Are Russian forces on brink of collapse?
I attached a few really good threads on the war in Ukraine (from people who know what they are talking about), but the upshot is in recent days Ukraine has won some incredible and striking military victories which could just spark the early end to this war.
The scale of the Ukrainian victories are immense - Ukrainian forces pushing 50-60 km ahead in a few days.
We all thought the main offensive was in Kherson, as did the Russians, who moved troops South from Donbas, weakening their lines there, only for the Ukrainians to exploit that by launching a surprise offensive in Donbas. They look set to surround as many as 10,000 Russian troops there who are I think on the point of collapse. Notable that the Russian general commanding the "Western" theatre - Donbas in essence - has been captured so safe to say Russian forces there are surrounded, leaderless and likely close to rout/collapse.
This has been tactical genius by the Ukrainians - likely helped/planned by the Yanks (reminds me of operation Storm in Serbo-Croat war in 95').
As people are writing this could mean not only the Ukrainians won the Battle of Kyiv, but now the Battle of Donbas, and next stop Kherson, even Crimea.
Indeed, after weeks of softening up with HIMARS and seeing the fate of their brethren in Donbas we could see a similar Russian military collapse around Kherson which, quite incredibly would leave Crimea open to full scale attack - something which could never have been imagined before Feb 24.
Total collapse of Russian forces in Ukraine is now possible, even likely I would say, what options does Putin have?
The conventional military campaign has failed - he has no more troops to readily deploy.
The energy war has failed.
Peace?
WMD escalation? Had the chance but has bottled it so far.
My guess is hastily convened peace talks - the longer Putin waits the worse it is going to get for him.
If we see peace in Ukraine, global energy and commodity prices collapse helping a new found deflation trade - global recession plus oversupply of commodities.
If he’s saying “Ukraine will take Crimea within the year,” or even reporting it with a straight face (and without the context that it’s pure batshit insanity), he is the definition of “not credible.”
The mud will freeze in about a month. Russia will act then (unless all they plan on doing is consolidating their gains, but I doubt it). The Twitterati do this dance every time there’s a minor Ukrainian victory.
You can say I’m reading propaganda or I’m a Russian bot or whatever you please, but I don’t have a dog in the fight. I have been watching this situation since 2014 and world politics in general most of my life, and that’s how I see it.
Truth is, most of these commentators aren’t even working with that experience. They’re repeating ISW stooges and Ukrainian officials verbatim, or they’re brainstorming with persuasion in mind...