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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31608 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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One follow up question. Do you expect that Ukraine will take back Russian controlled territory in Donbas and Crimea? That seems to be the objective I hear these days, admittedly, from online people, rather than anything official. So I don’t k ow the stated Ukrainian objectives.

If the answer is no, and the war ends with the lines as drawn today. Who has won?

I'm no expert, but I think the Donbass is highly likely, but Crimea is pretty unlikely.

Crimea is extremely defensible, so I would put low odds on it being recaptured militarily. On the other hand, if Putin is ousted/killed somehow I think the odds of Crimea being offered up as a way for Russia to exit the war are fairly good.

Sure, if Putin kicks the bucket, all kind of interesting things can happen, especially if the carrot of "drop all this silliness and accept you're a second-tier power who could sell all the oil and gas you want to Europe and Central Asia, but continue to treat your own people like crap, and we won't care since we think your authoritarianism is f'ing you long term" is put forward, which I think is entirely possible.

I'm no expert either, but isn't Crimea pretty easily embargoed? IIRC, Ukraine recaptured Kharkiv by threatening Russia's supply lines, and I don't know why they couldn't do the same to Crimea.

There's a new road/rail bridge over the Kerch strait (though it has also come under attack and might be considered vulnerable), and with control of the Black Sea Russia can supply Crimea via sea as long as it wants. The Soviets (and subsequently Germans) both maintained Crimea after its land connections were severed in WWII.

My understanding is that Crimea's main vulnerability was its water supply, which might be a longterm consideration in peacetime but isn't so crucial during the war.

I wouldn't think so; even if you took out the Kerch Strait Bridge entirely, supply by sea should be quite possible if more expensive.

It's hard to imagine a plausible cessation of hostilities that isn't preceded by RUS regime change. Likewise, why would UKR or NATO agree? Russia already has imperiled demographics; the longer this war goes on the more they write themselves out of the future.

To answer your question -- if the war ended today; both Russia/Ukraine lose, NATO wins.

Not who you responded to, but I'll answer anyways. It's certainly plausible that Ukraine successfully counterattacks, but hardly a forgone conclusion.

A stalemate around the current battle lines would be a draw of sorts, but more of a win for Ukraine than Russia. Remember that Russia's original goals were a complete decapitation of the current democratic Ukrainian government, and to effectively turn the country into a Belarussian-style puppet state. At the very least, they would have preferred to federalize the country to retain influence so it couldn't be used as (what Putin perceives as) a threat. That option is basically gone now, and even if Russia recaptures Kherson and even Kharkov they'd still have to contend with the rest of Ukraine, which will hate Russia for the next century. Ukraine might be economically and politically diminished to some degree in such a case, but that's still not a "win" for Russia in any grand sense.

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