The very fact that they still aren't having a victory parade, nor are preparing for it, shows that they were overestimated, and typical "Russian problems" also common in civilian organizations, government in particular, plague the army horrendously.
They aren't already having a victory parade because Putin and his people ignored the FSB analysis that showed this would not be a walk in the park for them.
Also, Putin didn't count on his own people being dumb enough to destroy the 3G cell towers that they needed for their own encrypted comms.
However, that does not change the fact that unless things change and Zelenski can reach a deal with Moscow, Russia has enough artillery and cruise missiles, with enough range, to simply level resisting areas from inside it's or Belarus's borders.
Yup. Except Russia has not learned to handle this kind of sanctions. No one did, unless being North Korea counts as "handling" sanctions.
Russia have the ability to handle everything short of oil and gas sanctions with out their economy collapsing, because they are more internally self-sufficient than many countries connected to SWIFT.
Oil and gas weren't not sanctioned to not provoke Russia, they weren't sanctioned to not cause Germans and Italians to freeze in the dark.
Yet the effect is the same.
Also, it shows the folly of Euro's trying to play both sides of the fence and be NATO members while depending on Russia for their winter heating.
That is an unforced error that Euro's cannot blame on either the US or Russia.
Sure. They could have done that years ago.
Why didn't they?
Yeah, it's still significantly worse than SWIFT.
They didn't need to switch over to it completely, because they hadn't been cut out of SWIFT till recently, and they had done trade with China using it for a bit now.
Also, unless we sanction the Chinese companies and people who are doing business with Russia, our sanctions won't really do much but drive Russia further into China's arms and financial system.
Consider what would Putin and the rest of Russia's warhawks (as opposed to their western apologists) say about that.
Don't forget Obama-Clinton were also willing to give a similarly stupid deal to Russia.
Consider how Russia (and Iran) acted following such stupidly lenient deals.
This is a bit of a hint what kind of deals should be offered to them in the future.
Poland is n NATO; if Russia doesn't like Poland going for nukes, it'll have to risk WW3 to stop them.
More allies in NATO with their own nukes is the best way to deter Russia from pushing further west, regardless of what is going on in DC.
Who's Russia? Putin?
For one Gorbachev seems to have no idea.
Of course Russian politicians can claim to believe anything and everything, whatever is most convenient for them. And if they need a grievance to throw back when criticized for militant actions they were going to do regardless for own self-beneficial motivation, well, imagination is the limit.
In real world, there is a fucking reason why even minor international agreements are written on paper, and have both executive and legislative branches of government sign them.
What you are arguing here is that Soviets were such morons that they expected such a significant commitment to apply to the west and be followed through by all future governments of all NATO countries. As if they thought that in the west opposition parties that disagree can in fact win.
And we didn't hear of it for some reason until the odd moment when Putin needed stuff to whine at NATO for.
The alternative explanation is that Russian propagandists have made up the story to justify Russia's aggressive geopolitics in a somewhat plausible way. Isn't it more realistic?
Pretty sure the agreement was also reinforced when Clinton met Yeltsin, as part of the short live Partnership For Peace initiative.
When that broke down/was ignored was when Russia started to feel we/NATO had lied to them.
You can deride it all as 'never actually happened' all you want to make yourself feel better, but it won't change that for it has been how the Russians saw things for a while now.
Tell that to Russians.
Alternatively, tell the Chinese that they need to start a rumor that some Soviet leader promised them Vladivostok.
And shit like that idea of starting some rumor like that to try to drive a wedge between Russia and China is why this invasion happened.
It shows Russia just more evidence that the west will never deal with them in good faith.
The greater issue with that thinking is that every bloody country can think of some amount of someone else's territories owning which would improve their own security greatly.
What then? Should every nuclear power be excused to act like you are excusing Russia to act?
Should every hypothetical nuclear power become such to follow suit?
What happens when their ambitions collide?
Well, I point you to Pakistan and India for a real world example of what happens.
We can draw a line in the sand around NATO members, but that will not change how Russia views it's security as relates to Ukraine.
Trying to hold on to that 'End of history' mentality will only cause more problems down the road. We can keep Russia from making a grab at NATo territory, but we should not be naive enough to think Russia will not try to secure itself as best it can.
And as a reminder, I do not approve of what Russia has done here, even if I do understand
why it has done what it's done.
This is a nuance lost to so many in these conversations; someone can understand why something is happening, without approving of it.
LMAO, my point was specifically that Belarus isn't neutral, its a puppet state in all but name. Russian police comes in to suppress protests and Russian military treats the place like their backyard. That's exactly the kind of stuff Ukrainians are fighting to not have.
And I feel for them, because it does suck to be in that situation, and Ukraine has a lot of bad history with Russia.
That doesn't change that Ukraine isn't worth WW3. Stop expecting the rest of the world to be willing to risk nuclear hellfire in order to safeguard every post-Soviet nation that has a border with Russia. I get Polish anger and paranoia regarding Russia, but the simple fact is NATO exists to protect it's members, not all of Eurasia.
Dealing with this sort of foreign powers, letting them know you're willing to be a doormat is exactly what makes the reality unpleasant. Nothing inspires their aggression more than the impression that their enemies are weak and willing to back down at as much as an angry tirade, some saber rattling, and a ridiculous, made up verbal promise from the past.
You need to stop expecting the US and Western populace to be willing to go to war at the drop of a hat for anyone and everyone, just to screw with or contain Russia, particularly when things are not great at home either.
Europeans need to stop expecting to 'fight to the last American', and handle your own defenses and affairs.
The people who are ignoring the historical realities here are the ones who keep making excuses for Putin and the Russian warhawks.
It's called acknowledging that reality fits neither the western nor Russian narratives, and instead dealing with the reality neither like to admit.
One can understand why Russia is doing something, without approving of them doing it.
en.wikipedia.org
www.cnbc.com
www.tellerreport.com
