
pmp10
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Everything posted by pmp10
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Gunshots are reported around Kiev airport and Putin just said he has no plans to occupy the country. This makes some crazy sense now, he is thinking regime change Kabul '79 style. Also explains the names lists, troop dispositions and intelligence on the invasion dates. Little wonder some in armed forces leaked that to the US, too bad it wasn't enough to dissuade him. That would mean his expectation is easy collapse of resistance if not outright surrender after first clashes.
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I don't see how he can archive his objectives without it. He seems to have no patience for slow strangulation and other effective options are occupation or making Ukraine permanently unstable. That is unless he flips on that 20-year long NATO membership suspension plan, but he shot that down hard yesterday.
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Russian recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk republics has been officially announced. No details yet, but arming of the separatists should be expected at a minimum. Or they might skip a few escalation steps and move the Russian troops right in. This means Minsk accords are dead and dissected and EU will have to respond with sanctions. The only question being if they will go beyond symbolic ones.
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And if they don't? Taking things public means he can no longer back down without something to show for this mess. So Putin committed to making the call today, there is only so much that last-minute diplomacy can do now. Better yet, one recommendation was to use the pre-2014 borders which would mean that good deal of territory will need 'liberating' from Ukrainian 'occupation'.
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Moving troops into Donetsk would mean burying Minsk accords for good. New agreement is unlikely to be made quickly without some application of violence. Besides, in this case the escalation scenario practically writes itself. Regular artillery exchanges will no longer kill 'separatists' or 'little green men' but Russian soldiers. And that of course demands retaliation. I don't see how NATO could ignore that.
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Another interesting Ukraine tidbit: US is preparing embassy evacuation plans I always thought Biden's 'imminent invasion' rhetoric and gaffes were calculated to whip Germany and France into united NATO position, but he really seems to believe it. I can't see how you can justify that view given Russian army dispositions at this moment. Maybe POTUS distrust military intelligence after Afghanistan.
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It's wasn't even the amount of text but that majority of the bloat was lore-dumping. I know BG2 did it trying to imitate Tolkien but for me it really doesn't work outside of book format.