The report is absolutely scathing. Some choice quotes:
But when the next crisis came, both the US and the governments of Europe fell back on old models of alliance leadership. Europe, as EU high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell loudly lamented prior to Russia’s invasion, is not really at the table when it comes to dealing with the Russia-Ukraine crisis. It has instead embarked on a process of vassalisation.
But “alone” had a very specific meaning for Scholz. He was unwilling to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine unless the US also sent its own main battle tank, the M1 Abrams. It was not enough that other partners would send tanks or that the US might send other weapons. Like a scared child in a room full of strangers, Germany felt alone if Uncle Sam was not holding its hand.
Europeans’ lack of agency in the Russia-Ukraine crisis stems from this growing power imbalance in the Western alliance. Under the Biden administration, the US has become ever more willing to exercise this growing influence.
From what I gathered their demands for a peace deal for a very long time are basically for recognition of the new areas, without added land claims. This would imply that their war goal was just those. Am I incorrect there? Could you provide a source, if so?
Russia’s stated goal was to “demilitarise and denazify”, which never made any sense, but definitely involved capturing Kyiv (why else beeline for it?) and toppling the government. The actual goal seems to have been installation of a puppet regime a la Belarus.
But all that became moot as they lost the war in the first couple of days, only trouble was that didn’t mean that Ukraine won, or the Kremlin realised it had already lost. The rest of the war is, big picture, a slow Russian retreat while scorching the earth.
The reason the whole thing is still going on is the party’s utter disagreement when it comes to acceptable terms, and Russia’s authoritarian civic giving -50% war exhaustion, but that’s countered by Ukraine’s -100% temporal modifier “defence against genocide” (sorry couldn’t resist going Paradox after all).
Russia’s current stance “just give us what we have” would allow Putin to sell the thing as a win domestically, but we already see propaganda spins such as “sure we demilitarised them, now they’re not using Ukrainian but NATO hardware” which is olympic-level mental gymnastics so my assumption is that pretty much everyone but Putin (who is being fed bad info as giving him bad news gets you demoted to defenestrated) realises where this is heading.
I give it a year, tops, until the last Russian boot is out of Ukraine. Including Crimea.
So what you’re saying is that, despite the main demand for peace from Russia not being met for more than an year being that of accepting their annexations, they actually have some other unstated greater war goal? Am I really incorrect in saying that from the very beginning the main Russian demands were the control of the currently annexed lands and Crimea, demands which are still unmet today? Can you provide me any sources for that? Don’t see why it matters so much which side wins in the end for the sake of this argument.
Also I don’t think “beelining for Kyiv” is such a big tell, as since you are a paradox fan you know that taking a capital is usually a good move even if you don’t intend to control it.
they actually have some other unstated greater war goal?
Yes and no. Russia did have a greater goal, and now Putin (no “they”, any more) is left with the goal to stay in power.
Am I really incorrect in saying that from the very beginning the main Russian demands were the control of the currently annexed lands and Crimea, demands which are still unmet today? Can you provide me any sources for that?
Putin’s speech at the beginning of the invasion. “Denazification, demilitarisation”, and ahistorical ramblings about Ukraine not being a country, or Ukrainians an independent ethnicity, which at least back then played into popular myths in Russia (hence why Russia as a whole had a war goal as opposed to merely Putin). Also, lies about Ukraine shelling ethnic Russians in the Donbas IIRC Prigoshin actually called that one out specifically when he announced his… stunt. Not really sure what to call it.
TBH at this point in time I’m not sure if Putin survives the coming months or two, given that the sentiment among people was quite pro-Wagner, cheering them on, then booing OMON (aka Putin’s goons) as they re-entered Rostov. Or whether Prigoshin stopping wasn’t orchestrated by the FSB who didn’t mind the change in power but would prefer to do it during the next presidential elections (March 2024) instead of having a civil war, tons of reasonable speculations along various lines. One thing’s for sure there’s now an abundance of ex-convicts on the streets pissed that Prigoshin stopped, and a big crack in Putin’s air of power. Hard and brittle materials crack easily, you see.
