putin and the cornered rat

[Revoltingest]

You think?

These don't make sense together. If Putin wants to get and keep Ukraine this is even more stupid than just bombing a nuclear power plant. Maybe you are wrong in the assessment of Putin's plans and goals?

Could it be that Russian military isn't
as well trained as they should be?

 

[Martin]

That's because I haven't weighed in on accuracy of
news coverage in the west. One cannot address every
possible issue that every poster might ask of me.
So if there's something you want to know, just ask.
That's safer than presuming based upon not covering it.

I see pretty consistent coverage in the west, with
disclaimers about facts, eg, number of captures on
each side, number of deaths on each side.

Russia has vastly more military resources than Ukraine.
And Russian military philosophy is that soldiers are disposable.
Unlike the west, they're willing to send waves to their death.
(This is something I've already investigated today.)
Russia can succeed long before economic sanctions
would begin to cripple Soviet Russian society & government.

China strikes me as clear in its support for Russia.
(I've been reading that there was a deal to delay invasion
til after the Olympics, but not the Paralympics.)

Ukraine will become part of Russia.
My issue is that we handle this debacle such that
Russia believes further conquest isn't worth the
costs & risks, & doesn't escalate tensions with
NATO countries.

I don't see any alternative to beefing up NATO, and reinforcing the Western flank in Eastern Europe. Putin has effectively restarted the Cold War.

 

[Heyo]

Could it be that Russian military isn't
as well trained as they should be?

Yes, but that doesn't answer my question. And what's more it doesn't answer how strategy should change if the answer is "yes".

 

[Heyo]

I don't see any alternative to beefing up NATO, and reinforcing the Western flank in Eastern Europe. Putin has effectively restarted the Cold War.

And you like it that way. Do you own any stock in weapons manufacturing?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Putin is a rat you don't want to corner. Give him a way out, that is out, where you want him to go.

That, or someone will have to kill him. Those are the options.

 

[RestlessSoul]

A promise that NATO won't expand further east, that was one of his declared goals. He could end the war without losing (too much) face.

Too late for that now, I think. Russia had a valid argument regarding NATOs eastwards expansion, but Putin’s actions have invalidated that position, which no longer looks reasonable (because Russia under Putin cannot be reasoned with).

 

[Heyo]

Too late for that now, I think. Russia had a valid argument regarding NATOs eastwards expansion, but Putin’s actions have invalidated that position, which no longer looks reasonable (because Russia under Putin cannot be reasoned with).

Do you have a better idea to motivate Putin to end the war?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Do you have a better idea to motivate Putin to end the war?

Would it make any difference if I did?

 

[Heyo]

Would it make any difference if I did?

You wouldn't look like a helpless ... person who, under stress, has no plan and simply relies on their fight-or-flight instinct.

 

[Martin]

There's a slew of references to the story putin told about what happened when he cornered a rat in his childhood. I think it's accurate given that sanctions are aimed at destroying Russia's economy and Russia keeps escalating it's aggressive war on Ukraine.

As a boy in Leningrad, he once chased a particularly fat one down the hallway of his apartment building. Cornered, the squealing creature turned on young Putin and tried to bite him. Terrified, the boy fled into his parents’ apartment, slamming the door in the rat’s face.

The lesson, Putin recalls, was clear: never put someone’s back against the wall — because you don’t know what they’ll do when desperate. Six days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there are two ways this rat from the 1950s can help us understand what’s going on in Eastern Europe today.

The first is that the Ukrainians, cornered by the world’s fifth-largest army, are putting up a surprisingly tenacious fight from their end of the hallway.
...
Putin is now facing an enraged and highly motivated Ukrainian resistance, crippling Western sanctions, and the prospect of a much longer conflict than Russians may tolerate. It’s hard to imagine that Putin’s next approval ratings will show a 20-point jump like the one he enjoyed after bloodlessly annexing Crimea in 2014.

All of this takes us down the hallway to the second interpretation of the rat story: in which Putin himself is now boxed into a situation in which he must escalate in order to survive. After all, to back down now — with Kyiv still standing and the internet swooning over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — would be a humiliation on the global stage. It would also raise uncomfortable questions about Putin’s judgment at home.

I don't think Putin is like a cornered rat. He's more like a bad-tempered, sociopathic bear who wants to eat everyone else's salmon.

 

[RestlessSoul]

You wouldn't look like a helpless ... person who, under stress, has no plan and simply relies on their fight-or-flight instinct.

I’m not really bothered what I look like, thoug I do feel pretty helpless. What I look like is hardly going to have much of an impact on world events, is it? Did you think I was Boris Johnson, or Emmanuel Macron? I’m not, I’m just a bloke without a clue (same as them tbf, and probably you too if we’re being honest).

I won’t be fighting, and I doubt I’ll be flying anywhere for a while either. All I can do is pray, but at least I can do that.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yes, but that doesn't answer my question. And what's more it doesn't answer how strategy should change if the answer is "yes".

I'm sure that Russia intends to annex
Ukraine by whatever means necessary.
Could I be wrong? Anything's possible.

 

[Martin]

Too late for that now, I think. Russia had a valid argument regarding NATOs eastwards expansion, but Putin’s actions have invalidated that position, which no longer looks reasonable (because Russia under Putin cannot be reasoned with).

Yes, and those individual countries made their own decisions to apply for NATO membership. It's not like NATO threatened then with invasion and nukes, like Putin has done.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

NATOs power has reduced significantly since the end of the Cold War

I think the past week has proven otherwise.
It's quite clear that Putin didn't anticipate this level of unity.

He even managed to bring unity in the US among democrats and republicans on this issue, more so then any president these past decades has succeeded in doing.

He's also quite surprised at the level of resistance he's meeting in Ukraine. In his blitzkrieg plans, the Ukrainian leadership should have been decapitated by now with most of the country already subdued and a puppet government on the way. Instead, Ukrainians themselves are making a laughing stock of them on the internet and trapping Russians in kill zones with well thought out defense mechanisms.

The morale of the russians is very low. Most of them don't even know why they are there. But Ukrainians know very well what they are fighting for.

This is a war he can't win. He can win battles. He won't win the war. He can't. This invasion is political suicide.

I think there is a small chance that the world will come out a lot better out of this.
In such scenario, Putin would go the extra mile and escalate further and further... upto a point where his own people turn against him. The ideal scenario here is that his own people put a bullet in his head and do a sweep of the corrupt government and then have a Navalny or alike take over. Russia itself might get on track for Nato membership after that.

In that sense, I think people will look in hindsight at this conflict as the final end of the Soviet era.

These people in power at the moment... these are all the remnants of the Soviets. Putin is a KGB *******, after all. So are many of his "comrades". The russian opposition (most of whom are in jail or poisoned) are a lot more western minded.