Russia - threadbanned users in OP

The first time we saw the face of the new Russia was the goings on around the sinking of the Kursk in August 2000 and the refusal to accept international assistance to rescue their sailors trapped in the depths. It was completely unreasonable and demonstrated shocking callousness. Russia just decided to turn its face away from the west and return to a pre- glasnost environment at that time. With outright lying left right and centre. Then there was the horrible botched poisoning of viktor yushenko and his face visibly getting worse every time he appeared on tv. I remember my roommate in college at the time commenting that this is straight out of the Cold War and is very soviet behaviour. Growing up in the late 80’s and 90’s I hadn’t really seen this menacing side of Russia before.

IMO that decision must be left to Zelensky and the Ukranian people. If they judge at some future point that Putin is genuinely looking to cut a deal, they may decide that ceding Crimea and some of the Donbas is a price worth paying for a guarantee of Ukraine's future security.

Totally agree. Ukraine drives this, it's their country despite RuSSia's best efforts.

Huh. Who are you talking about?

Shashank Joshi writes most of The Economist's articles about Ukraine and they've been excellent. Well researched, fact based journalism.

I've found Michael Kofman's input to be knowledgeable and inciteful.

I'm not sure what your problem is with the opinion that the Ukrainians would prefer to free Kherson city through the Russians being forced to flee. The alternative is having to engage them in a destructive urban battle that would no doubt lead to thousands of Ukrainian deaths (both military and civilian) casualties as well as millions in structural damage to the city itself.

"It takes a worried man, to sing a worried song..."

The only way Kherson is freed is by military action,they are not going to sit there and they sit the Russians out it would take years,and then comes what Russia did to Mariupol they will turn Kherson to dust before the Ukrainians could take it back, ukraine will have to fight for every inch of their country,it's already been claimed the whole counter offensive is geared towards taking the Kakhovka hydroelectric and reservoir back so they can turn off the water to Crimea.

It's not going to change much,the only way ukraine gets Donbas and Crimea back under their control is through sheer force ,

I find it hard to see why the west cannot help Ukraine with an overwhelming attack on Kherson. It is only a few miles away and what the Ukrainians lack can be made up for by quantity; carpet bomb Russian positions.

The Russian army is stuffed full of contracted soldiers who are purely fighting for the money. How much stomach would they really have for defending Kherson city if the rest of the West bank was entirely in Ukrainian hands, the supply lines from the east bank were down for heavy weaponry but they were still able to escape on foot?

I don't think it's a ridiculous notion that the Ukrainians would prefer to allow them to escape on foot (abandoning their heavy weaponry) then have to fight them for it at huge cost to their own numbers.

It certainly wouldn't be an act of mercy by the Ukrainians. This is a unique situation given the lack of bridges on that river. When it comes to the Donbass they really will have to fight village by village, town by town and city by city.

It would fit with the "Provide your enemy with a golden bridge" advice by Sun Tzu. Plus modern technology would allow the retreating forces to be hammered as they were crossing the golden bridge, like at the Falaise Gap in Normandy in 1944 (even if that wasn't actually the plan at the time).

If this attrition war continues as it has been, then it's going to come down to which side has the economic and political will to keep fighting. We can see on our own side that concerns over the cost of living are mounting and that could lead to pressure to relieve whatever generators of austerity can be relieved, including the idea of lifting some Russian sanctions in return for cheap gas/oil, which would in turn give Russia more revenue to continue with this dreadful war.

On Russia's side, things are a bit more opaque because it's, well, Russia. The killing of Darya Dugina is highly suggestive that things are not at all well within Russia and there is probably widespread quiet discontent over Putin's actions within Ukraine. Given the generally paranoid nature of Russian politics, the pressure Putin is feeling has to be significant.

Obviously, another couple of years of this is going to be good for no-one, or relatively very few. Russia needs to be driven back hard to wherefrom they came as soon as possible. They shouldn't be bled slowly to defeat, they should have their throat cut.

What PR misstep would there be to make in skipping Gorbachev's funeral at this point? He probably hated Gorbachev, blaming him for selling out the USSR, and I don't know if the regular Russian on the street would be worried about Putin skipping it either. Putin doesn't even have to play nice to the West anymore or even play ambivalent, so there's not even a reason to attend the funeral in order to look good that way. Plus it's one less public appearance he has to make.

He held him personally accountable for the break-up of the U.S.S.R., something which he famously stated was "the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century".

Had Putin been in charge then he would have sent in the tanks and he saw Gorbachev as weak for not doing likewise. He had no respect for him and probably doesn't want to be associated with him or his legacy.

It would be great to see Putin gone in one way or another, but we can't sit back and say that's just going to happen as a matter of course.

Putin is banking on the very chaos you're talking about, though he would obviously be hoping that it will break Western countries' desire to continue backing Ukraine.

Gorbachev did send the tanks in. It didn’t work. The appetite was not there for it. The red army did not want to murder its own people on the mass scale needed to hold the Soviet Union together. Most of the red army divisions ordered to put down the break up were local to the areas they were ordered into.

And even if Putin was gone tomorrow, there’s no guarantee that the next fella won’t be as bad. Best to try to win the war itself than bank on Putin’s end being some kind of magic bullet.