A few days ago, I posted the comments of Anatol Lievan and a Quincy Institute colleague on this issue. They acknowledge that "the Russian army has suffered enormously in this war" and detail its losses but they do not jump to the unrealistic conclusion, based more on wishful thinking, that the Ukrainians should keep fighting and dying until they "win". As Lievan and Episkopos noted:
All serious military analysts, including the Ukrainians themselves, now agree that Ukraine cannot reconquer its lost territories on the battlefield. The alternative to a peace settlement is therefore indefinite war, with the risk that an exhausted and heavily outnumbered Ukrainian army may eventually collapse, leading to much greater Russian gains... If Russia were to conclude that no compromise peace with Ukraine is attainable, it would accelerate air strikes on a wide range of Ukrainian targets and increase the number of soldiers it has deployed to the front lines. It would decide in the course of a stepped-up offensive where the de facto border between Russia and a rump Ukraine will be drawn — ranging anywhere from full control over the territories it has officially annexed to complete conquest of Ukraine’s coastline — and then unilaterally declare an end to its military action. Russia could not conquer all of Ukraine and would not try, as this would require an occupation army many times the size of the entire Russian military and would almost certainly encounter sustained Ukrainian guerrilla attacks. But it would ensure that unoccupied Ukrainian territory could not be reconstructed by wielding an ever-present threat to bomb reconstruction projects. This would ensure that few of the millions of Ukrainians who fled the country ever return, effectively close the door on Ukraine’s NATO and EU membership, and make it likely that Ukraine would become a dysfunctional and unstable rump state, radiating instability into broader Europe. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40543): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40543 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117669483/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
