CBS: More on how long Ukraine may withstand Russian assault
A U.S. official tells CBS News that a tactical seizure of Ukraine is possible within the next 4-6 weeks, based on the assessments of what is currently taking place on the ground with the Russian military.
As David Martin has reported, it is expected to take one week before Kyiv is surrounded, and another 30 days could elapse before Ukraine's capital is seized.
This U.S. official says it is not clear whether Russia would gradually strangle the city or engage in street-to-street fighting.
These scenarios were laid out for members of Congress Monday as the initial battle to destroy the Ukrainian military and government. It is also not clear whether Russia would then decide to go west toward Lviv or as far west as the Polish border.
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WNU Editor: There is a very real possibility of a partisan type of war happening for the next few years. I have mentioned this possibility more than once before the war started. A northern Ireland type of situation. Or a Donbas war zone but this time in predominantly Ukrainian dominated regions in the West, not Russian-Ukrainian regions in the east.
But I have also mentioned in previous posts that one of my worst case scenarios is that if a low intensity war does continue after major combat is over, to end the conflict a Yugoslav solution may be implemented where the country is broken up along ethnic-sectarian lines. Ukrainians in the West and Russian Ukrainians along the Black Sea coast, central and eastern Ukraine.
I know many Russian nationalists want this to happen now, and see this as a golden opportunity for a "greater Russia" to come out of this disaster. And if this does become a never-ending low-intensity war, do not be surprised if these Russian nationalist voices get louder, and their influence growing.
As bad as the refugee crisis is right now. There is a very real possibility that we may see an ethnic-driven migration of people even greater than what the Yugoslav civil war spawned and its subsequent break-up. Let us pray that this does not happen.
Do you think Ukraine will be divided up along the Dneiper? Russians to the east, Ukrainians to the west?
ReplyDeleteI highly doubt Putin intends to occupy territory outside of the autonomous regions. Of course I could be wrong but this invasion where it has been largely precision strikes against military installations seems designed to clear the way for favorable negotiating terms. When it finally comes to the Kiev regime having to recognize the borders of of Donbas & Lugansk Putin needs leverage to get them to agree to that. If they simply occupied the breakaway regions there would be little incentive for the Ukrainian militias to not continue their daily artillery attacks as they've done for the last 8 years.
ReplyDeleteWhen US air power intervenes (like in Iraq, Libya and Syria) civilian infrastructure is deliberately targeted (shock and awe) because total destruction of the state is the goal. In Ukraine it seems like Russian goals are for there to still be a civil society to negotiate with when the dust clears.
But how will Russia's economy hold up if it has to rebuild their part Ukraine?
ReplyDeleteAnon 1:19
ReplyDeleteYou outlined what many are hoping will happen to end this mess. This blogger included.
France went to the League of Nations to get a plebiscite over the fate of Saarland. The French had no case other than greed and imperialism, but they got their plebiscite. They lost.
ReplyDeleteThere is an international body capable of holding plebiscite, the UN, and it is as useless as the League of Nations.
The UN is uselessly evil. Russian Federation diplomat, Vasily Nebenzya, was the head of the UN Security council as Secretary‑General António Guterres called on Russia to stop invading Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations
Still the UN is good for a plebiscite. Russia and Putin did not go down that road, which makes Putin's invasion if Ukraine ... nay Russia's invasion of Ukraine one long war crime.
What can people bellyaching about language and culture point out? That Russian is not used in the court system? That is the biggest problem I think I would find. It is a problem, but not one worthy of war.
How bad is it the language problem? I think it would be like the difference between a Spanish and a Portuguese speaker.
"Look, if you’re Ukrainian you most likely already speak russian. If you're russian you understand the meaning of what other is saying to a degree of around 80%"
If you are shopping what store owner is going to miss a sale due to language? Not often or not at all.
Still waiting to here back on the culture front.
Language and culture is used as a talking point by Russia, because it is a rallying cry in the US. Some of it is just a little bit true, but mostly it is an excuse.
Russia has been pulling this crap since 1991.
Ukraine crisis ‘very sensitive’ for Russia-backed breakaway state
So it is nothing the Ukrainians did. What an Ukrainian president might have done or not done in between getting poisoned by Russia FSB is not the prime mover. Russia is.
Putin like many people is irredentist to a fault. You find such people in Italy France, Germany, Poland ... everywhere. When is Russia going to swallow Poland? You know Putin wants to. It use to be part of Russia.
"n 2004, Transnistrian authorities organised a separate census from the 2004 Moldovan Census.[106] As per 2004 census, in the areas controlled by the PMR government, there were 555,347 people, including 177,785 Moldovans (32.1%) 168,678 Russians (30.4%) 160,069 Ukrainians (28.8%) 13,858 Bulgarians (2.5%) 4,096 Gagauzians (0.7%), 1,791 Poles (0.3%), 1,259 Jews (0.2%), 507 Roma (0.1%) and 27,454 others (4.9%)."
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria#Demographics
So why is Russia taking over Transnistria again?
Of because of violation of the Minsk agreement!
HA ha ha ha ha!