Posted on 06/07/2022 9:06:25 AM PDT by SpeedyInTexas
Russia has failed to achieve its strategic goals in the first hundred days of the war and Ukraine need not cede substantial territory to end it, William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at Rand Corporation, told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Monday.
Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, calling it a “special military operation.” The war entered its 100th day on Friday.
“Over 100 days, the Russians have pulled back their aims at least tactically, perhaps not strategically, quite a lot. The original goal was to seize three major cities: Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa. Russian troops had to withdraw from Kyiv and Kharkiv. And [they] have not been able to get close to Odessa,” said Courtney, who also served as U.S. ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
“The original goal was to seize three major cities: Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa. Russian troops had to withdraw from Kyiv and Kharkiv. And [they] have not been able to get close to Odessa,”
And how does he know those were the goals?
The Russians now have control of the sea of Azov, control of the major oil fields, a land bridge to Crimea (resulting in hugely more power in the Black Sea) and control of western Ukraine. Those are pretty big bites eaten successfully.
Other than Odessa, the cities listed are not strategic goals. If Odessa was in fact one of Russia’s goals, that is their only significant strategic failure. And they aren’t done yet.
The “Russia has failed” propaganda strikes me as just Biden and Johnson trying to declare victory when they have failed to stop Russian advances to any significant degree.
Oil is fungible, everyone knows that. If India and China buy from Russia then other oil on other markets can be purchased by Europe. Russia is not the only oil producer in the world.
Heavy and light, sour and sweet.
"Fungible", hey?
Vodka is pretty easy to make. It’s a poor culture’s booze. There won’t be a shortage of Vodka.
Because Putin turned him into a newt.
He got better.
It could be diarrhea from Soros brown eye
They’d believe it was maple syrup Fancy grade
It’s all lies on top of lies
Be fun to watch them dodge and parse soon enough
Sad who’s paying the price for their folly
Taking it from one place just frees up others.
You keep telling yourself that as it goes to $160 a barrel [₽ 9,920 rubles] this summer.
For us in the US - not India or China.
They are "friendly countries" in the Pootie Matrix.
Plenty on site there
Neocons here ignore them
No one aside from reporters in combat is more informed than I am
I say that humbly it’s just a fact
A few equals perhaps
I watch all alternate I can get while I’m of course innundated with western corporate media which is nearly all fabricated
Anyone with common sense can discern the reality pretty fast
Despite globalist efforts Russia will destroy uke military
Or uke comes to table
The east is lost to Ukrop
This is how Russia fights
We take cities
They take armies
Different strategy
It’s pure windmills to argue with so called conservatives who are blind
Well we have plenty, we just have a dumba$$ in the White House. The thing the Russians haven’t figured out is the world will not forget this. Once people turn to Nuclear and other fuels Russia will be left with nothing to sell that people want to pay for.
That’s the thing about shortages, people eventually figure out a way around it.
Pootie's Green Eco-Warriors are still running the show.
Look at Germany.
Yeah, look at Germany again in December.
Interesting. I have become so instinctively averse to MSM that I miss anything legit they have from anyone on site, and recently that was WaPo. Probably a stringer or correspondent, not a reporter.
I’m a former officer in the AF and I was taught big picture big picture big picture stuff. “If you’re ever ordered to the field, you’ll be staff. We paid for all that education and we’re not going to flush it.”
The big picture I see is satellite recon changing the nature of war. You mass troops, you just become a long range target because you WILL be seen. I see oil and fuel. The largest and essentially only refinery in Ukraine is just north of Dnipro in Kremenchuk. All their fuel has to come from there long term, and that processes crude arriving Odessa.
There is no other path. Trucking in from Poland is a bizarre long term imagining. 1/2 of all nuclear power in Ukraine came from the reactors at the complex on the south side of the river north of Melitopol. That was 1/3 of all power period. There is another reactor complex just north of Odessa. If Odessa falls, Ukraine will be absent about 1/2 of electrical power.
My long term configuration is surrender. Russians will let anyone who wants to leave for the EU do that. Encourage them to go. That will be everyone with gumption who might form a resistance. Business owners may be deported. Keep no one there with any incentive to put things back to before.
Government will be technocrats. Few Russian troops will remain. Policy enforced from the air.
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