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Before the invasion Ukraine had a total military force (including reserves) of 1.2 million backed by sizable numbers of highly motivated and heavily armed 'nati

Before the invasion Ukraine had a total military force (including reserves) of 1.2 million backed by sizable numbers of highly motivated and heavily armed 'nationalist' forces. Since 2014 the West had been gradually arming Ukraine and various cities like Bakhmut were essentially fortified citadels enabling a defensive force to pose extreme resistance. There was 0 chance Ukraine was going to just flop over. Iraq and Afghanistan were humble villages by contrast - one which we lost to, and the other which our 'victory' amounted to bombing the government then hiding out in tiny little ultra fortified 'green zones' while waving a victory flag. In both cases with the wars dragged on for decades. Now imagine if Russia had decided to jump in one of those invasions and start shipping hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to them, providing intelligence, and so on. Russia obviously just thought they were ambushing Ukraine and could get some agreement for them to not join NATO without a real war. Then the West decided to get involved, similarly thinking they were ambushing Russia and that the first sight of HIMARS or a Panther tank would send the Russian army scattering. Everybody was wrong, so we got a real war that nobody wanted.

yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
The russians weren't looking for an agreement. They were looking to kill Zelensky and control the entire country. In fact, they still are. It was a war from the beginning.
- mountainstar 2y ago
  [flagged]
The_Colonel 2y ago
> There was 0 chance Ukraine was going to just flop over. That's a huge hindsight bias. Even the most optimistic scenarios from various secret services / think tanks predicted only weeks / few months of resistance at the most. If you read Ukrainian accounts, most weren't very optimistic either. You can also read up how many commanders in the south defected - having more such defectors could flip the war quite quickly. The question of whether to defect or not (or simply run) is something which many did on the spot based on their personal circumstances and outlook, it's extremely difficult to predict.
- Sammi 2y ago
  Most Ukrainians didn't defect. Most Ukrainians knew then what we all know now. No hindsight bias here. In fact there were even analysts outside Ukraine that did listen to Ukrainians and who also knew what was going on. Here you can listen to Anders Puck Nielsen explain in jan 2022 what we all understand now, that it would be a large and terrible war: https://youtu.be/23JYPb_jHpg?si=6lMedJpEkeuPRuhv https://youtu.be/23JYPb_jHpg?si=6lMedJpEkeuPRuhv https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krhmeUkfhu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krhmeUkfhu4
- belorn 2y ago
  There was no news article where I lived (or international) that predicted that resistance would only last weeks or months. Those that did make any prediction about the length of the war pointed towards modern wars like those in the middle east, which demonstrated that modern wars do not end suddenly regardless of what progress either side makes. As long as people have access to weapons there will be enough resistance to make an area a constant war zone. In the past you needed large armies standing in a line, and tanks to crush that line. When armies made enough progress the remaining soldiers either surrender or ran away. Today you can have a handful people operating a drone to sink a warship, or fire a missile against a plane, or just planting random explosives and mines. They get killed and a new group pop up elsewhere doing the exact same thing. The only method to actually win by eliminating resistance becomes burning down every building and killing every person who used to live there, which obviously is immoral and hurts military moral, takes a lot of time, a lot of resources and people, and diplomatic resources. For a country like Ukraine or Russia it would take decades or centuries.
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    > There was no news article where I lived (or international) that predicted that resistance would only last weeks or months. Then you must have not been paying attention. A summary of those failed predictions: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-wrong-intelligence/32275740.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-... It's a roughly equal part of underestimating Ukrainians and overestimating Russians. > Those that did make any prediction about the length of the war pointed towards modern wars like those in the middle east, which demonstrated that modern wars do not end suddenly regardless of what progress either side makes. You mean like Crimea where the resistance never died down and was an active battlefield with daily activity of partisan groups? /s
int_19h 2y ago
Putin assumed that those 1.2 million are just "forcibly separated brothers" that will if not support the "reunification" outright, then at least refuse to fight for a country they don't believe is real. Ukrainian nationalists before the war were presented in Russian agitprop as an extremist minority holding the rest of the country hostage.

yakshaving_jgt 2y ago

The russians weren't looking for an agreement. They were looking to kill Zelensky and control the entire country. In fact, they still are. It was a war from the beginning.

mountainstar 2y ago
[flagged]

The_Colonel 2y ago

> There was 0 chance Ukraine was going to just flop over. That's a huge hindsight bias. Even the most optimistic scenarios from various secret services / think tanks predicted only weeks / few months of resistance at the most. If you read Ukrainian accounts, most weren't very optimistic either. You can also read up how many commanders in the south defected - having more such defectors could flip the war quite quickly. The question of whether to defect or not (or simply run) is something which many did on the spot based on their personal circumstances and outlook, it's extremely difficult to predict.

Sammi 2y ago
Most Ukrainians didn't defect. Most Ukrainians knew then what we all know now. No hindsight bias here. In fact there were even analysts outside Ukraine that did listen to Ukrainians and who also knew what was going on. Here you can listen to Anders Puck Nielsen explain in jan 2022 what we all understand now, that it would be a large and terrible war: https://youtu.be/23JYPb_jHpg?si=6lMedJpEkeuPRuhv https://youtu.be/23JYPb_jHpg?si=6lMedJpEkeuPRuhv https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krhmeUkfhu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krhmeUkfhu4
belorn 2y ago
There was no news article where I lived (or international) that predicted that resistance would only last weeks or months. Those that did make any prediction about the length of the war pointed towards modern wars like those in the middle east, which demonstrated that modern wars do not end suddenly regardless of what progress either side makes. As long as people have access to weapons there will be enough resistance to make an area a constant war zone. In the past you needed large armies standing in a line, and tanks to crush that line. When armies made enough progress the remaining soldiers either surrender or ran away. Today you can have a handful people operating a drone to sink a warship, or fire a missile against a plane, or just planting random explosives and mines. They get killed and a new group pop up elsewhere doing the exact same thing. The only method to actually win by eliminating resistance becomes burning down every building and killing every person who used to live there, which obviously is immoral and hurts military moral, takes a lot of time, a lot of resources and people, and diplomatic resources. For a country like Ukraine or Russia it would take decades or centuries.
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  > There was no news article where I lived (or international) that predicted that resistance would only last weeks or months. Then you must have not been paying attention. A summary of those failed predictions: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-wrong-intelligence/32275740.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-... It's a roughly equal part of underestimating Ukrainians and overestimating Russians. > Those that did make any prediction about the length of the war pointed towards modern wars like those in the middle east, which demonstrated that modern wars do not end suddenly regardless of what progress either side makes. You mean like Crimea where the resistance never died down and was an active battlefield with daily activity of partisan groups? /s

int_19h 2y ago

Putin assumed that those 1.2 million are just "forcibly separated brothers" that will if not support the "reunification" outright, then at least refuse to fight for a country they don't believe is real. Ukrainian nationalists before the war were presented in Russian agitprop as an extremist minority holding the rest of the country hostage.