What are the options for Ukraine?

Topic: 

In shock like most of us, I am trying to play out the various options for Ukraine and the west. None are good. What others can you suggest?

Capitulate

Ukraine quickly surrenders, Putin installs puppet government. Much repression, modest insurrection, if that, as in Crimea.

West wimps out: Russia walks away with success, looks for next target. Extreme sanctions: Russia toughs it out, or Russia capitulates, restoring a battered Ukraine. Or Russia goes nuclear.

Resist

Heavy damage and carnage in war, Russia still wins and installs puppet government. Strong resistance and insurrection. High cost on both sides. Ukraine in ruins.

  1. It works, like for Afghans and Soviets. Russia eventually retreats.
  2. It persists long term. West wimps out -- see above
  3. It persists, but west makes extreme sanctions -- see options above

Resistance is inspired by refusal to surrender (good) but country left in ruins (bad.)

NATO intervenes

NATO and other forces call Putin's nuclear bluff. Long or short war until Russia forced to retreat. Major damage, cost and casualties for Ukraine, allies and Russia.

Or: Putin is not bluffing, uses nuclear weapons. Minor escalation until Putin capitulates or is deposed. Megadeath. Or possibly Gigadeath in full nuclear exchange if Putin is mad.

Russian Revolution

During any of these plans, Russian people revolt and unseat Putin. How likely is it? Russian officers refuse nuclear orders. Possibly very good outcome, and more likely the harder the fight in Ukraine or with west.

Comments

russia win now in war
bad for ukraine

Donbas is an unconditional priority for Moscow. The liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions is an unconditional priority Lavrov said in an interview on Sunday.

Russia will fail seizing and holding all of the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The madness of these lies by Lavrov magnifies why Russia further isolates itself into oblivion. Jump on Twitter to see the carnage of entire cities and towns - the destruction is beyond words.

BBC and Reuters -
Lavrov when asked about the human cost of the fighting, which has seen devastating artillery and rocket attacks on some urban areas, he insisted Russian soldiers were - under strict orders categorically to avoid attacks and strikes on civilian infrastructure.

Lavrov also tried to argue that the extended duration of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine was due to the absolute ban on any attacks on civilian infrastructure that the Russian military has to observe.

Zelenskyy interview
The situation is very difficult; we're losing 60-100 soldiers per day as killed in action and something around 500 people as wounded in action. So we are holding our defensive perimeters.

Operational Command South of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed by Russian strike, 37 officers, including 3 generals, were killed as a result of the strike.

US president will not send Ukraine long range rocket systems.

A war of missiles and artillery.

Ukraine Defense Ministry says Russia to intensify air attacks.

According to General Oleksiy Hromov, Ukraine expects Russia to increase air and missile strikes on critical infrastructure and attempt to capture the entire Black Sea coast from the east of Ukraine to Moldova’s Transnistria

Caliber missile hit Ukraine Beskydy tunnel in Carpathian mountains. Length - 2 kilometers. Before war, up to 60% of cargo transit to Western and Central Europe passed through it.

Recent month of Russia electronic warfare onslaught of Ukraine military capabilities and communications pretty severe say Ukraine defense official

That is incorrect as that website disseminates pro-Russian information.

Companies that exited Russia after its invasion of Ukraine are being rewarded with outsize stock-market returns, Yale study finds — and those that stayed are not.

The almost 1,000 companies that have opted to pull out of Russia following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine are not just benefiting from a reputational boost. They are also being rewarded by financial markets, while those who remain behind are being punished.

That’s according to a new report from Yale Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and his research team at the Yale School of Management. The team has been monitoring almost 1,300 companies that do business in Russia and has kept a list to highlight the decisions companies have made about staying or leaving since the start of the war on Feb. 24.

What’s more, the focus on asset write-downs and lost revenue from Russia is misplaced. We demonstrate that the shareholder wealth created through equity gains have already far surpassed the cost of one-time impairments for companies that have written down the value of their Russian assets, asserts the report.

EU To Impose Full Embargo On Russian Oil Next Week

oil to cost way more in eu
$185 barrel maybes soon

1
some in Russia are quietly hoping the West will show Putin a way out that lets him save face. But there’s little mood in the U.S. and Europe to reward him for inflicting such devastation on Ukraine.

That may throw responsibility back to those in the Russian elite who are desperate to avert disaster for themselves and their country to find the courage to press Putin to change course.

2
President Putin launched this war in order to try and keep himself in power and to stop any growth of democracy in Russia.

Putin is believed to have surrounded himself with a group of hardline advisors and has dismissed attempts at trying to warn him of the cost, economically and politically, of the conflict.

A high level defection ?

A high level defection ?

quote from new story from website called - the intercept

Anomaly Six with Zignal Labs can monitor the movements of over 3 billion phones around the world with the press of a button

using data from a phone application installed by user with a user constant stream of data purchased directly from application developer like twitter

Chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a state think tank overseen by China’s top economic planning agency National Development and Reform Commission.

Her comments came as TSMC, a global leader in semiconductor production, becomes increasingly important amid the global chip crunch.

qoute - They are speeding up the transfer to the United States to build six factories there, she added. We must not let all the goals of the transfer be achieved..

new report by Bloomberg on Sunday has detailed a series of instances that Chinese officials have privately conveyed to their American counterparts that the Taiwan Strait does not constitute international waters, upping tensions given the Biden administration has been sailing navy warships through the contested waters on a monthly basis.

On Friday during the first ever face-to-face meeting between US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and China's defense minister Wei Fenghe, the latter warned his American counterpart that Beijing will ..not hesitate to start a war.. if Taiwan declares independence.

Wei had warned Austin that ..if anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will definitely not hesitate to start a war no matter the cost.. , defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian quoted the minister as saying during the meeting.

Further Wei vowed that China woujld .. smash to smithereens any Taiwan independence plot and resolutely uphold the unification of the motherland, .. as emphasized in a defense ministry statement issued following the conclusion of the meeting. He ..stressed that Taiwan is China's Taiwan

Zerohedge post with all links in the article worthy of read

Lagarde Capitulates As The Euro-Zone Divides

R

Putin’s and Xi's second meeting yesterday

Russia embracing China is serious

market to crash more.
more china and russia work together make minsky moment for us and europe
commodities more worth than paper

bitcoin low today of 17,727
7 months ago bitcoin was 68,925
75 percent down in 7 months
market crash could never be as bad as bitcoin collapse

After Putin-Xi Call, Gazprom CEO Pledges ... Energy Stability For Russia's Friends ...

FRIDAY, JUN 17, 2022 -
...Today’s developments are going to be a massive shock for gas prices as Europe is now going to struggle to refill its storages ahead of next winter if this reduction is for an extended period of time ... ICIS analyst Tom Marzec-Manser described to the FT on Wednesday of the previously reported Gazprom announced major reduction in natural gas flows through Nord Stream 1 to Germany, which took effect Thursday.

At this point, now nearly four months into the invasion of Ukraine, Russian gas flows to European clients have plummeted to their lowest levels since 2014, Bloomberg has noted. But at the same time, Reuters is reporting that ...Russia’s Gazprom increased gas supplies to China by 67% in the first five months of this year, the company’s CEO Alexei Miller said on Thursday....

It was also on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their second phone call since the Ukraine war began. Xi told Putin that China is ...willing to continue to offer mutual support (to Russia) on issues concerning core interests and major concerns such as sovereignty and security,... as quoted in state broadcaster CCTV.

at Zerohedge

Putin: Unipolar Order Has Ended, West Headed For Change Of Elites As Russia Emerges Stronger

New speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum

Pages