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Mitch Barrie's avatar

We can only hope no one in the Russian chain of command is as stupid or crazy as whichever Americans made the decision to destroy the Nordstream pipelines.

I would expect anyone (like me) who has studied the history of Russia to resolve to whatever extent possible never to go to war with that country. Russia is not like the United States, but that does not mean we shouldn't try as hard as we can to be friends.

The current American leadership absolutely disgusts me.

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HardeeHo's avatar

Nice refresh on history. While I've often read many histories that attempt to explain the why of war they always attempt to explain often irrational decisions made retrospectively. At the time they seemed wise and justified.

In terms of Ukraine, the Donbas has been historically a complex issue going all the way back to the Holodomor of the 1930's. The resettlement of Russians in the area afterwards has been a friction point to the ethnicities involved. Whether the E-W divides can be managed from Kiev has been an issue but one for the Ukrainians to sort. Russia's stealth annexation of Crimea led to a complete restructuring of the Ukraine military that now has become quite capable.

My take on what Putin has done relates to an apparent inability to quell unrest in the Donbas in Russia's favor. He was not winning militarily nor with hearts and minds. He mounted a huge threat right on the border of a low level combat zone and even that was not improving the Russian situation. His decision to try for a quick invasion failed because he badly misjudged Ukraine sentiment and a much stronger military. The truly inaptness of his attack assumed an awful lot, a failure of logistical planning. The nominal ability of his artillery to create victories has now been negated by better US supplied artillery. He has wasted a lot of expensive munitions on pointless targets and now has run out of the smarter weapons. While the Russians have always been less concerned over soldier's lives, his current tactics have resulted in huge losses that now matter.

Where this goes as Ukraine steadily rolls Russian troops back is unknown. Putin is in a very bad place and perhaps finds losing intolerable. I don't think Ukraine will settle until it retakes Crimea. Russian equipment is beginning to become impossible to replace or repair. Sanctions have worked well in terms of limiting Russian arms production. Sanction are now being felt in the overall economy as well but Russians are used to deprivation. Whether we can return to the days pre-2014 with Sevastopol and Crimea holding a long term Russian facility lease is uncertain, but Russia can't accept not having that port. A veritable rock and hard place issue as the war drags on. We could end it by denying supports but face a political backlash for that both domestically and internationally.

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