O/T:- Ukraine [Incorporating 'Congrats to Russia' thread]

[Jampie]

I'm sure Putin is worried about the expansion of NATO, and the official line (as per Macron's statement) is that it's about the military threat, but the underlying and far more credible concern in the mind of Putin and his key allies is probably the political/symbolic threat of the Eastwards march of Western ideology, especially into former Soviet states, which hits at the heart of Putin's pyschology and may explain his comparative recklessness in recent times, coupled with any illness he may have.

Yeah sure, he feels threatened by western ideology. I am sure NATO's in his thoughts etc, but obviously this stuff is constantly framed as a "reason"/excuse for the attack on Ukraine.

And whatever the actual reasons for attacking Ukraine, NATO is at best a red herring.

I feel like his real reasons had very little to do with "NATO", although definitely competition with the west was on the list. This was largely about cementing his legacy as Russia's great post-USSR strong man. You could also make an argument for strategic military expansionism but I'm a bit dubious about that. From '91 onwards Russia was in a singularly excellent position to make it as a resource superpower, using the huge profits from that to diversify its economy and build out high technology industries.

Putin has unquestionably squandered that opportunity throughout his reign, leaning too much into corruption and in "competition" (wasted resources) with the west, although he was hardly handed an "easy mode" game by his predecessors.

Attacking Ukraine was a very high risk proposition and it's spectacularly backfired. I can only assume he really did have intel indicating a short war (like literally weeks, that's all they seem to have planned on) would have ended with Russia in a position to annex the entire country. And essentially since they gave up on that idea (about April 17th if I recall) they haven't actually HAD a clear objective in Ukraine.

From the moment the invasion failed to defeat Ukraine he seems to have just been flailing about trying to find a way out that doesn't look like the truth: That he just wasted more than half of Russia's ground combat power on a failed campaign that's already triggered massive NATO expansion, weakened Russia immeasurably both globally and domestically (with long term effects slowly beginning to bite both now), and failed to achieve any of its supposed objectives.

Right now he seems willing to pay any price in blood and equipment to seize the remaining bits of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts and then hold onto them with his fingernails. Assuming he can pull that off (looks unlikely right now) I doubt it'll be sufficient for him to want to end the war. So as strategic objectives, they're pretty terrible.

[andy6025]

Aaron Maté interviews Nicolai Petrov, professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, and former US State Dept.’s special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union under President George HW Bush:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5cTxXQsfXkU

“History Legends” YouTube channel attempts to provide an analysis of casualty figures in the conflict:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfj2c5racUY&t=1315s