3 ms·
Russia launching a full-scale invasion against a neighboring country surely is the complete opposite of the specter of some cunning Soviet/Russian intelligence
by avgcorrection 5y ago
Russia launching a full-scale invasion against a neighboring country surely is the complete opposite of the specter of some cunning Soviet/Russian intelligence officer who deftly turns a whole nation against itself.
- dragonwriter 5y agoIt's not really the opposite; what the defector describes is the strategy used in the prep work that went into the invasion and which made Putin think that the West would crumble in the face of it. It did weaken Western countries internally, and the relations between them, but not (at least, I think from evidence so far) as much as Putin needed.
- avgcorrection 5y agoSubverting Ukraine would mean to sow so much division internally that a sizable minority of the defending force would be motivated to defect to the other side and to compromise their countrymen. But in actual reality Russia faces a highly motivated and bitterly angry defensive force with a high morale.[1] And those same Ukrainians ousted a democratically elected (although eventually repressive and violent) pro-Russian government just eight years prior. [1] That’s just what I have heard, living in a different European country. Maybe it’s just Ukrainian propaganda.