Putin Had Four Plans to Defeat Ukraine. He Only Has Two Left.

As hopes for a military victory fade, the Kremlin is now betting on Ukraine’s economic collapse and weakening European support

Russian President Vladimir Putin has four bets on how to win the war in Ukraine. Two of them—that Ukraine’s army will break, or that the Trump administration will force Kyiv to submit to Moscow’s terms—are going badly.

But Putin’s other two bets have a better chance of succeeding by next year: paralyzing Ukraine’s economy with relentless missile and drone strikes, and waiting for European support to falter as political parties that oppose aid for Kyiv gain popularity.

This week’s U.S.-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi showed that the Kremlin remains committed to its original war aims: dismembering and subjugating Ukraine while rewriting Europe’s post-Cold War order. “All the objectives we have set ourselves will be achieved,” Moscow’s lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky told Russian state TV on Wednesday.

Putin will likely wait to see how his stratagems play out in early 2027, most observers say, before deciding whether to stay the course or adjust it.

“The spring is what the Russians will be waiting for. They want to see what this missile campaign delivers,” as well as who wins France’s coming presidential election, said Hanna Notte, Eurasia director at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. “And then they’ll take stock.”

Even then, Russia is more likely to review its strategy than give up its goals, Notte says.

No Trump card

After President Trump returned to the White House last year promising to end the war in a day, the Kremlin hoped he would...

I suspect, without any hard evidence, that perhaps both sides of the Ukraine-Russia conflict may be closer to some type of agreement that ends the bloodshed than anytime in the last 4 years. Putin made a concession, and he needs some type of agreement from all the combatant parties, but I think he is moving to get out of Ukraine. Yes, I could just all be a mis-read, but economic strain and peer pressure will be a bigger motivator than the dead at the front.

Strange article - we've been told so many times here over the last nearly 5 years that both sides have been obliterated, destroyed, "completely collapsed", etc.

3/1/2023: Col. MacGregor: Ukraine has been DESTROYED and there's nothing left

Ukraine is arguably the most corrupt nation on Earth. Everybody has their hand in the billions poured into that pit.

There is an ongoing, desperate need for the CIA to cover up the many crimes against humanity they have committed by funding and building bioweapons labs all over Ukraine. The monsters responsible should be hanged for it and THEY KNOW IT AND FEAR IT DEEPLY.

The current situation is much worse than Putin’s worst case scenario from his strategizing before the war. Putin thought that the poorest outcome was that NATO would become involved immediately in the war, and he would then be able to freeze the conflict after taking most, but perhaps not all, of Ukraine. His thinking was that NATO would surely want to negotiate a frozen conflict rather than continue fighting.

Ukraine is arguably the most corrupt nation on Earth.

What does corruption have to do with Putin invading a sovereign country by crossing an internationally recognized border in order to seize its land and wealth?

And by every measure, Russia is more corrupt.

Putin made a concession... but I think he is moving to get out of Ukraine

Haven't heard of any Putin concession.

Russians are like a disease, once they enter a country they can only be forcibly removed. Russians promised to leave Moldova in 1999 but are still occupying it.

At the 1999 OSCE Summit in Istanbul, Russia formally promised to completely withdraw its troops and ammunition depots from Moldova by the end of 2002.

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