Ukraine and Russia: Answering common questions and issues

[WhatsGoingOn2022]

Hi, I am starting this thread due to the amount of misinformation and speculation I have seen on the boards around what is happening with Russia's war on Ukraine.

While I am by no means a leading specialist, I have a master's degree focusing on the defence and economics aspect of international relations, I work today in politics and have a lot of links in the area. Anything I can't answer I can at least point you to the people who can-- I naturally follow this incredibly closely.

I thought it might be helpful if myself and others with specific knowledge in this area could help to answer any questions you have, on anything from the war, to sanctions, to Russia's actions, to the fallout.

[quote 1dayatatime]@Purplecatlover

"Stop! Just stop! Whatever excuse for outings actions can be come up with is NOT an excuse. If you feel that strongly that he is justified then leave here and go join him in his country! NOTHING is a valid excuse for the way he/his army are acting."

+++

In no way do I believe that the actions of Putin of invading another country against its will and the deaths of its citizens is in any way justified.

I was most definitely not trying to justify his actions. Instead of dismissing Putin as a "mad man" i believe it is better to try and understand his / Russia's motives to either a) de escalate the situation to a peace or failing that b) defeat him.

Please try to understand that people on this forum are entitled to different interpretations or views.[/quote]
Hi I'm not really sure what to make about this post: I don't think I've seen anyone trying to portray Putin as a mad man or an irrational actor? Actually quite the opposite, he thought he saw a weakness and took it. It was an act of misjudgment, not madness

Unfortunately I feel like we are 23 pages in, hundreds of historical, empirical examples in, hundreds of supported sources in, views from the people who governed Russia quoted and for some people it's just not sinking in.

You are entitled to believe the Earth is flat as far as I'm concerned. We have a saying in Poland, there's no point in arguing with a mill.

So, I've said what I had to say and unfortunately the current situation is taking it out of me to the extent that I don't have the energy for entertaining any more of those beliefs. Neither do I wish to entertain discussions with those who do not care whether my country is or isn't on a map as long as you can have a morning cuppa in peace. I don't think we have anything to talk about frankly, today or in 10 or 50 years' time. I only hope and pray this is a minority in this country as otherwise it will yet again make a very uncomfortable living for me and my son who is in fact half-British, but he is half-Polish too. He has two home countries of equal importance. That's what I teach him.

If you don't want to believe what's been said, then please watch this unfold and you will see for yourselves. OP - 10/10 for your contributions and thank you.

@Aristalese do what you need to do to look after yourself and your son. I valued your contribution. Thank you

Aristelese Please know that you and your contributions are valued. I would like to have a morning cuppa in peace, but I don’t see how that can happen if it’s at your expense! .

@Aristalese and @WhatsGoingOn2022 thanks so much for this thread. Try not to let the derailers derail! Your experience and knowledge are really appreciated.

I want to know OP - is there any chance the Ukrainians could win?

@Aristalese sorry to hear that the fatigue has set in, rightfully so, given what you have written.

Thank you for answering my (ignorant) questions and this is the only Ukraine war thread that I’ve read on MN.

With 8 million unique visitors per month, remember, more people than you have grappled with here have read your and OPs posts.

Elon Musk has provided new internet services for Ukraine, he has also been having direct conversations with Zelensky and has agreed to have him visit when the war is over.

It's becoming an increasing danger in foreign policy that private citizens with no diplomatic training can be such major players. The same can be said for celebrities and corporations. It was ever thus (to some extent) but modern communciations exacerbate it. It means a line taken by a state can be undermined. So yes I totally agree.

I'm an American. I hold some Tesla stock and greatly admire Musk as an entrepreneur and innovator, but he has a really poor record of following rules and regulations. He doesn't think that someone as smart has he is should really have to listen to anyone, and it's gotten him in trouble a few times. So it's not great that he's sticking his beak in here.

Fabulous thread. Thanks so much for all the time you've taken with this @WhatsGoingOn2022, it's really informative and insightful.

"he thought he saw a weakness and took it. It was an act of misjudgment, not madness".

++++
On this I firmly agree. Part of Putin's logic was

1. Europe is becoming less reliant on Russian gas as renewable energy increases. It was now or never and he believed that ordinary Western Europeans would put the cost of heating and electricity over the independence of Ukraine. On this he has been proved wrong and it will only quicken the pace of renewable growth.
2. He believed or was led to believe that a certain section of Ukrainian society would support Russian intervention. On this he is clearly massively wrong and invading a country tends to make it's population unite in their opposition to the invader. Putin is a clever player and I just cannot understand how he failed to see this coming.
3. Western economies are weak post Covid and Governments would not want to further damage their economies in support of Ukraine.
4. Western politicians especially UK and US were weak and would not do anything about a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Clearly failed on this and in the case of Boris has actually strengthened his chances of staying in office.
5. The change in demographics (younger people are more western, more pro EU and more liberal than older people) and growing prosperity meant that the majority of Ukrainians were increasingly favouring a Western European/ NATO allegiance. So again it was now or never. But once again invading a country really does not convince the population of your viewpoint.

I genuinely cannot see how Putin can now back track out of this one and in any way stay in power, I firmly believe that given a choice between humiliation and escalation he will always choose escalation. This is what worries me.

@Aristalese

Please don't leave the thread it's unfortunate some poster's who lost interest in the other thread tried to gain traction here.

There is a shiny new thread entitled " Invasion.. the Pro Putin stance or Putin's views" and I'm hoping the posters pushing that view Will go there on a special thread?

Otherwise it's repetitive and boring.

I must be reading a different thread, where on earth have people been 'pro putin'?

Hi I'm half way through your responses op (sat 18:32 currently) then I read the last response (strange poster to say the least). I just want to say thank you for taking the time to answer questions in a rational, detailed way and for supporting your comments with further reading. It's the best thread I have found about the war and I feel I understand the motivations for war, the issues on the ground and the future predictions far more with your insights and the further reading. When I'm done reading your posts I may add a question or two of my own!

Thanks for putting the political nature of this war in understandable terminology.

@bellac11

I must be reading a different thread, where on earth have people been 'pro putin'?

There's another thread on here that is explicitly seeking to justify the Putin perspective.

Here on this thread: if I had the energy I would go through and gather the posts, at this point I really don't. I would start however by pointing towards the poster somewhere around the middle of the pages (I would guess 10 or so) claimed Zelensky was a US plant and that he was actually secretly in hiding in west Ukraine, and was not actually leading the country. Or the poster who essentially called me racist for suggesting China had been in anyway involved in this. Or the repeated posts claiming Ukraine were on the verge of NATO membership when that is factually inaccurate and has been demonstrated clearly. Raising these as some quick examples.

Regardless, thank you to everyone who has sent nice messages the last couple of pages, they are appreciated. Some of us are doing our best to bring facts and professional opinions out. Dealing with repeated irate comments from posters who repeat them as fact without understanding of what they are discussing, or who refuse to engage with the actual facts they are shown, is exhausting. I am trying to skim through things like that and get to anything new.

Well this is intriguing ... for all of a nanosecond - well around 15 minutes - the Daily Telegraph announced that "we now have first indications about what the Russians are looking for"..... that Putin's four demands "included"...

1. A ceasefire
2. A long-term commitment (written into constitution, or similar?) that Ukraine would remain neutral
3. That Crimea was recognised as part of Russia
4. That the two south east territories were regarded as independent (sorry, forgotten their names but you know the ones)

and that the war could basically be over in a nanosecond (or similar) quoting a high up Russian military guy....

So we sat down to watch the 7 oclock news keen to learn more .... and NOTHING was said....

Back to the Telegraph and it had vanished..... Not sure what this means as the Telegraphs foreign news is usually ahead of the game... something leaked that shouldn't have been? Or fake news?

It was there at 18.08 for at least 15 minutes in their live news and on there long enough to be in two articles, I think even three.... as I caught opinion pieces including of "of course this would mean Putin has access to the wealthy oil-producing areas" and "Ukranians wouldn't go for it as would mean permanently outside NATO" (and another one said permanently outside NATO and EC).....

And then in the time it took for me to make my supper all trace had vanished!

So ... a couple of questions from me... if something like this was mooted what would be the Ukrainian take likely to be??

Do we think this is real? Any one else discussing?

And before I go - a HUGE thank you for starting this thread... I'm coming back to it three times a day and love your insights - unbelievably helpful to someone like me who knew almost nothing a couple of weeks ago and wants a bit of depth which is tough to find... really THANK YOU ...

@loveyouradvice
The same news item is in the DM.

@loveyouradvice

I saw that too

@1dayatatime
If you are really so worried about nuclear war, I suggest you stop reading these threads or following the news. It's not doing you any good.

Likewise anyone who's very worried.

@loveyouradvice

Well this is intriguing ... for all of a nanosecond - well around 15 minutes - the Daily Telegraph announced that "we now have first indications about what the Russians are looking for"..... that Putin's four demands "included"...

1. A ceasefire
2. A long-term commitment (written into constitution, or similar?) that Ukraine would remain neutral
3. That Crimea was recognised as part of Russia
4. That the two south east territories were regarded as independent (sorry, forgotten their names but you know the ones)

and that the war could basically be over in a nanosecond (or similar) quoting a high up Russian military guy....

So we sat down to watch the 7 oclock news keen to learn more .... and NOTHING was said....

Back to the Telegraph and it had vanished..... Not sure what this means as the Telegraphs foreign news is usually ahead of the game... something leaked that shouldn't have been? Or fake news?

It was there at 18.08 for at least 15 minutes in their live news and on there long enough to be in two articles, I think even three.... as I caught opinion pieces including of "of course this would mean Putin has access to the wealthy oil-producing areas" and "Ukranians wouldn't go for it as would mean permanently outside NATO" (and another one said permanently outside NATO and EC).....

And then in the time it took for me to make my supper all trace had vanished!

So ... a couple of questions from me... if something like this was mooted what would be the Ukrainian take likely to be??

Do we think this is real? Any one else discussing?

And before I go - a HUGE thank you for starting this thread... I'm coming back to it three times a day and love your insights - unbelievably helpful to someone like me who knew almost nothing a couple of weeks ago and wants a bit of depth which is tough to find... really THANK YOU ...

Hi! Thanks so much, hugely appreciate it!

Yes so today's list of demands has been doing the rounds on war twitter. It's quite a big step down from the Russians when compared to yesterday (which was pretty much roll over it's our country now, we get the whole of Ukraine).

You can see today's demands here: twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1500814148543946754

• Ukraine must change its constitution to guarantee it won't join any "blocs", i.e. NATO + EU.
• Must recognise Crimea as part of Russia.
• Must recognise the eastern separatist regions as independent.

It shows that the war is not going well for Russia and that the Kremlin have started to realise how screwed they are. They have finally accepted that they can't occupy the whole of Ukraine.

To look at them in turn:
Give up EU and NATO aspirations: pretty much a non starter straight out of the box.
Ukraine now has overwhelming public support for joining the EU, if you check out the polling since the war started it has shot up (apologies need to dig around to find this). 91% of Ukrainians support their president, there is overwhelming backing of their country's direction.

NATO is an even harder one. Ukraine can't join NATO when these border issues are unresolved anyway, but promising to not join NATO is a bit of a non starter when the main reason for joining is to protect from the bully on the doorstep who has now spent 2 weeks murdering them at will. Now that the war isn't going Russia's way they'll accept an independent Ukraine with the key underlying message FOR NOW, while essentially reserving the right to re-invade down the road by ensuring they are not in NATO.

And then to give them the occupied territories plus Crimea, essentially hand over state assets, important ports and give them civilians to keep under authoritarian rule.

This package as you can imagine is not getting much of a reception from Ukraine. In essence to read between the lines, it says ok you can keep some of your country independent FOR NOW as long as you hold yourself back from your democratic ambitions, and we will ensure the threat of us invading hangs over you. It both gives up territory and pushes the can down the road, essentially allowing Russia to regroup their army and pick a point in a few years when Ukraine looks weaker and they want to invade again.

I think we can safely say there is virtually no chance of them taking this, and I have not seen any Ukrainian or Ukrainian-supporting voices suggesting they should. It does not deal with the fundamental threat from Russia and sets things up nicely for them to take them out fully next time.

@Aristalese and @WhatsGoingOn2022 thanks so much for this thread. Try not to let the derailers derail! Your experience and knowledge are really appreciated

Just want to echo this, it’s appreciated to have somewhere to catch up on what’s happened without having to delve into Twitter myself or deal with the omg it’s going to be nuclear war brigade. It might happen, but getting worked up about it and being all end of the world right now is not necessary and also rather selfish. Get worked up and upset about the refugees who can’t come here, or the donations and help people have been trying to take to other countries but ar e being turned back home because they’re people not formal organisations or charities or businesses!

Sorry to add a few further points on what Russia is now saying: if we boil their position down, it is them acknowledging:

(a) they don't have the troops to keep Ukraine under occupation

(b) they don't have any alternative government to impose

So they are offering them
(c) keep your government and some of your land but curtail your democracy so it is essentially the same repressive, pro-Kremlin, poorer and anti-European regime you overthrew in 2014. With the added point that Ukraine would be restrained from taking action to protect itself (such as through military alliances) so when they next exerted their right to self determination, Russia could annexe them for good.

There's a not so subtle Kremlin undercurrent here that when the sanctions are lifted and Russia has had a chance to get their army in order, plans will be made to re-do this successfully.

If I had a voice here (which I don't) I would absolutely say do not take it.

[quote Kendodd]**@1dayatatime
If you are really so worried about nuclear war, I suggest you stop reading these threads or following the news. It's not doing you any good.[/quote]
Fair point but it's a bit difficult when this afternoon you see a pair of B52 nuclear bombers flying over your house and into RAF Fairford. They didn't come all this way from Louisiana for sight seeing.

Thanks to whoever provided the link to the c4 documentary about Putin.
I’ve just binge watched it.
Anyone who hasn’t seen it I’d give it a watch.
Gives a real insight into this madman.

But as someone who negotiates for (part of)their living, I'm well aware opening offer is usually far off what actually happens.....ie final offer, accepted or not....

Where do you think Russia might go if this is their opening gambit?

What do you think might be acceptable to Ukraine???

Yup, asking you to speculate but love to know! (and thank you....)

@annathespanner1

I want to know OP - is there any chance the Ukrainians could win?

That's a very interesting question. One analyst put it like this:

“It’s like predicting the result of a soccer match. Yes, basically, Brazil should beat America in soccer, but I have seen Americans beat Brazil in South Africa, at the Confederations Cup. You never know the result until the game is played.”

• Russian journalist and military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer

To use another sporting analogy, Ukraine has a puncher's chance.

But it rather depends on what you mean by win.

Could Russia take multiple Ukrainian cities?

The answer is yes they could due to their superior numbers.

Could Russia take and hold Ukraine as a whole?

Some studies suggest any army requires at least 20 soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants in order to control that country. Others suggest 13 soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants.

To give some examples you might be more familiar with:

101 U.S. soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants in the U.S.-controlled sector of West Germany post-WW2.

10-20 British Army soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants in Northern Ireland. This is about 300,000 soldiers, but spread across nearly 40 years.

The aforementioned force ratio was sufficient because West Germany was a partitioned, devastated state post war and Northern Ireland had a majority of the population supportive of the British Army.

In Afghanistan, the US 1 soldier per 1,000 inhabitants in Afghanistan and 7 per 1,000 in Iraq. The USA didn't commit anywhere near enough forces to hold either country and put significantly more of its troops into Iraq than they did Afghanistan.

Due to force ratio theory, it was inevitable the US would lose control of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

The problem Russia has in holding Ukraine is they don't have enough troops to hold the total Ukrainian population about 40 million people. We've all seen the footage of civilians in Ukraine being urged by their government to make petrol bombs and take up arms against the Russians. In short, the Ukrainian-Russian conflict is well on its way to becoming a "people's war". Especially since NATO is leaving Ukraine to fight against Russia with the military personnel they have.

The other problem for Russia if they want hold Ukraine is the western border is wide open.

The long and short of it is Russia do not have the numbers to:

1. subdue the Ukrainian Army
2. subdue the Ukrainian civilian population
3. impose order
4. seal off the western border to create a new Iron Curtain

What Russia DOES have is the numbers and power to do long term is partition Ukraine. Mostly taking Donetsk and Luhansk with them whilst pursuing a scorched earth policy a là Clausewitz.

That may well be the most likely scenario in the end. I'm sure Putin would consider that a 'win' even if it falls short of complete victory over the Ukrainians.