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That Russia would immediately jump to one of the most expensive options requiring a commitment for decades to succeed, that needs some pretty good evidence in m

• danbruc 3y ago
  Only if you think that the goal of the invasion of Ukraine was to annex the entire country or bring it under permanent Russian control. I do not think that this is the case and that the reason of the invasion is solely or at least primarily to prevent NATO expansion into Ukraine. I think that is what essentially all the evidence indicates and that there is essentially no evidence that conquering Ukraine was the goal.
  • khokhol 3y ago
    Only if you think that the goal of the invasion of Ukraine was to annex the entire country or bring it under permanent Russian control. The entire country, no. By all indications, they only wanted to annex about 60 percent of it -- including of course the capital, the entire Black Sea coast, and likely a good chunk of buffer territory. The remaining regions, being almost entirely non-Russian speaking, would have been left as battered rump state, to be perhaps dealt with later. The goal was clearly and unambiguously to wipe independent Ukraine off the map, and to eliminate as many of the intelligentsia on its kill lists as it could find. The remaining population was to be forcibly expelled or assimilated, as has already happened in the occupied regions. All of which, by their planning, would have been basically cakewalk, and over and done in a matter of weeks. Whether they wanted to properly annex 60 percent or 100 percent of Ukrainian territory is irrelevant in this context - and basically amounts to splitting hairs.