6 ms·

What I find interesting is that the sanctions of Russia and support of Ukraine is accelerating faster and faster every day. Had the initial plan of decapitating

What I find interesting is that the sanctions of Russia and support of Ukraine is accelerating faster and faster every day. Had the initial plan of decapitating the government and installing a puppet who signs a peace agreement with Russia worked, I doubt we'd be seeing the same level of support as now. Apparently the EU is now giving them jets in addition to all the small arms, fuel and anti-tank weapons. With all the economic sanctions it seems like they want to collapse the Russian economy and instigate regime change from the inside. Putin made a risky bet by attacking Ukraine, but the EU collapsing Russia with all their nukes still hanging around and hoping the next government in charge is more stable is a way more risky bet.

liuliu 5y ago
It is a risky bet (and unlikely the next one after Putin would be any better). But it is also a deterrance. Anyone who would want to initiate a war in EU needs to think twice (if EU is successful this time) after this.
pixl97 5y ago
You mean Putin threatening the west with his nukes a few times a day is not a risk?
turbinerneiter 5y ago
That's because of Zelenskyy and what he represents. Usually, you'd expect a state like Ukraine (ex Sowjet) to be corrupt and run by oligarchs with no support by the populace. In that situation, Russia would waltz in, the old depot would flee the country, Russia would isntall a puppet and the populace would be indefferent to it, since it's just more of the same shit. But Zelenskyy was serious in cleaning up the Ukraine, he is not fleeing and he is uniting the nation. This was Putin's big mistake. He believed he could scare away a greedy despot to replace him with another one. Instead, the Ukraine has a true leader and developed a real national identity. For Putin, this is a nightmare. For the west, we finally have someone worth supporting (often we have the issue that we don't know how is the bad and the good guy, see Syria, Mali). I have nothing to prove it, this is just speculation, taken from some tweets I saw. It makes sense to me, but I have no social insights. This whole thing could have looked very different under any of the former leaders of the Ukraine.
- pydry 5y ago
  He had an approval rate of 28% and a disapproval rate of 57% in October. The west is singing his praises right now, but this isnt necessarily reflective of what Ukrainians think.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    For now he's walking around in a flak jacket with an AK and I suspect that if they did a poll today the numbers would come out a bit different.
    - sergiomattei 5y ago
      Polling numbers indicate 96% support.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Not surprised. Wonder what the real figures on Putin are.
    - megous 5y ago
      He certainly managed to gather quite a lot of support outside Ukraine, quite quickly. I guess that's no easy feat either.
    - verve_rat 5y ago
      They did. 90%.
- fuoqi 5y ago
  >But Zelenskyy was serious in cleaning up the Ukraine, he is not fleeing and he is uniting the nation. So much BS... He literally done 180 on his election promises, done a lot of unconstitutional moves, and his public support was continuously dropping to the point of losing to Poroshenko on hypothetical elections.
- tootie 5y ago
  Ukraine was (and still is) quite corrupt. They ran their president out of town on a rail in 2014 because he was massively corrupt. To the point of using government funds to build a private zoo at his house. Zelensky made his name by portraying an everyman who lucks his way into the presidency by vowing to fight corruption and somehow life imitated art. He was clearly inexperience and in over his head, but his character and showmanship are paying huge dividends right now. And to just because we have to make everything about US politics, the corrupt leader who was run out of town was elected with the assistance of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates who both ended up working on the Trump campaign less than two years after their cash cow was exiled to Russia.
dboreham 5y ago
There's a tradition going back at least to ww2 of waiting to see if the attacked country stands up and fights. If they demonstrate that, then we go all in.
- tjpnz 5y ago
  And lose >4000 soldiers in the process?
  - valzam 5y ago
    What's the alternative? I think the USAs operations in the Afghanistan showed that you simply cannot just come in, fight a countries battles for them and leave. Ukraine has proven to want to stand up to Russia and now the West is putting it's full weight behind them. What I don't quite get is why even still pretend to not engage? Surely arming Ukraine with fighter jets is basically the same as flying missions yourself as far as Russia is concerned. If I where Putin at this point I would consider NATO to have started actively participating in the war.
    - throwoutway 5y ago
      It’s not the same though. Foreign legions have a long history, and foreign armaments do too.
    - tim333 5y ago
      > Surely arming Ukraine with fighter jets is basically the same as flying missions yourself as far as Russia is concerned. Except Putin may nuke you. He's basically threatened that.
fuoqi 5y ago
>Had the initial plan of decapitating the government Why people assume that the Russian plan was to occupy whole Ukraine (the largest European country after Russia) in just several days? Even in Georgia with its much smaller army and territory it took them 5 days to be close to capturing its capital. As another example: it took US several weeks to conquer Iraq, which again is smaller than Ukraine and has a much denser distribution of population centers. Also unlike certain countries Russia does not want to bomb Ukraine into the stone age before moving ground troops in and instead it tries to keep whatever loyal parts of the populace it has there.
- gambiting 5y ago
  >>Why people assume that Russian plan was to capture whole of Ukraine I literally haven't seen anyone assuming that. All theories seem to be about Russian army going in, getting rid of the government and replacing it with whatever arrangement works for Russia, then going back home.
  - fuoqi 5y ago
    In my understanding, the GP states that "the initial plan" should've ended by now.
  - native_samples 5y ago
    If you read the newspapers you'll see this assumption is universal. They are describing his campaign as having run aground, delayed, going badly etc because he didn't take the entire country in 24 hours. Feels like war propaganda.
- hollerith 5y ago
  >unlike certain countries Russia does not want to bomb Ukraine into the stone age before moving ground troops in I read or heard (maybe on http://iswresearch.org/ http://iswresearch.org/) that Russia has very few smart bombs. If they had plenty, they might've used them as liberally as the US did in Iraq in 2004.
- tim333 5y ago
threeseed 5y ago
> With all the economic sanctions it seems like they want to collapse the Russian economy and instigate regime change from the inside Pretty ridiculous to think this when their isn't much of an opposition to regime change to. And when oligarchs and other interests are massively benefiting from the corruption. It's purely to impose a serious cost on Russia so that they consider withdrawing from Ukraine and think twice about doing it again e.g. against Eastern European countries.
- monkeybutton 5y ago
  Do you think Putin will still be in office two/three years from now?
  - GrifMD 5y ago
    After all this, I really hope not. I really hope that this is enough to push over a large enough majority of Russians to force him out.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I would put even money on him being alive 30 days from now.
    - MauranKilom 5y ago
      Some would consider that a win/win bet.
    - andrewinardeer 5y ago
      And Zelenskyy being alive in 30 days?
      - wussboy 5y ago
        I think losing both would be a net positive.
        5y ago
Razengan 5y ago
> Had the initial plan of decapitating the government and installing a puppet who signs a peace agreement with Russia worked, I doubt we'd be seeing the same level of support as now. What rules out that Vladimir and Volodymyr aren’t in on this together to dupe other nations and later make up anyway? It’s a classic con since time immemorial: 2 partners, one who pretends to be the baddie and another who pretends to be against him to gain the support of a dupe, and later split the profits.

liuliu 5y ago

It is a risky bet (and unlikely the next one after Putin would be any better). But it is also a deterrance. Anyone who would want to initiate a war in EU needs to think twice (if EU is successful this time) after this.

pixl97 5y ago

You mean Putin threatening the west with his nukes a few times a day is not a risk?

turbinerneiter 5y ago

That's because of Zelenskyy and what he represents. Usually, you'd expect a state like Ukraine (ex Sowjet) to be corrupt and run by oligarchs with no support by the populace. In that situation, Russia would waltz in, the old depot would flee the country, Russia would isntall a puppet and the populace would be indefferent to it, since it's just more of the same shit. But Zelenskyy was serious in cleaning up the Ukraine, he is not fleeing and he is uniting the nation. This was Putin's big mistake. He believed he could scare away a greedy despot to replace him with another one. Instead, the Ukraine has a true leader and developed a real national identity. For Putin, this is a nightmare. For the west, we finally have someone worth supporting (often we have the issue that we don't know how is the bad and the good guy, see Syria, Mali). I have nothing to prove it, this is just speculation, taken from some tweets I saw. It makes sense to me, but I have no social insights. This whole thing could have looked very different under any of the former leaders of the Ukraine.

pydry 5y ago
He had an approval rate of 28% and a disapproval rate of 57% in October. The west is singing his praises right now, but this isnt necessarily reflective of what Ukrainians think.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  For now he's walking around in a flak jacket with an AK and I suspect that if they did a poll today the numbers would come out a bit different.
  - sergiomattei 5y ago
    Polling numbers indicate 96% support.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Not surprised. Wonder what the real figures on Putin are.
  - megous 5y ago
    He certainly managed to gather quite a lot of support outside Ukraine, quite quickly. I guess that's no easy feat either.
  - verve_rat 5y ago
    They did. 90%.
fuoqi 5y ago
>But Zelenskyy was serious in cleaning up the Ukraine, he is not fleeing and he is uniting the nation. So much BS... He literally done 180 on his election promises, done a lot of unconstitutional moves, and his public support was continuously dropping to the point of losing to Poroshenko on hypothetical elections.
tootie 5y ago
Ukraine was (and still is) quite corrupt. They ran their president out of town on a rail in 2014 because he was massively corrupt. To the point of using government funds to build a private zoo at his house. Zelensky made his name by portraying an everyman who lucks his way into the presidency by vowing to fight corruption and somehow life imitated art. He was clearly inexperience and in over his head, but his character and showmanship are paying huge dividends right now. And to just because we have to make everything about US politics, the corrupt leader who was run out of town was elected with the assistance of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates who both ended up working on the Trump campaign less than two years after their cash cow was exiled to Russia.

dboreham 5y ago

There's a tradition going back at least to ww2 of waiting to see if the attacked country stands up and fights. If they demonstrate that, then we go all in.

tjpnz 5y ago
And lose >4000 soldiers in the process?
- valzam 5y ago
  What's the alternative? I think the USAs operations in the Afghanistan showed that you simply cannot just come in, fight a countries battles for them and leave. Ukraine has proven to want to stand up to Russia and now the West is putting it's full weight behind them. What I don't quite get is why even still pretend to not engage? Surely arming Ukraine with fighter jets is basically the same as flying missions yourself as far as Russia is concerned. If I where Putin at this point I would consider NATO to have started actively participating in the war.
  - throwoutway 5y ago
    It’s not the same though. Foreign legions have a long history, and foreign armaments do too.
  - tim333 5y ago
    > Surely arming Ukraine with fighter jets is basically the same as flying missions yourself as far as Russia is concerned. Except Putin may nuke you. He's basically threatened that.

fuoqi 5y ago

>Had the initial plan of decapitating the government Why people assume that the Russian plan was to occupy whole Ukraine (the largest European country after Russia) in just several days? Even in Georgia with its much smaller army and territory it took them 5 days to be close to capturing its capital. As another example: it took US several weeks to conquer Iraq, which again is smaller than Ukraine and has a much denser distribution of population centers. Also unlike certain countries Russia does not want to bomb Ukraine into the stone age before moving ground troops in and instead it tries to keep whatever loyal parts of the populace it has there.

gambiting 5y ago
>>Why people assume that Russian plan was to capture whole of Ukraine I literally haven't seen anyone assuming that. All theories seem to be about Russian army going in, getting rid of the government and replacing it with whatever arrangement works for Russia, then going back home.
- fuoqi 5y ago
  In my understanding, the GP states that "the initial plan" should've ended by now.
- native_samples 5y ago
  If you read the newspapers you'll see this assumption is universal. They are describing his campaign as having run aground, delayed, going badly etc because he didn't take the entire country in 24 hours. Feels like war propaganda.
hollerith 5y ago
>unlike certain countries Russia does not want to bomb Ukraine into the stone age before moving ground troops in I read or heard (maybe on http://iswresearch.org/ http://iswresearch.org/) that Russia has very few smart bombs. If they had plenty, they might've used them as liberally as the US did in Iraq in 2004.
tim333 5y ago

threeseed 5y ago

> With all the economic sanctions it seems like they want to collapse the Russian economy and instigate regime change from the inside Pretty ridiculous to think this when their isn't much of an opposition to regime change to. And when oligarchs and other interests are massively benefiting from the corruption. It's purely to impose a serious cost on Russia so that they consider withdrawing from Ukraine and think twice about doing it again e.g. against Eastern European countries.

monkeybutton 5y ago
Do you think Putin will still be in office two/three years from now?
- GrifMD 5y ago
  After all this, I really hope not. I really hope that this is enough to push over a large enough majority of Russians to force him out.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I would put even money on him being alive 30 days from now.
  - MauranKilom 5y ago
    Some would consider that a win/win bet.
  - andrewinardeer 5y ago
    And Zelenskyy being alive in 30 days?
    - wussboy 5y ago
      I think losing both would be a net positive.
      - 5y ago

Razengan 5y ago

> Had the initial plan of decapitating the government and installing a puppet who signs a peace agreement with Russia worked, I doubt we'd be seeing the same level of support as now. What rules out that Vladimir and Volodymyr aren’t in on this together to dupe other nations and later make up anyway? It’s a classic con since time immemorial: 2 partners, one who pretends to be the baddie and another who pretends to be against him to gain the support of a dupe, and later split the profits.