JJxvi said:
AgLiving06 said:
redline248 said:
JobSecurity said:
What are the next steps if they are able to get to Zelensky? Russia has made it pretty clear they don't want to occupy the whole country or even all of Kiev. Does Ukraine have the ability and fortitude to withstand their top government officials being taken out?
I'm not sure I'd believe this.
Putin will install a puppet government and then "leave"
That seems like what the stated goal is, but it seems like lunacy. A government that was seen as being his puppet has already been run out on a rail by popular protest within the last decade. The Russian army is going to have to stick around and forcefully maintain any puppet government he wants. Putin is on a road where the best case scenario for him is "Iraq Mission Accomplished speech" then losing tens of thousands of troops over how ever many years...
I originally thought he would take Donetsk/Luhansk, but I think Putin and his backers may be aiming for the coastline, and leaving a rump state in the west. Draw a line from Kiev to Odessa and leave a rump state in the west (These are the most rabid anti-Russia areas too).
It's a very, very dangerous gamble with Russia current state and demographics. Putin and his oligarchs have gambled the lives Russia
as a society on taking over Eastern Ukraine. For what reason? We do not know, but my guess, population, agriculture (Ukraine was the "breadbasket" of the USSR), Defense (?) and maybe off shore minerals.
Edit: See the diagonal red line on map.
Don't forget that Russians units are in a disputed part of Moldova as well.