re: Russia on verge of biggest gain in Ukraine since summer

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The end result is a security situation that is worse for Russia regardless of the outcome in Ukraine. It would have been a more shrewd move to gain concessions from NATO on paper rather than invade at all.

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Assuming this is a fair assessment, Russia has to understand this. What’s their end game?

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Russia on the verge of biggest gain since summer

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Oh that’s cool. Is it a big gain?

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#Soledar on January 11 is not an operationally significant development and is unlikely to presage an imminent Russian encirclement of #Bakhmut.

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2/ While all available evidence indicates Ukrainian forces no longer maintain an organized defense in #Soledar, Russian information operations have overexaggerated its importance, which is at best a Russian Pyrrhic tactical victory.

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3/ ISW continues to assess that the capture of Soledar—a settlement smaller than 5.5 sq mi—will not enable Russian forces to exert control over critical Ukrainian ground lines of communication into Bakhmut nor better position Russian forces to encircle the city in the short term.

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5.5 square miles is all Russia has to show after 6 months of fighting. At this rate they will drive the fascists across the Dnieper just in time for Putin’s 100th birthday party.

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4/ Russian forces likely captured #Soledar after committing significant resources to a highly attritional tactical victory which will accelerate degraded Russian forces’ likely culmination near #Bakhmut.

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5/ Russian forces may decide to maintain a consistently high pace of assaults in the #Bakhmut area, but Russian forces’ degraded combat power and cumulative exhaustion will prevent these assaults from producing operationally significant results.

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LINK

The OP celebrating Russia’s capture of a small town while degrading their own forces to the point where they may not even be able to continue to apply pressure to Bahkmut. Let’s all laugh at how the OP thought this was a major victory for Russia.

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Assuming this is a fair assessment, Russia has to understand this. What’s their end game?

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Well, firstly, I think their plan and initial attack pattern suggests that they were trying to strike critical institutional infrastructure in Ukraine as quickly as possible and to install their own leader in Kiev before anyone could react. I think the degree to which Kiev responded in the early days surprised the West and even the Russians. And in the early days of the invasion, before weapons shipments started in earnest, there was still a chance for Ukraine to get overrun, but the political damage was already done. The invasion brought Russian bad behavior, from very public extraterritorial assassinations to previous invasions into relief. I don't think the degree to which Macron was embarrassed by Putin can be understated, and probably plays a part in why the West rejected talks with Putin after the Northeastern front collapsed in early April. From the West's point of view, the factions that suggested a more measured approach with Russia were proven completely wrong, and the Eastern European countries who had been warning the rest of NATO about Russian bad behavior since 2012 in earnest were right. Thus, Putin's willingness to have long talks with Macron went against him, because it reinforced the impression that he was a bad-faith actor.

Despite this, Macron has consistently cautioned the West about having off-ramps for Russia, which is something the West has mostly ignored. What possible off-ramps can there be? There is no easy way for Putin or the Russian elite to get out of this situation. Everything going forward is going to be colored by Russia's bad-faith in the lead-up to the invasion, which makes it very difficult to re-engage with the country at an economic level.

So the choices inside Russia are, either align with Putin or align with one of the other elites, Prigozhin or Kadyrov, who could possibly depose Putin. There isn't a way back, as it stands, and thus there is no option but to see out how this war ends.

But their security situation is extremely bad. The Russians are hemmed in far more than they would have been if they had not invaded. In terms of the Eastern European Plain, they are as insecure as they ever have been.

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Whats ours?

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To help an enemy see out its own mistake.

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To help an enemy see out its own mistake.

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At the cost of hundreds of thousands of dead Ukranians simply because we want a war with Russia, just not with our people.

Pretty slick deal. Beltway mansions grow, Ukrainians die, You folks cheer.

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simply because we want a war with Russia, just not with our people.

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it seemed like a war with Russia was happening regardless of our involvement though.

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What’s their end game? Whats ours?

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Russia pulling its troops back across the internationally recognized border (aka the pre 2014 border).

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At the cost of hundreds of thousands of dead Ukranians simply because we want a war with Russia, just not with our people.

Pretty slick deal. Beltway mansions grow, Ukrainians die, You folks cheer.

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Lol, do you think the world has ever been some other way?

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Ukraine will have to be rebuilt. I’m sure Congress will be happy to give contracts to their spouses and relatives to help.

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Capital inflows from the EU will be significant, as those inflows quickly raised the GDP of places like Poland within short duration. Economic integration is always better than war, but sometimes it takes war to learn that.