Russian negotiation tactics are a funny thing. It’s been well documented that their truculence in negotations is as follows:
**Maximalist Goals! **- Concessions are for the loser. Concern for Life, Justice and Diplomacy are tools of the weak to keep down the strong. Demand everything, concede nothing, and eventually the other side will, out of their soft decadence, give you something to make it all stop. And then you have something you didn’t have before!
Well - take a few steps back. War is politics by other means - a political objective is sought by force. In this case, Russia obviously WANTED regime change and territorial conquest. They aren’t going to get either in this phase of their 1,000 year enslavement project, and they do know it.
So what does it all mean? Why is their official position, like in the article, "WE WILL NOT NEOGITATE!! THE WEST REFUSES TO ADDRESS THE CORE ISSUES BLAH BLAH BLAH BLYAT!. <Free Shrugs>. But break it down a bit:
- Russia can’t advance anymore in any meaningful way. Their dual tactics of forcing men into holes and waiting to be killed + standoff terror attacks cannot possibly achieve their objectives.
- Their leaders are not budging one inch, as they expect to be given something that rationalizes their idiotic invasion’s massive losses. They should stop. They should’ve stopped a long time again. They can’t stop now, as they’ll be the ones making concessions. Concessions that probably roll them at LEAST back to 2022 boundaries, and maybe even 2014. 1991 seems unrealistic in the short term - there’s no way to make them leave Donetsk or Luhansk easily. But - that’s not necessary for Ukraine to Win. You can probably make them leave Crimea without the bloody business of kicking them out forcefully. That’s what’s happening right now. Crimea is being made untenable. Donetsk & Luhansk would have to come later, and by other means. If at all - there might be a realpolitik basis to just let portions go anyways as a buffer zone for lots of reasons.
- They still act like they expect that the U.S. or EU will force Ukraine to make concessions. And in normal times, that might be viable. But their agent Trump is such a complete tool that Ukraine survives without direct US aid. He’s alientated ALL of their traditional allies, and has pissed away any leverage they had about what MIGHT happen if the U.S. pulled suport. He just went ahead and did it - because he’s an idiot - and guess what? The 2025 version of the Ukrainian army can continue to resist the 2025 version of the Russian one. Short of the U.S. invading Ukraine, they can’t do anything else. Certainly the Iranian experience showed the limits of american air strikes when you’re not willing to risk casualities in a ground war.
- And Europe - which views the threat of a Russia rewarded for invasion very differently than the current American administration does - is willing to quietly and slowly defy impotent U.S. demands that Ukraine make permanent concessions.
Ukraine is now bombing even Moscow, nearly at will. The Russian population, so long complacent and feeling unaffected by the war beign fought in their name, is now feeling real pain. Nothing like what they have subjected Ukrainians to - but for them, real, undeniable pain and a confused anxiety as to why their Stronk Invincible Inevitable army can’t protect them. Not just inflation, or sanctions, or gas prices. Huge explosions inside the Moscow city limits, while their Air Defense continues to show it’s complete ineffectiveness.
WTF is Russia’s political leadership doing? I dunno - but at some level, they are DEFINITELY stalling for time. Time for what? Who knows. Every day that goes by, their negotiating position gets worse and worse. Their small squad infiltration tactics & terror bombing is ineffective as a war winning strategy, and Ukraine can probably continue at this pace for a long, long time. Can the Russians? We’ll see.
Diplomatically, and Militarily - the Russians seem stuck in the 20th century. Their Horde War philosophy STILL depends on rational actors on the West side who don’t have much appetite for conflict because they’re afraid of what the Russians might do. But - their bluff was called - and they’re a joke, frankly. It turns out that what they CAN do is not that much. This chest-thumping assumption that they could roll from Poland to Portugal before anyone could do anything has proven to be a complete myth. They wish for peace-loving/feckless pussies in NATO to force Ukraine to concede, as would be more likely under Cold War rules where the threat of nuclear escalation trumped all. But that’s also dead in the water, because the world realizes there’s not really any basis for a nuclear war to happen when you’re failing to win a war against your neighbour and the presumed enemy America is led by your best intelligence asset. They can’t admit defeat to an inferior race like the Ukrainians. Hubris is a prison.
So what are the heck are they doing? Losing. Stalling for time. Preparing their bolt holes in case of a political collapse. Why aren’t they talking seriously about realistic negotiations when their capital is being attacked daily? They can’t win. They have already lost. But as optimistic as that sounds, this means their leadership is not acting rationally - this war will continue as long as Putin is alive or the army collapses completely.
Thanks for the input. RE: Needing the war…yeah, I get it, but I’m not sure that there is a certainty that as soon as it stops, he will be liquidated. You need a faction to take over a country - organized, reasonably committed to a concept, different skills at different levels in a hierarchy. Maybe some thing they have a core of people they can trust - but this is Russia, and despite their butcherous incompetence and malignant greed - what they HAVE been good at is smashing any tiny ember of organized opposition.
I think they DO have qualms about sacrificing every Russian, as they are really just gangsters who want to lead tacky lives skimming off money from economic activity. You can’t steal what no longer exists. But - I think they also are in a trap of having weak institutions outside of the intelligence services and nobody really knows WHAT to do, never mind if they have the organizational effectiveness to do it.
The “losing to a worthy adversary” thing - yeah, that hubris is definitely part of their self image, but when you consider yourself a Great Super Power (even though you’re not, and on some level, the bright ones there probably understnad it), then the only one you’re allowed to lose to is the U.S. But it’s broadly accepted that Trump is their puppet, so…how can you surrender to your subordinate who, in NO WAY, could you reasonably construct a story that you are activey fighting.
This is kind of the weird paradox of having an idiot like Trump for an asset. He always pretends he has more leverage than he actually does. First year, FIRST big thing he did was cut direct U.S. support and tried to strong arm Ukraine into taking a bad deal. Europe stepped into the funding breach, and the 2025 version of the Ukrainian army turns out to be fully capable of resisting the 2025 version of the Russian army, even without direct U.S. military aid. In short - the fear of what WOULD happen if the U.S. pulled aid was more useful than the reality. Turns out, the U.S. aid isn’t that important to the current state of the war. And thus Ukraine doesn’t have to fear what the U.S. MIGHT do, because they’ve already done all they can, short of joining the war on the side of the Russians.
So - the SECOND big thing Trump did was start threatending allies like Denmark and Canada with invasion, and shooting ridiculous tarriffs in every direction. Degrade NATO, and erode economics. In a sense - if you can’t MAKE Europe stop supporting Ukraine, then cause a global recession to try and force them to be more selfish about their economies indirectly, forcing them to cut Ukrainian aid. That didn’t work, because it turns out crashing the global economy isn’t good for the U.S. economy either. And his mouthbreathing MAGAt horde doesn’t have investor-class levels of cash reserves to ride out a multi year recession. Probably behind closed doors, the EU told Trump’s team that if they so much as landed a pleasure craft in Greenland with a soldier on it, they would dump all U.S. Treasury reserves instantly and destroy the american economy, along with their own.
Then the THIRD big thing he did was starting to get invade-y by punching down on Venezuela, and he thought he could do the same to Iran. Again, he pissed away any military credibility they earned in Venezuela by being Netanyahu’s water-carrier in the ridiculous attack on Iran. The U.S. military’s limits are now clear - they are not interested in a boots-on-the-ground quagmire bloodbath. Well - Iran is not Venezuela and the limits of air strikes have been broadcast loud and clear. It’s hard to see Trump getting broad approval for another military boogaloo even in, say Cuba, much less literally attacking your allies.
Getting off on a tangent here, but - the point is - No serious minded thinkers in Russia think they’re fighting the U.S. right now. They’re not even talking about it in their most spittle-froth spewing propaganda channels. So - who are you ALLOWED to lose to? Britain? France? Germany? The Poles? That puts them in a pretty tight spot where they are only allowed to lose to a country whose leader is an obedident slave of your own.
So what CAN they do to trigger a russia-friendly outcome I mean? I don’t think they CAN do much anymore. They had options a couple of years ago and they had momentum. They were idiotic and greedy and doubled-down…because…reasons…and now Crimea is on the verge of being under seige. No water, no fuel, and soon no food or air defense. If Crimea collapses, then things will get very, very, very, very, very, very bad for them. As it is - their capitol is being bombed, their effective air defense is collapsing, they haven’t gained any meaningful ground in nearly two years, the economy is teetering on implosion, people are feeling the effects of the war in the few big cities that actually matter. Ukraine is getting stronger and Russia is getting into unthinkable, untenable situations. I dunno - all that to say, I think the game is later than people realize, and that there’s going to be some major major changes, soon.
Thanks for the chin wag.