Solid majorities of Americans support providing weaponry to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia and believe that such aid demonstrates to China and other U.S. rivals a will to protect U.S. interests and allies, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey.

The two-day poll that was concluded on Tuesday charted a sharp rise in backing for arming Ukraine, with 65% of the respondents approving of the shipments compared with 46% in a May poll.

The survey was conducted just days after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private Wagner mercenary company, launched and then called off a mutiny over what he charged was the Russian defense ministry's mishandling of the war in Ukraine. — Reuters

The feint worked.

Sure :)

And in that model nothing is synchronized enough to be called 'the present'. If you see a bird flying in the sky near the sun, the light that bounced off the bird hit it a fraction of a second ago, but the rays coming for the Sun left it eight minutes ago. That is, what you perceive as contemporary is not – the Sun might have suddenly ceased to exist four minutes ago, long before that bird even got near you. Your perception 'the bird flies when the sun shines' would be false in that case.

The same goes for all your senses, of course. If you step on something sharp, you feel it about 0.3 s after the fact. If you think that you have heard something at the exact same moment - you did not, as your auditory impulses are also delayed, but less than touch. And of course both stimuli occurred even earlier, before they were processed by your brain. What you perceive as 'the present' is a jumble of of various occurences that have already happened at different times. 'Reality itself' it is not.

So realism aims to speak about what actually exists. But practically speaking, this is achieved by establishing it as the contrast to all else that could have been the case. — apokrisis

That is correct, because that what the underlying material of language - information - is: just differences. A photosensitive organism does not see 'the world as it is' - it just perceives that an area is different than another one. And our seeing is different only quantitatively, not qualitatively: we see more differences, but still nothing but differences. Our language, that is, our descriptions of what we perceive, reflects that. Any definition of a thing just describes is how that thing is not like other things. That is why no definition is finite: there still might be a thing that fits the description, but is somewhat different.

Today Lukashenko has told the press how Putin asked him for help, as Prigozhin was not returning his calls. As he tells it, Lukashenko then gave him wise advice and then graciously saved his hide.

If even Batka openly shows his lack of respect, then Putin's cunning subterfuge worked: everyone thinks he is weak.

Well good we agree his reputation in the West is irrelevant, and I assume you agree with my point of reputation vis-a-vis other authoritarians.
[...]
Putin himself was not openly challenged, Prigozhin clarifies during his escapade that Putin is the duly elected head of government, and it's not a coup but a "march for justice".

Instead of Putin being actually challenged, he plays more the "godfather" role of mediating and resolving disputes between subordinates, all of which pay homage to him. — boethius

And that is exactly why there are good reasons to think it was not staged: the most damaging for Putin was his speech: if he waited for the situation to clear up, the damage to his domestic reputation would be much less and the effects would be more or less the same. Even the same speech but less conclusive and with more doublespeak, which is his specialty, would be better: specifically threatening Prigozhin and not delivering made him take the biggest blow.

The same goes for the 'defence', which was simply hilarious. If it was staged, they could just prepare some reserve force for the defense of the capital city: that would be as convincing, as, you know, countries at war tend to have their capital cities defended, so it would not be very surprising. Instead they have been caught with their pants down. Are you saying they wanted to be comically convincing?

And I have already given reasons why Prigozhin did not challenge Putin (initially, because then HE DID, the fact that you conveniently omit): he did not want to overthrow him, just force to share some power with him, while Putin could still save face. But Putin chose confrontational language and in result could not prevent losing face when he could not deliver (which could be easily avoided if it was staged).

However, my point was that if it is an intelligence operation and somehow these negatives consequences you point out become relevant (costs outweigh the gains) they could just come out and say it was an intelligence operation to fool the West / Ukrainians and that saved lives somehow (whether it is true or not). — boethius

The operation had obvious costs and no visible gains for them. Now you are just saying that it might have gains if they said that it does... that does not even make sense.

And think about it, why would Lukashenko spontaneously intervene in Russian internal affairs? If this was an "open challenge" to Putin and Putin wants these mutineers dead, it makes absolutely zero sense for Lukashenko to call Prigozhin like this was some high school level drama. — boethius

After talks in Rostov Prigozhin refused to communicate with MoD/Kremlin directly. Lukashenko was their last channel of contact.

This is just pure delusion. 25 000 troops without any supply lines or airforce or satellite intelligence and so on, are not going to defeat a million troops with supply lines and all the hardware and gadgets. Russian regular forces could continuously carpet bomb Wagner positions. Additionally, not all Wagner troops joined the "rebellion", those that didn't have the opportunity now to just join Russian regular forces. So we don't even know how much troops we're talking about. — boethius

You misunderstood that completely. I did not say that Wagner could take out all other Russian forces, I have pointed out that Wagner is a much better force than any comparable Russian command. That is an objective fact confirmed by their war records: Wagner troops perform much better than other Russian troops. Thus your claim that anyone could replace Prigozhin is demonstrably false: those who organize and command other troops do it much worse than Prigozhin. If that did not make any difference, then the troops would not be any different.

That's not how any military or intelligence operation works or even business works. Someone who goes off script and is unpredictable and a loose cannon is a serious problem, as you don't know what they're going to do and how much damage they can cause, wittingly or not. It doesn't matter how fast you are at putting up drywall if you're likely to burn down the entire project.
[...]
Prigozhin is not essential to Wagner continuing to operate essentially exactly the same.

Equating Wagner with Prigozhin is just false and there would be zero reason to keep him around if he was causing problems, you just get rid of him (by an "accident" or just arrest him on sedition or make a executive order or pass a law nationalising his "private military organisation") and problem solved.

Again, that is obviously false. As I have already wrote, if that was the case, then all Russian troops would be at similar level. Quite obviously they are not. Wagner is the most effective Russian unit by a large margin. Are you saying that it is not Prigozhin's merit and just pure coincidence?

Again, Prigozhin does not equal Wagner, you can easily have Wagner without Prigozhin and there is zero evidence that Prigozhin's experience in prison and hotdog stands and fancy restaurants has made him some military strategist so brilliant that he is simply irreplaceable and the war cannot be fought without him. Likely he's not involved in the tactical decisions at all (but leaves that to military professionals). — boethius

So you are basically saying that anyone can run a successful PMC and anyone can be a successful commander. Seriously?

Sure, in some ways there's negatives for Putin's reputation, but if he remains in power and the Ukraine war and economy goes well there's no long term damage, and maybe later they're all like "aha, it was all just an intelligence operation, many Russian lives were saved by getting the West to believe whatever Prigozhin would tell them".

Also, keep in mind that Putin's reputation doesn't matter much in the West, he's already literally Hitler over here, and where it does matter is vis-a-vis other authoritarians, and these conversations are private, so he could just tell them it was all planned (whether it was or not). Point being, negative reputation in Western media may not really matter and how other authoritarians view things maybe very different (what likely matters most to other authoritarians is simply who is winning on the battlefield). — boethius

Putin's reputation in the West is completely irrelevant; for him his reputation at home is essential. The propaganda monolith is very sensitive to any detractions, Putin appearing weak before Russians (and that is exactly what has happened, as evidenced by Russian TV, forums and blogs) for him is potentially fatal. He has shown that he can be challenged with impunity - there is nothing worse for an authoritarian figure.

Not to mention that you have failed to show how exactly 'Russian lives have been saved'. Nothing of the kind happened and in two days nobody will remember the coup, as the military packages are getting bigger and bigger.

But you don't need Prigozhin for that. You can just arrest him and replace him or even just pass a law nationalising Wagner at any time. There is zero evidence Prigozhin is some sort of brilliant military commander ... his curriculum vitae is going to prison and then running a hot dog stand and then fancy restaurants. There is zero military benefits Prigozhin provides that some other commander / businessman can't equally provide, maybe better. — boethius

That is demonstrably false. Prigozhin alone has assembled a military force that appears to be decidedly better than the rest of the Russian forces. The whole point is that Shoigu and Gerasimov's troops could not equal Wagner even with theoretically bigger resources. If he was that easy to replace, then all Russian soldiers should equal Wagnerites. They pretty obviously do not.

As for the risks, someone going "off script" and is totally out of control and may do anything at anytime, bad for moral, etc. is impossible to justify tolerating during a war. You really think Putin and the ministry of defensc and intelligence and all the generals will sit around drawing up plans that can be "disrupted" by Prigozhin at any time? It makes zero sense. — boethius

Again - they had little choice as Wagner was indispensable. Besides Prigozhin was not going off script for most of the war – only when he started to hint at his ambitions they decided to pacify him by sending Wagner to Bakhmut.

Again, zero problem: "died in an artillery strike, hero of the nation".

You're argument is basically Prigozhin had the leverage and importance to have every higher-up in the military and Putin himself worried what he might do or say, worried about the power he's continued to be allowed to accumulate. Maybe that's true, but I find it a far longer stretch of the imagination than what is non-sensical theatrics is just that: theatre. — boethius

No imagination is needed, because we do know that he had the leverage: the war would go much worse without Wagner. If that happened, Putin would have much bigger problems than Prigozhin. If they had the choice between allowing his ambitions to grow and losing an important part of the front, it was not much of a choice at all.

My point about benefits we are too unsophisticated to even know is in the context of people think Russian intelligence plaid a vital roll in getting Trump elected. If you ascribe that much power to Russian intelligence they are literally capable of anything. Literally anything happening in the entire world could be Russian intelligence. — boethius

Yes, you seem pretty hung up on that argument, but it does not follow. As in our previous discussions, you seem to treat the issue in a restrictively binary way – either Russian intelligence can orchestrate the whole US elections or it is helpless. That is, of course, a false dilemma.

The basic benefit of whole Prigozhin thing is just getting your message in the Western news to begin with. — boethius

Putin taking an enormous hit to his reputation (again: he literally promised Prigozhin, the traitor, harsh punishment and utterly failed to deliver) for the price of being in the news for three days (because that is how Western media works) is beyond absurd. But OK, let us see the news: Poland has promised 'thousands of assault rifles and millions of ammo', Denmark has announced that it will speed up its plane replacements two years ahead just to give Ukraine F16s earlier, Australia will provide 70 million military package, US has announced that it will announce tomorrow another 500 million package, Bulgaria (!) has approved a military aid package of unknown value, foreign ministers of EU states approved an increase of 3.5 BILLION euros for military assistance for Ukraine. These are news FROM TODAY. Is that the 'frustrated narrative' of military aid? It does not look that frustrated to me...

Well, give it a go. — boethius

Kremlin has tolerated Prigozhin for months, because he was extremely useful for the war effort, at least until Bakhmut. After Wagner was decimated in Bakhmut and many contracts expired, its military force became to wane. For MoD it was a signal that it might take control of it or at least pacify it, for Prigozhin it was the last call to stay relevant. But, more importantly, Prigozhin is (or was till Friday) idolized by all pro-war Russians: his troops were most efficient, did not flinch from most difficult tasks, actually made the effort (unlike Tik-Tok troops). Solovyov was his buddy, Peskov's son was thrilled to 'serve' under him, milbloggers loved him... He was all that the MoD brass was not. In short, he was a morale booster, the military man Russians always wanted. You do not just whack someone like that because he said some harsh things (which were still rather mild compared to, say, Girkin).

I always try to give the benefit of the doubt.

So either we go with what we know, and the known loss/gain ratio practically excludes the 'staged coup' scenario, or we assume we know almost nothing and have to refrain from conclusions.

Likewise, ordinary Russians were just faced with the anxiety and abyss of real chaos and then immediately relieved and comforted with the warm cloak of order and familiarity. — boethius

You can see how 'relieved and comforted' people are on Russian TV... On Solovyov's show Bezrukov is complaining about the weak and impotent government. 'This couldn't happen in a strong country!' he says (on Solovyov's!). Margarita just looks stunned... Half of milbloggers are calling for blood... On RIA's forums very few people are 'comforted', most are frightened and confused. The most often asked question is: why nobody seeks to punish someone who shot down a dozen of Russian airmen?

Again: a person initiating an action that Putin explicitly called on TV 'treason' just walks free, with personal safety guaranteed by Putin (as reported by Peskov), greeted by crowds. Is that a show of order, a source of comfort? I disagree.

I would say that both Prigozhin and Putin lost much too much for it to be staged.

EDIT: Just an excerpt from Putin's speech:

I repeat: any internal mutiny is a deadly threat to our state, to us as a nation. It’s a blow against Russia, against our people. And our actions to defend the fatherland from such a threat will be brutal.

Anyone who consciously went on the path of betrayal, who prepared the armed mutiny, went on the path of blackmail and terrorist actions, will be punished inevitably. They will answer before the law and our people.

None of that happened.

Prigozhin would do well not to trust Vladimir & Company, including Lukashenko, with his life. He's likely to be dead meat sooner rather than later. I wouldn't expect too much kindness were I a Wagner soldier, either. Charges dismissed? Probably not. I'm pretty sure the empire will strike back, as soon as they get their act together. — BC

They might want to step lightly here, though. Many regular soldiers heartily agree with the grievances voiced by Prigozhin and definitely prefer him to the MoD brass. They did not join the rebellion, as he probably has hoped, but that does not mean they are all happy.

Also it should be noted that Russians do view Wagnerites as heroes, so persecuting them would be rather unpopular. I would rather expect dispersing the units and forcing them to join the regular forces.

Of course it was a feint! A guy openly challenges Putin, Putin calls him a traitor and the guy just walks free. The generals of MoD, also openly challenged, just hide for the whole duration of the supposed coup. Cannot you see how brilliant that is? They just fooled the whole world into seeing them as weak cowards!

Taking Moscow would not mean much if the top run away and he could not actually govern anything (as Napoleon found out). Maybe he believed some administrative figures would join him. But I still think that initially he did not want to challenge Putin, that is why he targeted only Shoigu and Gerasimov. Maybe he thought that if he got more popular support, he could force Putin to grant him more power at the expense of the MoD.

Today has shown that in one thing Putin was more successful than he probably expected - he wanted to have a politically apathetic population and that is exactly what he got... He could be deposed and nobody would bat an eye, no jumping on the tanks for him. I wonder how many people right now are deleting from their social media selfies with Wagnerites...

EDIT: Just as I wrote the above, I saw the videos of crowds in Rostov greeting Prigozhin leaving in his car like a hero... Nothing will be the same.

He turned out to be weaker than expected, but so did Putin. Prigozhin is now well positioned for the succession war, whenever that might be.

Round one is over.

Prigozhin is not stupid and he certainly is not insane. He has no chance to take down Putin, but he does have a chance to make him share some of the power and that is likely his play. I suppose quite a few of Russian soldiers are still willing to die for Putin and their country, but those who are willing to die for Shoigu are very few.

Another astounding video from Prigozhin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgZ3dqAAOa8
(unfortunately, I could not find a version with English captions)

In short, he claims Russians are losing badly in Zaporozhzhia, claims that Ukrainians did not shell civilians in Donetsk since 2014 and did not plan to attack LPR and DPR with NATO forces and that corrupt Ministry of Defence officials practically duped Putin into starting the war...

Is he believeable? No, of course not - like everyone else, he has political agenda. However, it should be noted that if an ordinary Russian said those things, he would be arrested and tried rather quickly. The fact that Prigozhin practically negates all the official reasons for the war (in one of earlier videos he said he did not see any 'Nazis' in Ukraine) and walks free, means that either he is already so powerful that he cannot be touched, or that he is preparing ground for some kind of an exit strategy for Putin in the time-proven tradition ('tzar good, boyars bad'), in which MoD (i.e. Shoigu and Gerasimov) are the scapegoats, Putin somehow saves his faces and everyone pretends that they had actually no beef with Ukrainians...

Russia is not a nation state. And it fears, or it's leadership fears, that it cannot have any other identity than the imperial one, that it has to be tightly centralized or otherwise it would somehow face utter doom. If it eases with the centralized control, it will break up. If it would be more multicultural or give more autonomy to the regions, it would break up. Or so the Russian thinking of the present elite goes. Hence Russia totally failed in creating a Russian version of the British Commonwealth with CIS. Hence now tries to use military might. — ssu

I have to disagree here. Russians comprise almost 80% of the FR's population. The second largest nationality group is Tatars, which comprise 3% of the population, but they are spread over a large area. There are relatively few republics where one nationality (other than Russian) is predominant, mostly in Caucasus. This is a result of USRR policies: there were deportations, forced 'russification', repressions etc. specifically so that the central authority could not be challenged. For the same reason they were made completely dependent economically on Moscow. But this is not the only reason: in some areas the population is so sparse that they have to be sustained with significant external support.

For those reasons any major break-up is rather unrealistic. Sure, if the center gets weak enough, there might be a few break-away republics (especially if their neighbors will have interest in them), but it would not change much geopolitically. Most of those who wanted to leave, did so in 1991.

Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia has demanded from oil companies that they increase the sales of gasoline on the stock exchange as there are deficits of gasoline in the domestic market. It seems that describing Russia as a 'big gas station' was indeed a mischaracterization.
https://fas.gov.ru/news/32622

So I'm afraid you've got this one completely backwards. — Tzeentch

We know from Girkin exactly how committed Russians were to peace. Why should we not believe him?

If you follow pretty much any source about the war, West or Russia or Qatari or Indian or whatever, the Russians firing significantly more shells at every phase of the war I have never seen even remotely questioned. — boethius

Here is what one of Wagner commanders had to say about that yesterday (start with 'They have a lot of ammo!'). You do have to read between the lines a bit (it is, after all, the state propaganda program), but his words cannot be in any way interpreted 'We have plenty of ammo and they do not'.

Since Bakhmut (which the Russians captured by the way) there has been a "who launches their offensive first" game.

It's to the Russians advantage that Ukraine goes first, for a bunch of reasons that I can explain if you want, so Russia waited them out.

Ukraine definitely would have preferred Russia launch some major offensive and then be on the defensive, but Russia had no media pressure to do so. — boethius

I am just an armchair analyst, but it goes against any manual of strategy I have read in my armchair. When your enemy's offensive culminates, you take over the initiative. You do not wait for him to regroup, get stronger and gain the initiative again.

Absolutely classic arm-chair general analysis. — boethius

Of course it is, what did you expect on a philosophy forum? Am I to understand yours is not? Which military academy have you graduated from?

Crimea is a massive island with a massive naval base and a whole bunch of military bases and can be supplied by both road and ferry and there are already hundred thousand or more troops that would be to the West of any land-bridge cut, troops with plenty of ammunition and supplies already stationed there.

It would take a significant amount of time for supplies to even start to be an issue, so this Ukrainian salient cutting the land bridge would need to hold out from intense well supplied attacks from both sides while itself having significant supply issues, which if you really can't see what they would be I can explain it to you. — boethius

Crimea is supplied from the north (the main route) and by the Kerch bridge. For the military supplies trains constitute an ovewhelming majority, I am surprised you did not know that. Road is by far secondary. Ferries...? Mmm... no.

If the land bridge is cut off, majority of its supplies will be provided by two very long, rather vulnerable tracks. Sure, maybe they have enough supplies to hold off, I cannot know that. But that is of secondary importance, as I do not think that this offensive even covers Crimea. I suppose the most realistic plan is to make Russians withdraw to the Perekop Isthmus. And that seems quite doable.

And yes, I admit, I do not see where exactly Ukrainians would have supply issues. Let us suppose they take the slice from Vuhledar to Vasilyvka - where exactly and how would Russians cut their supply lines from the north of Zaporozhe?

For Ukraine to solve those issues would require an absolutely massive force to not only punch through Russian lines and make this salient in the first place but then dig in and hold the entire salient and get supplies in under constant attacks and so on ... in addition to needing to hold all the rest of the lines as well where Russia could counter offensive taking advantage of any weakness.

The obvious difference is that the only actually exposed section would be 80 km south of Vuhledar. Russians have proven completely unable to cross Ukrainian lines south of Donetsk, even though they have tried very hard. They cannot take Marinka for a year, why should we assume they suddenly could?

"Essentially zero chance" means very close to zero.

When this cutting the land bridge manoeuvre had I think some reasonable chance (but still pretty low and would be at extremely high cost) was last year before the Russian mobilisations and building up all these fortifications and mine fields as well as before retreating from Kherson and consolidating the lines (while sanctions were causing serious disruptions etc.).

Why that didn't happen is I think is likely for the exact same problem considering the idea now: what then? If you do cut the land bridge, you need to hold it, and well supplied Russians cutting the salient from both sides would result in a massive encirclement. So, instead Ukraine went with some largely propaganda wins of Kherson and Kharkiv (notice neither lead to cutting the land bridge, and if you wanted to cut the land bridge, even better if there's a bunch of Russians even more cut off in West-Kherson). — boethius

Even with the qualification it is still quite absurd. And I have serious doubts that we are even looking at the same map... If they take the land bridge, they are exposed from 80 km on the East; even if we assume the 80 km on the West, they still would have unobstructed support from the heartland on the line of at least 120 km. How is that 'encirclement'?

And they did not take the land bridge because the West did not supply enough weapons earlier, that is all.

Which is the general problem of the Ukrainian idea of "winning" on the battlefield: the only way to actually end the war through solely military means is to invade and conquer Russia. Simply because this war has this strange framework of "Ukraine can't / won't attack Russia proper" doesn't somehow just get rid of the basic dynamic of every previous war that "winning" by military means requires conquering your enemy. — boethius

As I wrote, what you propose is basically Minsk 3.0. We know exactly how Minsk 1.0 and Minsk 2.0 have ended, so it is not a great surprise that Ukraine was not that willing to take another chance. There is absolutely no reason to think that Russia would uphold its part of the deal and plenty of reasons to think it would not. But maybe you can explain it – what exactly would stop Russia from taking another shot in 5, 10 years?

The only way to actually end the war is to remove Russia's potential and will to fight. Ukraine understands this and so does the West. Note that US and UK might be the largest donors in absolute terms, but in relative terms they are far behind: relatively the most was given by the Baltics and the Eastern Europe. They are very willing to help Ukraine to neutralize Russia, because they understand very well what happens if it does not.

So "who" or "what" does a baby believe it is? Where does it believe it is? What sort of sense of self or identity could this baby have?

It's possible that all babies begin as the "center of the universe" so to speak. A little helpless and innocent solipsist. Not even fully understanding what other people are or if they are even separated from it. Egoless perhaps? Just pure awareness with little to no assumptions or "learned beliefs". — Benj96

Yes, I would think something along those lines. As all our perceptions (and therefore concepts) are just differentiations, a baby does not have a sense of self, as it does not separate itself from anything else yet. 'Warm' means just 'There is warmness'.

Yesterday Putin has stated that Ukrainians blew up the dam. But in the next sentence he said that it is a major obstruction of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. He admitted that the apparent inconsistency is 'strange'.

This is simply pure invention. We didn't know Russia's stock before before, during nor now.

What we do seem to know is Russia fires significantly more shells than Ukraine. I've not seen that disputed anywhere, except your comment here being the very first time. — boethius

Do we know that it fires significantly more shells than Ukraine now? Can you provide any sources?

As long as Russia had artillery advantage, it pushed forward, because it is essentially the only tactics they have used. Then they stopped. For the last half of the year Russia has attacked a single place: Bakhmut, where Prigozhin, responsible for the attack, complained about the lack of ammo. Some of it was political posturing, of course, but it would not be very credible if it was indisputably false. Not to mention that you do not move 100 m per week if you have indisputable artillery advantage. And you do not run away the moment you capture the city you have been conquering for the last six months.

And HIMARS do not attack artillery units, of course. They attack artillery ammo dumps, which they have been doing since Ukrainians got them. Russians have reacted by dispersing them, but this is of limited efficiency: you still have to gather them to transport them, especially if most of your transport is by train.

If "all they have to do" is that ... why haven't they done it yet?

What you're talking about could easily cost tens of thousands of lives and still fail.

Worse, even if Ukrainians succeeded in such a manoeuvre it does not result in the situation of just needing to decide whether to invade Crimea or call it a day.

Russia will immediately counter attack to retake the land bridge, cutting North to isolate this exposed salient. It would continue to be fierce fighting and Ukrainians will need to keep this salient supplied to even stand a chance.

It's only if you leave your enemy alone for an entire year that they build up massive multi-layers fortified lines behind a fortified buffer zone and mine fields everywhere. The Russians are unlikely to do that, and would be attacking from both directions to retake the land in question.

... Which Ukrainians in the real world have not even gone through the buffer zone to reach the first fortified line, and you think reaching the sea is basically a done deal? — boethius

They have not done that because they were not ready. And yes, it will take tens of thousands of lives and yes, it could still fail. Still, it is the best manuever at this time.

And it will not be 'exposed salient' - if the land bridge falls, then most likely the Kherson oblast falls as well, Russians will not be able to supply the area just from Crimea. Ukrainians would be exposed only on the 80 km section from Vuhledar to Mariupol - the rest would be protected by the very same defence lines which Russians cannot breach for a year. 'Cutting from North' would be essentially repeating attacks around Vuhledar - we know how well those went. And supplies would be no problem - they would still have Zaporozhe behind them, as they do now. It is Russians who are in vulnerable position there - they have 150 km to defend with their backs to the sea and only 80 km of depth.

And I am not saying that Ukrainians will surely suceed - only that they have a reasonable chance. The claim that they have 'zero chance' is rather absurd.

The militarily prudent thing for Ukraine to have done is do to the Russians strategy of digging in, inflict losses and just retreating whenever defences degrade, conserving forces and vehicles as much as possible. Simply because Russia has more numbers and capabilities obviously does not mean it can easily win, as we've seen in the war so far the defender has significant advantage.

If Ukraine spent lives and equipment more conservatively, it would be clear Russia could not possibly "win" and would be forced to negotiate. — boethius

Russia would not win in the sense that it would not vasalize Ukraine, but it would still make significant gains - new territories which it would arm and use as a staging ground for another round. Any peace accord for Ukraine would be just Minsk 3.0, i.e. a temporary peace until Russia decides to take another slice. Unfortunately, the war will actually end when the Russian society/authorities decide it is not worth waging.

The problem is, Ukraine and NATO has defined Russia "winning" as holding on to any Ukrainian territory whatsoever and Ukraine losing as giving up any territory whatsoever and the only acceptable outcome is removing Russia from the lands formerly known as Ukrainian, including Crimea.

What logically follows from this idea is "holding on" to every inch of territory at incredible cost, such as in Bakhmut, and also continuously promising an offensive that will push Russian forces all the way back to their previous border.

This political posture "plays well" for the Western media, building up the mythology needed to keep the arms flowing, but if it's impossible to deliver on, regardless of the arms that can be pumped in, you end up in this kind of situation of needing an offensive simply to fit the narrative.

This not only wastes significant men and material but will boost Russian morale while lowering Ukrainian morale, and ultimately a narrative that is nonsensical will eventually fall apart lowering Western morale generally speaking. We're already seeing the cracks. — boethius

That theory seems to be based mostly on conjecture and not very much on facts. The West has supported Ukraine when it has been retreating for a long time - it certainly did not 'hold on to every inch'. And it is much easier to gather support for a country that is still relentlessly attacked. It is not about what one thinks as winning or losing - Russia must be stopped and the time for it is now - when it is bled and weakened from the year on the offensive and before it has adjusted economically and militarily. It makes no sense to wait until it gets stronger again.

As I pointed out months and months ago, Ukrainian offensives will face all the same problems of Russian offensives (mines and ATGM's make it very difficult to advance) ... just with far less capabilities. Additional capabilities (overwhelming artillery, glide bombs, missiles of various kinds) are why Russia can advance at all.

Even more worryingly for Ukraine, there seems to be plenty of footage of both Russian helicopters and planes engaging vehicles over the front, which indicates Ukraine anti-air capabilities are significantly degraded (basically exactly what the leaked papers described).

To make matters even worse for Ukraine, it continues to fight with significant artillery disadvantage.

There is basically not a single metric in which Ukraine has an advantage that can compensate all the disadvantages (numbers, vehicles, air power, electronic warfare, missiles and anything else). — boethius

Russia has long ceased to have any artillery advantage, with missiles it is clearly at a disadvantage - it has spent most of its stocks last year, now it is using mostly current production. Moreover, unlike the Western counterparts, they are too inaccurate to be used very effectively on the frontline. Ukraine still has enough HIMARS and now also Shadow Storms, which it uses quite well (just yesterday they killed Major General Goryachev, chief of staff of the 35th Field Army, at his headquarters, with an unknown number of his staff).

And the difference in the field is also rather important: all Ukrainians have to do to free Kherson and most of Zaporozhe is to cut the path to the sea - they do not even have to take Mariupol or Berdyansk. That is, they have 90 km to go (out of which they made 20). Sure, the main line will be tougher, there will be mines and defence lines, so losses are expected, but the situation still favors them. As the whole belt is within the range of Ukrainian missiles and some of its artillery, the Russian defence will lack significant depth.

Whether they will have enough momentum to go further into Crimea remains to be seen. Still, it will be their choice, as they will have the initiative. Not to mention that with the land bridge gone and Dzhankoi within missile range Russians will have a rather hard time with keeping Crimea supplied. If Ukraine somehow manage to repeat the attack on the Kerch Bridge, they will have a hard time – it will the reprise of the Kherson blockade, only on a much bigger scale.

EDIT: It seems that Goryachev was killed with a HIMARS strike, which is even worse for Russians, as Ukrainians have more of them and apparently they can strike whatever they want within the land bridge.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former president and prime minister of Russia and the current vice-chairman of the Russian Security Council decided to celebrate the Russia's Day by posting a picture of Kiev's Maidan Nezalezhnosti with the caption 'Future square of Russia'... for those who still think the war was about Donbas or NATO.

Mearsheimer said that Russians wanted to topple the Ukrainian government. Explain how does that 'dismiss the entire western narrative of the Ukraine war'.

↪Jabberwock
also "threatening to capture Kiev" can still be compatible with the idea of forcing a regime change. It doesn't obviously mean that Russia was making a diversion. — neomac

Yes, that was another point I wanted to make. A 'threat' is not necessarily a feint. When a bully says 'Give me your money or I will beat you up' it is a threat, but it is not necessarily a FAKE threat. When Americans nuked two Japanese cities, they have threatened Tokyo, but it was not a feint. On the contrary, Japanese surrendered, because the threat was very real.

If Russians have surrounded Kiev and said 'Give up or we will pound the city with artillery until nothing remains', it would be a threat, but it would not be a feint. They did not have to literally capture the whole city for Ukrainians to surrender.

Untrue. — Tzeentch

What is untrue? I gave you a specific quote that Mearsheimer believed one of the Russian goals was to install Russian-friendly government, contrary to your claims. In the very quote you now give Mearsheimer says that Russian strategy was to capture or threaten Kiev, so apparently he believes capturing Kiev was viable. You claim that Russians never meant to capture Kiev and never had the means, Mearsheimer obviously disagrees with you.

So I'm not sure what you think you have proven. — Tzeentch

Mearsheimer himself tells you that one of the Russian goals was toppling the Ukrainian authorities and installing a puppet goverment, as I told you three days ago:

The plan was to take Kiev, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Odessa, possibly Dnipro. If it suceeded, there would be little to no resistance, as the entire government structure would collapse (with Lviv being the only remaining bigger center). Ukrainians would have no choice but to accept peace on very unfavorable terms, most likely with puppet Russian government installed. — Jabberwock

So Mearsheimer expressly disagrees with you that the northern offensive was just meant to distract Ukrainians while Russians take the south. On the contrary, he agrees with me that it was essential for the the plan to install Russian-friendly authorities. Just taking land did not require Ukrainian surrender, toppling the government would.

Ta-daa. — Tzeentch

Chotiner: You don’t think he has designs on Kyiv?

Mearsheimer: No, I don’t think he has designs on Kyiv. I think he’s interested in taking at least the Donbass, and maybe some more territory and eastern Ukraine, and, number two, he wants to install in Kyiv a pro-Russian government, a government that is attuned to Moscow’s interests.

Chotiner: I thought you said that he was not interested in taking Kyiv.

Mearsheimer: No, he’s interested in taking Kyiv for the purpose of regime change. O.K.?

Chotiner: As opposed to what?

Mearsheimer: As opposed to permanently conquering Kyiv.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine

Ta-daa.

Even if everything went the Russians' way, Kiev was way too heavily defended to be taken given the amount of troops the Russians deployed. Unless you have different information than me, I don't see any way the numbers could be interpreted to fit this idea. — Tzeentch

So you have the numbers? Great, can we see them?

I already have. Direct communications by the Ukrainian General Staff.

If you had anything better you would have provided it by now, so all of this is just posturing. — Tzeentch

No, you have not. The communications by the Ukrainian General Staff DOES NOT give the number of troops, only the number of BTGs. So you DO NOT have a source for your number. You conclude that it was 21000 troops based on your faulty assumptions.

And I have already provided sources: e.g. the Kiev Convoy itself had 15000 troops - and that is just reserve on one salient.

So, again: provide the information that only 20000-30000 troops moved on Kiev.

My argument is that we have information showing 21,000 (numbers ranging between 15,000 - 30,000 depending on different reports) troops moved on Kiev. (and 190,000 troops maximum operating in Ukraine at the onset of the invasion). — Tzeentch

No, we do not have that information. Your flawed argument is that 31 BTGs equal 21000 involved troops, because of your faulty assumptions. If you have information that only 20000-30000 troops were on the Kiev axis, please provide it. Repeating '31 BTGs' is NOT that information, because, as you have finally figured out, BTG basic composition does not comprise the totality of troops involved. So please, provide information that so many troops moved on to Kiev which is NOT '31 BTGs'.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Kyiv attack had not been part of the Feb 24 invasion.

In terms of strategy, what might reasonably have been expected for north-Ukrainian/Kyiv forces? Moved to defend the east? Half go east, half stay to defend if also to be attacked there (north/Kyiv)? Stay put? What difference (if any), would it have made to the south/eastern parts of the invasion? — jorndoe

That depends on where the Russians would be. With todays means of intelligence you cannot have a large grouping of forces without the enemy being aware of it. If there were no Russians in the north, most of the defending forces around Kiev could be moved south. Especially that Ukrainians do not need to move far - for Russians to go from north to south and the other way round requires going 'around' Ukraine.

There are some indications that the initial invasion was planned as Tzeentch claims: only in the south, in order to get the corridor to Crimea and (possibly) Transnistria, maybe up to Zaporozhnia. The operation in the south was certainly much better prepared and planned. Possibly due to inadequate intelligence at a later stage Putin became convinced that they will be able to take Kiev and depose the authorities, so they tried, with catastrophic results. If they stuck to the plan, the campaign might go much better for Russians, even with the Ukrainian forces relieved from the north. Possibly the international reaction might have been different as well - slicing off the pieces of Ukraine might be viewed differently than an 'all-out' war.

Ehm, no.

This was in reply to your claim that 190,000 troops would translate into 283 BTGs.

The confusion lies primarily with you. — Tzeentch

So what is the source of the 21 thousand troops in the northern campaign OTHER than multiplying 31 BTGs by about 700? Because that one does not work, as we now know thanks to your illumination that all Russian troops might not have been directly organized in the BTGs. And you have not answered the question: if using 100 BTGs involves use of the indisputable 190 000 troops, then how much troops are involved when 31 BTGs are involved? With your apparent difficulties, let me do the math for you again:

100 BTGs involves 190000 troops: 190000/100 = 1900, therefore 1 BTG involves about 1900 troops
31 BTGs: 31 * 1900 = 58900 = that many troops were involved in the northern campaign

Taking the land bridge would obviously still be of vital importance, because the negotiations failing was a clear possibility from the start. — Tzeentch

'If I lose, my primary goal is...'. Nope, it still does not work that way.

Perhaps not all Russian soldiers were deployed in BTGs. — Tzeentch

:) Yes, that is a quite reasonable conclusion for BTGs, given that their logistics is pretty basic and they need to rely in their tasks on other forces, such as aviation, heavy artillery, deep support etc., i.e. they are not self-sustaining by any degree. But wait, your whole claim for the 21000 attacking Kiev was supported by the calculation based on that inaccurate assumption... So, again, simple mathematical puzzle: if the indisputed Mearsheimer says it was 190000 troops, other sources say that this force included about 100 BTGs, then what part of the 190000 troops were in the north, if 31 BTGs were involved?

The land bridge with Crimea was Russia's primary goal if negotiations failed. There, are you happy now? — Tzeentch

So we agree that before the negotiations failed (and even started), i.e. before the beginning of the war, their goals were different. If the goals were different, then the invasion force would seek to achieve a goal different than just grabbing the land bridge. Well, yes, we told you so.

And sure, you can 'win' the war, if you change your goals to those which you have already achieved.