pig

Yes thats pretty much as I see it. In simple terms does not seem Putin would unnecessarily risk his life on a wild adventure unless he thought there was next to zero chance of failure. Drunk on their own misinformation and ineffectiveness they got a reality slap and retreated to something more achievable. The more detailed take relies on information from multiple and uncoordinated sources, in both Russia and the West, as well as in-your-face events. The Kursk damage to Putins authority does have to be fixed. But at the same time they are trying to save face by insisting 'tis but a flesh wound' so....

The "complicated" bit of the debate is what happened after the "Special Operation" failed. It looks to me that after such a huge commitment Putin could not 'back down' and attempt something subtler and more effective. So we end up with trolls insisting it was Boris Johnson, not Putin, that started the War that ended up with Putin having to mobilise the population. Putin disappears into a sulk, Central Asian countries get sniffy etc etc.... All Putin was looking for was a peaceful resolution and then that pernicious Brit got in the way and ruined everybody's lives....

Yes you're right. Apologies for not looking for the link but I remember reading something headlined something like "the 24 hours that saved Ukraine and changed the course of the war". OK there were a combination of factors, but nevertheless there are plenty cite that battle as being crucial.

Oh dear I have a short memory. However we're finally agreed Russias "3 day Special Operation" failed . That should have been the easy bit to agree. Putting together what happened next is actually where it gets complicated.

To be honest it makes perfect sense why posters would repetitively try to deny it. Its just slightly weird as it was not exactly an obscure event, the whole world and its dog stopped to look at it expecting Russia to take over / obliterate Kyiv and then scrambled to try to explain why it hadn't worked. Taking over Ukraine by trying to poison its democracy + a bit of hybrid war thrown in would of course have been a much more preferable to the current horror show. My suspicion is that Putin was effectively trapped by the 40 mile convoy that fell apart into a calamitous war.

Yes exactly. Here is their '3 day war' in all its glory: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-europe-moscow-0479970c33745de8f630fc9b5c82a793 EXPLAINER: Is stuck convoy in Ukraine a setback for Russia? Mason Clark, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, says the convoy saga may be emblematic of shortcomings in the Russian army, which is relatively inexperienced in the execution of large-scale operations that combine air, ground and naval forces. But it is unlikely to prevent Russia from prevailing against the outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian defenders. Sure, it was Mighty Russia after all. As the joke runs, from 2nd mightiest army in the known universe to 2nd mightiest in Ukraine. As I said before it wasn't just Russian hubris but the RotW that did not appreciate the limits of the Russian army.

Have some sympathy for the Russians - their country is too small, they need more land. Why not steal some and genocide the inhabitants ?

The problem is a kind of matrix of 'Hobsons choice's. Propaganda wants to say there is nothing going on in Kursk, its all over. Then 200,000 people get evacuated and people screaming to the authority for help who now risks looking complacent. Ukraine are just trying to trick them into moving forces away from Ukraine - they won't be manipulated into moving forces - so there Ukraine ! ... So the incursion carries on matching territorial gains in a week that Russia took the best part of a year, airfields and expensive bombers get blown up and the Ukrainians dig in. Propaganda machine in melt-down....

I think people just get exasperated with tendentious and ill thought out arguments, often bizarrely repetitive. Personally I'm interested in understanding the war, and up to a point understanding the so called 'trolling' is actually part of it. If you put aside the abstract word 'troll' and think about the individuals often referred to they all project very different personas, and have different techniques, albeit they also sometimes ride the same waves of blatant propaganda - thats interesting in itself. Unfortunately too often it does get in the way of useful debate. For example where posters post a link apparently not realising that the link contradicts their assertion. It can come across at best carelessly 'mechanical' posting. While it might not ultimately be clear if its deliberate, it can be an exasperating waste of everybody's time.

Aha - bothsides-ism. But the west is worse lol

To be fair trolls astroturf: blurring the difference between an individual who actually believes what they post or one who cynically trys to encourage belief in nonsense, or at the very least confusion and distraction.

Sure, to the question can the Russians win the war in spite of their historical record of war the answer is yes. On the other hand did they plan to get invaded ? No. Did they plan for their special operation to fail. No. Did they plan to lose in Afghanistan ? No. And so on. Did they plan to take Kyiv ? Yes. Did they plan to do this in a relatively short period of time ? Yes. Did they plan to be in the current clusterfeck years later ? Of course not. Can they still win something ? Yes. Can they still lose. Of course. Far more likely the absolute worst case scenario they envisaged was to be nominally in control of the country but bogged down in an insurgent quagmire, perhaps with the "Tsar" sacking the "Boyars" left right and centre. Maybe this was why they went on a murder rampage and have their genocidal administration systems in place - including brainwashing kidnapping children and so on. Is "propaganda is rife on both sides" a good substitute for logic or evidence ? No.

No the 3 day thing is used to point out the hubris and stupidity of it all. Sure they would have planned for a range of outcomes, but I don't think the present situation was at all expected. I really doubt it was even planned for other than turning up with what they thought was overwhelming force + now substantially punctured p1ss and wind. It was the biggest army in the world, a nuclear power, ludicrously armed to the teeth with the legacy of the Soviet era. Its very easy in hindsight to say 'oh yes it was always going to be a long war'. But did anybody expect anything other than the relatively quick destruction of Ukraine ? In a way we all fell for Russian propaganda, but unfortunately for Russia so did they.

Best guess is that a puppet regime was meant to be installed in Kiev and a relatively easy folding of southern Ukraine into Russia - maybe a month max allowing for a few hiccups followed by a long tail of lower intensity genocidal activities. Europe to acquiesce under threat of energy war and perhaps the optimistic hope of saving more Ukrainian lives It would have to be quite an extraordinary alternative take spun out of the known facts for what has actually happened as being part of the plan by a much weirder Putin happy to risk being decapitated himself. EDIT: possibly not even bothering to pretend South Ukraine is Russia. Look at Belarus.

Theres a lot of circumstantial evidence the plan was for a short "Special Operation" rather than long drawn out war eg how they went about it, what their expectations appeared to be, what troops they took, was said at the time, Putin retreating into his shell when it all went tits up and so on. The denials are understandable but imho they are not at all credible. No doubt they went in prepared for some degree of fighting but nothing to indicate they expected to be still fighting 2 years later, incurring ludicrous casualties, a military mutiny and Russia itself invaded.