Anne Applebaum: It's Time to Prepare for a Ukrainian Victory

[Nevilledog]

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Anne Applebaum
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Russian soldiers are running away. They are leaving weapons and equipment behind, surrendering, hiding in civilian clothes.

Time to think about what happens if Ukraine wins.

theatlantic.com
It’s Time to Prepare for a Ukrainian Victory
The liberation of Russian-occupied territory might bring down Vladimir Putin.
12:05 PM · Sep 11, 2022

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/ukraine-victory-russia-putin/671405/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/LZLTI

Over the past six days, Ukraine’s armed forces have broken through the Russian lines in the northeastern corner of the country, swept eastward, and liberated town after town in what had been occupied territory. First Balakliya, then Kupyansk, then Izium, a city that sits on major supply routes. These names won’t mean much to a foreign audience, but they are places that have been beyond reach, impossible for Ukrainians to contact for months. Now they have fallen in hours. As I write this, Ukrainian forces are said to be fighting on the outskirts of Donetsk, a city that Russia has occupied since 2014.

Many things about this advance are unexpected, especially the location: For many weeks, the Ukrainians loudly telegraphed their intention to launch a major offensive farther south. The biggest shock is not Ukraine’s tactics but Russia’s response. “What really surprises us,” Lieutenant General Yevhen Moisiuk, the deputy commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, told me in Kyiv yesterday morning, “is that the Russian troops are not fighting back.”

Russian troops are not fighting back. More than that: Offered the choice of fighting or fleeing, many of them appear to be escaping as fast as they can. For several days, soldiers and others have posted photographs of hastily abandoned military vehicles and equipment, as well as videos showing lines of cars, presumably belonging to collaborators, fleeing the occupied territories. A Ukrainian General Staff report said that Russian soldiers were ditching their uniforms, donning civilian clothes, and trying to slip back into Russian territory. The Ukrainian security service has set up a hotline that Russian soldiers can call if they want to surrender, and it has also posted recordings of some of the calls. The fundamental difference between Ukrainian soldiers, who are fighting for their country’s existence, and Russian soldiers, who are fighting for their salary, has finally begun to matter.

That difference might not suffice, of course. Ukrainian soldiers may be better motivated, but the Russians still have far larger stores of weapons and ammunition. They can still inflict misery on civilians, as they did in today’s apparent attack on the electrical grid in Kharkiv and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine. Many other cruel options—horrific options—are still open even to a Russia whose soldiers will not fight. The nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia remains inside the battle zone. Russia’s propagandists have been talking about nuclear weapons since the beginning of the war. Although Russian troops are not fighting in the north, they are still resisting the Ukrainian offensive in the south.

*snip*

[Joinfortmill]

1. Awesome.

[Gaugamela]

2. Can you imagine President Biden welcoming Zelenskyy to NYC for

a ticker tape parade?

The whole RNC would go into convulsions. Biden would come off looking like Eisenhower to Zelenskyy’s Churchill.

[Joinfortmill]

3. 👍

[SheltieLover]

7. That would be fabulous!!!!

[cilla4progress]

4. If?

When.

One for the good guys.

[fierywoman]

5. Russia MUST pay extreme reparations.

[Jarqui]

6. This is incredible and wonderful news

But they are fighting a very evil dictator.
Putin's political career and probably his life is on the line.
They cannot let up their guard.
And they have to continue to get help from NATO, etc.

I would never have predicted what they have been able to do.
It is truly amazing.
But this fight is not over yet.

[liberalla]

8. Sure, it's good to think positive and prepare for a Ukrainian victory, but let's not put the cart

before the horse. There's much to do before we start celebrating.

Am I the only one thinking putin isn't done yet? He is vengeful and vindictive. He will drag this out as long as he can.

I just wish he would get assassinated.

[maxsolomon]

9. they still control much of the south, Donetsk and Luhansk.

i think i prepare myself pretty quickly if that changes.

[Cha]

10. Oh I Fervently HOPE🤷‍♂️💕🤞🤞🤷‍♂️

SO!!

Fucking Putin & DT Need to Go DOWN!!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

11. I was afraid to read this article because I did not want to jinx the Ukraine offensive

These pictures do make me smile

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