After separatists' victory in Debaltseve, will Putin stick or twist? Vladimir Putin has got what he

[pampango]

wanted. The Kiev government can call it a “planned retreat” if that makes it feel better, but the watching world will join the Russian president in viewing the Ukrainian army’s withdrawal under fire from the strategic hub of Debaltseve as a highly significant victory for the Moscow-armed separatists.

The critical question now is: will this be enough for Putin, or will he and the rebels press their advantage and try to further enlarge the territory under their control? Despite last weekend’s ceasefire, fighting has continued along other parts of the frontline, around Donetsk and at the government-held southern port city of Mariupol.

With Ukraine’s army on the run, with President Petro Poroshenko politically wounded after making big concessions to achieve last week’s Minsk II peace deal, and with Kiev’s divided western allies fulminating impotently and uncertain what to do, Putin may calculate that he can keep on going until he chooses to stop.

But if Putin and the rebels continue to breach the ceasefire or otherwise overplay their hand, they are likely to face a much tougher, escalatory US response. Barack Obama and Nato have avoided any military involvement so far, partly at the bidding of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the EU’s lead mediator. With Kiev reiterating its calls for western weapons and material and Putin’s proxies running amok, this restraint cannot last much longer.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/18/after-debaltseve-victory-putin-stick-or-twist

[LittleBlue]

1. "Barack Obama and Nato have avoided any military involvement so far"

Really?

That would just give Putin an excuse to unleash Russia's entire military on poor Ukraine. It would be the beginning of a nuclear conflict. Obama wouldn't dare.

[pampango]

2. The issue is not "Obama wouldn't dare" or "Putin wouldn't dare". This is not a game of chicken.

Providing arms to Kiev will not help the situation because Russia can always overwhelm whatever we give them. I hope and expect that Obama is smart enough to realize that. He may say he is considering something if he thinks it will focus the attention of others but I hope he does not do it.

Unlike Bush, McCain or Romney I do not think he will do something stupid just because someone says "McCain (or practically any other republican) wouldn't dare" do that.

Stopping the flow of arms to all sides is the way to bring the combatants to the negotiating table.

[geek tragedy]

8. Problem is Russia right now has zero incentive to stop arming the rebels and expanding the theater

of combat.

Europe won't enact any more sanctions--geopolitically Greece is now practically a member of the Eurasian Union and would veto any new sanctions.

Why wouldn't he seize Mariupol, Odessa, and maybe everything in between? Ukrainians as they currently are can't stop him, can barely interfere with him.

Putin has proven over and over that his only limits are what he can get away with. And he can get away with quite a bit more.

Just ask the families of MH17 victims, who will never see justice. Because Putin.

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. But, but, but...

I thought that Putiness was next to godliness!



Good article.

[LanternWaste]

4. Putin seems to be the guy who wants to hit on a 20.

Putin seems to be the guy who wants to hit on a 20. After his expansion into Georgia, the Crimea and currently, Ukraine, it's not too difficult to see him looking at Finland and the Baltic states with salivating chops.
Andrej Illarionov's (his economic advisor from 2000-2005) statement in March of last year...

"Mr Putin seeks to create “historical justice” with a return to the days of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and the Soviet Union under Stalin. Russia will argue that the granting of independence to Finland in 1917 was an act of “treason against national interests”."

[NuclearDem]

5. All three Baltic states are part of NATO.

He wouldn't dare.

[geek tragedy]

7. Yeah, like all bullies he's a coward who won't tangle with someone who can fight

back on equal terms.

He saves his tough guy routine for Ukraine, Georgia, and the Russian GLBT community.

[LanternWaste]

9. Finland's not.

Finland's not.

Regardless, I'm betting many people have said "he wouldn't dare" in regards to his actions over the past eleven years.

[Igel]

10. Why not?

Provoke an uprising. If it's put down, cry oppression and produce a further uprising. If it's not put down, let it be.

Arm it. Use unmarked vehicles, unmarked soldiers. Have them speak Russian and say they're locals. Deny any involvement. Demand proof beyond any doubt, on a soldier-by-soldier basis. If you can prove that they're Russian soldiers, say they're on leave and are there as volunteers--and it would be a violation of their human rights to stop them.

If you get videos, some are going to be fake or misrepresented. Point to those to cast doubt on those that aren't fake. If there aren't any that are fake, find some claim to make them dubious--even if you have to make stuff up. Any excuse for NATO to avoid something that might lead to war. Germans don't want to die for Latvians. Neither do British.

Find a way to claim that the people alive today are actually part of some nefarious group that can be misrepresented. Use the word "fascist" or "imperialist" or something else that doesn't really apply except in tangential, trivial, irrelevant ways. Or show that the troops fighting have at least two fascists among them--enough will take up the mantra and fall for the whole/part fallacy as the entirety of the population are decried as fascists or whatever those couple are called. Such people are really into phallusies, being dicks themselves.

The goal is to impede action. Divide. Weaken. Use the factions already present against themselves. And moan about sanctions that don't really bother those calling the shots but reward them with very high political polling numbers and also gives them the chance to use their fortunes to consolidate their control over the economy. Remember: One of the defining characteristics of facists is a state/private-section alliance, and the way the Russian goverment and oligarchs plan together (often with the state as the senior partner) is truly amazing. Rather like a certain country in the late 1930s. The Kochs in American have nothing over the Russian khreny.

While action is impeded, control over the border is lost and weapons and personnel flow. By the time there's sufficient proof everybody's too chicken-shit to oppose them because it might involve total war. So Putin gets what he wants.

Victory not so much through strength as through idiocy and weakness on the other side. Poroshenko's lipservice to European values when it was precisely those "European" values that would grant him defeat is ludicrous. Merkel's surprise that things aren't going according to the words on paper indicate that for an engineer, she's surprisingly easily confused over whether words and actions, whether Woerter und Sache are actually different in any meaningful way. "This is an banana," said while pointing to a house cat, probably leads to her getting bloodied while trying to peel the thing.

[geek tragedy]

6. He hasn't stopped before, why would he stop now?

Greece will veto any new EU sanctions.

He has Ukraine on the run. Might as well try to take his land bridge to Crimea.

Putinist Russia is a pure predator that attacks that which acts like prey. Ukraine is acting like prey.

US arms shipments to Ukraine are realistically the only thing that will keep him from marching on Odessa, maybe Kiev.

Is Ukraine worth it, or will it be bargained away like Czechoslovokia was in 1938?