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Contrary to Vietnam and Afghanistan, Russia has the ability to take large swathes of territory early, absorb it, and start moving Russians into that territory w

Contrary to Vietnam and Afghanistan, Russia has the ability to take large swathes of territory early, absorb it, and start moving Russians into that territory while continuously sieging major cities. The Ukrainians will look bad if they attack the Russian citizens that are now occupying them, and the Russian army doesn’t need to convince the local population to join them but instead they can encourage them to evacuate and give them safe passage into the EU. Eventually the country will be more and more Russian and most of the world will forget about the Ukrainians. We’re just in the initial “rough” stages where it’s the new news item and countries not actually involved in the conflict aren’t bored yet. Once they reach a stable position, they can just wait them out while occupying the majority of the country.

shaky-carrousel 5y ago
> Russia has the ability to take large swathes of territory early, absorb it, and start moving Russians into that territory while continuously sieging major cities. Not anymore, with their economy collapsed.
- hadlock 5y ago
  Russia's globalized economy has been snubbed, but russia is perfectly capable of deeding prime farmland to existing successful russian farmers. When it comes to tractors and fuel, russia has these in spades
  - rectang 5y ago
    Was this done in Chechnya? EDIT: Turns out it's the opposite — Chechnya has far fewer ethnic Russians than it used to. It's now less than 2% ethnic Russian. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/left-behind-russian-life-chechnya/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/left-behind-russian-lif... > According to official figures, in 1979 over 30% of the population of Soviet Chechnya were ethnic Russians. By 1989 the figure had fallen, although not by much – they still made up 25% of the population. In 2002, however, less than four percent of residents were Russian, and by 2010 Chechnya was losing its Russian population faster than any other North Caucasus republic. It was, effectively, a mono-ethnic member of the Russian Federation.
    - hadlock 5y ago
      A lot of post soviet bloc countries have lost double-digit percentages of their population to emigration over the last thirty years, so it's hard to draw any conclusions here, is my guess.
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    So doing something like what Zimbabwe did? Which turned that country from the breadbasket of Africa to the basket case of Africa?
    - lazide 5y ago
      The people who were ‘gifted’ Zimbabwe farms weren’t farmers.
    - lmm 5y ago
      What Zimbabwe did was the opposite of turning land over to existing successful farmers.
      - jcranmer 5y ago
        Given the history of other things turned over to other people in Putin's rule of Russia, I suspect Putin would be more likely to turn land over to successfully supportive farmers than successful farmers, which is what Zimbabwe did.
awb 5y ago
Ukraine has 45M people. To flip it from being a Ukrainian majority to a Russian majority state wouldn’t that mean migrating 10-20M Ukrainians out and 10-20M Russians in? That sounds like a huge operation. Otherwise you have a South Africa situation where a minority rules over a majority and it’s just a matter of time before the majority takes back power.
rectang 5y ago
I'm skeptical that long term ethnic displacement is Putin's endgame. The Chechnya stratagem seems more likely — savage pacification followed by installation of a Kremlin-friendly regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya#Post-war_reconstruction_and_insurgency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya#Post-war_reconstructi... > [...] Russia installed a pro-Russian Chechen regime. In 2003, a referendum was held on a constitution that reintegrated Chechnya within Russia but provided limited autonomy. According to the Chechen government, the referendum passed with 95.5% of the votes and almost 80% turnout. The Economist was skeptical of the results, arguing that "few outside the Kremlin regard the referendum as fair".
- dmix 5y ago
  Regime change by the country that successfully defended Syria’s regime? The Russians military strategists should know better than anyone how difficult that can be. Even with western backing.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
>'start moving Russians into that territory while continuously sieging major cities.' Moving pepple out of their houses into bombed out cuties wont be popular. Nothing like it was attempted in the last 3-4 generations.

shaky-carrousel 5y ago

> Russia has the ability to take large swathes of territory early, absorb it, and start moving Russians into that territory while continuously sieging major cities. Not anymore, with their economy collapsed.

hadlock 5y ago
Russia's globalized economy has been snubbed, but russia is perfectly capable of deeding prime farmland to existing successful russian farmers. When it comes to tractors and fuel, russia has these in spades
- rectang 5y ago
  Was this done in Chechnya? EDIT: Turns out it's the opposite — Chechnya has far fewer ethnic Russians than it used to. It's now less than 2% ethnic Russian. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/left-behind-russian-life-chechnya/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/left-behind-russian-lif... > According to official figures, in 1979 over 30% of the population of Soviet Chechnya were ethnic Russians. By 1989 the figure had fallen, although not by much – they still made up 25% of the population. In 2002, however, less than four percent of residents were Russian, and by 2010 Chechnya was losing its Russian population faster than any other North Caucasus republic. It was, effectively, a mono-ethnic member of the Russian Federation.
  - hadlock 5y ago
    A lot of post soviet bloc countries have lost double-digit percentages of their population to emigration over the last thirty years, so it's hard to draw any conclusions here, is my guess.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  So doing something like what Zimbabwe did? Which turned that country from the breadbasket of Africa to the basket case of Africa?
  - lazide 5y ago
    The people who were ‘gifted’ Zimbabwe farms weren’t farmers.
  - lmm 5y ago
    What Zimbabwe did was the opposite of turning land over to existing successful farmers.
    - jcranmer 5y ago
      Given the history of other things turned over to other people in Putin's rule of Russia, I suspect Putin would be more likely to turn land over to successfully supportive farmers than successful farmers, which is what Zimbabwe did.

awb 5y ago

Ukraine has 45M people. To flip it from being a Ukrainian majority to a Russian majority state wouldn’t that mean migrating 10-20M Ukrainians out and 10-20M Russians in? That sounds like a huge operation. Otherwise you have a South Africa situation where a minority rules over a majority and it’s just a matter of time before the majority takes back power.

rectang 5y ago

I'm skeptical that long term ethnic displacement is Putin's endgame. The Chechnya stratagem seems more likely — savage pacification followed by installation of a Kremlin-friendly regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya#Post-war_reconstruction_and_insurgency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya#Post-war_reconstructi... > [...] Russia installed a pro-Russian Chechen regime. In 2003, a referendum was held on a constitution that reintegrated Chechnya within Russia but provided limited autonomy. According to the Chechen government, the referendum passed with 95.5% of the votes and almost 80% turnout. The Economist was skeptical of the results, arguing that "few outside the Kremlin regard the referendum as fair".

dmix 5y ago
Regime change by the country that successfully defended Syria’s regime? The Russians military strategists should know better than anyone how difficult that can be. Even with western backing.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

>'start moving Russians into that territory while continuously sieging major cities.' Moving pepple out of their houses into bombed out cuties wont be popular. Nothing like it was attempted in the last 3-4 generations.