The Russians won’t stop until they reach the Dnepr River.
After this point, if Zelensky can’t get permission to negotiate (from his U.S. State Dept. bosses and paymasters), Ukraine will lose Kharkiv (majority ethnic Russian) and Odessa (ditto).
If Ukraine loses Odessa, it will be a land-locked rump state.
Maybe, but that's not a worthy goal for them in my opinion. Of course I'm not Putin, but he still has a public image that requires maintenance and upkeep. Some may laugh at my suggestion that he cares about that, but I do believe he has to watch his six over political rivals that may arise.
What would be the point of making Ukraine pay more except vengeance for fighting bravely against them?
The Russians have already shown they have huge weaknesses and problems, primarily with weapons systems and corruption in the military.
No one can doubt the bravery of the average Russian soldier, but way too many have died when they should not have. Those deaths are on the shoulders of their leaders, not the Ukes.
In our military, we're supposed to care about troop casualties, some say too much. However, casualties resulting from actual corruption and graft should be one of the most mortal sins a military officer can commit.
You and I would rightly be court martialed and sent to Leavenworth for even 1/10 of the graft and corruption their chain of command showed.
The whole thing needs to be investigated and people shot.
To let it continue due to the urgency of the battle at hand just perpetuates the problem.
I really think trying to take Kharkiv and Odessa--which is not a given with the forces they have--is a worse deal than the victory they can declare right now.
In any case, anything either of us says about what happens next is just speculation. Regards.
“After this point, if Zelensky can’t get permission to negotiate (from his U.S. State Dept. bosses and paymasters), Ukraine will lose Kharkiv (majority ethnic Russian) and Odessa (ditto”
Most of the people who have been right about this special military operation in the past, the ones who’ve said for months that the Russians were pounding the crap out of Ukraine’s army, before advancing (which looked like meeting against ‘fierce resistance’, but wasn’t), have also concluded that both Odessa and Kharkiv will be liberated by Russia and Russia will keep them in any post war negotiations. That wasn’t true at the beginning, but the Neocons just had to keep their war going, and so here we are.
...just to finish the above, it’s now more of a question as to whether Ukraine as a country even exists when the fighting ends, or is its territory simply divided up amongst its neighbors.