: “According to my personal expectations, this progress may grow in the coming days into a joint position of both delegations, into documents for signing.”

The comments are a bit encrypted, and this can be seen as a sign of how difficult these negotiations are. And there was no detail on what exactly they’re talking about. Ceasefire? End of the war? And what exactly are their demands at the negotiation table?

Both sides have already held three rounds of talks in Belarus, which focused mainly on humanitarian issues.

It’s day 18 of the war. Thousands of civilians are in desperate need of aid. Dozens are still dying every day. A deal to end all of this couldn’t come soon enough.

BBC

[Geronimo]

I still doubt Russia will accept peace on any terms other than Ukraine surrendering claim not only to Crimea but to all of Luhansk and Donbas regions along with a constitutional ban on joining anything other than groups Russia is a party to. However, even if Putin withdrew with none of these concessions from Ukraine, Russians like Serb would claim they actually achieved everything they set out to do with very minor losses and nearly complete destruction of the Ukrainian armed forces. They would claim the reason they did not hold out for more concessions was out of their unwillingness to destroy any more of ukraine and that the Nazis had been using the civilians as human shields. :-P

[Uncle Sparky]

The Russians have attacked the International Peacekeeping and Security Center near the Polish border. Western aid was bein distributed from there. There were western civilian aid workers on the base... odds are they were among the dead and wounded. Putin really wants a hot war with Europe.

[Wezil]

I blame Putin for tis war and everything that flows from it but...

In a war why would that not be a valid military target?

[BeBMan]

I still doubt Russia will accept peace on any terms other than Ukraine surrendering claim not only to Crimea but to all of Luhansk and Donbas regions along with a constitutional ban on joining anything other than groups Russia is a party to. However, even if Putin withdrew with none of these concessions from Ukraine, Russians like Serb would claim they actually achieved everything they set out to do with very minor losses and nearly complete destruction of the Ukrainian armed forces. They would claim the reason they did not hold out for more concessions was out of their unwillingness to destroy any more of ukraine and that the Nazis had been using the civilians as human shields. :-P

At this point I'm wondering what US/European demands towards Russia will be. Could be along the lines of:

- restore territorial integrity of Ukraine and respect intl borders and foreign souvereignty
- remove Iskander missiles from Königsberg/Kaliningrad
- accept blame for downing the MH-17 flight and pay compensation to the victims/families
- denazify Russian foreign policy towards its neighbours

Sure, some things - like respecting borders - may sound outright crazy to Putin

But given his ultimatum from last December with stuff like "US has to withdraw from Europe" it seems a reasonable list.

[Egbert]

I still doubt Russia will accept peace on any terms other than Ukraine surrendering claim not only to Crimea but to all of Luhansk and Donbas regions along with a constitutional ban on joining anything other than groups Russia is a party to. However,
<snip>

Russia a poor country with a gigantic army. I am not convinced that they are capable of sustaining this war for long due to the economic and financial limitations of their poverty. Also there is nothing in it for the ordinary Russian that will make him feel sacrifices are needed in what is a "war of choice" for Russia.

On the hand, if somebody/anybody invaded Russia the Russians would get all riled up and be willing to make whatever sacrifices are needed.

[BeBMan]

I have to say that - if a javelin is some sort of spear - Russia seems to have ignored the civ2 wisdom on spearmen vs. tanks completely.

[PLATO]

Russia a poor country with a gigantic army. I am not convinced that they are capable of sustaining this war for long due to the economic and financial limitations of their poverty. Also there is nothing in it for the ordinary Russian that will make him feel sacrifices are needed in what is a "war of choice" for Russia.

On the hand, if somebody/anybody invaded Russia the Russians would get all riled up and be willing to make whatever sacrifices are needed.

I saw a source that said it could be costing Russia up to $20 billion per day to sustain the attack. With reserves of $600 billion plus, but 1/3 of that being frozen in the West...it seems like there could be a coming financial aspect to the invasion. If the $20 billion/day number is anywhere close to correct, I would imagine that the Russian definition of "victory" will quickly begin to change.

There is a difference between being all in on defending your own country and supporting an opposed expeditionary force for sure.

[-Jrabbit]

As a cost estimate, $20 billion/day seems a bit over the top...

[Broken_Erika]

Oligarchs need their cut

[-Jrabbit]

Interesting article. I doubt things are quite as dire for the Russian forces as it suggests, but the line about troops carrying their dress uniforms into battle is priceless...

This is from Francis Fukuyama, director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy at Stanford University.

I’m writing this from Skopje, North Macedonia, where I’ve been for the last week teaching. Following the Ukraine war is no different here in terms of available information, except that I’m in an adjacent time zone, and the fact that there is more support for Putin in the Balkans than in other parts of Europe. A lot of the latter is due to Serbia, and Serbia's hosting of Sputnik.

I’ll stick my neck out and make several prognostications:

1. Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine. Russian planning was incompetent, based on a flawed assumption that Ukrainians were favorable to Russia and that their military would collapse immediately following an invasion. Russian soldiers were evidently carrying dress uniforms for their victory parade in Kyiv rather than extra ammo and rations. Putin at this point has committed the bulk of his entire military to this operation—there are no vast reserves of forces he can call up to add to the battle. Russian troops are stuck outside various Ukrainian cities where they face huge supply problems and constant Ukrainian attacks.
2. The collapse of their position could be sudden and catastrophic, rather than happening slowly through a war of attrition. The army in the field will reach a point where it can neither be supplied nor withdrawn, and morale will vaporize. This is at least true in the north; the Russians are doing better in the south, but those positions would be hard to maintain if the north collapses.
3. There is no diplomatic solution to the war possible prior to this happening. There is no conceivable compromise that would be acceptable to both Russia and Ukraine given the losses they have taken at this point.
4. The United Nations Security Council has proven once again to be useless. The only helpful thing was the General Assembly vote, which helps to identify the world’s bad or prevaricating actors.
5. The Biden administration’s decisions not to declare a no-fly zone or help transfer Polish MiGs were both good ones; they've kept their heads during a very emotional time. It is much better to have the Ukrainians defeat the Russians on their own, depriving Moscow of the excuse that NATO attacked them, as well as avoiding all the obvious escalatory possibilities. The Polish MiGs in particular would not add much to Ukrainian capabilities. Much more important is a continuing supply of Javelins, Stingers, TB2s, medical supplies, comms equipment, and intel sharing. I assume that Ukrainian forces are already being vectored by NATO intelligence operating from outside Ukraine.
6. The cost that Ukraine is paying is enormous, of course. But the greatest damage is being done by rockets and artillery, which neither MiGs nor a no-fly zone can do much about. The only thing that will stop the slaughter is defeat of the Russian army on the ground.
7. Putin will not survive the defeat of his army. He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power?
8. The invasion has already done huge damage to populists all over the world, who prior to the attack uniformly expressed sympathy for Putin. That includes Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and of course Donald Trump. The politics of the war has exposed their openly authoritarian leanings.
9. The war to this point has been a good lesson for China. Like Russia, China has built up seemingly high-tech military forces in the past decade, but they have no combat experience. The miserable performance of the Russian air force would likely be replicated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which similarly has no experience managing complex air operations. We may hope that the Chinese leadership will not delude itself as to its own capabilities the way the Russians did when contemplating a future move against Taiwan.
10. Hopefully Taiwan itself will wake up as to the need to prepare to fight as the Ukrainians have done, and restore conscription. Let’s not be prematurely defeatist.
11. Turkish drones will become bestsellers.
12. A Russian defeat will make possible a “new birth of freedom,” and get us out of our funk about the declining state of global democracy. The spirit of 1989 will live on, thanks to a bunch of brave Ukrainians.

https://www.americanpurpose.com/arti...ng-for-defeat/

[Berzerker]

Part of me wants to see Putin out of power, the other knows more people will die the longer this drags out

on second thought, somebody over at cfc said Putin and his party are actually more pro western than the 2 smaller competing parties. I didn't even know Russia had parties.

[N35t0r]

Interesting article. I doubt things are quite as dire for the Russian forces as it suggests, but the line about troops carrying their dress uniforms into battle is priceless...

This is from Francis Fukuyama, director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy at Stanford University.



https://www.americanpurpose.com/arti...ng-for-defeat/

Generally agree with what he says, except for Putin not surviving this (although I'd be happy to be proven wrong), and so far the Russians don't appear to be as close to the breaking point as he mentions (we would have heard of some small elements breaking first).

Troops in the north are in a much worse position than in the south however, and it is probably they will be defeated first (unless they somehow manage to get their act together). I don't think that this will mean a big change in the south though, since Ukraine will still need to leave troops up north even after the Russians are repulsed.

[giblets]

That Fukuyama guy sounds like quite the optimist.