Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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Putin, czar with no empire, needs military victory for his own survival
by Robyn Dixon, Catherine Belton
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin likes to portray himself as a new czar like Peter the Great or Ivan III, the 15th-century grand prince known as the “gatherer of the Russian lands.” But Putin’s year-long war in Ukraine has failed so far to secure the lands he aims to seize, and in Russia, there is fear that he is leading his nation into a dark period of strife and stagnation — or worse.
Some in the elite also say the Russian leader now desperately needs a military victory to ensure his own survival. “In Russia, loyalty does not exist,” one Russian billionaire said.
Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began with hubris and a zeal to reshape the world order. But even as he suffered repeated military defeats — diminishing his stature globally and staining him with allegations of atrocities being committed by his troops — Putin has tightened his authoritarian grip at home, using the war to destroy any opposition and to engineer a closed, paranoid society hostile to liberals, hipsters, LGBTQ people, and, especially, Western-style freedom and democracy.
The Russian president’s squadrons of cheerleaders swear he “simply cannot lose” in Ukraine, thanks to Russia’s vast energy wealth, nuclear weapons and sheer number of soldiers it can throw onto the battlefield. These supporters see Putin rising supreme from Ukraine’s ashes to lead a swaggering nation defined by its repudiation of the West — a bigger, more powerful version of Iran.
But business executives and state officials say Putin’s own position at the top could prove precarious as doubts over his tactics grow among the elite. For many of them, Putin’s gambit has unwound 30 years of progress made since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin’s vision of Russia horrifies many oligarchs and state officials, who confide that the war has been a catastrophic error that has failed in every goal. But they remain paralyzed, fearful and publicly silent.
“Among the elite, though they understand it was a mistake, they still fear to do anything themselves,” said the only Russian diplomat to publicly quit office over the war, Boris Bondarev, formerly based at Russia’s U.N. mission in Geneva. “Because they have gotten used to Putin deciding everything.”
Some are sure that Putin can maintain his hold on power without a victory, as long as he keeps the war going and wears down Western resolve and weapons supplies. For anyone in the elite to act, Bondarev said, “there needs to be an understanding that Putin is leading the country to total collapse. While Putin is still bombing and attacking, people think the situation is not so bad. There needs to be a full military loss, and only then will people understand they need to do something.”
What all camps seem to agree on is that Putin shows no willingness to give up. As Russia’s battlefield position deteriorated in recent months, he escalated repeatedly, shuffling his commanders, unleashing brutal airstrikes on civilian infrastructure and threatening to use nuclear weapons.
Now, with his troops reinforced by conscripts and convicts and poised to launch new offensives, the 70-year-old Russian leader needs a win to maintain his own credibility. “Putin needs some success to demonstrate to society that he is still very successful,” a senior Ukrainian security official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss politically sensitive issues.
Moscow’s glittering indifference
As the casualties mount in Ukraine, filling graveyards across Russia’s provinces, Moscow’s glittering facade conveys a hedonistic, indifferent city. Its restaurants and cafes are crammed with glamorous young patrons sporting European designer wear, taking selfies on the latest iPhones, and ordering truffle pizza or duck confit to be washed down with trendy cocktails.
But beneath, Putin is creating a militarized, nationalistic society, fed on propaganda and obsessed with an “existential” forever war against the United States
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And for someone who keep complaining that "Russians keep threatending nukes" there YOU are.... threatening nukes.
You crazy.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Signym posted the same thing 4 times on this page. But is the following true?
Quote:I am beginning to think Signym confuses Truth and Fiction. Here is the fiction Russia has been selling, yesterday and the day before and the month before, and the year before:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And for someone who keep complaining that "Russians keep threatending nukes" there YOU are.... threatening nukes.
You crazy.
Russia accuses Kyiv of planning to stage nuclear incident
Since the start of its invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, Russia has repeatedly accused Kyiv of planning "false flag" operations with non-conventional weapons.
Published: FEBRUARY 19, 2023 19:04
Russia said on Sunday that Ukraine was planning to stage a nuclear incident on its territory to pin the blame on Moscow ahead of a United Nations meeting, without providing evidence for the accusation.
Since the start of its invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, Russia has repeatedly accused Kyiv of planning "false flag" operations with non-conventional weapons, using biological or radioactive materials. No such attack has materialized.
More at https://www.jpost.com/international/article-732067
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Signym posted the same thing 4 times on this page. But is the following true?Quote:I am beginning to think Signym confuses Truth and Fiction.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And for someone who keep complaining that "Russians keep threatending nukes" there YOU are.... threatening nukes.
You crazy.
Are you saying you HAVEN'T been complaining about Russia threatening nukes?
Are you saying you HAVEN'T threatened nukes?
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And for someone who keep complaining that "Russians keep threatending nukes" there YOU are.... threatening nukes.
You crazy.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:Now you have posted the same old things 5 and 6 times on the same page. Does OCPD plague your life, Signym?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Signym posted the same thing 4 times on this page. But is the following true?Quote:I am beginning to think Signym confuses Truth and Fiction.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And for someone who keep complaining that "Russians keep threatending nukes" there YOU are.... threatening nukes.
You crazy.
Are you saying you HAVEN'T been complaining about Russia threatening nukes?
Are you saying you HAVEN'T threatened nukes?Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And for someone who keep complaining that "Russians keep threatending nukes" there YOU are.... threatening nukes.
You crazy.
What is obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD)? Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is a mental health condition that causes an extensive preoccupation with perfectionism, organization and control. These behaviors and thought patterns interfere with completing tasks and maintaining relationships. Dec 13, 2022
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24526-obsessive-compuls
ive-personality-disorder-ocpd
If you are getting the feeling I'm calling Signym, 6ix, and Russians nuts, you would be correct.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Now you have posted the same old things 5 and 6 times on the same page. Does OCPD plague your life, Signym?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Signym posted the same thing 4 times on this page. But is the following true?Quote:I am beginning to think Signym confuses Truth and Fiction.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And for someone who keep complaining that "Russians keep threatending nukes" there YOU are.... threatening nukes.
You crazy.
Are you saying you HAVEN'T been complaining about Russia threatening nukes?
Are you saying you HAVEN'T threatened nukes?Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And for someone who keep complaining that "Russians keep threatending nukes" there YOU are.... threatening nukes.
You crazy.
Trolls like you don't deserve thoughtful responses.
And for someone who keep complaining that "Russians keep threatending nukes" there YOU are.... threatening nukes.
You crazy.
*****
Quote:
It’s the end of the world as we know it — and Munich feels nervous
https://www.politico.eu/article/munich-security-conference-ukraine-rus
sia-war-china-wang-yi-nato/
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized American aid to Ukraine as an "open-ended blank check" and questioned whether the United States should be engaged in the Russian conflict at all.
"I don't think it's in our interest to be getting into a proxy war with China, getting involved over things like the borderlands or over Crimea," DeSantis told Fox & Friends on Monday, referring to the Ukraine territories that Russia has seized through military force.
The remarks, made on the occasion of Biden's surprise visit to Kyiv, Ukraine, were some of DeSantis' most direct comments about the US involvement in the war since the conflict started a year ago.
Asked "what a win looks like" for the US, DeSantis downplayed Moscow's military actions to date and said Russia was "really wounded" and had suffered "tremendous, tremendous loses" without acknowledging the role that US weapons, military intelligence and aid have played in shaping the conflict.
DeSantis insisted Russia is not a threat "on the same level as China."
"The fear of Russia going into NATO countries and all that, and steamrolling, that has not even come close to happening," DeSantis said. "I think they have shown themselves to be a third-rate military power."
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-2-20-23/h
_892b2023e3f2e4b6dfcc6f15f5fe47c7
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Ukraine sounds like Vietnam 2.0.
Mistake then.
Mistake now.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:That would only be a good analogy if China had invaded North Vietnam and the U.S. sent weapons to South Vietnam which feared being overrun by China. This hypothetical Sino-Vietnamese War was actually fought from February 17, 1979 – March 16, 1979. China lost, but claimed victory anyway.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ukraine sounds like Vietnam 2.0.
Mistake then.
Mistake now.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230220171416/https://foreignpolicy.com/2
023/02/20/ukraine-deterrence-failed-putin-invasion/
U.S. Deterrence Failed in Ukraine
Washington’s prewar efforts were weak and inadequate.
February 20, 2023, 7:00 AM
By Liam Collins, a senior fellow at New America and retired U.S. special forces colonel. , and Frank Sobchak, the chair of irregular warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and a retired U.S. special forces colonel.
A great deal of praise has been heaped on Europe and the United States for their sustained and determined response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with much of the congratulatory talk centered on the damage being done to Russia. Kyiv’s Western allies have provided the fledgling Ukrainian military with Javelin and Stinger missiles, rocket artillery, and, most recently, modern tanks. Yet, until Feb. 24, 2022, the United States made little effort to deter Russia, despite ample evidence that it intended to invade.
From President George W. Bush’s tepid response to the 2008 invasion of Georgia to the Biden administration’s antebellum halfhearted gestures of support for Ukraine, U.S. policies left the perception that the United States was not willing to make a renewed assault painful for Russia. The result was yet another war and a tremendously costly one at that.
It is often difficult to determine when deterrence works because, almost by definition, it is the proverbial dog that does not bark. Absent being in the room when leaders remark that they are not carrying out an action due to a threat, it is difficult to assign the cause to deterrence.
When it comes to war, realist scholars such as John Mearsheimer have noted that for deterrence to succeed, the state seeking war should perceive that the chances of success would be low and the costs high. Part of altering a state’s calculus is simple numbers: how many tanks, missiles, aircraft, and other weapons the defending state possesses. In his seminal work Arms and Influence, Thomas Schelling artfully puts it, “The power to hurt is bargaining power.”
This created the central failure of U.S. policy. Refusing to send sophisticated weapons to Ukraine failed to signal to Russian leaders that an invasion of Ukraine would hurt—and potentially even fail.
In the run-up to the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin thought that his forces would march into Kyiv in a matter of days with few losses. After all, the international community did little when he annexed Crimea in 2014. Washington’s muted reaction to previous Russian provocations signaled an unwillingness to incur any costs to prevent Russia from doing what it wanted. U.S. intransigence toward providing lethal aid seemed to confirm that Ukraine lacked the capacity to resist, further reinforcing the Russian belief that the invasion would likely be easy and quick. The recent war in Ukraine is, therefore, a direct result of the West’s lack of resolve and failure to credibly deter Russia. Moscow thought it could get away with murder—as it had in the past.
Recall the aftermath of the 2008 invasion of Georgia. The Bush administration airlifted Georgian soldiers serving in Iraq back to Georgia to fight, provided a humanitarian aid package, and offered tersely worded denouncements and demarches. But it categorically rejected providing Georgia with serious military assistance in the form of anti-tank missiles and air defense missiles and even refrained from implementing punishing economic sanctions against Russia. The United States’ lack of resolve to punish Russia for its gross violation of international law was under
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Biden Went to Kyiv Because There’s No Going Back to the Old "Normal" with Russia
by Anne Applebaum
The president’s surprise visit sent a message to Moscow—and to European leaders.
February 20, 2023, 11:48 AM ET
An American AWACS began patrolling the skies west of Ukraine last night; Kyiv was locked down this morning. Motorcades crisscrossed the city and rumors began to spread. But although it was clear someone important was about to arrive, the first photographs of President Joe Biden—with President Volodymyr Zelensky, with air-raid sirens blaring, with St. Michael’s Square in the background—had exactly the impact they were intended to have: surprise, amazement, respect. He’s the American president. He made an unprecedented trip to a war zone, one where there are no U.S. troops to protect him. And, yes, he’s old. But he went anyway.
Biden’s visit took place on the eve of the first anniversary of the outbreak of the war, and on the eve of a major speech to be delivered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the visit was not just a blaze of one-upmanship, nor should it be understood as the beginning of some kind of mano-a-mano public-relations battle between the two presidents. The White House says the planning began months ago, and the visit is actually part of a package, a group of statements designed to send a single message. The first part came in Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last weekend, when she declared that “the United States has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity” and that Russia will be held accountable for war crimes in Ukraine. The next will be delivered in Warsaw, tomorrow: America will continue to stand by Poland and the rest of the NATO alliance, and no NATO territory will be left undefended.
The message today is about Ukraine itself: Despite a year of brutal war, Kyiv remains a free city; Ukraine remains a sovereign country—and this will not change. Jake Sullivan, the national-security adviser, put it like this during a press-conference call from Kyiv: “The visit today was an effort to show, and not just tell, that we will continue to stand strong.”
These messages matter because Ukraine is now engaged in a war of attrition on several fronts. In the eastern part of the country, Ukraine and Russia are fighting an old-fashioned artillery battle. Russia sends waves of conscripts and convicts at the Ukrainian defenses, suffering huge losses and appearing not to care. The Ukrainians use up huge quantities of equipment and ammunition—one Ukrainian politician in Munich reminded me that they need a bullet for every Russian soldier—and, of course, take losses themselves.
But alongside that ground combat, a psychological war of attrition is unfolding as well. Putin thinks that he will win not through technological superiority, and not through better tactics or better-trained soldiers, but simply by outlasting a Western alliance that he still believes to be weak, divided, and easily undermined. He reckons that he has more people, more ammunition, and above all more time: that Russians can endure an infinite number of casualties, that Russians can survive an infinite amount of economic pain. Just in case they cannot, he will personally demonstrate his capacity for cruelty by locking down his society in extraordinary ways. In the city of Krasnodar, police recently arrested and handcuffed a couple in a restaurant, after an eavesdropper overheard them complaining about the war. The Sakharov Center, Moscow’s last remaining institution devoted to human rights, has just announced that it is being evicted from its state-owned buildings. Paranoia, suspicion, and fear have risen to new levels. Many expect a new mobilization, even an imminent closure of the borders.
This psychological war plays out elsewhere too. Some Europeans, and indeed some Americans, have not yet adjusted their thinking to this Russian strategy. In Munich last weekend, it was clear that many haven’t yet accepted that the continent
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