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Unfortunately, Russia knows very, very well how to deal with this. 1. all citizens in the conquered territories will need a new id card. That card will be requ

Unfortunately, Russia knows very, very well how to deal with this. 1. all citizens in the conquered territories will need a new id card. That card will be required everywhere. You want to send your kids to school, you need the card. You want to take a subway, you need the card. You want to buy groceries, use the ATM machine, the internet, pay your bills, make a phone call, you need your card. 2. the card will need to be re-validated periodically. At the time you need to make an attestation that you don't know the location of any hidden weapon, or any resistance fighter, or foreign agent, etc. The penalty for lying would be jail. 3. set up a system of informants. The rewards for information don't even have to be monetary, it could be: if you want your brother out of jail, you need to tell us 3 useful pieces of information. We decide what we consider to be useful. How do I know Russia can do all these things? Because Russia (Soviet Union at the time) conquered my Eastern European country right after WW2, and the resistance was minimal. A country with millions of weapons (WW2 just ended), with forests, mountains, lots of places to hide. Well, guerilla warfare still requires you to eat. You can hide in a forest, but from time to time you need to go down to the village. If one person informs, you're finished. You think Russia doesn't know how to do what the Soviet Union did in '45-'48? They lost the institutional memory? You haven't been paying attention. Putin is ex-KGB. As we speak, he's putting children (!!) in jail for going to a protest with their parents. Why didn't this work in Afghanistan ? Because Afghanistan is quite different. People don't live in apartment buildings (well, some do, but most not). They know each other. Internet, subways, grocery stores, are nice, but not essential for many, many people. Informants work both ways. The reprisals from the resistance can be worse than those from the occupiers. Etc, etc. This is not racism. Afghani people are absolutely the same as Ukrainian people, or like me and you. They bleed just as much when you put a bullet in them, and dislike that just as much. But the bullet can come from more places. If the Ukrainian resistance were to have an iota of a chance of success, the resistance fighters should be willing to shoot their compatriots who inform on them. The Taliban were willing to do just that.

murderinc 5y ago
One could setup an anonymous tip line on Signal and be done with it. Resistance would have to setup operations to flush out moles with false intelligence at this point.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  Well, I'm quite sure Putin will find the most efficient way to keep the occupied people under his boot. As for the Resistance flushing out the moles, what are they going to do with them? Are they willing to kill them? Or just shame them? Would we (the West) still support them if we hear they kill informants? Or if we hear hey tar and feather them? Who knows, maybe in today's world the threat of being canceled on the internet is enough of a dissuasion, that the Resistance fighters can use that. But will it be enough to balance the threat of going to jail?
maxerickson 5y ago
Are there enough Russians that want to do that to Ukraine? And then secondary to that, will the greater Russian population tolerate doing that to Ukraine?
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  The will of the people isn't relevant to authoritarian dictatorships, except in the case of widespread revolutions. That might occur, but while Putin is still in charge, what happens is a matter of his decisions and whim. He is quite willing to commit atrocities in pursuit of expansion.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    Of course it is relevant, his control is significant but it isn't absolute. You'll have problems well before a full blown revolution.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
There's a big difference between setting that kind administration up immediately after bringing nominal peace by kicking out an occupying army people hated more and being the initial occupier setting those things up. People were willing to put up with a lot for peace in 1945-48. Russia will probably try but there's so many key details between now and then it's hard to make any confident predictions.
ericmay 5y ago
I think you're right, which sucks, but I'd say the main difference can be if the general population just fights you, none of these can work. When you send the person to check someone's ID they get shot. Pretty soon nobody wants to do that. Or you blow up the office where you get your ID re-evaluated, etc. The deciding factor is just the population's will. With so many millions of people that's all this comes down to. Russia couldn't possible enlist or conscript enough people to make this work if the Ukrainians decide they will not tolerate it. But there is much that remains to be seen, unfortunately. This sucks. We need to solve this disinformation problem. Hopefully sanctions will start working too.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  > if the general population just fights you Big if. 99% of the people just want to live their lives. But media had a selection bias. You only hear about the 1% who go and pick up a Kalashnikov, and do some patrol duty around a hospital or a bomb shelter. But 99% just want this to be over with. They want to go home, sleep in their bed, eat some warm food, take a shower. They hate the Russians, but love their children, and know that being a hero can very easily translate into their children growing up without a parent (and maybe the other parent in jail). My Mom had to live as a little kid with har father in jail for 2 years. Because he had been a police officer before the communists took over. Not fun. I can’t even begin to imagine what would’ve happened if he had been an active resistance fighter.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    I agree that 99% wants this to be over with, but in a country of 44 million people (minus however many people the Russians have murdered) that's still 440,000 people, and even if only half of those people are actively resisting that's still 220,000 people to fight on their homeland against a 150,000-200,000 person strong Russian army, and even then you have to subtract some number of Russian soldiers who are in pure support roles, etc. whereas you don't really have to subtract that number for the Ukrainians. And those are very conservative numbers and the Russians are really not getting any help from the locals whereas the active resistance fighters for sure are getting assistance. Now imagine we take those extremely conservative numbers and put the number at say, 3%. Whole different ball game. Especially when the defenders are armed to the teeth. I do agree it's a big if, but I think in this case it's proving to not be in doubt so far. Eventually Russia is likely to "win", though I'm not sure what their victory conditions are... maybe installing a puppet Ukrainian government that's not recognized internationally and then some large number of people want to get on with their lives as you say and maybe 80%+ of the population stops resisting, but if people keep resisting (back to my post) I just don't see what Russia is going to do here. Maybe they'll conscript hundreds of thousands of Russians? I'm thinking that Russia is likely to add a puppet government and then take the military and keep fighting on to Moldova and march through and bring the Belorussian military to the Baltics. We are only at the opening stage. My fear is that they start conscripting Ukrainians who, as you say, just want to stay out of trouble but get thrust into combat anyway and have no choice but to shoot back. All of sudden by conquering countries and conscripting people, Putin enlarges his army. But I just don't know how the logistics of that work here. Either he will continue and press on and it's going to get really crazy or here soon the entire thing is going to fall apart drastically. Too bad the Ukrainians can't march on to liberate Moscow and Russia.

murderinc 5y ago

One could setup an anonymous tip line on Signal and be done with it. Resistance would have to setup operations to flush out moles with false intelligence at this point.

credit_guy 5y ago
Well, I'm quite sure Putin will find the most efficient way to keep the occupied people under his boot. As for the Resistance flushing out the moles, what are they going to do with them? Are they willing to kill them? Or just shame them? Would we (the West) still support them if we hear they kill informants? Or if we hear hey tar and feather them? Who knows, maybe in today's world the threat of being canceled on the internet is enough of a dissuasion, that the Resistance fighters can use that. But will it be enough to balance the threat of going to jail?

maxerickson 5y ago

Are there enough Russians that want to do that to Ukraine? And then secondary to that, will the greater Russian population tolerate doing that to Ukraine?

robbedpeter 5y ago
The will of the people isn't relevant to authoritarian dictatorships, except in the case of widespread revolutions. That might occur, but while Putin is still in charge, what happens is a matter of his decisions and whim. He is quite willing to commit atrocities in pursuit of expansion.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Of course it is relevant, his control is significant but it isn't absolute. You'll have problems well before a full blown revolution.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

There's a big difference between setting that kind administration up immediately after bringing nominal peace by kicking out an occupying army people hated more and being the initial occupier setting those things up. People were willing to put up with a lot for peace in 1945-48. Russia will probably try but there's so many key details between now and then it's hard to make any confident predictions.

ericmay 5y ago

I think you're right, which sucks, but I'd say the main difference can be if the general population just fights you, none of these can work. When you send the person to check someone's ID they get shot. Pretty soon nobody wants to do that. Or you blow up the office where you get your ID re-evaluated, etc. The deciding factor is just the population's will. With so many millions of people that's all this comes down to. Russia couldn't possible enlist or conscript enough people to make this work if the Ukrainians decide they will not tolerate it. But there is much that remains to be seen, unfortunately. This sucks. We need to solve this disinformation problem. Hopefully sanctions will start working too.

credit_guy 5y ago
> if the general population just fights you Big if. 99% of the people just want to live their lives. But media had a selection bias. You only hear about the 1% who go and pick up a Kalashnikov, and do some patrol duty around a hospital or a bomb shelter. But 99% just want this to be over with. They want to go home, sleep in their bed, eat some warm food, take a shower. They hate the Russians, but love their children, and know that being a hero can very easily translate into their children growing up without a parent (and maybe the other parent in jail). My Mom had to live as a little kid with har father in jail for 2 years. Because he had been a police officer before the communists took over. Not fun. I can’t even begin to imagine what would’ve happened if he had been an active resistance fighter.
- ericmay 5y ago
  I agree that 99% wants this to be over with, but in a country of 44 million people (minus however many people the Russians have murdered) that's still 440,000 people, and even if only half of those people are actively resisting that's still 220,000 people to fight on their homeland against a 150,000-200,000 person strong Russian army, and even then you have to subtract some number of Russian soldiers who are in pure support roles, etc. whereas you don't really have to subtract that number for the Ukrainians. And those are very conservative numbers and the Russians are really not getting any help from the locals whereas the active resistance fighters for sure are getting assistance. Now imagine we take those extremely conservative numbers and put the number at say, 3%. Whole different ball game. Especially when the defenders are armed to the teeth. I do agree it's a big if, but I think in this case it's proving to not be in doubt so far. Eventually Russia is likely to "win", though I'm not sure what their victory conditions are... maybe installing a puppet Ukrainian government that's not recognized internationally and then some large number of people want to get on with their lives as you say and maybe 80%+ of the population stops resisting, but if people keep resisting (back to my post) I just don't see what Russia is going to do here. Maybe they'll conscript hundreds of thousands of Russians? I'm thinking that Russia is likely to add a puppet government and then take the military and keep fighting on to Moldova and march through and bring the Belorussian military to the Baltics. We are only at the opening stage. My fear is that they start conscripting Ukrainians who, as you say, just want to stay out of trouble but get thrust into combat anyway and have no choice but to shoot back. All of sudden by conquering countries and conscripting people, Putin enlarges his army. But I just don't know how the logistics of that work here. Either he will continue and press on and it's going to get really crazy or here soon the entire thing is going to fall apart drastically. Too bad the Ukrainians can't march on to liberate Moscow and Russia.