Yes Putin had the US, Germany and the EU in a state of panic over what they thought Putin's next move would be.Originally Posted by Dayuhan
His first step was Crimea, the second was the threat to what you mention.
No question he has won outright on Crimea. (His step one)
He is still sitting with Donetsk so maybe only a half step back... Which is understandable given US weakness and German gutlessness.
I guess he is judging his moment to repeat the two steps forward.
That will seem a pretty hollow win if the rest of the Ukraine ends up under a pro-western government.
How is that understandable? If he sees himself faced by weakness and gutlessness, wouldn't the logical move be to take what he wants and establish a fait accomplii, as he did with Crimea? What does he gain by waiting? Not as if things have been going his way in the meantime.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
To your surprise maybe, good strategy is developed and executed in cold blood with brain, guts, especially, testicles are no substitute. :-)
You have not delivered one coherent argument yet why the current strategic setup is a loss for the west. Hint, a good strategy emphasise own strengths and exploits at best at the same time the weaknesses of your opponent, that actually happens. The PR could be better, however, sunstance is more than ok.
Minor point, you obviously do not understand that the country which could put the Russians really between a rock and a hard place is not Germany, but the UK.
I would suggest to you that the annexation of Crimea by Russia is a big win for Russia. The western loss is that they - in this case - the US and Germany to be impotent and unable to restrain Russian territorial aggression.
Who are you trying to lecture?
Russia has made a move - even when not militarily in great shape which says more about the US and Germany than Russia - and the West have proved to be impotent. Russia has exploited the weakness in potential opponents with their current limited strength. That is not too difficult to understand is it?
The UK? Really? I suppose you are able to explain that?
A more recent map, the Ukrainian cyrillic script shouldn't pose much of a problem.
As I have written before the Lysychansk hub with a normal population around 350.000 seems to get increasingly isolated by the Ukrainian forces. Liberating such a densly populated area would greatly reduce the amount of citiziens living in what is to a good degree a reign of terror and crime.
Difficult to know from my perspective, but to me it seems that securing the borders does have a higher priority for the Ukrainians then taking the fight at once to Luhansk and Donetsk. At least most of the casualities come from border areas and some military progess too. There seem to be good reasons for such a focus:
1) The 'Grad' strike which created many military casualties underlines how important it is to stop at least heavy weapons like tanks and additional artillery supply coming from Russia. At least they are harder to smuggle then Manpads and ATGM once the border area gets secured.
2) Russian 'volunteers' will also have a bit harder time to get in and might fear that they won't get home that easily. Even if the 'frontline' seems to be rather porpous the risk to get killed or captured will be increased. Ideally this means that a good deal try to leave foreign land and go home as quickly as possible.
3) The civilians have more time to leave the cities and bring themselves in safety which means a lower risk of civilian casualities by combat and seperatist atrocities.
There has been certainly made considerable progess and for now the three largest broder crossings seem to be under Ukrainian control. Still it would surprise me if there still wouldn't be a constant influx of Russian war material into Ukraine, be it over the flat open countryside or the Seversky Donets.
Lots of fog of war of course and many unkowns. We will see.
Last edited by Firn; 07-12-2014 at 06:55 PM.
... "We need officers capable of following systematically the path of logical argument to its conclusion, with disciplined intellect, strong in character and nerve to execute what the intellect dictates"
General Ludwig Beck (1880-1944);
Speech at the Kriegsakademie, 1935
The conflict seems to be fueled by a Russian UW campaign. Boarder to stop Russian support should be the primary military aim.A more recent map, the Ukrainian cyrillic script shouldn't pose much of a problem.
As I have written before the Lysychansk hub with a normal population around 350.000 seems to get increasingly isolated by the Ukrainian forces. Liberating such a densly populated area would greatly reduce the amount of citiziens living in what is to a good degree a reign of terror and crime.
Difficult to know from my perspective, but to me it seems that securing the borders does have a higher priority for the Ukrainians then taking the fight at once to Luhansk and Donetsk. At least most of the casualities come from border areas and some military progess too. There seem to be good reasons for such a focus:
1) The 'Grad' strike which created many military casualties underlines how important it is to stop at least heavy weapons like tanks and additional artillery supply coming from Russia. At least they are harder to smuggle then Manpads and ATGM once the border area gets secured.
2) Russian 'volunteers' will also have a bit harder time to get in and might fear that they won't get home that easily. Even if the 'frontline' seems to be rather porpous the risk to get killed or captured will be increased. Ideally this means that a good deal try to leave foreign land and go home as quickly as possible.
3) The civilians have more time to leave the cities and bring themselves in safety which means a lower risk of civilian casualities by combat and seperatist atrocities.
There has been certainly made considerable progess and for now the three largest broder crossings seem to be under Ukrainian control. Still it would surprise me if there still wouldn't be a constant influx of Russian war material into Ukraine, be it over the flat open countryside or the Seversky Donets.
Lots of fog of war of course and many unkowns. We will see.
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