Oh wow, we have interesting development. I did not expect any, so my neck have been chopped somewhat, and I still don’t understand why. Apparently there is some urgency at play here.
On the other hand situation is consistent with my understanding of Russian strategy: put actual servicemen there, so any attack will be attack on actual Russian army with dire consequences, international law or no.
So there will be technically invasion, but Russian kind, without dead bodies. I was wondering how situation will resolve and this resolution seems both obvious in retrospect and far more benign than what I imagined. (Of course it is far from actually resolved, this is more of a prediction/hope. In particular I can’t answer “why now?”)
On meta level, making prediction and being proving wrong is more fun than I expected, should write my thoughts down more often.
As in it provides (extremely weak) pretext for invasion? It is same as Armenia which is also in defensive treaty with Russia and governments of those regions are dependent on Russia so likelihood of them getting adventurous by themself is low. It is hard to imagine Ukrainian forces leaving Donbas without a fight so we are speaking about actual invasion here, with shooting and a lot of dead bodies. If that happens it will happen because someone wanted it to happen, not because of technical pretext.
Oh wow, we have scary development. I did not believe this can happen til the end. Yugoslavia all over again. This has to mean complete abandon of cooperative relationship with the West. That is big decision, huge economic consequences, did not expect Putin capable of it.
Other big reason why this was unexpected to me is China. China had to knew about it and still agreed to back up Russia. They are not going out of it completely unscathed, are they? That cases me to update on Taiwan invasion significantly (still low but not negligible anymore). Interested to hear official China reaction.
So it seems China knew something and effectively siding with Russia. But one thing got my attention: they seemed to be surprised by the speed of it. From multiple sources I see this surprise again and again. What happened? Is it just favorable weather conditions?
The speed may be not that quick compared to what russian planners tried to achieve. Ukraine is very large and moving in 100-200 km is some direction is only making troops vulnarable. The main question is will they able take Kiyv and will Zelensky choose to capitulate.
It don’t expect war to be quick and easy a priory. Taking Kiev? Thought alone is nightmare fuel.
I was talking about timeline up to war, not war itself. Ah, I see, happening instead of happened, fixed.
It is an issue that I noted myself and it came up repeatedly in other descriptions: recognition of D/LNR, military moving there, war—all happened too fast. Like script on fast forward. Why?
Oh wow, we have interesting development. I did not expect any, so my neck have been chopped somewhat, and I still don’t understand why. Apparently there is some urgency at play here.
On the other hand situation is consistent with my understanding of Russian strategy: put actual servicemen there, so any attack will be attack on actual Russian army with dire consequences, international law or no.
So there will be technically invasion, but Russian kind, without dead bodies. I was wondering how situation will resolve and this resolution seems both obvious in retrospect and far more benign than what I imagined. (Of course it is far from actually resolved, this is more of a prediction/hope. In particular I can’t answer “why now?”)
On meta level, making prediction and being proving wrong is more fun than I expected, should write my thoughts down more often.
The problem is the borders of Donbas which is different from Line of control.
As in it provides (extremely weak) pretext for invasion? It is same as Armenia which is also in defensive treaty with Russia and governments of those regions are dependent on Russia so likelihood of them getting adventurous by themself is low. It is hard to imagine Ukrainian forces leaving Donbas without a fight so we are speaking about actual invasion here, with shooting and a lot of dead bodies. If that happens it will happen because someone wanted it to happen, not because of technical pretext.
Oh wow, we have scary development. I did not believe this can happen til the end. Yugoslavia all over again. This has to mean complete abandon of cooperative relationship with the West. That is big decision, huge economic consequences, did not expect Putin capable of it.
Other big reason why this was unexpected to me is China. China had to knew about it and still agreed to back up Russia. They are not going out of it completely unscathed, are they? That cases me to update on Taiwan invasion significantly (still low but not negligible anymore). Interested to hear official China reaction.
So it seems China knew something and effectively siding with Russia. But one thing got my attention: they seemed to be surprised by the speed of it. From multiple sources I see this surprise again and again. What happened? Is it just favorable weather conditions?
The speed may be not that quick compared to what russian planners tried to achieve. Ukraine is very large and moving in 100-200 km is some direction is only making troops vulnarable. The main question is will they able take Kiyv and will Zelensky choose to capitulate.
It don’t expect war to be quick and easy a priory. Taking Kiev? Thought alone is nightmare fuel.
I was talking about timeline up to war, not war itself. Ah, I see, happening instead of happened, fixed.
It is an issue that I noted myself and it came up repeatedly in other descriptions: recognition of D/LNR, military moving there, war—all happened too fast. Like script on fast forward. Why?
This comment fills a warm glow in my heart.