Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[HVC]

Does anyone else detect a whiff of farce to this war?  Meant to intimidate and put on a show rather than kill and seize territory?

I've seen many reports of missile strikes but not so many of heavy ground fighting.  And certainly no camera footage of what I would call heavy fightiing.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a farce, but I did expect more bombing and the like.

[Sheilbh]

Unconfirmed but: Ukraine's Air Defense downed a Russian Ilyushin II-76 carrying a landing force near Vasylkiv south of Kyiv

Apparently Zelensky's tonight said they expect Russian troops to try and storm Kyiv in a "vile, cruel and inhuman" fashion: "we have to persevere tonight. The fate of Ukraine is being decided right now. The night will be hard, very hard, but there will be a morning."

[Tamas]

Unconfirmed but: Ukraine's Air Defense downed a Russian Ilyushin II-76 carrying a landing force near Vasylkiv south of Kyiv

Apparently Zelensky's tonight said they expect Russian troops to try and storm Kyiv in a "vile, cruel and inhuman" fashion: "we have to persevere tonight. The fate of Ukraine is being decided right now. The night will be hard, very hard, but there will be a morning."

Maybe (probably?) US feeding him intel?

[Sheilbh]

Probably - already unconfirmed social media videos of street fighting in Kyiv. It looks like it'll be an awful night

[Legbiter]

The Ukrainians really need to attack the Russian rear to cut off the logistics of the armored thrust that's encircling Kiev, otherwise the Russians can siege it and threaten to Grozny it with their artillery.

[Habbaku]

The Ukrainians really need to attack the Russian rear to cut off the logistics of the armored thrust that's encircling Kiev, otherwise the Russians can siege it and threaten to Grozny it with their artillery.

Wow, great thinking; so wise. Why aren't you leading the Ukrainian forces?

[Sheilbh]

Really worrying report from Times Diplomatic correspondent about intelligence briefings she's had tonight - so on what British intelligence is worried the Russians might use on Kyiv if they don't win quickly (I think this is really upsetting, so you may not want to read):
https://twitter.com/scribblercat/status/1497338480061526018

Quite how having to level what he would consider the spiritual home of Russian culture fits with a mission to "liberate" it from drug-addled Nazis, I don't know.

On the other hand I feel - and I could be totally wrong, it'd be interesting to know the Ukrainian view of him - that if they did achieve this decapitation strategy and got Zelensky now that he'd just become a martyr and stiffen Ukrainian resolve in the rest of the country.

Again I just think they thought this would be a lot easier.

[Tamas]

Really worrying report from Times Diplomatic correspondent about intelligence briefings she's had tonight - so on what British intelligence is worried the Russians might use on Kyiv if they don't win quickly (I think this is really upsetting, so you may not want to read):
https://twitter.com/scribblercat/status/1497338480061526018

Quite how having to level what he would consider the spiritual home of Russian culture fits with a mission to "liberate" it from drug-addled Nazis, I don't know.

On the other hand I feel - and I could be totally wrong, it'd be interesting to know the Ukrainian view of him - that if they did achieve this decapitation strategy and got Zelensky now that he'd just become a martyr and stiffen Ukrainian resolve in the rest of the country.

Again I just think they thought this would be a lot easier.

The wording of it seems to indicate its a fear because it wouldn't be the first time Russia uses such a weapon on population centres, not that there's actual intel that they have a plan to do so. Like you said, it's hard to imagine they'd would reach such depths against people they may not consider untermensch.

[Jacob]

I find it hard to believe that levelling a city of 3 mllion people Russians consider "actually not really different from Russians at all" (while Putin also claims they're conducting "genocide" against... what's supposed to be their own people?) is going to work out well for the Russian regime in the long term.

[Legbiter]

I find it hard to believe that levelling a city of 3 mllion people Russians consider "actually not really different from Russians at all" (while Putin also claims they're conducting "genocide" against... what's supposed to be their own people?) is going to work out well for the Russian regime in the long term.

That's what they did to Grozny and what they did when helping Assad in Syria. They promise a humanitarian corridor for people who want to leave and then go all in after a certain date.

[HVC]

I get the calling them nazis thing, but when and why did the drugs angle start?

[Jacob]

That's what they did to Grozny and what they did when helping Assad in Syria. They promise a humanitarian corridor for people who want to leave and then go all in after a certain date.

I am not doubting that Putin would order it. I am doubting that it'll work out to his advantage in the long run.

I think it will do more damage to the spirit of Russia and Russians than to Ukraine and Ukrainians, even if Ukrainians are the ones who are massacred.

[Jacob]

I get the calling them nazis thing, but when and why did the drugs angle start?

It's all about dehumanizing them to justify atrocities.

[Sheilbh]

I find it hard to believe that levelling a city of 3 mllion people Russians consider "actually not really different from Russians at all" (while Putin also claims they're conducting "genocide" against... what's supposed to be their own people?) is going to work out well for the Russian regime in the long term.

I agree.

It feels like either their current strategy works (and speeds up) - but I'm not sure that would do, I don't think that capturing Kyiv and Zelensky would necessarily end the war given what seems like the current morale and determination in Ukraine. So they could be in for a longer fight than they planned.

Or they keep stalling/being slowed down and actually have to fight for cities in urban warfare with civiliians with weapons, the government telling them to prepare Molotov cocktails and apparently the Kyiv technical university basically just mass producing Molotovs at the minute. At which point they temptation rises for levelling the city into submission.

This is just me and I've no expertise in this, but those seem to me to be the likely possibilities - and I don't see either working well for Putin or the Russian regime. I don't think this is a popular war and I can't see a way he can turn it into one. It looks likely that Russia will suffer quite a lot of casualties regardless and it's just if he is also willing to commit absolutely heinous crimes against a "sibling people". I think hubris and a catastrophically wrong reading of Ukraine are big factors now - I think they expected collapse, chaos and that all of Ukraine was basically a, in Putin's phrase, "colony run by a puppet regime" with no legitimacy.

[Legbiter]

I am not doubting that Putin would order it. I am doubting that it'll work out to his advantage in the long run.

I think it will do more damage to the spirit of Russia and Russians than to Ukraine and Ukrainians, even if Ukrainians are the ones who are massacred.

Yeah this whole war is an obscenity, a mark of Cain on the regime, what they're doing to their little brother. They're fellow Orthodox as well.