Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[Dayuhan]

What one "sees" is not what you "get".

I could actually go day by day the last two weeks and depict in detail that while you, EU and Obama "thinks" you are ahead---Putin has actually taken three steps forward and only a half step backwards.

What exactly were those steps, and where have they gotten him?

What I see is that some people here who are personally invested in the idea of an ascendent Russia and the West in retreat are very eager to cling to that construct.

He is in a race---namely does he get what he needs and wants and that is the New Russia ie the Donetsk before his economy tanks for a long while. Why Donetsk---it is where the bulk of all Russian military production which Russia needs for their 2020 rearming program is currently being produced and it would take Putin ten years to rebuild it inside Russia---he needs the Donetsk.

That is his race and we do not even see it---strange is it not?

A race against what? If he wants Donetsk, all he has to do is take it, as he took Crimea. He could do it today. He could have done it months ago. He hasn't, which suggests that either he doesn't want it all that badly or he's concerned about potential consequences.

You honesty think Putin thinks for a single moment he is losing come on Dayuhan.

It would be silly for anyone here to speculate on whether or not Putin thinks he's winning or losing. No way to know what he thinks.

If you think for one moment those Russian "war tourists" or what I call irregulars are not being slid through a border that Putin "claims" was secure with the approval of the FSB ---check this link showing documents of a killed "Russian war tourist"---down to the Russian military unit he was assigned to.

We all know they are there. Are they winning?

The Ukrainian government could still blow it, of course, if they lay siege to Donetsk and create a bloodbath. I don't think they are that stupid, though. If they can back the rebels into a few urban centers they can hold up, offer a conditional amnesty that would send the Russians back to Russia without consequence and give the local irregulars a way out that does not involve urban warfare.

We'll see soon enough, but surely you notice that all the talk about how Putin is bound to seize all of eastern Ukraine and link up with Transnistria has completely evaporated.