Posted on 03/29/2022 7:36:08 AM PDT by shadowlands1960
Russian war machine never breaks...
...unless used.
Putin’s strategy has always been about capturing the southeastern petroleum reserves. The northwestern fighting is about capturing territory which is politically important to Ukraine, territory which Putin can trade for southeastern oil reserves. This is all according to plan.
I despise both.
Just to clarify here....
So it was Putin's plan to try, but fail, to take politically important Ukrainian territory in the northwest? That seems like a really bad plan. Because I think it is really unlikely that the Ukrainians are going to trade for "politically important" territory that they still hold, and never lost.
Putin wanted to control Kyiv. He wanted the early air assault on the airport to scare the Ukrainian leadership into abandoning Kyiv, whereupon he'd install a pro-Russian puppet. But the air assault failed, the Ukrainians didn't collapse, and anyone who knows anything about military matters knows the Russians lack the forces to take Kyiv at this point. Kyiv has seven times the population of Mariupol, which still hasn't fallen and has been bleeding the Russians for weeks.
Trying to spin a defeat as part of the plan is not a good look.
I agree that his fallback is going to be Crimea and Donbass, but defined broadly enough to include a land bridge between the two. That's why he so badly wants Mariupol. But I can't see Ukraine surrendering the entire Black Sea coast east of Crimea in a peace deal.
My guess is that if there is a deal, Ukraine gets Mariupol, a d Russia doesn't get that land bridge.
Those forces are being redeployed to help kill off the 60,000 ukronazis in the area of Donbass...
Correct
Russia never intended to take control of the capitol, they just wanted to root out all the US graft and cut Kiev off from the Black Sea.
It will be a bloody mess if Zelenskyy doesn’t get to the table soon.
Kiev was a head fake. They never marshalled enough forces there to make it an option.
It’s obvious the game plane was to roll all the way to Odessa.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.