by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
“The 100,000 strong (Russian) army will not invade Ukraine. Because a real war, unlike a hybrid one, can be lost.” https://t.co/qnFk9B0L6k
— Andrzej Kozlowski (@akoz33) November 23, 2021
First, I have no idea why Putin would pick now of all times to start a war of any sort with Ukraine. But, to date, Putin has proven himself to at least be logical in how he goes about his Ukrainian land grabs. In Donbass, he took some land by force, then ran away, leaving his proxy toadies to manage the mess.
In Crimea, he slowly took it over using “Little Green Men.”
So, it seems as though at least going into things, Putin wants nothing more than to establish a land bridge between Donbass and Crimea. That’s it. It’s meant to be a very fast smash and grab operation that will happen so fast that the Ukrainians won’t even have time to come up with a response.
The Russians get a thin, long land bridge and then they just stop. If Ukraine grows unstable enough, Putin might strike towards Odessa as well just because he can and lulz.
But the key thing that Putin must be weighing is he doesn’t want to stress test the stability of the Ukrainian government. It’s far better to have the current government in power smarting over the loss of some land than a revolutionary far Right government based on irredentism.
As such, I don’t see there being a war and if there is one, it will be relatively modest and quick. It might scare the shit out of people who wake up one morning to some pretty dramatic war footage from Ukraine, but, in real terms, it will be a minor war.
Or, at, least, it will be begun with that intention. Anything could happen once the actual war started. If the Ukrainian government was overthrown by a radical fascist one, then, well, we’re going to the show.
But, hopefully, that won’t happen.
