Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[Dayuhan]

Putin still really "wants" to place the Donetsk under the control of "peace keepers" to separate the ethnic Russians from alleged brutality by the Ukrainian Army against civilians

Nobody here knows what Putin "really wants". We only know what he does: any effort to deduce motivation or desire is speculative.

What we know is that Putin has had troops positioned to intervene for months. He's had all the pretext he could ask for. The "rebels" have begged him to intervene. He hasn't. I don't know how that squares up with the assumption that he "really wants" Russian peacekeepers in Donetsk. If he really wanted them there, they'd have been there a long time ago.

This also seems inconsistent with that position:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...n-Ukraine.html

Vladimir Putin has asked Russia's parliament to revoke a controversial law authorising him to use military force in Ukraine, in what appears to be a good will gesture as diplomats scramble to resolve the crisis in the country.

Now notice just how quiet it is with NATO on these movements as well as the EU and the US. There is some reporting out there of roughly 20K Russian troops now again close to the Ukrainian border just opposite of Donetsk.

Haven't similar movements back and forth been going on for months? Why would NATO suddenly make a big fuss over it now?

I'm sure Putin will continue sending men and equipment to help his proxies, though they appear to be increasingly incoherent, conflicted, and unable to establish any functional political apparatus. I see no reason to assume that he wants to send in troops. If he wanted that it would be a fait accomplii already, as it was in Crimea. Again, we don't know why he hasn't moved: fear of sanctions, fear of bogging down in an occupation role... all conjecture. What we know is that he could have done it a long time ago, and has not.

Dayuhan--still a win for Putin as h established his doctrine of intervention to defend ethnic Russians wherever they reside and in whatever country.

He's spoken the words, but he hasn't acted on them. His proxies are retreating in disarray, fighting with each other and losing faith in his promises... and that's a win? What would you call a loss?

Putin and his "radical nationalists advisors vastly underestimated the impact of some actually flawed sanctions thus the pull back.

If even those ridiculously minimal sanctions, and a few threats, could force him to pull back, then all he's done is advertise his own vulnerability. How is that a win?

BUT while he is struggling outwardly he is still pushing armed irregulars into Donetsk based on video footage still coming into the net and he is still pushing for a settlement that "allows" the Russian irregulars to "appear" to be winners---ie he states there must be talks before the arms are laid down and he is still trying to control the international responses from the international players ie that last meeting of the four FMs in Berlin which they spun as an iron clad legal document which it was not.

So even through outwardly appearances say one thing I still think he can book a major victory---and along the way verify his new military doctrine as well.

He can claim whatever he wants. What the world sees is that in May he looked set to seaize the Eastern Ukraine and possibly push across to Transnistria, cutting Ukraine off from the sea, and potentially threatening the rest of Eastern Europe... and today he looks set to settle for a bit of nebulously defined "influence" in Eastern Ukraine. Can't see that as a "win" in any sense.

West has lost massively as the EU is slowly breaking up on the topic of the South Stream pipeline and both the EU and the US backed away from their threatened sectorial sanctions.

How is that a loss? If the mere threat accomplishes the goal, what need is there for elevated sanctions?

So I do not see where the US got anything out of being still---Russian irregulars are still fighting and weapons are still coming across that "enhanced" security border Putin promised.

The predicted threat did not materialize and looks less likeley to materialize every day... and it's entirely possible that a more active response involving military threats would have made matters worse, not better. If anything Putin has underscored his own weakness by backing down in the face of very limited sanctions and a few vague threats of more extensive ones. Can't call it a 100% win for the West, of course, as Crimea is realistically gone, but if Ukraine manages to re-establish functioning sovereignty over the east it is certainly not the huge Russian win that was being predicted here not long ago.