Have you seen Grozny after the Second Chechen war?
I think there are multiple factors at work in the Chechen war. One of them is that the Chechen population is largely Muslim and not Christian. That makes it politically easier to cause them hardship. The also repeatidly rebeled against Russian governance.
There are multiple groups. Ukrainians who identify primarily as Ukrainians, Ukrainians who identify as Russians, and Ukrainians who identify as something else. I will call the Ukrainians who identify as Russian ethnic Russians for the following comment.
Defenders of Mariupol have sheltered in Azovstal after the city was under siege for a long time.
I think that attacking the military forces in Azostal, can be explained by military motivations that are not about punishing the ethnic Russians of the region. It is qualitatively different than destroying a lot of the homes in the city.
When it comes to the Ukrainians who do identify as Russians there’s public pressure in Russia to engage in actions to protect them. There’s the US cable from 2008 that describes that choice:
Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.
From Russia’s perspective, the events in 2013 and 2014 did force Russia to make a choice about whether or not to intervene. Putin decided to intervene in 2014 and as a result, massively increased his domestic approval.
From the Russian perspective, I don’t think that the ethnic-Russian community in Ukraine did anything wrong that’s worth punishing. On the other hand, under the maximalist claim that Ukraine is a fake country and those people who identify as Ukrainian are actually Russian and those do deserve some punishment for resisting Russia.
Russia carried out this attack few days ago as officially confirmed by Russian ministry of defense and judged by the effects on Ukrainian infrastructure.
As far as I understand they did that in retaliation for the bombing of the bridge and in territories where the majority is ethnic Ukrainians. They didn’t do that in the areas they annexed.
Ukrainians also do not believe in peace with Russia. Most likely any peace agreement will be just a time for Russia to rearm and attack again.
To the extent that this is true, taking Moscow would be the only way to end the current war. The West seems pretty clear that it’s not willing to support Ukraine that far. That’s partly why the West doesn’t give them missiles that are able to hit targets 300 kilometers away.
Europe is going to want peace sooner or later. Even when the US would in principle be okay with longer fighting, they don’t want to fund the war indefinitely either.
To the extent that there’s a decent chance for a new war in the future, it would be good to have a peace deal that makes future wars less likely instead of more likely. Peace after Ukraine retakes Crimea would leave Russia with a lot more pressure to start a new war than peace where Russia keeps Crimea.
I think there are multiple factors at work in the Chechen war. One of them is that the Chechen population is largely Muslim and not Christian. That makes it politically easier to cause them hardship. The also repeatidly rebeled against Russian governance.
There are multiple groups. Ukrainians who identify primarily as Ukrainians, Ukrainians who identify as Russians, and Ukrainians who identify as something else. I will call the Ukrainians who identify as Russian ethnic Russians for the following comment.
I think that attacking the military forces in Azostal, can be explained by military motivations that are not about punishing the ethnic Russians of the region. It is qualitatively different than destroying a lot of the homes in the city.
When it comes to the Ukrainians who do identify as Russians there’s public pressure in Russia to engage in actions to protect them. There’s the US cable from 2008 that describes that choice:
From Russia’s perspective, the events in 2013 and 2014 did force Russia to make a choice about whether or not to intervene. Putin decided to intervene in 2014 and as a result, massively increased his domestic approval.
From the Russian perspective, I don’t think that the ethnic-Russian community in Ukraine did anything wrong that’s worth punishing. On the other hand, under the maximalist claim that Ukraine is a fake country and those people who identify as Ukrainian are actually Russian and those do deserve some punishment for resisting Russia.
As far as I understand they did that in retaliation for the bombing of the bridge and in territories where the majority is ethnic Ukrainians. They didn’t do that in the areas they annexed.
To the extent that this is true, taking Moscow would be the only way to end the current war. The West seems pretty clear that it’s not willing to support Ukraine that far. That’s partly why the West doesn’t give them missiles that are able to hit targets 300 kilometers away.
Europe is going to want peace sooner or later. Even when the US would in principle be okay with longer fighting, they don’t want to fund the war indefinitely either.
To the extent that there’s a decent chance for a new war in the future, it would be good to have a peace deal that makes future wars less likely instead of more likely. Peace after Ukraine retakes Crimea would leave Russia with a lot more pressure to start a new war than peace where Russia keeps Crimea.