Links and Stuff
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Yesterday's discussion post.
I haven't been paying too much attention to this lately after the initial invasion and assault on Kiev, but do we know what Putin's aims are with this invasion yet? It seems like he's trying to bring Novorossiya under his control, no? Will he actually annex all that territory? Will he go as far as Odessa and try to bring Transnistria under his direct control also (I remember some people were discussing this possibility at the start)?
Is there an end goal for Russia that is clear yet?
I think the only thing we can say for certain at this point is that Ukraine is never going to get back Donbass or the areas of Novorossiya that the Russians currently occupy.
Beyond that, the extent of territory Russia takes will probably depend on whether the Ukrainian defense in Donbass entirely collapses or not. They're currently cracking, and Russian advances have been slow but accelerating. If this accelerates into a full collapse of the Ukrainian army, then I'd honestly be kinda surprised if the Russians didn't make a push towards Odessa & Transnistria.
I think they'll also try and take Kharkov regardless, since it's right next to the Lugansk oblast, and they're already fighting near it anyways. Kharkov also used to be a major center of pro-Russian sentiment before being suppressed by the 2014 coup government from what I've heard, so there's that aspect as well
I think you mean Tarkov, where the Ukrainian forces and ghost of Kiyiev are killing billions of **cs per day.
What I'm fairly sure is going to happen is the "annexation" of parts of Ukraine into Russia. One can debate to what extent these are voluntary transfers of Ukrainian terrain into Russia - the Donbass, probably voluntary - Kherson, maybe not so much, but the people there don't seem super unhappy right now - certainly a bit miserable but certainly not at full-scale guerrilla warfare. Lugansk and Donetsk oblasts are 99.999% certain in my mind to end up in Russia, whether as outright territory, or as autonomous republics that Russia has sovereignty over but otherwise leaves the leaders with most of the decisions without Russian intervention.
Kherson is probably a shoe-in as the Russian leader of that oblast has been talking about joining Russia - tellingly, without doing a referendum first, which indicates to me that they know it wouldn't be popular. Kherson supplies Crimea with fresh water so that's one good reason to just keep it, and besides, they control virtually the whole oblast anyway at this point. Zaporizhzia is a little more complicated because the main city hasn't been taken yet (and Russia isn't really trying to take it right now, which is understandable given the current focus on Donbass) but I feel like it would be strange to leave that oblast to Ukraine if you're taking the ones west and east of it. Some commentators have speculated that taking the rest of the Zaporizhzia oblast will be the next thing Russia does once the Donbass is fully under Russian control, but all we can do is speculate.
Kharkiv oblast is the next one that Russia has significant territorial gains in. Taking the city would be difficult, as it has (or, rather, had) 3x the population of Mariupol, and is, I think, the biggest city that Russia is in some way threatening right now. And, well, looking at the size of that city compared to others is illustrative of the problems in taking it. Really difficult urban warfare there, I would imagine, tons of casualties, so if Russia wants it, they'd have to surround it and starve it out. I'm less sure that Russia will take Kharkiv oblast than the others due to these issues, but it would be a major gain if they did so.
Then, Mykolaiv and Odessa. Russia has almost no territory in Mykolaiv oblast and none in Odessa, and are not really threatening the cities anymore unlike during the first few weeks of the invasion. But I feel like they would be tempting targets. Perhaps once the Donbass is fully cleared.
The only other oblast that I could hypothetically see Russia wanting is Dnipro oblast, as it contains two major industrial cities, but honestly it would be a ton of work to go even further than the oblasts already listed unless Ukraine really was fully beat at that point and Russia could just start plucking oblasts and cities from them without much resistance.
Seems like it.
Yes, very probable. Kherson will definitely become Russian because the Ukrops turned off the water for Crimea from there. The people's republics will definitely increase in size.
Could be, but hard to know at this point. We will know more in a month or two.
@SpookyVanguard64 @SeventyTwoTrillion @euro_chapo thank you for the answers! glad to be on this site where people are so informed!