Well there you go. Rosgvardia officers know Ukraine is “abroad”, whatever Putin says.
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To a limited extent, Russia already has a land corridor, with bridge across the Kerch Strait. By building the bridge, Russia has severely restricted Ukrainian access to their ports on the Sea of Azov. Of course, making the sea a Russian lake would be well in line with Putin’s overall goals. If Russia keeps Crimea (which I don’t want to happen, but it likely will) but doesn’t control the northern ports on the Sea of Azov, unrestricted access for Ukrainian shipping through Kerch needs to part of the terms of peace.
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I think he is going to try. I don’t think Ukraine or NATO should let him.
I think that is a reasonable fear. The West needs to be hard-line about this and present a united front on what is and is not acceptable. Appeasing bullies merely placates them only for a time.
North Korea has historically gone in cycles of signalling aggression, appeasement and condemnation in the West, and then they pause their actions so they walk away looking reasonable. Then they do it all over again. Nothing the West has done has actually altered how they do things.
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He may get those. Along with a wrecked economy, being kicked out of orgs, more breakaway countries (which you’re seeing now with Georgia, Kazakistan etc) breaking further away and pushing Russia out. Japan taking those Islands, a lot of countries joining NATO, China thinking Russia is a pushover and taking every advantage of that, people plotting against him internally, domestic strife, loss of access to technology.
He is indeed a “stable genius”!
He’s having his ass handed to him by Ukraine- and by Joe Biden. In addition to having to nail all his windows shut going forward and hire more food tasters.
I’d look more to what motivates the author to consider that a win. Because his judgement sucks.
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But he’s playing the looooong game, see… nth level chess master, that Putin! /s
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I won! I won!
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Just FTR, I did check before posting. It still is weird. And right now, I trust the putinocrats to be trolling as hard as they can, so…
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Meh, does not surprise me to find a town called Red October in a former Soviet state. 
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Finding it claimed to be shelled by alleged Nazis, though…
Remember when most “westerners” were shocked about the Holocaust memorial being hit?
Well, not the same ballpark, but I expect some post-sovjet outrage about this, as well.
But it is a weak plot point worth of a Clancy novel, I admit.
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The new swastika.
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Russian forces are starting to withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear site , reports AFP citing the US Pentagon.
A senior US official said that Russian troops are “walking away” from the facility and going into Belarus.
Taking a shitload of radioactive dust with them, back to Belarus, no doubt.
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Gotta wonder what kind of shitstorm they are leaving behind for Ukraine to fix and clean up. Damn, I hate this shit.
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Like, it’s not even considered that this could by a Pyrrhic victory, that Putin could be achieving major objectives despite failing on some riskier goals, that he might be able to grind through despite unexpected reverses, anything. Just maybe everything is proceeding as he has foreseen it, because that’s how war works, you know. It’s not a field where even brilliant strategists have plans fall apart at first contact with the enemy and you would never want to doubt a violent bully like Putin is one of them.
It’s such transparent gaslighting it honestly makes me really upset.
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I actually agree in that I think any compromise with him is going to be read as a victory. Both in Russia and here where we seem (in the US) to be so invested in the lie of the ubermensch. That doesn’t mean I know what the best course of action is of course, even speculating much is a bit beyond my abilities. Still I disagree with the article in that I don’t believe Putin planned this well or effectively and I think he shouldn’t be given credit in our media as if he did.
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Ok. Economic sanctions aren’t going away any time soon. The rest of Europe are going to get permanently free of Russian oil and gas. The superyachts are going to be sold off to help rebuild Ukraine. Foreign investment in Ukraine will skyrocket.
If there’s ceding of territory by Ukraine, that will be a deal between Ukraine and Russia. I could easily see sanctions continuing and even escalating afterwards until Russia begs for relief. And the deal will be Russia ceding back every inch they gained, plus Crimea.
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Are they literally walking away in order to not disturb the soil as much and not bring back contaminated equipment or just leaving the site in vehicles taking everything they brought back with them?
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Dunno whether it is metaphorical or literal. But as noted further upthread they already disturbed a lot of dust, and many probably inhaled a fair bit of it, possibly terminally…
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That would be glorious, but I don’t have high hopes for that, even a few years into the future when sanctions have destroyed the Russian economy.
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