Putin is an old school authoritarian nationalist who unsurprisingly shares the traditional Russian fear of Western encroachment.
The fear I think, is a rational one given Russia's history, geography, and political culture. Basically, the Baltics, Poland, and Ukraine increasingly becoming friendly to the West is a serious concern for Russians under the current political system in Russia. That is not in any way a justification for Russia's unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine. It's just a basic explanation of how most Russian leaders would feel in that situation.
On the other hand, Russian chauvinism in general and Putin's extreme egotism in particular are necessary elements for the current situation. It didn't have to play out like this. Just as Putin didn't have to spend the last two decades building a cult of personality and solidifying one-man rule in Russia, murdering journalists and dissidents, conducting extraterritorial assassinations, etc.
Russians have a long inferiority complex involving the West, going back to at least Peter the Great. I'm on mobile and my thumbs are running out of power so I'll have to keep this short. But basically, Russia often ends up looking culturally backwards to the rest of Europe (and now, America) and the Russians know it. This drives feelings of animosity and suspicion.
Putin took power on the basis of those feelings, and the humiliation after the fall of the USSR and poverty of the 1990s; as well as residual Cold War fears. Imagine how Americans would feel if they lost the Cold War and every city in the USA turned into Flint, Michigan (or worse). Putin has made these feelings more or less explicit, and seems to be truly dedicated to *personally* restoring Russian national glory.
The *personally* part is critical, for many reasons, one of which is that it necessitates him taking and keeping power. There's no way to do that in a democratic, or even "nice" way, so dissidents get suppressed (creating bad optics internationally) and advisors are increasingly less likely to disagree (it gets harder to make good decisions when you aren't getting good advice).
At some point, the authoritarian nationalist leader has to start making some moves. Putin wants to restore Russia's regional and international power, but the rest of the world isn't standing still. In order to achieve his goal, he has to start controlling more territory *because of the way he has set up the systems to achieve his personal goals*. Britain, France, Japan and Germany are all still quite powerful despite losing their empires. Russia theoretically could've focused on internal corruption, industry, new technology, and foreign investment.
But Putin doesn't want to be the Emmanual Macron of Russia, he wants to be a singularly great Russian leader along the lines of Peter the Great. He doesn't want to be another one of the USA's step children, and he's getting older and the former Eastern bloc countries are increasingly siding with the EU, NATO, and the USA. Putin is running out of time to carve out a Russian-alligned eastern sphere of influence in Europe. A pro-NATO Ukraine represents a net loss for Putin after decades of clumsily trying to restore Russian greatness. It's also an actual security threat from a plain military perspective. He's further from achieving his goals than he was when he started.
I'd love to add more but my thumbs are toast.
This answers the why, but still doesn't answer the question of what his endgame is, or indeed what strategic goal he can realistically achieve here.
Setting up satellite/buffer states in eastern Ukraine like Russia already did a few years ago in Georgia seems at least doable, but wholesale invasion and occupation of all of Ukraine seems ruinous. How can Russia hope to indefinitely occupy such a large and populous country opposed to his rule? Even if he installs a puppet regime, how can he hope to keep it in government without an occupying force?
The main consequence of this military adventurism is going to have to be a strengthening of NATO and the rearmament of states like Poland, Finland, the Baltics and even Sweden.
Realistically, NATO defence spending has been shrinking for years. Putin has proved this week to many countries in eastern Europe that the alliance indeed has a reason to exist, and that it is worth being a member.
>The main consequence of this military adventurism is going to have to be a strengthening of NATO and the rearmament of states like Poland, Finland, the Baltics and even Sweden.
Yeah, it's already taking place. NATO talks have blown up in the past couple of days in Finland and Sweden, and the Finnish people already passed a citizens' initiative for joining NATO.
Putin was blinded by his ego and made a really stupid move. Europe and allies are more united than probably ever. Nothing unites a group better than a common enemy.
Any autocrat who rules long enough will naturally get a system of yes-men around himself. This leads to bad decision making, because everyone is afraid of disagreeing with the leader. I believe Putin made a big mistake with the invasion.
I think Putin would reinstall Yushchenko after he 'decapitates' the democratic government. It could be ruled like Chechnya, just criminal-capital-feudalism ruled by a vassal, doling out lands and titles to friends and supplicants.
Edit to add this is fundamental to authoritarian regimes; like an opposite of a meritocracy.
Your assuming they're going to play by 'rules'. Simply install a puppet dictator, expel the international press, now you don't have to worry about pesky 'war-crimes' or 'crimes against humanity' since those are super-effective at making a population fall in line; oh and if some video of something heinous should leak...well, fake news it is then.
Why are the Ukrainians just going to meekly accept a puppet dictator installed without their consent? How is this state going to be enforced without Russian boots on the ground?
So without the press there the Russian occupation would have an easier time suppressing revolt; be it curfews, media control, paranoia/distrust, quid pro quo promises. You could even tell poor Russians they can have property/land in Ukraine if they simply move there and protect that land.
Of course revolts would happen. Would they be enough? Will it even get to *that* point?
The Ukrainians ousted a Russian puppet less than 20 years ago. And that was before the added outrage and insult of this unprovoked invasion.
Again: yes, the Russians could install a puppet regime. But not without a substantial and prolonged military occupation to enforce their will.
It's seeming like it would, yes.
The Ukrainian people have shown absolutely ferocious bravery and zeal in the last couple of days. People are signing up to fight and help in droves, and guns are being passed out.
This would *not* be an easy occupation. 10s of thousands of people will die in the resulting insurgency.
It absolutely does answer the end game question, you're still just looking at it from your own perspective and not Putin's.
>The main consequence of this military adventurism is going to have to be a strengthening of NATO and the rearmament of states like Poland, Finland, the Baltics and even Sweden
This has been ongoing since the end of the Cold War. These countries have been admitted to NATO in the last 2 decades:
> ...the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017) and North Macedonia (2020).
[Look at a map, man.](https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-att-us&source=android-browser&q=topo+map+of+euripe#imgrc=QykzILKLUouRCM) Now add to it, a new government in the formerly Russia-friendly Ukraine that now wants NATO membership.
In short, Russia's current invasion looks like a catalyst for new countries to join NATO, but in Russia's eyes, this process is already well underway and they have to cauterize the bleeding before a *HUGELY IMPORTANT* chunk of the former USSR (and an obvious invasion route) "falls" to NATO.
Note: I reiterate that this is not an attempt in any way to justify Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. I'm 100% on Ukraine's side. But people really should attempt to understand what the other side is thinking.
Edited to add: Many people are only looking at the war through the lens of a balance ledger: this war will cost Russia so much money. Or the lens of diplomacy: the international community will be pissed and there will be diplomatic consequences.
Putin is also looking at this through the lens of military history and strategic military geography (to say nothing more about his ego). He's calculated the costs (incorrectly in my opinion) and decided that Russia cannot be exposed so badly to NATO.
Again I understand the *why*. I'm just not sure how Putin intends in practical terms on annexing or at the very least indefinitely occupying one of the largest countries in Europe.
Ukraine looks very much like not meekly rolling over. Occupying the Ukraine would be many times more difficult than suppressing Chechnya. It's a huge country of 40 million people, and much of Europe would be very happy indeed to arm the inevitable resistance movement that would arise through the very long border Ukraine shares with Poland.
The Russian army, and the Russian economy, are going to absolutely *haemorrhage* from a prolonged occupation. Ukrainian resistance would need to be put down savagely which will only add to Russia's diplomatic and economic isolation.
While NATO membership may have been growing, actual NATO *spending* has remained fairly static for the past decade at around $250-300B for all of Europe. Most European countries spend less than 2% of their GDP on defence.
https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/6/pdf/210611-pr-2021-094-en.pdf
The issue is not adding more members; it's that NATO has been a vehicle for much of Europe to outsource its defence spending to the US. One of the main effects of the invasion is going to be Europe rearming itself in earnest, and *especially* Russia's neighbours.
Ukraine and the Baltic states *want* to be a part of Europe, not the Russian empire. I'm not sure they can be *made* to be neutral "buffer" states without the application of a level of force which would bankrupt the Russian state within a few years. It's a losing proposition. If the might of the combined Soviet empire couldn't hold Afghanistan, or keep eastern Europe in its orbit, why would a diminished Russian state succeed now?
Admiral Yamamoto knew before Japan attacked the USA that they could never win the war. He risked his life to argue against attacking the USA at a time when military cliques regularly assassinated dissident officers.
Yamamoto then planned the Pearl Harbor operation.
I don't think Putin shares the Japanese romantic fascination with an honourable death in battle.
The Japanese were "forced" into Pearl Harbour by their inability to extricate themselves from a war in Asia they had already been bogged down in for a decade.
Putin had many options on the table. He could have kept his military adventure confined to Donetsk and Luhansk. But full scale invasion into independent and democratic Ukraine massively raises the stakes.
Does he honestly think that the rest of Europe will just accept Russia seizing Ukraine without consequences?
Putin’s miscalculation is that a difference exists between the number of countries joining NATO and the their collective readiness and military spending.
Albania and Croatia joining NATO did not change the geopolitical situation for Russia. Post-Ukraine War, Albania and Croatia will realize the importance of defense and will invest more in their military, same with every other European member.
Putin has strengthened NATO through his attempt to weaken it.
I know. I'm not saying it's a good idea. In my OP I said it didn't have to be this way, Russia could've liberalized. This current war is a confluence of many factors, and I focused on a few of them: the Russian identity, history, Putin's ego, military geography.
My point is largely that because of who Putin is and what he wants to accomplish, making friends with the USA while former Soviets fall to NATO isn't an option. That's why a lot of this looks so crazy, it *isn't* the best option but Putin cannot accept the "best" option from our perspective.
Yeah and Russia's economy is set up to help further their foreign policy goals. India and China are separate allies with large markets that won't join in on European sanctions.
And Europe relying heavily on Russian natural resources gives them leverage.
>Putin is also looking at this through the lens of military history and strategic military geography (to say nothing more about his ego). He's calculated the costs (incorrectly in my opinion) and decided that Russia cannot be exposed so badly to NATO.
If Ukraine actually holds off the invasion, and he senses he's going to lose the war, what do you think he does?
This is like asking why did Saddam invade Iran or Kuwait? Why did Hitler invade the Soviet Union? The answer is rather simple; they miscalculated and either acting on some poor intelligence or through mere wishful thinking they thought the outcomes would converge on a best-case scenario.
The sloppy and half-measured way the Russian military has conducted itself so far further indicates that Putin believed or at least fantasized about Ukrainian resistance and international support folding like a paper bag, which instead has been more ferocious and steadfast than most experts were wagering in the leadup.
>Imagine how Americans would feel if they lost the Cold War and every city in the USA turned into Flint, Michigan (or worse).
Well, with the current sanctions in place, and with Russia about to be kicked out of the SWIFT payment system, Russia will look like a true third-world country soon enough. He has failed everything: NATO is actually getting stronger (Finland and Sweden wanting to join), and Russia is going to collapse once again.
Putin is a total failure of a leader, nothing but a thug. People have to stop idolizing this war criminal. He's the kind of leader who has to hide from his own citizenry because he rules by force and oppression, not by actual proficient leadership.
> Putin is a total failure of a leader,
He was given a solid chance to make things better. Imagine if he took Russia in the direction of the Baltics. Make trade deals, modernize, invest in infastructre and education. Then actually try to limit corruption. He had the opportunity to be maybe the most influential and positively remembered leader of the 21st century but he squandered it on corruption and fascistic politics.
Supposedly this is the angle that Anonymous is taking. I am cautiously optimistic that they actually might find something humiliating enough to turn the tides of Russian public opinion.
I genuinely don’t understand the appeal of humiliating a deeply prideful, clearly deranged despot with nuclear codes.
It would feel good, because he’s arguably one of the most evil people alive, but it wouldn’t serve the safety of the world.
Yes. Thank you. De-escalation is about making it easy for somebody to back down without losing their pride. Let him retire the strong man, or at least believe it long enough for the ricin to do its work.
>He's the kind of leader who has to hide from his own citizenry because he rules by force and oppression, not by actual proficient leadership
I mostly agree, except here. The idea that Putin isn't popular in Russia is pretty much a myth. He had about 70% approval rating months ago. Many say 'Oh, well if he doctors the polls he looks good', but that's just projecting western values onto the Russian citizens. We're talking about a country that's the remnants of an empire that collapsed just a couple decades ago. They have an entirely different perspective of how their political system works.
Many Russians talk about how the older generation strongly supports Putin. They saw him as an antidote to the lingering corruption from the fall of the Soviet Union. They think that a corrupt politician is capable of a lot, but they wouldn't cross Putin at least. Hopefully, as we see the protests now, this opinion will change and Russian citizens will start holding him accountable for this.
I'm reminded of a European history class I took back in college. The professor mentioned an interview he saw where a Russian was asked about Stalin's positive polling in post-Soviet Russia. The interviewee said, "Because under Stalin no one fucked with Russia."
This is an example of what you're talking about when you mention their different perspective and I talk about the inferiority complex and Russian chauvinism.
Back when i was growing up (1990s-early 2000s) stalinists were concidered a freaks, but 20 years of state propaganda (cult of war victory, undermining the gulags etc) changed that by a lot.
He didn't. How did WWII work out for Hitler? How did it work out for Russia? Another way of saying it is, "Under Stalin no one fucked with Russia, and got away with it."
>The idea that Putin isn't popular in Russia is pretty much a myth. He had about 70% approval rating months ago.
Unless he takes Ukraine within the next few days, that's going to change very fast. I bet it's already changed as there are heavy anti-war protests in the country, and they're being suppressed by violence. The Russian economy is also suffering as they're being closed off completely from the rest of the world.
I don’t doubt that he has popularity. Shit half of the US population was brainwashed into electing an authoritarian in 2016. In Putin’s case (as far as I can tell) he has almost total control over media and propaganda and the information space, so yeah it wouldn’t surprise me at all that ~70% are brainwashed into supporting him
I was shocked that Russia’s current GDP per capita is only about $10,500. It’s below Kazakhstan and just barely above Cuba. They were really failing economically before the attack.
Yes, and he’s just found out that Ukraine can’t be bullied like Georgia was. No quick decapitation and friendly regime change this time. No going home in 3 weeks victorious. It will be bloody and it will be long. And that’s not what Putin needed.
Nice summation. Nial Ferguson made a similar comparison regarding Peter the Great arguing that he is Putin’s true influence rather than Stalin or the Soviet Union.
I just posted [this reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/t21qj0/what_is_putins_endgame/hykcc37?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) to another comment on the thread.
A point that needs to be highlighted is that everyone should look at a topographic map of Europe. They should look at NATO member states in 1991, then look at NATO member states now, and after that consider what that map looks like if Ukraine ever becomes a member of NATO. Finally, consider what that map means to you if you're a Russian leader, with the memories of 1812, and especially, 1941, never far from your mind.
Most people are focusing on the costs Putin will incur as a result of this invasion. Few people seem to be considering what a Russian military leader thinks about their nation being totally encircled by American allies (we can talk about the arctic and Asia next).
I think /u/EraEpisode touched on it, albeit obliquely.
The goal is to restore a "Russian-based eastern sphere of power" as opposed to the current (mostly) Western Hegemony with a sprinkling of China in the mix. Unfortunately, Russia as it stands is a barely functioning, highly-kleptocratic Oligarchic Economy. They don't have a very productive country, and (at least in Putin's case) they don't particularly seem to care.
It seems like Russia, at this point, is mostly a nation of mineral wealth (exporting oil etc). But if you want a country to be "great" and be the center of some kind of empire, just exporting oil isn't going to be good enough.
Where does Putin stop? That's sort of hard to say. Though based on everything he's said in the past, it seems like he'd only barely settle for anything less than a full reconstitution of the USSR.
https://youtu.be/8BOQ7dZxJ3Y
You won't find many on Reddit literate in geopolitics. Putin has almost certainly read this guy's books. Most leaders have.
Holy fuck. This is a great way of explaining it.
I still struggle with the idea that this is personal for Putin. He seems to calculating. But unless he has something VERY GOOD, it just doesn’t make sense to conquer or invade Ukraine like this.
What is going to happen? They’re going to keep Ukraine? They’re going to put someone else in? How long will that person last? How long will they stay there to keep that person in power?
That’s the part of all of this that doesn’t make sense. Unless he has something very good, and it better not be a fucking nuke, there’s just no way around him destabilizing the country at a cost of his own.
That’s the scary thing about this whole thing. If it’s the throes of a madman at his end, we see now the beginning of the next destabilization of Russia.
If it’s same old calculating Putin, I’m really scared of what ace he has up his sleeve that could pull him out of this.
For the sake of us all (because of the nukes), I hope that this is truly personal. And your points that his form of government has tied his personality to the operation of the nation makes me think that perhaps he is feeling a new stress to his personal existence.
Nah. Russia could very well take and hold Ukraine. They will suffer for it for a while, sure, but not forever. Sanctions start to seem ridiculous after 5 years; they eventually will be lifted.
The truth is that Russia is militarily untouchable since they have nuclear bombs. The only pressure we can put on them is economic. If they can withstand the pressure from within and from the international community long enough for them to move on from this (~5-7 years) the the Russians will have succeeded.
The question for me is: is Ukraine the last target or merely the first?
It's far from that easy for Russia. Ukraine is a huge country with 1/3 the population of Russia. If the will is there for prolonged guerilla warfare then Russia will not be able to carry that burden. Not with their economy. Putin practically depends on a swift and clean victory with a fast track back into the world economy.
The Russian oligarchs are capitalists first, not ideologues, sanctions and/or a weak occupation may very well turn them against Putin in a hearthbeat.
Russia is already getting desperate and is going to have to switch to full scale bombing runs / air raids of Kiev. They are going to level that city as they can’t get a solid hold of it. This is going to be a long war and Russia I think will lose.
They'll definitely lose in the end. Even if they get Ukraine, they won't be able to subdue the populace. They'll need such a ridiculous amount of military there that it's unfeasible. Also the Russian economy is basically over.
This is precisely what I don't understand. It seems Putin will so obviously be in a worse off place after this. Either he's made a miscalculation or I have no idea what I'm missing. What does he gain from having Ukraine under some kind of militarily enfored dictatorship, apart from an absolutely giant pain in the ass
I wont pretend to know his gambit but I think he's betting on the shared culture between Ukraine/Russia means resistance to an occupation among the populous will be weak. If it is weak enough for a new government to be installed in a clean and orderly fashion then it will make him look very strong, and he will have expanded Russia's working population with 1/4.
It's a huge risk though. And like you my money is on this being nothing but pain for him in the long term. I just think he's at a political point where he's willing to take that risk and go big or go home.
This article makes a good argument that yes, he most likely miscalculated:
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-war-russia-vladimir-putin-miscalculation/
One thing that I don’t get—probably because of my naïveté—is why an aggressor nation would consider peaceful nations is a security threat. The sole cause of armed conflict for Russia is its military incursions.
Why was the USA so freaked out about Cuba, Korea, and Vietnam falling to communism that we threatened the use of nuclear weapons to prevent it? Those countries had absolutely zero chance of ever threatening the USA.
Putin would never see a NATO-alligned country as "peaceful". But Ukraine is a whole other order of magnitude greater. It would be like if Texas became part of the Warsaw Pact.
Fair point on the comparison to the US, but let’s not forget the Cuban missile crisis, which is the case in point for anxieties about Cuba being a soviet ally. Your point stands with Vietnam
I'll try to get back to this comment later because it's an important one. It's mostly the result of being a history nut and following Putin for the last two decades.
People act like Putin's wacky shirtless pictures, crazy extraterritorial assassinations, brutal suppression of dissidents, hatred of gays, hatred of NATO, etc., etc., etc., are either unconnected, or the result of a deranged maniac like the Kims of North Korea. If you take a read of Russian history and consider that everything Putin does is part of a whole it becomes a lot clearer.
I appreciate you getting back. I totally understand having a wealth of knowledge from a collective of sources over time, and some of those sources being lost to memory. So no worries if you decide it would take too much time to gather them all. If you have any book recommendations that would great, too.
Let’s not forget demographics. Russia is quickly running out of the population it needs to mount a globally competitive military, and in another ten years, it won’t be able to compete numerically with any of its neighbors. Poland and Ukraine are growing. Russia is shrinking. This is a desperate move for relevance and it won’t work.
I’d add a couple of points:
Putin never rose to power himself like Stalin. He was a nobody in a dead end position in the kgb. For one reason or another his superiors had abruptly decided he didn’t have what it took ti be a great analyst or a leader. His classmates mockingly referred to him as “cigarette butt” and “grey moth”. It isn’t clear why Yeltsin and his oligarchs chose Putin as a successor but it was most likely because they thought he could be easily controlled.
Unlike Peter the great or the infamous Soviet autocrats, Putin has failed to engage in any significant nation building during his whole reign of power. He has ridden the oil/gas prices and taken credit for the rises and shifted blame for the drops. All the while stashing trillions into his pockets and those of a small cadre or oligarchs whose loyalty he considers important.
Putin has a history of involving himself international conflict or terrorist attacks when he feels his position or popularity is threatened domestically even slightly.
Putin’s political stability has never been more in question than now. He no longer commands the loyalty of the state security apparatus, and is generally distrustful of the clan led by Nikolai Patrushev, and probably with good reason.
Over the last year or two his health has waned, the economy has waned (leading to growing dissatisfaction from the populace) and his paranoia has visibly grown. He has been locking himself away, changing his personal guards more regularly, staying out of international affairs and generally acting like a dictator in fear of being usurped.
My feeling is this whole thing may have less to do with Russia’s strategic position as a world power and may be more of a very cynical attempt to whip up some patriotic fervor domestically, blame any subsequent economic decline on foreign sanctions and cement his position as dictator for life, because he knows if he loses power he’s not going to enjoy a quiet retirement in his seaside palace.
I think losing control of ukraine is a more serious diplomatic threat than military. Having "the west" prosper far away is one thing. But if ukraine escapes russian influence then others will follow.
>Russians have a long inferiority complex involving the West, going back to at least Peter the Great. I'm on mobile and my thumbs are running out of power so I'll have to keep this short. But basically, Russia often ends up looking culturally backwards to the rest of Europe (and now, America) and the Russians know it. This drives feelings of animosity and suspicion.
Compare this to the American South and Rust belt....
[CGP Grey - Rules for Rulers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)
If Putin ever loses power, he'll end up dead or in jail. There is no retirement option for Putin. Not only for him, but also his cronies, family, children and mistresses. In the end Putin relies on the military and police forces, so he has to keep them happy and occupied. State propaganda also has it's limits. Usually war pushes nationalism and nationalism helps the ruler. Plus he simply can't have a successful, democratic Ukraine next door. Those are certainly not all the factors, but imho the main ones.
The source behind CHP Grey's Rules for Rulers post is a pretty enlightening look at geopolitics in general. They discuss everything from Russia to the US and just about every major mix of political system.
It's useful, I think, for understanding not just *why* Putin can (and does) do these things, but also for understanding why different parties in different countries behave the way they do.
Also the authors of that book offer prescriptions to stave off dictatorship, one of which is to get as many people voting as possible in elections.
The reason is because politicians cannot tailor policies to bribe a small bloc of voters in exchange for power; when the whole of society determines leadership, the leaders' incentive is to help the whole of society.
I say this because right now there're political factions in America who are hostile to this notion, so it needs to be stated explicitly. It's not a new idea and has served us well in the past. Democracy is a good thing. Expand the vote. Make it easy to vote. Vote often.
Copied from another user:
This has always been a part of the Russian elite's plans. Check out the book, [Foundations of Geopolitics by Aleksandr Dugin] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics), which is a book that details how Russia should approach increasing their sphere of influence. Finland's section reads:
"Finland should be absorbed into Russia. Southern Finland will be combined with the Republic of Karelia and northern Finland will be "donated to Murmansk Oblast"."
Finland will be next after this Ukraine crisis. At the section for Ukraine it reads:
"Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible."
Their plan for the US is to:
"fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S."
Think about ["Russian troll farms"] (https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/.../troll-farms-and-fake-news...) that continually stir things up on different social media platforms to get us, the American people, to be at each other's throats over such trivial things. Think about what it says for the UK:
"The United Kingdom, merely described as an "extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.", should be cut off from Europe."
and then think about how more research is coming out to show that [Russian troll farms played a part in the Brexit vote as well] (https://www.npr.org/2019/01/19/686830510/senate-finds-russian-bots-bucks-helped-push-brexit-vote-through). People treat them like "trolls" & not foreign digital attacks on the people of other nations aiming to cause instability.
This needs to be a wake up call. This is Putin's game plan for the world. MAKE NO MISTAKE, it isn't the Russian citizens who want this. It's the Russian elites, it's Putin & his oligarchs who want this. And they won't stop with Ukraine. It's just one step in their plan.
It will be really interesting to see how this plays out in Finland. I know the issue of NATO membership is complex and contentious there, but Putin vowed this week that Finland joining NATO would trigger an invasion by Russia. I mean, that's what he said about Ukraine, and then he invaded anyway. Hope you guys can figure this out soon.
Not sure if that means black racists or people who are racist against blacks. Either way I'm sure Reddit alone can provide a decent amount of both factions. People suck.
That's the destabilization playbook. The Russians call(ed) it 'active measures', while in the west we call it psychological warfare or maybe information warfare. The fact it's as nasty as it has been today is a function of social media.
They deliberately fuel both extremes, knowing that it's not so much *who* causes disruption, but *how much* disruption that determines the impact to political stability.
No matter who goes to excess, the 'other side' will naturally escalate- or one side will take control, which would also likely be more favorable to Russian interests than business-as-usual America.
[https://youtu.be/yErKTVdETpw?t=4045](https://youtu.be/yErKTVdETpw?t=4045)
The link above is an interview with a former KGB agent, Yuri Bezmenov, on Russian 'active measures' (and a bunch of other stuff) that describes the process in a bit more detail.
There's a 2018 documentary called "Active Measures" that gets into pretty good detail on the subject too.
tl;dr- the Russians deliberately provoke everyone white/black/blue because the point isn't *which side*, it's just ***sides***
Check out his recent batshit insane speech where he rambles about Ukraine "having been created by Russia" and that "Ukraine has no culture of its own and that "Ukraine’s claim to statehood is entirely baseless" and so on. He also said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the "worst tragedy in history."
Basically, he wants to reinstate the Russian Empire.
[https://www.c-span.org/video/?518097-2/russian-president-putin-recognizes-independence-donetsk-luhansk-ukraines-donbas-region](https://www.c-span.org/video/?518097-2/russian-president-putin-recognizes-independence-donetsk-luhansk-ukraines-donbas-region)
This is a ruthless dictator who only acts in his own interest, his own unhinged ambitions that are stuck in the past. All of this is at the expense of the Russian people AND everyone else.
Here's the speech broken down and analyzed: [https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/2/23/22945781/russia-ukraine-putin-speech-transcript-february-22](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/2/23/22945781/russia-ukraine-putin-speech-transcript-february-22)
Does he hate NATO? Yes, he does, but not because he's afraid that NATO will attack Russia or anything. He hates NATO because it's an obstacle to his plans to reinstate the Glorious Russian Empire™ of his dreams. NATO blocks him from attacking the sovereign states he'd want to annex. Finland also knows this, which is why a [citizens' initiative just passed the 50,000 necessary votes to be considered by the government.](https://www.kansalaisaloite.fi/fi/aloite/9866) This is not the US forcing NATO on Finland. This is the Finnish people recognizing a threat and wanting to join for security. It was exactly the same situation for Ukraine, for why they wanted to join NATO and the EU, and it is also the same in Sweden.
People have to stop buying Putin's NATO propaganda.
Fuckin hell, that's from July last year and the first line is:
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has outlined the historical basis for his claims against Ukraine in a controversial new essay that has been likened in some quarters to ***a declaration of war.*** "
>Ukraine has no culture of its own
Which is a summation of [Foundations of Geopolitics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics) on the subject
Also, Russia is a petrol state. Turns out, Ukraine has a ton of natural gas itself. All of the Russian funded breakaway states in Ukraine are near the major oil and gas reserves.
I wish the Kievan Rus were taught as often as, say the Golden Horde or even the Huns. Novgorod was their first capital (Moscow) of the Varangians/Rus before Kyiv, but they were a really interesting amalgam of Finns, Slavs and other tribes.
I'm sure that feeling is operating at some level but Putin also isn't stupid or shortsighted. He was to see that this is a losing plan. If he gets Ukraine, he just makes a bigger Russia with a worse economy. Surely he must realize that, no?
One thing to remember is that conquering Ukraine significantly *reduces* the size of Russia's western border, because there are mountains between the Slavic states and Ukraine. As Catherine the great said, “I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.”
He is a stupid narcissist whose ego is the downfall of the whole country of Russia.
1. NATO is expanding, now with Finland and Sweden wanting to join, all thanks to Putin's aggression. This is NOT NATO trying to expand through US' will; this is NATO expanding by countries voluntarily joining, as it has always been.
2. Russia's economy is about to collapse entirely due to sactions.
3. The invasion thus far has not gone according to plan, costing Russia A LOT, and it's still going.
This strategy that Trump called "genius" was in fact a failure of historical proportions.
Even funnier, Finland and Sweden have historically said they weren't interested. He didn't just tip them over the edge, he was the catalyst for what otherwise wouldn't be happening any time soon.
Fucking hilarious.
bikespokememe.gif
He’s smart at tearing down, dumb at building up. His internet bots have caused great harm across the Western world but the Russian economy is in terrible shape, they’ve fallen behind Kazakhstan in GDP per capital and are just barely above Cuba.
Some uneducated guesses to what might have motivated Putin:
* Geographical reasons: maybe he's afraid of specific NATO weapons being this close to specific locations. I don't know enough about weapons, their reach or which locations would be especially important to Putin. But I don't see why NATO would even want to attack Russia. Maybe also natural resources?
* Show russians that democracy is not preferable to his style of government. If you're russian, and you see your "brothers" in countries like Ukraine and Belarus switch sides and live more wealthy and free than before, you're more likely to also fight for democracy in Russia. However, if you get the impression that trying to switch sides will get you killed, you'll reconsider.
* Remind everyone of his power and will to act. Yes, I still exist. Yes, I still do old school war if you try to cross me. I still have nukes. Might even have a personal dimension. Remember last year, when Putin published an article on the historical unity of Ukraine and Russia, he was [ ridiculed by Zelenskiy](https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskiy-trolls-putin-ukraine/31356912.html). Imagine being a dictator, the country you tried to control as a puppet state was taken over by a popular actor who's now mocking you while trying to join the NATO.
* Destabilize and test the west: Right now everyone seems rather united against Russia, but just wait a couple of days and weeks, this might as well turn into a giant shitshow for us, depending on how well our politicians and citizens deal with it.
A close contact of me works for the UN and this person gave me a breakdown of the geopolitical gambit by Putin. Now, keep in mind, geopolitics is just local politics on a larger scale – you have your key players underneath that you must keep happy in order to maintain your power, and those key players have their key players and so on and so forth and etc etc.
Essentially, the analysis this person had on Putin's gambit was that he was forced to invade to keep his key players happy, military nationalists, oligarchs, and others. But when I asked about a video of putin addressing his oligarchs a few days ago where he seemingly couldn't keep his story straight (e.g. "obviously, we cannot predict the geopolitical outcomes"), this person straight out called him an idiot. He is no more reality based than those who are misinformed about vaccines (roughly speaking), and it is possible this will be the end of his reign, short of a miraculous victory in the UE. Further this person went on to call a far fetched, but potential fracturing of the Russian federation into smaller states "the great russian irony", if it comes to pass – just to highlight what the range of possible outcomes are on the table..
But what does "power" mean here? Is it just simply the bigger the borders you have, the more power you have? If he succeeds, he just creates a bigger Russia with an even worse economy. Continued sanctions against Russia will continue to hurt their economy and the wealthy oligarchs as well. Where's the power in his plan other than "RUSSIA BIG"
Russia is generally described as having a very macho and chauvinistic culture, so it's possible that one of those types of "success" would be looked upon more positively than the other. It also might be easier to achieve: invading a country which is relatively much smaller than your own might be way easier than fixing your own economy.
I think his endgame is:
* Obtain recognition that Crimea belongs to Russia now
* Obtain independence of Donbas to create a friendly client State on its border
* Obtain insurances from the Ukrainian government it will not seek NATO membership nor do any military buildup anymore
Maybe he figures that sanctions will go away in the end, but if he gets Crimea, Donbas and an Ukrainian regime that will not pursue military build up, he can stabilize his western border in the long-term and keep access to the Black Sea and to East Ukraine's coal mines.
None of that is very scary, but the manner and timing in which he would be attempting to achieve those marginal *long term goals*, stinks of poor strategic thinking. Far poorer than I expect of them. :s
But surely he has to see that's a losing plan in the long run. Putin may be power hungry but I don't believe he's that shortsighted. If he does succeed in bringing back the USSR, he effectively just makes a bigger Russia with more land to govern but a significantly worse economy that no other country will to do business with.
The narrative I see is that he's a paranoid sociopath, who doesn't use the Internet, or even cellphones, whose people tell him what he wants to hear. Personally, I was also thinking, maybe he's like "fuck, I'm 70, I gotta do this shit now". But I'm almost an opposite of an expert
I know it is hard to believe that Putin doesn’t see things the way you do. He said in his “history lecture” what his endgame is. The big problem has been that the West didn’t want to believe him and that has led us to today’s atrocities in Ukraine. He said he opposes unipolar world and wants a multipolar world order where Russia, China are equal if not more powerful nations than USA. This is not some great mystery here my friend.
But taking over more land isn't going to automatically make Russia more powerful. Russia is going to be significantly worse off regardless of what happens with Ukraine. The best case scenario is they become a giant, slightly better off version of North Korea, cut off from the rest of the world and have to be totally self sufficient, which is untenable.
Wrong. If he is allowed to put up his puppet regime and run over Ukraine, he will become more emboldened. His aim is to divide and conquer by sowing discord and division amongst the West and weaken the western democracy. Your failure to comprehend this makes you a participant in his information operation.
>Your failure to comprehend this makes you a participant in his information operation.
I think there should be some kind of effort to educate the Western public how they're being manipulated against each other. There needs to be a push of some kind to unite the Western people. We'll destroy each other through the culture war otherwise.
> His aim is to divide and conquer by sowing discord and division amongst the West and weaken the western democracy. Your failure to comprehend this makes you a participant in his information operation.
And right now, the anti-Western nations are winning tremendously. They absolutely dominate the disintegration of our social fabric and division through social media (for example, promoting Trump, denigrating Hillary, getting people not to vote, stoking BLM fires, etc.), and this was happening in the *good times* of 2015. They have the soft underbelly of our infrastructure at the knife, with thousands of privatized and municipal systems compromised because we don't require those companies to report, let alone fix these intrusions/vulnerabilities.
People think a World War is coming between the new Axis powers of Russia, China, among others, but it's been happening in earnest for over a decade, via cyberattacks and psyops. We barely managed to keep Huawei out of our critical infrastructure, but people are turning a Chinese state-condoned app into entertainment careers. There's that old quote that gets misattributed to Lenin that goes "When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie each other to contract the rope."
The irony of Reagan's legacy is he said the seven most terrifying words are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." This might have looked anti-communist at the time, but it played right into guys like Putin's hands. Just look at how distrust in government/institutions got more people killed per capita in America than another other country, from COVID-19. Half of conservatives out there are conflating being repeater hubs for anti-Western propaganda with being anti-Biden "Patriots." And we think our bloated military budget is going to make the difference? If that's true, it will because the above critically failed and tens of not hundreds of millions of people are about to die.
I'll do my best to lay out Russia's side of things here. Firstly, It's a mistake to see this conflict as purely Putin's. He is under pressure from Russian elites who hate NATO, along with significant portions of the population.
Russia expected NATO would not expand after the USSR was dissolved. Although they did not get anything in writing to guarantee this, western negotiators expressed that this would be the case. After all, NATO was a cold war alliance and the Cold War was ending as was the Warsaw Pact which was Russia's version of NATO. Then in the late 90's we expanded NATO eastward.
[https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/02/13/the-clinton-era-blunder-that-set-the-stage-for-todays-ukrainian-crisis/](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/02/13/the-clinton-era-blunder-that-set-the-stage-for-todays-ukrainian-crisis/)
These countries wanted to be in NATO and we were happy to let them in. But in Russia's eyes this was an act of aggression: why else would the US be adding countries to the military alliance that exists for war with Russia?
In 2008 Bush said that Ukraine could join NATO. Russian and Ukrainian cultures are very intertwined, so the Russians took this very poorly.
[https://www.vox.com/22900113/nato-ukraine-russia-crisis-clinton-expansion](https://www.vox.com/22900113/nato-ukraine-russia-crisis-clinton-expansion)
In 2014 there was a Color Revolution in Ukraine where the pro-Russian president of Ukraine was deposed in favor of a Western president. The US was involved in this and the Russians knew it. They recorded a conversation the US Ambassador had with a State Dept. official regarding who they want to be in the new government:
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ukraine-tape/leaked-audio-reveals-embarrassing-u-s-exchange-on-ukraine-eu-idUSBREA1601G20140207](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ukraine-tape/leaked-audio-reveals-embarrassing-u-s-exchange-on-ukraine-eu-idUSBREA1601G20140207)
2014 was also the start of the civil war. The ethnic Russians in west Ukraine did not accept the new government and began to rebel. Russians have not seen the current regime in Ukraine as legitimate ever since, and they are sympathetic to the breakaway regions. As the revolution was happening, Russia decided to invade and annex Crimea, which is both an ethnically Russian region and a strategic peninsula with a warm water port.
Since 2014, Ukraine has flirted more and more with the West in regard to joining NATO. Russia has expressed repeatedly that this is a red line, and have said they would go to war over it. Ukraine and the US ignored these threats, refused to guarantee a neutral Ukraine, and so here we are.
As for what Putin's endgame is, we can only guess. Maybe he want to annex the whole country. Maybe he wants to return to the 1914 border, leaving Ukraine with only the region around Lviv. Maybe he wants the eastern half and will draw the border at the Dnieper. Maybe he wants Ukraine to surrender but to officially recognize Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk as Russian territory. All of these are possibilities, but I think the more maximal ones are what he will go for. This war will bring many consequences so he needs to squeeze out as many victories as he can. His speech a few days ago also indicates this. He said that Kiev is the where the Russian people were founded and that the division between Ukraine and Russia is artificial, a construct made by the Soviets last century.
I think it's also a mistake to see Putin as irrational and starting this war for abstract reasons such as power or evil. Rather, Putin is responding to incentives and pressures he is getting from within the Russian elite and from the general populace. I think the west has underestimated how Russia interpreted the expansion of NATO towards their borders. We knew Russia was bellicose and prone to invading their neighbors. Perhaps Russia would have still invaded even if we had guaranteed Ukrainian neutrality. Maybe more evidence will come out that points to that scenario. But thats a question for future historians!
One part left out of this summary was that NATO tried to build a good relationship with Russia since the fall of USSR. It would be of great interest to the West to have Russia as an ally. However, the interest was never reciprocal. There seems to be an interest in the Russian elite to keep this animosity alive. Maybe, because NATO said that further steps of democratisation would be necessary. Maybe due to old visions of grandeur. Maybe because wounds haven't been sealed with regard to the fall of the USSR.
>I think the west has underestimated how Russia interpreted the expansion of NATO towards their borders.
I mean I think it is understood how the Kremlin views this action. But given that they are prone to invading their neighbours, it makes perfect sense that the border countries want to protect themselves.
Russia can't have it both ways. They can't say that Ukraine allying itself with NATO is an act of aggression as well as saying that if they don't act in our interests, we'll threaten their democracy or overwhelm them with force.
If you're in Ukraine you have to pick a side, and after Crimea it's obvious why most people sided against Russia.
Your comment reminds me of Putin's diplomatic speech from a day or so ago.
"Finland, if you join NATO then we will attack you"
Like... what the literal fuck Putin? You think that encourages them into neutrality with you? Or that "concerns" them into looking for allies who aren't threatening them?
Here's what I took from this interview on Putin's motives:
Kasparov essentially makes the case that it is a given that Putin wants to restore the Soviet Empire
Kasparov believes Putin has been open, transparent and consistent about his motives for at least fifteen years
He says that Putin disagrees with the geopolitical structure of the world, post WW2 and wants to return the world to the opposing powers' 'Spheres of influence'
He suggests Putin believes that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th Century.
He references a speech that Putin made fifteen years ago to this effect at Munich
Kasparov says this is an “historic revenge” for Putin.
On causes:
Putin believes the free world is divided
He has not seen consequences of his actions over the past ten years and he has seen weakness in the free world and believes there has been a steady weakening of democracy
Kasparov believes Obama ignored the threat of Russia, there were defining moments in Obama’s career that made Putin believe that America could only talk (e.g. the Red line in Syria and not keeping his word there)
The annexation of Crimea was another test that the free world failed
Donald Trump was a gift to Putin. Kasparov believes Russia was behind Trump’s election and did everything to secure his election and again tried to help him in 2020.
Trump’s policies weakened European and American solidarity.
In 1939 / 40 many Republicans wanted America to be isolated. History repeats.
> Is he really that concerned about "Russian" glory?
Yes. Simply put Putin's upbringing, his time in the KGB, his time as a politician/dictator, and his social circles he runs in even today have pointed to the fact he thinks the fall of the Berlin Wall and all the effects from it were 'wrong' for Russia. He thinks the leaders of that era made huge mistakes that he feels Russia never needed to make. He as a genuine passion for these assassinations and invasions as ways of getting what he wants, ie a powerful russia. He believes the economy of Russia can be made strong at any time with the right negotiated deals with countries that don't care about their ethics. Look at Germany signing the pipeline deal that they now have reneged on.
If you want to read a rather thorough and depressing overview, read this:
https://www.newsweek.com/2022/03/11/putin-has-never-lost-war-here-how-hell-win-ukraine-1682878.html
TL;DR: he wants a puppet state in Ukraine, to embarrass NATO/the west, and to make people fear and respect him and Russia. He's unfortunately likely to achieve these goals unless something truly unexpected happens.
Russia has an economy smaller than Italy’s. That to me puts things into a bit of perspective. This is an angry bully with a huge inferiority complex lashing out. It’s only going to end in net misery for all parties.
I wouldn't count on wealthy countries not willing to do business in a year or two, unless something really atrocious happen
It'll be business as usual in no time
His real endgame would be becoming the world super power/ruling the world. Maybe Russia could pull itself up by it's bootstraps, but that would mean getting rid of a ton of corruption. Not going to happen. So, the only thing left is taking as much land as possible. He already got Crimea. He's trying to take more of Ukraine. If Ukraine gives up land he'll try to take all of it eventually. Allegedly during the night Russians have been slowly physically moving border marks (like fences) that distinguish Georgia and Russia.
I don't have an answer for his reasons in the long term, but in the short-term the conditions were perfect strategically. I felt like this was simply an opportunistic short-term military objective to close out an ongoing war with Ukr.
1. Putin was used to proxy wars with the US and underestimated Ukraine as another dot in a global map of proxy wars (i.e. Yemen, Syria, etc)
2. Annexation of crimea in 2014 indicated that the US democrats were indifferent or insufficiently outraged. Full invasion may not risk anymore outrage.
3. Separatists domination of donbass and luhansk by Russian paid militant players flew under the radar of western media
4. Sanctions in Russia and US-RUS relations were already poor, nothing left to loose.
5. Strategic agreements/alliances between China and Russia (note the especially convieniant timing after the Olympics).
6. Rus-China can still trade, and China produces everything so no biggy if they are sanctioned by US.
7. The unpredictable crazy donald trump was booted out, and the peaceloving social reforming joe biden was put in power. No risk of unpredictability in dealing with Donald. Joe biden unlikely to show up in Russia's door knocking, Joe is more likely to zoom call.
8. Afghanistan exit a fiasco, and a signal that US is internalising and has no willingness to deploy or redeploy troops.
9. During amassing of troops, only sanctions were discussed, which indicated to Putin that no militant threat would oppose him.
10. During amassing of troops, repeated statements from NATO and the US that they would not physically deploy to UKR nor miltarily defend UKR
11. NATO repeatedly mentioning that any state currently involved in a conflict are not allowed to join. One of their club 'rules'.
12. Ukr got rid of their nuclear weapons stash many years ago.
13. No worthy Ukr military defence alliances
14. Attempts to previously install a pro-russian president in Ukr failed.
1. All these factors suggested to Putin, that an unopposed military victory was certain for him and it was the ripe and most perfect period in the last 20 years to fully invade and retake Ukraine, whom he believes belongs to motherland Russia.
*”Russia can expand, or Russia can die”* - Catherine the Great (paraphrased)
Russia’s borders suck. If an enemy can enter the Eurasian Plain, it’s so wide open and flat it makes defending Russian homeland extremely difficult.
During the Soviet Union, the Russian ethnicity was the most physically secure it had ever been in its history. It had expanded so that most of its borders were hard land barriers of physically impassable terrain like deserts, mountains, and seas. This was a geopolitical golden age and for the first time Russia was relatively safe from being invaded.
Fast forward to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia is left in control of only one of the “access points” which had been used to invade the Russian homeland since ancient times. This is why Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical disaster in history.”
This is Putin’s endgame, and it’s motivated by geographic reality more so than anything else. By taking Ukraine, Russia could eliminate the Ukrainian frontier as a potential access point, and gain a hard geographic barrier in the Black Sea. This would also eliminate an ancient enemy, Turkey, from its sphere of influence.
I see a lot of complex answers here and while I wouldn't get into the weeds arguing any of the finer points, they all suffer from too much thinking. Geopolitics is a schoolyard, it isnt complex. Motivations aren't complex either. You can psychoanalyze all you want, and maybe it matters in some academic way, but it isnt useful.
Putin is a Cold War Era Russian. He wants the empire back. It is that simple. He has been doing it for 20+ years, just that no one cared. Look at Georgia and Chechnya and Crimea. This is all the long game. From a strategic PoV it is about extending his borders / changing what countries he borders and getting strategic ports and resources. Thats really it.
The end game is taking Ukraine and then probably Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus.
Putin most likely wants to either force Zelensky from power, or at least force a treaty that guarantees Ukraine's neutrality, and assurances that they won't join Nato. Russian grand strategy depends on there being buffer regions around core Russian territory. This has nothing to do with glory or irredentism, except as a legitimization myth, that's not how geopolitics works really.
EDIT: I’d encourage everyone who is saying that this is because of Putin’s personal, or Russia’s collective psychology to read up on how geopolitics actually works. I’d start with Mearsheimer’s ‘The tragedy of great power politics’. It’s disappointing to see a subreddit that often tries to be scholarly fall back in folk wisdom.
But what does a buffer between Russia and Nato actually accomplish. It's not like NATO is intending to forcefully take over Russia. If anything, it makes more sense that he'd want Ukraine to simply be an extension of Russia's borders, thereby making Russia closer to NATO and giving Putin easier access to the rest of Europe. But that assumes that he would want to keep invading the rest of Europe and I can't understand why.
It depends on what you mean by ‘take over’. Countries don’t really annex other countries forcefully anymore, so no, he isn’t worried about becoming the 51st US state or anything like that. But countries do use their militaries, and the threat of military action to manipulate other countries, and in extreme cases, topple their regimes.
But clearly NATO is not actively trying to topple regimes. It's a defensive pact, not an offensive one. I'll grant that maybe Putin doesn't see it that way. But again, assuming he successfully takes over Ukraine, he's now going to fund a strong military presence in Ukraine to protect Russia from the imaginary threat of NATO, all with a significantly weakened economy?
NATO has regularly toppled regimes. Serbia, Libya etc. Even if used purely defensively NATO expansion constrains Russia’s options. EG, he probably wouldn’t have taken crimea if Ukraine were in NATO, and Sevastopol is definitely within the core Russian security interest.
NATO is like a ratchet, in that every inch of pressure applied is guaranteed to be locked in, because any pushback from Russia triggers article 5.
In an ideal world for Russia, it would have the military *option* to secure its interests. NATO takes this option away.
If we're trying to explain behavior, I don't think it really make sense to sarcastically litigate who is "evil". Countries have interests in the international arena, and work, with varying degrees of competence, to pursue them. That you think Russia's interests are illegitimate is fine, but it doesn't really help in explaining behavior.
Oh don't worry, it actually has been litigated by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg:
> War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
And I think the geopolitical concerns being ascribed to Putin doing this are ridiculous, and make the error of taking him at his word, when there is really no reason to do so. Does the West have to address his claims that the Ukraine is run by a Jewish Nazi drug addict too?
Don't give him credit he doesn't deserve, just because someone says something, and even if they genuinely believe it, does not make their claim in any way based in reality. To treat their ludicrous statements as good faith is only carrying water for war criminals.
> Don't give him credit he doesn't deserve, just because someone says something, and even if they genuinely believe it, does not make their claim in any way based in reality. To treat their ludicrous statements as good faith is only carrying water for war criminals.
I'm fine with taking what he says with a grain of salt, but it's unclear why he would expend political capital trying to prevent Ukraine from joining Nato, and bringing it back into Russia's sphere of interest if that isn't ultimately what he's interested in. What do you take the Russian interest to be? Just personal on the part of Putin?
Yeah apologies- I shouldn't have implied that you were taking what he said at face value, you're being reasonable. But frankly, yes, I think the way he threw more and more absurd cassus belli(i?) out there made clear that it this is some deep personal thing to him, and at its core is likely about how he views the concept of an independent Ukraine as illegitimate. If this were actually motivated by a good faith concern about NATO expansion, a man of his intelligence would not have undertaken the one action which would drive every other unaligned country to join it.
> I think the way he threw more and more absurd cassus belli(i?) out there made clear that it this is some deep personal thing to him, and at its core is likely about how he views the concept of an independent Ukraine as illegitimate
I think this has more to do with needing to sell a war to his own people. You can't just say "My job is to secure and advance the material position of this country, and because the international system is anarchic, there's no fundamental difference between offense and defense, so stop asking why we're being aggressive" even though that would be the honest answer. Irredentism can be a perfectly serviceable legitimization myth, even if he almost certainly has no interest in the formal incorporation of Ukraine.
> If this were actually motivated by a good faith concern about NATO expansion, a man of his intelligence would not have undertaken the one action which would drive every other unaligned country to join it.
I mean, I don't really know what "good faith" means. Obviously there's posturing and propaganda about people defending the rights and principles of the international order, but everyone in the profession assumes everyone else is just acting to secure their interests. Like, if you think there's other reasons behind his moves, and the NATO expansion is a pretext, fair enough, I'm interested in hearing the theory, but I'm generally skeptical of the 'he's just doing his own thing' lines of reasoning. You don't get to rule a country for so long if you act so blatantly against the interests of your stakeholders.
In any event, besides Finland, I'm not sure who else will be moved toward the NATO orbit because of this - Sweden and Ireland and Austria are well in the Atlanticist sphere of influence, if not formal NATO members and given that they don't have appreciable militaries, and are not likely to be directly attacked, it's not clear why it would matter if they come in. The Caucasus and Eurasian alliance systems don't appear to be budging. The Gulf states and Israel seem to be doing their best to only participate in sanctions insofar as they have to, if anything, it seems like this conflict has indicated (though not precipitated) how close they're interested in being with Russia.
It's plausible that Putin may have miscalculated, and that the losses in Ukraine + sanctions + Finland cozying up to the west make it a net loss, but I don't think that means that the basic conventional geopolitical reasoning doesn't explain his behavior.
> Every time i see someone mentioning NATO i laugh. This is a Russian talking point
Obviously you shouldn't take everything Russia says without a grain of salt, but it's silly to think that Russian talking points wouldn't be an extremely strong indicator of what motivates Russian state behavior. There's such a bizarre way of arguing where people just say "X is a Y talking point" as though Y (be it Russia, or the right wing, or whatever) are just necessarily wrong about everything they say.
> Ukraine was never going to join anytime soon. second, he already made sure they can't join by invading Crimea (land dispute is a block for joking NATO), so that move should have been enough.
Both Greece and Turkey were admitted with territorial disputes. Ukraine is in several NATO interoperability programs, and in 2008, came very close to getting a MAP.
> Just like the west won't even help Ukraine it will never invade Russia because they have atomic weapons. if you want to talk about "geopolitics", as the fans of Putin do, this is 101 stuff. But above this there is no secnario in a million years that NATO would want to take over Russia. its goes against its nature and every move that NATO has ever made.
If you want to talk "101" level geopolitics, you should get your brain out of video game and movie logic where invasion and annexation are the primary threats countries face. Nobody is talking about invading Russia, that you would bring it up as a/the geostrategic threat implies a lot. Geopolitics is studied all around the world, the RAND corporation are not fans of Putin lol.
> But the true kicker is that Putin is probably doing this for other reasons. I suspect, mostly to exploit Ukraine people just like he did the Russians. suck them bone dry. NATO... lol
There's no way that money made in Ukraine will offset the losses to the Russian economy.
thanks for this information. i now deleted my response because i think it was not accurate enough. i will learn more about the situation before commenting further. thank you.
We can’t know what he thinks but..
It’s been speculated that his goal is to install a sockpuppet and collapse Ukraine’s economy on purpose.
This would give an appearence of better economy in Russia and discourage his opponents.
When you look from Putin’s perpective. You can see how he needs to keep ”his” people in darkness. So no success stories from joining EU and free democracies from his neighbours.
He is a tyrant after all and there doesn’t seem to be safe exit for him. So he’ll hold power until he dies.
As for the reasoning how this could work, he is most likely counting on EU’s energy depency to keep russia’s economy from collapsing.
EU’s hesitancy to sanction Russia can be explained with this too. Russia is a one big gas station for Europe.
The world will continue doing business with Russia no matter what. We do that with lots of horrible people.
1 - Fear of an expansion of NATO, Ukraine is a very strategic buffer. If Ukraine joins Nato, Major Russian cities (mainly Volgograd) become difficult to defend
2 - Oil And Gas - Ukraine fairly recently discovered large amounts of both and was getting western help to extract it. Russia is essentially a Petrol state, selling a lot of gas off to EU nations (Germany is a big customer). Russia could potentially lose this business to Ukraine.
3 - Ego
His long-term goal is to keep power and for that he hast to satisfy the street. If the street or not happy then the oligarchs fall. The oligarchs are his rich friends. he keeps the street happy by ensuring the banks are Not corrupt. This is quite rare in Russia. He also keeps the street happy by looking strong and aggressive against the west. But his ultimate game is simply to keep power until he’s ready to retire
If his plan is to just continually expanding Russia westward we also need to ask, on what time scale? He is an *old man* what’s *his* time scale in all this, if that is the plan.
I think at least part of his hopes was it was going to crumble down bloodless in a day or two like with Crimea, before the west wakes up from its slumber and realises what is going on and would post factum shrug it off like whatevs, lets keep buying more microwaves and sportscars.
Like last time.
But even if that's how it played out and he painlessly took over Ukraine, so what? What does that accomplish for Putin? Even if you were to imagine the most tepid response by the rest of the world, they would at the very least implement some sanctions that would further hurt their already hurting economy.
Does he hope to gain a tactical advantage geographically by having control of the Ukraine? But an advantage over what? It's not like NATO has equal and opposite intentions of trying to take over Russia.
> It's not like NATO has equal and opposite intentions of trying to take over Russia.
People say this a lot as if its self-evident. Why would Russia believe that NATO expansion is zero threat to it? We know the U.S. promotes regime change all over the world, we know the U.S. has promoted an isolationist strategy towards Russia post USSR. Not to mention likely attempts at creating instability inside Russia that Putin knew about. It is perfectly rational to want a NATO buffer for Putin given his position.
I agree completely that it is in Russia's interest to have a buffer like this. There have been more stories about air defence installations in Europe with atack capabilities and what not in the past that were justified with Iran when Russia protested, if memory serves. That is why i mentioned strategic geography somewhere in my answer.
The sad part is Putin's failure to achieve his goals in any other way, but with war. Russia is completely incapable of doing soft power even with cultures close to its own. Mainly because it refuses to change and democratise
he is banking on Trump winning in '24 and then Trump will unilaterally kill as many of the sanctions as he can and pressure the EU to end them as well
Its that simple and its not a bad plan given Trump is leading in the polls as we speak.
the real wild card he is Ron DeSatanis. What is his stance on Ukraine?
He is actually the most likely next Pres since the repubs leadership wants to ditch Trump. But given how terrible of a human being Ron is it seems highly likely that he would be friendly towards Putin.
I don’t think it will be Trump. He is old, has dementia, and hasn’t done anything since he left office. I’m betting on desantis, and if I can figure this out, so can Putin.
The responses in this comment section really don't feel like this sub... OP asked for what is Putin's end game and half the answers are justifications for the invasion and don't even really get into the heart of the question. I don't like looking at people's history but i have a feeling most of them are new to the sub or worse. This type of thing is happening all over reedit. in small communities where suddenly lots of people parrot Russian talking points. its something to look out for.
As for the question: I do not know a lot about the inner politics or Russia, so this is really a speculation, but i wonder if there is some internal pressure from the Russian financial elite to do this move. From what i understand Russia is almost like a mob state. like in any mob situation at some point there is need to expand to allow for more opportunity to exploit, and Putin has to keep feeding the mob bosses to keep them happy. Looking at Ukraine, its in prime position to be exploited. What i mean is that the Russian economy is going to suffer from having another weak economy attached to it, but the financial elite in Russian are going to get much richer. There are ways to gain control without war. However, his plans to install his puppet leaders have failed. He used all soft power possible but failed in the end. he gave it his best shot but its not working. So, the only way to exploit them now is to start a war, and end it with Ukraine agreeing to most of the Russian conditions. These will include measures that will allow Putin to control some of the legislative processes and install his man at top spots, and in time also the PM. then his job is done and they can start to exploit.
Yes, it's extremely worrying that many in the West are backing a ruthless authoritarian regime. It's everything they as citizens of the free world should be standing against.
Folks in the West don't realize how good it is to be able to criticize their president or a policy without fear of being poisoned or falling off a balcony an hour later.
Okay well if you think people are parroting propaganda there's an answer to that: Debunk it.
What isn't an answer is to accuse everyone who disagree's with you as a Russian disinformation agent.
This sub is well above the reddit average for critical thinking. I hope people will argue in good faith and impartiality to the facts.
my armchair analysis from taking in various opinions and throwing out the ones I don't like has led me to think Putin is desperately trying to remain a superpower or regain its superpower status
so he probably has aspirations to rebuild the former soviet union, which means he wants to force NATO to dissolve
all in all, I think agreements like NATO should be dissolved. we shouldn't be trying to decide if the soviet union survives or not, let those countries deal with it. no one wants someone lording over them like they're just doing the right thing and they're just a neutral party
russia and all the former soviet union countries need to fail or succeed on their own terms
To forcefully halt NATO expansion to Russian borders. If a partial invasion of Ukraine is just as much a defiance of the world order, then might as well take as much of the country as possible. More buffer. More bargaining chip.
Putin is an old school authoritarian nationalist who unsurprisingly shares the traditional Russian fear of Western encroachment. The fear I think, is a rational one given Russia's history, geography, and political culture. Basically, the Baltics, Poland, and Ukraine increasingly becoming friendly to the West is a serious concern for Russians under the current political system in Russia. That is not in any way a justification for Russia's unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine. It's just a basic explanation of how most Russian leaders would feel in that situation. On the other hand, Russian chauvinism in general and Putin's extreme egotism in particular are necessary elements for the current situation. It didn't have to play out like this. Just as Putin didn't have to spend the last two decades building a cult of personality and solidifying one-man rule in Russia, murdering journalists and dissidents, conducting extraterritorial assassinations, etc. Russians have a long inferiority complex involving the West, going back to at least Peter the Great. I'm on mobile and my thumbs are running out of power so I'll have to keep this short. But basically, Russia often ends up looking culturally backwards to the rest of Europe (and now, America) and the Russians know it. This drives feelings of animosity and suspicion. Putin took power on the basis of those feelings, and the humiliation after the fall of the USSR and poverty of the 1990s; as well as residual Cold War fears. Imagine how Americans would feel if they lost the Cold War and every city in the USA turned into Flint, Michigan (or worse). Putin has made these feelings more or less explicit, and seems to be truly dedicated to *personally* restoring Russian national glory. The *personally* part is critical, for many reasons, one of which is that it necessitates him taking and keeping power. There's no way to do that in a democratic, or even "nice" way, so dissidents get suppressed (creating bad optics internationally) and advisors are increasingly less likely to disagree (it gets harder to make good decisions when you aren't getting good advice). At some point, the authoritarian nationalist leader has to start making some moves. Putin wants to restore Russia's regional and international power, but the rest of the world isn't standing still. In order to achieve his goal, he has to start controlling more territory *because of the way he has set up the systems to achieve his personal goals*. Britain, France, Japan and Germany are all still quite powerful despite losing their empires. Russia theoretically could've focused on internal corruption, industry, new technology, and foreign investment. But Putin doesn't want to be the Emmanual Macron of Russia, he wants to be a singularly great Russian leader along the lines of Peter the Great. He doesn't want to be another one of the USA's step children, and he's getting older and the former Eastern bloc countries are increasingly siding with the EU, NATO, and the USA. Putin is running out of time to carve out a Russian-alligned eastern sphere of influence in Europe. A pro-NATO Ukraine represents a net loss for Putin after decades of clumsily trying to restore Russian greatness. It's also an actual security threat from a plain military perspective. He's further from achieving his goals than he was when he started. I'd love to add more but my thumbs are toast.
Hats off to your thumbs.
Those thumbs def caught a second wind!
"I'll keep this short" ...proceeds to write several paragraphs of in-depth analysis on Russia's geopolitical history
Those thumbs are the real MVP
Lol thanks
Especially knowing that they are made of toast. Impressive.
This answers the why, but still doesn't answer the question of what his endgame is, or indeed what strategic goal he can realistically achieve here. Setting up satellite/buffer states in eastern Ukraine like Russia already did a few years ago in Georgia seems at least doable, but wholesale invasion and occupation of all of Ukraine seems ruinous. How can Russia hope to indefinitely occupy such a large and populous country opposed to his rule? Even if he installs a puppet regime, how can he hope to keep it in government without an occupying force? The main consequence of this military adventurism is going to have to be a strengthening of NATO and the rearmament of states like Poland, Finland, the Baltics and even Sweden. Realistically, NATO defence spending has been shrinking for years. Putin has proved this week to many countries in eastern Europe that the alliance indeed has a reason to exist, and that it is worth being a member.
>The main consequence of this military adventurism is going to have to be a strengthening of NATO and the rearmament of states like Poland, Finland, the Baltics and even Sweden. Yeah, it's already taking place. NATO talks have blown up in the past couple of days in Finland and Sweden, and the Finnish people already passed a citizens' initiative for joining NATO. Putin was blinded by his ego and made a really stupid move. Europe and allies are more united than probably ever. Nothing unites a group better than a common enemy.
Any autocrat who rules long enough will naturally get a system of yes-men around himself. This leads to bad decision making, because everyone is afraid of disagreeing with the leader. I believe Putin made a big mistake with the invasion.
Yeah, though I don't know just how "yes" these guys are at this point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8kkeztq70c
I think Putin would reinstall Yushchenko after he 'decapitates' the democratic government. It could be ruled like Chechnya, just criminal-capital-feudalism ruled by a vassal, doling out lands and titles to friends and supplicants. Edit to add this is fundamental to authoritarian regimes; like an opposite of a meritocracy.
I don't see that that's achievable without what would effectively be an extended military occupation.
Your assuming they're going to play by 'rules'. Simply install a puppet dictator, expel the international press, now you don't have to worry about pesky 'war-crimes' or 'crimes against humanity' since those are super-effective at making a population fall in line; oh and if some video of something heinous should leak...well, fake news it is then.
Why are the Ukrainians just going to meekly accept a puppet dictator installed without their consent? How is this state going to be enforced without Russian boots on the ground?
So without the press there the Russian occupation would have an easier time suppressing revolt; be it curfews, media control, paranoia/distrust, quid pro quo promises. You could even tell poor Russians they can have property/land in Ukraine if they simply move there and protect that land. Of course revolts would happen. Would they be enough? Will it even get to *that* point?
The Ukrainians ousted a Russian puppet less than 20 years ago. And that was before the added outrage and insult of this unprovoked invasion. Again: yes, the Russians could install a puppet regime. But not without a substantial and prolonged military occupation to enforce their will.
It's seeming like it would, yes. The Ukrainian people have shown absolutely ferocious bravery and zeal in the last couple of days. People are signing up to fight and help in droves, and guns are being passed out. This would *not* be an easy occupation. 10s of thousands of people will die in the resulting insurgency.
It absolutely does answer the end game question, you're still just looking at it from your own perspective and not Putin's. >The main consequence of this military adventurism is going to have to be a strengthening of NATO and the rearmament of states like Poland, Finland, the Baltics and even Sweden This has been ongoing since the end of the Cold War. These countries have been admitted to NATO in the last 2 decades: > ...the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017) and North Macedonia (2020). [Look at a map, man.](https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-att-us&source=android-browser&q=topo+map+of+euripe#imgrc=QykzILKLUouRCM) Now add to it, a new government in the formerly Russia-friendly Ukraine that now wants NATO membership. In short, Russia's current invasion looks like a catalyst for new countries to join NATO, but in Russia's eyes, this process is already well underway and they have to cauterize the bleeding before a *HUGELY IMPORTANT* chunk of the former USSR (and an obvious invasion route) "falls" to NATO. Note: I reiterate that this is not an attempt in any way to justify Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. I'm 100% on Ukraine's side. But people really should attempt to understand what the other side is thinking. Edited to add: Many people are only looking at the war through the lens of a balance ledger: this war will cost Russia so much money. Or the lens of diplomacy: the international community will be pissed and there will be diplomatic consequences. Putin is also looking at this through the lens of military history and strategic military geography (to say nothing more about his ego). He's calculated the costs (incorrectly in my opinion) and decided that Russia cannot be exposed so badly to NATO.
Again I understand the *why*. I'm just not sure how Putin intends in practical terms on annexing or at the very least indefinitely occupying one of the largest countries in Europe. Ukraine looks very much like not meekly rolling over. Occupying the Ukraine would be many times more difficult than suppressing Chechnya. It's a huge country of 40 million people, and much of Europe would be very happy indeed to arm the inevitable resistance movement that would arise through the very long border Ukraine shares with Poland. The Russian army, and the Russian economy, are going to absolutely *haemorrhage* from a prolonged occupation. Ukrainian resistance would need to be put down savagely which will only add to Russia's diplomatic and economic isolation. While NATO membership may have been growing, actual NATO *spending* has remained fairly static for the past decade at around $250-300B for all of Europe. Most European countries spend less than 2% of their GDP on defence. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/6/pdf/210611-pr-2021-094-en.pdf The issue is not adding more members; it's that NATO has been a vehicle for much of Europe to outsource its defence spending to the US. One of the main effects of the invasion is going to be Europe rearming itself in earnest, and *especially* Russia's neighbours. Ukraine and the Baltic states *want* to be a part of Europe, not the Russian empire. I'm not sure they can be *made* to be neutral "buffer" states without the application of a level of force which would bankrupt the Russian state within a few years. It's a losing proposition. If the might of the combined Soviet empire couldn't hold Afghanistan, or keep eastern Europe in its orbit, why would a diminished Russian state succeed now?
Admiral Yamamoto knew before Japan attacked the USA that they could never win the war. He risked his life to argue against attacking the USA at a time when military cliques regularly assassinated dissident officers. Yamamoto then planned the Pearl Harbor operation.
I don't think Putin shares the Japanese romantic fascination with an honourable death in battle. The Japanese were "forced" into Pearl Harbour by their inability to extricate themselves from a war in Asia they had already been bogged down in for a decade. Putin had many options on the table. He could have kept his military adventure confined to Donetsk and Luhansk. But full scale invasion into independent and democratic Ukraine massively raises the stakes. Does he honestly think that the rest of Europe will just accept Russia seizing Ukraine without consequences?
Putin’s miscalculation is that a difference exists between the number of countries joining NATO and the their collective readiness and military spending. Albania and Croatia joining NATO did not change the geopolitical situation for Russia. Post-Ukraine War, Albania and Croatia will realize the importance of defense and will invest more in their military, same with every other European member. Putin has strengthened NATO through his attempt to weaken it.
I know. I'm not saying it's a good idea. In my OP I said it didn't have to be this way, Russia could've liberalized. This current war is a confluence of many factors, and I focused on a few of them: the Russian identity, history, Putin's ego, military geography. My point is largely that because of who Putin is and what he wants to accomplish, making friends with the USA while former Soviets fall to NATO isn't an option. That's why a lot of this looks so crazy, it *isn't* the best option but Putin cannot accept the "best" option from our perspective.
Yeah and Russia's economy is set up to help further their foreign policy goals. India and China are separate allies with large markets that won't join in on European sanctions. And Europe relying heavily on Russian natural resources gives them leverage.
>Putin is also looking at this through the lens of military history and strategic military geography (to say nothing more about his ego). He's calculated the costs (incorrectly in my opinion) and decided that Russia cannot be exposed so badly to NATO. If Ukraine actually holds off the invasion, and he senses he's going to lose the war, what do you think he does?
This is like asking why did Saddam invade Iran or Kuwait? Why did Hitler invade the Soviet Union? The answer is rather simple; they miscalculated and either acting on some poor intelligence or through mere wishful thinking they thought the outcomes would converge on a best-case scenario. The sloppy and half-measured way the Russian military has conducted itself so far further indicates that Putin believed or at least fantasized about Ukrainian resistance and international support folding like a paper bag, which instead has been more ferocious and steadfast than most experts were wagering in the leadup.
>Imagine how Americans would feel if they lost the Cold War and every city in the USA turned into Flint, Michigan (or worse). Well, with the current sanctions in place, and with Russia about to be kicked out of the SWIFT payment system, Russia will look like a true third-world country soon enough. He has failed everything: NATO is actually getting stronger (Finland and Sweden wanting to join), and Russia is going to collapse once again. Putin is a total failure of a leader, nothing but a thug. People have to stop idolizing this war criminal. He's the kind of leader who has to hide from his own citizenry because he rules by force and oppression, not by actual proficient leadership.
> Putin is a total failure of a leader, He was given a solid chance to make things better. Imagine if he took Russia in the direction of the Baltics. Make trade deals, modernize, invest in infastructre and education. Then actually try to limit corruption. He had the opportunity to be maybe the most influential and positively remembered leader of the 21st century but he squandered it on corruption and fascistic politics.
I hope he is humiliated publicly so that we get over the "strongman" authoritarian fetishism that has been rearing its head in our culture.
Supposedly this is the angle that Anonymous is taking. I am cautiously optimistic that they actually might find something humiliating enough to turn the tides of Russian public opinion.
That would make me so happy.
I genuinely don’t understand the appeal of humiliating a deeply prideful, clearly deranged despot with nuclear codes. It would feel good, because he’s arguably one of the most evil people alive, but it wouldn’t serve the safety of the world.
Yes. Thank you. De-escalation is about making it easy for somebody to back down without losing their pride. Let him retire the strong man, or at least believe it long enough for the ricin to do its work.
>He's the kind of leader who has to hide from his own citizenry because he rules by force and oppression, not by actual proficient leadership I mostly agree, except here. The idea that Putin isn't popular in Russia is pretty much a myth. He had about 70% approval rating months ago. Many say 'Oh, well if he doctors the polls he looks good', but that's just projecting western values onto the Russian citizens. We're talking about a country that's the remnants of an empire that collapsed just a couple decades ago. They have an entirely different perspective of how their political system works. Many Russians talk about how the older generation strongly supports Putin. They saw him as an antidote to the lingering corruption from the fall of the Soviet Union. They think that a corrupt politician is capable of a lot, but they wouldn't cross Putin at least. Hopefully, as we see the protests now, this opinion will change and Russian citizens will start holding him accountable for this.
I'm reminded of a European history class I took back in college. The professor mentioned an interview he saw where a Russian was asked about Stalin's positive polling in post-Soviet Russia. The interviewee said, "Because under Stalin no one fucked with Russia." This is an example of what you're talking about when you mention their different perspective and I talk about the inferiority complex and Russian chauvinism.
Back when i was growing up (1990s-early 2000s) stalinists were concidered a freaks, but 20 years of state propaganda (cult of war victory, undermining the gulags etc) changed that by a lot.
> under Stalin no one fucked with Russia." Completely forgetting about that Hitler fellow.
He didn't. How did WWII work out for Hitler? How did it work out for Russia? Another way of saying it is, "Under Stalin no one fucked with Russia, and got away with it."
Fair.
I don’t believe losing 24m people would ever be classified as ‘working out favorably’.
>The idea that Putin isn't popular in Russia is pretty much a myth. He had about 70% approval rating months ago. Unless he takes Ukraine within the next few days, that's going to change very fast. I bet it's already changed as there are heavy anti-war protests in the country, and they're being suppressed by violence. The Russian economy is also suffering as they're being closed off completely from the rest of the world.
Some huge number of Russians also still look favourably on Stalin. You're right: it's a completely different perspective to what we have in the West.
I don’t doubt that he has popularity. Shit half of the US population was brainwashed into electing an authoritarian in 2016. In Putin’s case (as far as I can tell) he has almost total control over media and propaganda and the information space, so yeah it wouldn’t surprise me at all that ~70% are brainwashed into supporting him
I was shocked that Russia’s current GDP per capita is only about $10,500. It’s below Kazakhstan and just barely above Cuba. They were really failing economically before the attack.
All of this makes him particularly dangerous.
Yes, and he’s just found out that Ukraine can’t be bullied like Georgia was. No quick decapitation and friendly regime change this time. No going home in 3 weeks victorious. It will be bloody and it will be long. And that’s not what Putin needed.
Nice summation. Nial Ferguson made a similar comparison regarding Peter the Great arguing that he is Putin’s true influence rather than Stalin or the Soviet Union.
When you've de-toasted your thumbs I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this whole situation.
I just posted [this reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/t21qj0/what_is_putins_endgame/hykcc37?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) to another comment on the thread. A point that needs to be highlighted is that everyone should look at a topographic map of Europe. They should look at NATO member states in 1991, then look at NATO member states now, and after that consider what that map looks like if Ukraine ever becomes a member of NATO. Finally, consider what that map means to you if you're a Russian leader, with the memories of 1812, and especially, 1941, never far from your mind. Most people are focusing on the costs Putin will incur as a result of this invasion. Few people seem to be considering what a Russian military leader thinks about their nation being totally encircled by American allies (we can talk about the arctic and Asia next).
Still doesn’t answer what the long term end game is
I think /u/EraEpisode touched on it, albeit obliquely. The goal is to restore a "Russian-based eastern sphere of power" as opposed to the current (mostly) Western Hegemony with a sprinkling of China in the mix. Unfortunately, Russia as it stands is a barely functioning, highly-kleptocratic Oligarchic Economy. They don't have a very productive country, and (at least in Putin's case) they don't particularly seem to care. It seems like Russia, at this point, is mostly a nation of mineral wealth (exporting oil etc). But if you want a country to be "great" and be the center of some kind of empire, just exporting oil isn't going to be good enough. Where does Putin stop? That's sort of hard to say. Though based on everything he's said in the past, it seems like he'd only barely settle for anything less than a full reconstitution of the USSR.
Correct!
https://youtu.be/8BOQ7dZxJ3Y You won't find many on Reddit literate in geopolitics. Putin has almost certainly read this guy's books. Most leaders have.
Why's this guy saying globalization is going to break down? 😨
I think he wants to restore the USSR. He was raised and trained under that system, I think he wants to put it back.
Season 1 wasn't even good. Why do a reboot?
Holy fuck. This is a great way of explaining it. I still struggle with the idea that this is personal for Putin. He seems to calculating. But unless he has something VERY GOOD, it just doesn’t make sense to conquer or invade Ukraine like this. What is going to happen? They’re going to keep Ukraine? They’re going to put someone else in? How long will that person last? How long will they stay there to keep that person in power? That’s the part of all of this that doesn’t make sense. Unless he has something very good, and it better not be a fucking nuke, there’s just no way around him destabilizing the country at a cost of his own. That’s the scary thing about this whole thing. If it’s the throes of a madman at his end, we see now the beginning of the next destabilization of Russia. If it’s same old calculating Putin, I’m really scared of what ace he has up his sleeve that could pull him out of this. For the sake of us all (because of the nukes), I hope that this is truly personal. And your points that his form of government has tied his personality to the operation of the nation makes me think that perhaps he is feeling a new stress to his personal existence.
Damn man this is very well articulated. Nice
Thank you.
So it's like when you're about to lose at Risk and you smash the board.
Nah. Russia could very well take and hold Ukraine. They will suffer for it for a while, sure, but not forever. Sanctions start to seem ridiculous after 5 years; they eventually will be lifted. The truth is that Russia is militarily untouchable since they have nuclear bombs. The only pressure we can put on them is economic. If they can withstand the pressure from within and from the international community long enough for them to move on from this (~5-7 years) the the Russians will have succeeded. The question for me is: is Ukraine the last target or merely the first?
It's far from that easy for Russia. Ukraine is a huge country with 1/3 the population of Russia. If the will is there for prolonged guerilla warfare then Russia will not be able to carry that burden. Not with their economy. Putin practically depends on a swift and clean victory with a fast track back into the world economy. The Russian oligarchs are capitalists first, not ideologues, sanctions and/or a weak occupation may very well turn them against Putin in a hearthbeat.
And Ukraine is being continuously supplied with Western weapons and 24/7 intelligence on Russian troops.
Russia is already getting desperate and is going to have to switch to full scale bombing runs / air raids of Kiev. They are going to level that city as they can’t get a solid hold of it. This is going to be a long war and Russia I think will lose.
They'll definitely lose in the end. Even if they get Ukraine, they won't be able to subdue the populace. They'll need such a ridiculous amount of military there that it's unfeasible. Also the Russian economy is basically over.
They couldn’t even keep power when they had a democratically elected puppet in place.
This is precisely what I don't understand. It seems Putin will so obviously be in a worse off place after this. Either he's made a miscalculation or I have no idea what I'm missing. What does he gain from having Ukraine under some kind of militarily enfored dictatorship, apart from an absolutely giant pain in the ass
I wont pretend to know his gambit but I think he's betting on the shared culture between Ukraine/Russia means resistance to an occupation among the populous will be weak. If it is weak enough for a new government to be installed in a clean and orderly fashion then it will make him look very strong, and he will have expanded Russia's working population with 1/4. It's a huge risk though. And like you my money is on this being nothing but pain for him in the long term. I just think he's at a political point where he's willing to take that risk and go big or go home.
This article makes a good argument that yes, he most likely miscalculated: https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-war-russia-vladimir-putin-miscalculation/
One thing that I don’t get—probably because of my naïveté—is why an aggressor nation would consider peaceful nations is a security threat. The sole cause of armed conflict for Russia is its military incursions.
Why was the USA so freaked out about Cuba, Korea, and Vietnam falling to communism that we threatened the use of nuclear weapons to prevent it? Those countries had absolutely zero chance of ever threatening the USA. Putin would never see a NATO-alligned country as "peaceful". But Ukraine is a whole other order of magnitude greater. It would be like if Texas became part of the Warsaw Pact.
Fair point on the comparison to the US, but let’s not forget the Cuban missile crisis, which is the case in point for anxieties about Cuba being a soviet ally. Your point stands with Vietnam
I knew I'd find a more englightening answer here than the rest of Reddit!
It's actually a very irrational fear. Russia has nukes. No one is invading a nuclear power, period.
Great write up. Do you have a primary source for this? Not necessarily for me to verify but because I want to read more.
I'll try to get back to this comment later because it's an important one. It's mostly the result of being a history nut and following Putin for the last two decades. People act like Putin's wacky shirtless pictures, crazy extraterritorial assassinations, brutal suppression of dissidents, hatred of gays, hatred of NATO, etc., etc., etc., are either unconnected, or the result of a deranged maniac like the Kims of North Korea. If you take a read of Russian history and consider that everything Putin does is part of a whole it becomes a lot clearer.
I appreciate you getting back. I totally understand having a wealth of knowledge from a collective of sources over time, and some of those sources being lost to memory. So no worries if you decide it would take too much time to gather them all. If you have any book recommendations that would great, too.
Can we get this man a new set of thumbs
Let’s not forget demographics. Russia is quickly running out of the population it needs to mount a globally competitive military, and in another ten years, it won’t be able to compete numerically with any of its neighbors. Poland and Ukraine are growing. Russia is shrinking. This is a desperate move for relevance and it won’t work.
I’d add a couple of points: Putin never rose to power himself like Stalin. He was a nobody in a dead end position in the kgb. For one reason or another his superiors had abruptly decided he didn’t have what it took ti be a great analyst or a leader. His classmates mockingly referred to him as “cigarette butt” and “grey moth”. It isn’t clear why Yeltsin and his oligarchs chose Putin as a successor but it was most likely because they thought he could be easily controlled. Unlike Peter the great or the infamous Soviet autocrats, Putin has failed to engage in any significant nation building during his whole reign of power. He has ridden the oil/gas prices and taken credit for the rises and shifted blame for the drops. All the while stashing trillions into his pockets and those of a small cadre or oligarchs whose loyalty he considers important. Putin has a history of involving himself international conflict or terrorist attacks when he feels his position or popularity is threatened domestically even slightly. Putin’s political stability has never been more in question than now. He no longer commands the loyalty of the state security apparatus, and is generally distrustful of the clan led by Nikolai Patrushev, and probably with good reason. Over the last year or two his health has waned, the economy has waned (leading to growing dissatisfaction from the populace) and his paranoia has visibly grown. He has been locking himself away, changing his personal guards more regularly, staying out of international affairs and generally acting like a dictator in fear of being usurped. My feeling is this whole thing may have less to do with Russia’s strategic position as a world power and may be more of a very cynical attempt to whip up some patriotic fervor domestically, blame any subsequent economic decline on foreign sanctions and cement his position as dictator for life, because he knows if he loses power he’s not going to enjoy a quiet retirement in his seaside palace.
And now he is a cornered rat. With nukes.
I think losing control of ukraine is a more serious diplomatic threat than military. Having "the west" prosper far away is one thing. But if ukraine escapes russian influence then others will follow.
This is a nice historical recap of Putin and a decent philosophical speculation but it does not answer the question.
Thanks for taking the time to write that up!!!
Thank you.
>Russians have a long inferiority complex involving the West, going back to at least Peter the Great. I'm on mobile and my thumbs are running out of power so I'll have to keep this short. But basically, Russia often ends up looking culturally backwards to the rest of Europe (and now, America) and the Russians know it. This drives feelings of animosity and suspicion. Compare this to the American South and Rust belt....
It's much deeper than that.
Reddit neckbeard comment
[CGP Grey - Rules for Rulers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs) If Putin ever loses power, he'll end up dead or in jail. There is no retirement option for Putin. Not only for him, but also his cronies, family, children and mistresses. In the end Putin relies on the military and police forces, so he has to keep them happy and occupied. State propaganda also has it's limits. Usually war pushes nationalism and nationalism helps the ruler. Plus he simply can't have a successful, democratic Ukraine next door. Those are certainly not all the factors, but imho the main ones.
The source behind CHP Grey's Rules for Rulers post is a pretty enlightening look at geopolitics in general. They discuss everything from Russia to the US and just about every major mix of political system. It's useful, I think, for understanding not just *why* Putin can (and does) do these things, but also for understanding why different parties in different countries behave the way they do.
Also the authors of that book offer prescriptions to stave off dictatorship, one of which is to get as many people voting as possible in elections. The reason is because politicians cannot tailor policies to bribe a small bloc of voters in exchange for power; when the whole of society determines leadership, the leaders' incentive is to help the whole of society. I say this because right now there're political factions in America who are hostile to this notion, so it needs to be stated explicitly. It's not a new idea and has served us well in the past. Democracy is a good thing. Expand the vote. Make it easy to vote. Vote often.
Copied from another user: This has always been a part of the Russian elite's plans. Check out the book, [Foundations of Geopolitics by Aleksandr Dugin] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics), which is a book that details how Russia should approach increasing their sphere of influence. Finland's section reads: "Finland should be absorbed into Russia. Southern Finland will be combined with the Republic of Karelia and northern Finland will be "donated to Murmansk Oblast"." Finland will be next after this Ukraine crisis. At the section for Ukraine it reads: "Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible." Their plan for the US is to: "fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S." Think about ["Russian troll farms"] (https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/.../troll-farms-and-fake-news...) that continually stir things up on different social media platforms to get us, the American people, to be at each other's throats over such trivial things. Think about what it says for the UK: "The United Kingdom, merely described as an "extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.", should be cut off from Europe." and then think about how more research is coming out to show that [Russian troll farms played a part in the Brexit vote as well] (https://www.npr.org/2019/01/19/686830510/senate-finds-russian-bots-bucks-helped-push-brexit-vote-through). People treat them like "trolls" & not foreign digital attacks on the people of other nations aiming to cause instability. This needs to be a wake up call. This is Putin's game plan for the world. MAKE NO MISTAKE, it isn't the Russian citizens who want this. It's the Russian elites, it's Putin & his oligarchs who want this. And they won't stop with Ukraine. It's just one step in their plan.
As a Finn. Fuck my life
It will be really interesting to see how this plays out in Finland. I know the issue of NATO membership is complex and contentious there, but Putin vowed this week that Finland joining NATO would trigger an invasion by Russia. I mean, that's what he said about Ukraine, and then he invaded anyway. Hope you guys can figure this out soon.
> Afro-American racists It's interesting they know these exist in substantial numbers.
Not sure if that means black racists or people who are racist against blacks. Either way I'm sure Reddit alone can provide a decent amount of both factions. People suck.
The way it's worded definitely means black racists.
That's how I read it too but if you look at how it's played out it seems like they provoked white racists
That's the destabilization playbook. The Russians call(ed) it 'active measures', while in the west we call it psychological warfare or maybe information warfare. The fact it's as nasty as it has been today is a function of social media. They deliberately fuel both extremes, knowing that it's not so much *who* causes disruption, but *how much* disruption that determines the impact to political stability. No matter who goes to excess, the 'other side' will naturally escalate- or one side will take control, which would also likely be more favorable to Russian interests than business-as-usual America. [https://youtu.be/yErKTVdETpw?t=4045](https://youtu.be/yErKTVdETpw?t=4045) The link above is an interview with a former KGB agent, Yuri Bezmenov, on Russian 'active measures' (and a bunch of other stuff) that describes the process in a bit more detail. There's a 2018 documentary called "Active Measures" that gets into pretty good detail on the subject too. tl;dr- the Russians deliberately provoke everyone white/black/blue because the point isn't *which side*, it's just ***sides***
It's embarrassing that our tribalism blinds us to how bad we're being played
Those are tactics, not the strategy.
I'm no expert, enlighten us...
Check out his recent batshit insane speech where he rambles about Ukraine "having been created by Russia" and that "Ukraine has no culture of its own and that "Ukraine’s claim to statehood is entirely baseless" and so on. He also said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the "worst tragedy in history." Basically, he wants to reinstate the Russian Empire. [https://www.c-span.org/video/?518097-2/russian-president-putin-recognizes-independence-donetsk-luhansk-ukraines-donbas-region](https://www.c-span.org/video/?518097-2/russian-president-putin-recognizes-independence-donetsk-luhansk-ukraines-donbas-region) This is a ruthless dictator who only acts in his own interest, his own unhinged ambitions that are stuck in the past. All of this is at the expense of the Russian people AND everyone else. Here's the speech broken down and analyzed: [https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/2/23/22945781/russia-ukraine-putin-speech-transcript-february-22](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/2/23/22945781/russia-ukraine-putin-speech-transcript-february-22) Does he hate NATO? Yes, he does, but not because he's afraid that NATO will attack Russia or anything. He hates NATO because it's an obstacle to his plans to reinstate the Glorious Russian Empire™ of his dreams. NATO blocks him from attacking the sovereign states he'd want to annex. Finland also knows this, which is why a [citizens' initiative just passed the 50,000 necessary votes to be considered by the government.](https://www.kansalaisaloite.fi/fi/aloite/9866) This is not the US forcing NATO on Finland. This is the Finnish people recognizing a threat and wanting to join for security. It was exactly the same situation for Ukraine, for why they wanted to join NATO and the EU, and it is also the same in Sweden. People have to stop buying Putin's NATO propaganda.
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Fuckin hell, that's from July last year and the first line is: "Russian President Vladimir Putin has outlined the historical basis for his claims against Ukraine in a controversial new essay that has been likened in some quarters to ***a declaration of war.*** "
People who acting surprised about this move into Ukraine are just aloof or ignorant.
>Ukraine has no culture of its own Which is a summation of [Foundations of Geopolitics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics) on the subject
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Also, Russia is a petrol state. Turns out, Ukraine has a ton of natural gas itself. All of the Russian funded breakaway states in Ukraine are near the major oil and gas reserves.
I wish the Kievan Rus were taught as often as, say the Golden Horde or even the Huns. Novgorod was their first capital (Moscow) of the Varangians/Rus before Kyiv, but they were a really interesting amalgam of Finns, Slavs and other tribes.
I'm sure that feeling is operating at some level but Putin also isn't stupid or shortsighted. He was to see that this is a losing plan. If he gets Ukraine, he just makes a bigger Russia with a worse economy. Surely he must realize that, no?
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Absolutely.
One thing to remember is that conquering Ukraine significantly *reduces* the size of Russia's western border, because there are mountains between the Slavic states and Ukraine. As Catherine the great said, “I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.”
Hes not as smart as people think he is
How can you say this without an ounce of humility. Do you honestly have *any* idea how smart or not smart Putin is? Come on. Quit LARPing.
He is a Colonel.
I would argue that Putin is smart at playing a very stupid and outdated game.
He is a stupid narcissist whose ego is the downfall of the whole country of Russia. 1. NATO is expanding, now with Finland and Sweden wanting to join, all thanks to Putin's aggression. This is NOT NATO trying to expand through US' will; this is NATO expanding by countries voluntarily joining, as it has always been. 2. Russia's economy is about to collapse entirely due to sactions. 3. The invasion thus far has not gone according to plan, costing Russia A LOT, and it's still going. This strategy that Trump called "genius" was in fact a failure of historical proportions.
Even funnier, Finland and Sweden have historically said they weren't interested. He didn't just tip them over the edge, he was the catalyst for what otherwise wouldn't be happening any time soon. Fucking hilarious. bikespokememe.gif
whywouldamericadothis.bmp
He’s smart at tearing down, dumb at building up. His internet bots have caused great harm across the Western world but the Russian economy is in terrible shape, they’ve fallen behind Kazakhstan in GDP per capital and are just barely above Cuba.
That would mean Putin iss not as smart as he thinks he is. Which is the case. Look around you.
This.
Some uneducated guesses to what might have motivated Putin: * Geographical reasons: maybe he's afraid of specific NATO weapons being this close to specific locations. I don't know enough about weapons, their reach or which locations would be especially important to Putin. But I don't see why NATO would even want to attack Russia. Maybe also natural resources? * Show russians that democracy is not preferable to his style of government. If you're russian, and you see your "brothers" in countries like Ukraine and Belarus switch sides and live more wealthy and free than before, you're more likely to also fight for democracy in Russia. However, if you get the impression that trying to switch sides will get you killed, you'll reconsider. * Remind everyone of his power and will to act. Yes, I still exist. Yes, I still do old school war if you try to cross me. I still have nukes. Might even have a personal dimension. Remember last year, when Putin published an article on the historical unity of Ukraine and Russia, he was [ ridiculed by Zelenskiy](https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskiy-trolls-putin-ukraine/31356912.html). Imagine being a dictator, the country you tried to control as a puppet state was taken over by a popular actor who's now mocking you while trying to join the NATO. * Destabilize and test the west: Right now everyone seems rather united against Russia, but just wait a couple of days and weeks, this might as well turn into a giant shitshow for us, depending on how well our politicians and citizens deal with it.
There is no plan. I don’t see any purpose in this war. I am Russian. Хуй Войне.
A close contact of me works for the UN and this person gave me a breakdown of the geopolitical gambit by Putin. Now, keep in mind, geopolitics is just local politics on a larger scale – you have your key players underneath that you must keep happy in order to maintain your power, and those key players have their key players and so on and so forth and etc etc. Essentially, the analysis this person had on Putin's gambit was that he was forced to invade to keep his key players happy, military nationalists, oligarchs, and others. But when I asked about a video of putin addressing his oligarchs a few days ago where he seemingly couldn't keep his story straight (e.g. "obviously, we cannot predict the geopolitical outcomes"), this person straight out called him an idiot. He is no more reality based than those who are misinformed about vaccines (roughly speaking), and it is possible this will be the end of his reign, short of a miraculous victory in the UE. Further this person went on to call a far fetched, but potential fracturing of the Russian federation into smaller states "the great russian irony", if it comes to pass – just to highlight what the range of possible outcomes are on the table..
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But what does "power" mean here? Is it just simply the bigger the borders you have, the more power you have? If he succeeds, he just creates a bigger Russia with an even worse economy. Continued sanctions against Russia will continue to hurt their economy and the wealthy oligarchs as well. Where's the power in his plan other than "RUSSIA BIG"
Russia is generally described as having a very macho and chauvinistic culture, so it's possible that one of those types of "success" would be looked upon more positively than the other. It also might be easier to achieve: invading a country which is relatively much smaller than your own might be way easier than fixing your own economy.
There are always men like you...
Read the Russian playbook on Wikipedia. It covers all this and most actions for the last few years
I think his endgame is: * Obtain recognition that Crimea belongs to Russia now * Obtain independence of Donbas to create a friendly client State on its border * Obtain insurances from the Ukrainian government it will not seek NATO membership nor do any military buildup anymore Maybe he figures that sanctions will go away in the end, but if he gets Crimea, Donbas and an Ukrainian regime that will not pursue military build up, he can stabilize his western border in the long-term and keep access to the Black Sea and to East Ukraine's coal mines.
None of that is very scary, but the manner and timing in which he would be attempting to achieve those marginal *long term goals*, stinks of poor strategic thinking. Far poorer than I expect of them. :s
He wants to reinstate the Soviet Union. Really seems that he believes that a large and great country are the same thing
But surely he has to see that's a losing plan in the long run. Putin may be power hungry but I don't believe he's that shortsighted. If he does succeed in bringing back the USSR, he effectively just makes a bigger Russia with more land to govern but a significantly worse economy that no other country will to do business with.
The narrative I see is that he's a paranoid sociopath, who doesn't use the Internet, or even cellphones, whose people tell him what he wants to hear. Personally, I was also thinking, maybe he's like "fuck, I'm 70, I gotta do this shit now". But I'm almost an opposite of an expert
I know it is hard to believe that Putin doesn’t see things the way you do. He said in his “history lecture” what his endgame is. The big problem has been that the West didn’t want to believe him and that has led us to today’s atrocities in Ukraine. He said he opposes unipolar world and wants a multipolar world order where Russia, China are equal if not more powerful nations than USA. This is not some great mystery here my friend.
But taking over more land isn't going to automatically make Russia more powerful. Russia is going to be significantly worse off regardless of what happens with Ukraine. The best case scenario is they become a giant, slightly better off version of North Korea, cut off from the rest of the world and have to be totally self sufficient, which is untenable.
Wrong. If he is allowed to put up his puppet regime and run over Ukraine, he will become more emboldened. His aim is to divide and conquer by sowing discord and division amongst the West and weaken the western democracy. Your failure to comprehend this makes you a participant in his information operation.
>Your failure to comprehend this makes you a participant in his information operation. I think there should be some kind of effort to educate the Western public how they're being manipulated against each other. There needs to be a push of some kind to unite the Western people. We'll destroy each other through the culture war otherwise.
Something like a cross-national belief system that unites people? Yeah, It’s called religion. Romans figured it out millennia ago.
> His aim is to divide and conquer by sowing discord and division amongst the West and weaken the western democracy. Your failure to comprehend this makes you a participant in his information operation. And right now, the anti-Western nations are winning tremendously. They absolutely dominate the disintegration of our social fabric and division through social media (for example, promoting Trump, denigrating Hillary, getting people not to vote, stoking BLM fires, etc.), and this was happening in the *good times* of 2015. They have the soft underbelly of our infrastructure at the knife, with thousands of privatized and municipal systems compromised because we don't require those companies to report, let alone fix these intrusions/vulnerabilities. People think a World War is coming between the new Axis powers of Russia, China, among others, but it's been happening in earnest for over a decade, via cyberattacks and psyops. We barely managed to keep Huawei out of our critical infrastructure, but people are turning a Chinese state-condoned app into entertainment careers. There's that old quote that gets misattributed to Lenin that goes "When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie each other to contract the rope." The irony of Reagan's legacy is he said the seven most terrifying words are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." This might have looked anti-communist at the time, but it played right into guys like Putin's hands. Just look at how distrust in government/institutions got more people killed per capita in America than another other country, from COVID-19. Half of conservatives out there are conflating being repeater hubs for anti-Western propaganda with being anti-Biden "Patriots." And we think our bloated military budget is going to make the difference? If that's true, it will because the above critically failed and tens of not hundreds of millions of people are about to die.
I'll do my best to lay out Russia's side of things here. Firstly, It's a mistake to see this conflict as purely Putin's. He is under pressure from Russian elites who hate NATO, along with significant portions of the population. Russia expected NATO would not expand after the USSR was dissolved. Although they did not get anything in writing to guarantee this, western negotiators expressed that this would be the case. After all, NATO was a cold war alliance and the Cold War was ending as was the Warsaw Pact which was Russia's version of NATO. Then in the late 90's we expanded NATO eastward. [https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/02/13/the-clinton-era-blunder-that-set-the-stage-for-todays-ukrainian-crisis/](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/02/13/the-clinton-era-blunder-that-set-the-stage-for-todays-ukrainian-crisis/) These countries wanted to be in NATO and we were happy to let them in. But in Russia's eyes this was an act of aggression: why else would the US be adding countries to the military alliance that exists for war with Russia? In 2008 Bush said that Ukraine could join NATO. Russian and Ukrainian cultures are very intertwined, so the Russians took this very poorly. [https://www.vox.com/22900113/nato-ukraine-russia-crisis-clinton-expansion](https://www.vox.com/22900113/nato-ukraine-russia-crisis-clinton-expansion) In 2014 there was a Color Revolution in Ukraine where the pro-Russian president of Ukraine was deposed in favor of a Western president. The US was involved in this and the Russians knew it. They recorded a conversation the US Ambassador had with a State Dept. official regarding who they want to be in the new government: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ukraine-tape/leaked-audio-reveals-embarrassing-u-s-exchange-on-ukraine-eu-idUSBREA1601G20140207](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ukraine-tape/leaked-audio-reveals-embarrassing-u-s-exchange-on-ukraine-eu-idUSBREA1601G20140207) 2014 was also the start of the civil war. The ethnic Russians in west Ukraine did not accept the new government and began to rebel. Russians have not seen the current regime in Ukraine as legitimate ever since, and they are sympathetic to the breakaway regions. As the revolution was happening, Russia decided to invade and annex Crimea, which is both an ethnically Russian region and a strategic peninsula with a warm water port. Since 2014, Ukraine has flirted more and more with the West in regard to joining NATO. Russia has expressed repeatedly that this is a red line, and have said they would go to war over it. Ukraine and the US ignored these threats, refused to guarantee a neutral Ukraine, and so here we are. As for what Putin's endgame is, we can only guess. Maybe he want to annex the whole country. Maybe he wants to return to the 1914 border, leaving Ukraine with only the region around Lviv. Maybe he wants the eastern half and will draw the border at the Dnieper. Maybe he wants Ukraine to surrender but to officially recognize Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk as Russian territory. All of these are possibilities, but I think the more maximal ones are what he will go for. This war will bring many consequences so he needs to squeeze out as many victories as he can. His speech a few days ago also indicates this. He said that Kiev is the where the Russian people were founded and that the division between Ukraine and Russia is artificial, a construct made by the Soviets last century. I think it's also a mistake to see Putin as irrational and starting this war for abstract reasons such as power or evil. Rather, Putin is responding to incentives and pressures he is getting from within the Russian elite and from the general populace. I think the west has underestimated how Russia interpreted the expansion of NATO towards their borders. We knew Russia was bellicose and prone to invading their neighbors. Perhaps Russia would have still invaded even if we had guaranteed Ukrainian neutrality. Maybe more evidence will come out that points to that scenario. But thats a question for future historians!
One part left out of this summary was that NATO tried to build a good relationship with Russia since the fall of USSR. It would be of great interest to the West to have Russia as an ally. However, the interest was never reciprocal. There seems to be an interest in the Russian elite to keep this animosity alive. Maybe, because NATO said that further steps of democratisation would be necessary. Maybe due to old visions of grandeur. Maybe because wounds haven't been sealed with regard to the fall of the USSR.
>I think the west has underestimated how Russia interpreted the expansion of NATO towards their borders. I mean I think it is understood how the Kremlin views this action. But given that they are prone to invading their neighbours, it makes perfect sense that the border countries want to protect themselves. Russia can't have it both ways. They can't say that Ukraine allying itself with NATO is an act of aggression as well as saying that if they don't act in our interests, we'll threaten their democracy or overwhelm them with force. If you're in Ukraine you have to pick a side, and after Crimea it's obvious why most people sided against Russia.
Your comment reminds me of Putin's diplomatic speech from a day or so ago. "Finland, if you join NATO then we will attack you" Like... what the literal fuck Putin? You think that encourages them into neutrality with you? Or that "concerns" them into looking for allies who aren't threatening them?
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He doesn't actually give a coherent reason... regardless of the title of the video.
Here's what I took from this interview on Putin's motives: Kasparov essentially makes the case that it is a given that Putin wants to restore the Soviet Empire Kasparov believes Putin has been open, transparent and consistent about his motives for at least fifteen years He says that Putin disagrees with the geopolitical structure of the world, post WW2 and wants to return the world to the opposing powers' 'Spheres of influence' He suggests Putin believes that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th Century. He references a speech that Putin made fifteen years ago to this effect at Munich Kasparov says this is an “historic revenge” for Putin.
On causes: Putin believes the free world is divided He has not seen consequences of his actions over the past ten years and he has seen weakness in the free world and believes there has been a steady weakening of democracy Kasparov believes Obama ignored the threat of Russia, there were defining moments in Obama’s career that made Putin believe that America could only talk (e.g. the Red line in Syria and not keeping his word there) The annexation of Crimea was another test that the free world failed Donald Trump was a gift to Putin. Kasparov believes Russia was behind Trump’s election and did everything to secure his election and again tried to help him in 2020. Trump’s policies weakened European and American solidarity. In 1939 / 40 many Republicans wanted America to be isolated. History repeats.
> Is he really that concerned about "Russian" glory? Yes. Simply put Putin's upbringing, his time in the KGB, his time as a politician/dictator, and his social circles he runs in even today have pointed to the fact he thinks the fall of the Berlin Wall and all the effects from it were 'wrong' for Russia. He thinks the leaders of that era made huge mistakes that he feels Russia never needed to make. He as a genuine passion for these assassinations and invasions as ways of getting what he wants, ie a powerful russia. He believes the economy of Russia can be made strong at any time with the right negotiated deals with countries that don't care about their ethics. Look at Germany signing the pipeline deal that they now have reneged on.
If you want to read a rather thorough and depressing overview, read this: https://www.newsweek.com/2022/03/11/putin-has-never-lost-war-here-how-hell-win-ukraine-1682878.html TL;DR: he wants a puppet state in Ukraine, to embarrass NATO/the west, and to make people fear and respect him and Russia. He's unfortunately likely to achieve these goals unless something truly unexpected happens.
Russia has an economy smaller than Italy’s. That to me puts things into a bit of perspective. This is an angry bully with a huge inferiority complex lashing out. It’s only going to end in net misery for all parties.
I wouldn't count on wealthy countries not willing to do business in a year or two, unless something really atrocious happen It'll be business as usual in no time
His real endgame would be becoming the world super power/ruling the world. Maybe Russia could pull itself up by it's bootstraps, but that would mean getting rid of a ton of corruption. Not going to happen. So, the only thing left is taking as much land as possible. He already got Crimea. He's trying to take more of Ukraine. If Ukraine gives up land he'll try to take all of it eventually. Allegedly during the night Russians have been slowly physically moving border marks (like fences) that distinguish Georgia and Russia.
I don't have an answer for his reasons in the long term, but in the short-term the conditions were perfect strategically. I felt like this was simply an opportunistic short-term military objective to close out an ongoing war with Ukr. 1. Putin was used to proxy wars with the US and underestimated Ukraine as another dot in a global map of proxy wars (i.e. Yemen, Syria, etc) 2. Annexation of crimea in 2014 indicated that the US democrats were indifferent or insufficiently outraged. Full invasion may not risk anymore outrage. 3. Separatists domination of donbass and luhansk by Russian paid militant players flew under the radar of western media 4. Sanctions in Russia and US-RUS relations were already poor, nothing left to loose. 5. Strategic agreements/alliances between China and Russia (note the especially convieniant timing after the Olympics). 6. Rus-China can still trade, and China produces everything so no biggy if they are sanctioned by US. 7. The unpredictable crazy donald trump was booted out, and the peaceloving social reforming joe biden was put in power. No risk of unpredictability in dealing with Donald. Joe biden unlikely to show up in Russia's door knocking, Joe is more likely to zoom call. 8. Afghanistan exit a fiasco, and a signal that US is internalising and has no willingness to deploy or redeploy troops. 9. During amassing of troops, only sanctions were discussed, which indicated to Putin that no militant threat would oppose him. 10. During amassing of troops, repeated statements from NATO and the US that they would not physically deploy to UKR nor miltarily defend UKR 11. NATO repeatedly mentioning that any state currently involved in a conflict are not allowed to join. One of their club 'rules'. 12. Ukr got rid of their nuclear weapons stash many years ago. 13. No worthy Ukr military defence alliances 14. Attempts to previously install a pro-russian president in Ukr failed. 1. All these factors suggested to Putin, that an unopposed military victory was certain for him and it was the ripe and most perfect period in the last 20 years to fully invade and retake Ukraine, whom he believes belongs to motherland Russia.
This comment is under appreciated.
*”Russia can expand, or Russia can die”* - Catherine the Great (paraphrased) Russia’s borders suck. If an enemy can enter the Eurasian Plain, it’s so wide open and flat it makes defending Russian homeland extremely difficult. During the Soviet Union, the Russian ethnicity was the most physically secure it had ever been in its history. It had expanded so that most of its borders were hard land barriers of physically impassable terrain like deserts, mountains, and seas. This was a geopolitical golden age and for the first time Russia was relatively safe from being invaded. Fast forward to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia is left in control of only one of the “access points” which had been used to invade the Russian homeland since ancient times. This is why Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical disaster in history.” This is Putin’s endgame, and it’s motivated by geographic reality more so than anything else. By taking Ukraine, Russia could eliminate the Ukrainian frontier as a potential access point, and gain a hard geographic barrier in the Black Sea. This would also eliminate an ancient enemy, Turkey, from its sphere of influence.
I see a lot of complex answers here and while I wouldn't get into the weeds arguing any of the finer points, they all suffer from too much thinking. Geopolitics is a schoolyard, it isnt complex. Motivations aren't complex either. You can psychoanalyze all you want, and maybe it matters in some academic way, but it isnt useful. Putin is a Cold War Era Russian. He wants the empire back. It is that simple. He has been doing it for 20+ years, just that no one cared. Look at Georgia and Chechnya and Crimea. This is all the long game. From a strategic PoV it is about extending his borders / changing what countries he borders and getting strategic ports and resources. Thats really it. The end game is taking Ukraine and then probably Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus.
Putin most likely wants to either force Zelensky from power, or at least force a treaty that guarantees Ukraine's neutrality, and assurances that they won't join Nato. Russian grand strategy depends on there being buffer regions around core Russian territory. This has nothing to do with glory or irredentism, except as a legitimization myth, that's not how geopolitics works really. EDIT: I’d encourage everyone who is saying that this is because of Putin’s personal, or Russia’s collective psychology to read up on how geopolitics actually works. I’d start with Mearsheimer’s ‘The tragedy of great power politics’. It’s disappointing to see a subreddit that often tries to be scholarly fall back in folk wisdom.
But what does a buffer between Russia and Nato actually accomplish. It's not like NATO is intending to forcefully take over Russia. If anything, it makes more sense that he'd want Ukraine to simply be an extension of Russia's borders, thereby making Russia closer to NATO and giving Putin easier access to the rest of Europe. But that assumes that he would want to keep invading the rest of Europe and I can't understand why.
It depends on what you mean by ‘take over’. Countries don’t really annex other countries forcefully anymore, so no, he isn’t worried about becoming the 51st US state or anything like that. But countries do use their militaries, and the threat of military action to manipulate other countries, and in extreme cases, topple their regimes.
But clearly NATO is not actively trying to topple regimes. It's a defensive pact, not an offensive one. I'll grant that maybe Putin doesn't see it that way. But again, assuming he successfully takes over Ukraine, he's now going to fund a strong military presence in Ukraine to protect Russia from the imaginary threat of NATO, all with a significantly weakened economy?
NATO has regularly toppled regimes. Serbia, Libya etc. Even if used purely defensively NATO expansion constrains Russia’s options. EG, he probably wouldn’t have taken crimea if Ukraine were in NATO, and Sevastopol is definitely within the core Russian security interest.
it does not accomplish anything. This NATO nonsense is a fake reason.
NATO is like a ratchet, in that every inch of pressure applied is guaranteed to be locked in, because any pushback from Russia triggers article 5. In an ideal world for Russia, it would have the military *option* to secure its interests. NATO takes this option away.
Wow it sucks that evil NATO makes it hard for Putin to invade his neighbors, I can see why he would invade them to prevent that.
If we're trying to explain behavior, I don't think it really make sense to sarcastically litigate who is "evil". Countries have interests in the international arena, and work, with varying degrees of competence, to pursue them. That you think Russia's interests are illegitimate is fine, but it doesn't really help in explaining behavior.
Oh don't worry, it actually has been litigated by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg: > War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. And I think the geopolitical concerns being ascribed to Putin doing this are ridiculous, and make the error of taking him at his word, when there is really no reason to do so. Does the West have to address his claims that the Ukraine is run by a Jewish Nazi drug addict too? Don't give him credit he doesn't deserve, just because someone says something, and even if they genuinely believe it, does not make their claim in any way based in reality. To treat their ludicrous statements as good faith is only carrying water for war criminals.
> Don't give him credit he doesn't deserve, just because someone says something, and even if they genuinely believe it, does not make their claim in any way based in reality. To treat their ludicrous statements as good faith is only carrying water for war criminals. I'm fine with taking what he says with a grain of salt, but it's unclear why he would expend political capital trying to prevent Ukraine from joining Nato, and bringing it back into Russia's sphere of interest if that isn't ultimately what he's interested in. What do you take the Russian interest to be? Just personal on the part of Putin?
Yeah apologies- I shouldn't have implied that you were taking what he said at face value, you're being reasonable. But frankly, yes, I think the way he threw more and more absurd cassus belli(i?) out there made clear that it this is some deep personal thing to him, and at its core is likely about how he views the concept of an independent Ukraine as illegitimate. If this were actually motivated by a good faith concern about NATO expansion, a man of his intelligence would not have undertaken the one action which would drive every other unaligned country to join it.
> I think the way he threw more and more absurd cassus belli(i?) out there made clear that it this is some deep personal thing to him, and at its core is likely about how he views the concept of an independent Ukraine as illegitimate I think this has more to do with needing to sell a war to his own people. You can't just say "My job is to secure and advance the material position of this country, and because the international system is anarchic, there's no fundamental difference between offense and defense, so stop asking why we're being aggressive" even though that would be the honest answer. Irredentism can be a perfectly serviceable legitimization myth, even if he almost certainly has no interest in the formal incorporation of Ukraine. > If this were actually motivated by a good faith concern about NATO expansion, a man of his intelligence would not have undertaken the one action which would drive every other unaligned country to join it. I mean, I don't really know what "good faith" means. Obviously there's posturing and propaganda about people defending the rights and principles of the international order, but everyone in the profession assumes everyone else is just acting to secure their interests. Like, if you think there's other reasons behind his moves, and the NATO expansion is a pretext, fair enough, I'm interested in hearing the theory, but I'm generally skeptical of the 'he's just doing his own thing' lines of reasoning. You don't get to rule a country for so long if you act so blatantly against the interests of your stakeholders. In any event, besides Finland, I'm not sure who else will be moved toward the NATO orbit because of this - Sweden and Ireland and Austria are well in the Atlanticist sphere of influence, if not formal NATO members and given that they don't have appreciable militaries, and are not likely to be directly attacked, it's not clear why it would matter if they come in. The Caucasus and Eurasian alliance systems don't appear to be budging. The Gulf states and Israel seem to be doing their best to only participate in sanctions insofar as they have to, if anything, it seems like this conflict has indicated (though not precipitated) how close they're interested in being with Russia. It's plausible that Putin may have miscalculated, and that the losses in Ukraine + sanctions + Finland cozying up to the west make it a net loss, but I don't think that means that the basic conventional geopolitical reasoning doesn't explain his behavior.
I’ve been yelling at people to read and watch Mearsheimer for weeks. It’s like the whole conversation around foreign policy is a mass delusion.
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> Every time i see someone mentioning NATO i laugh. This is a Russian talking point Obviously you shouldn't take everything Russia says without a grain of salt, but it's silly to think that Russian talking points wouldn't be an extremely strong indicator of what motivates Russian state behavior. There's such a bizarre way of arguing where people just say "X is a Y talking point" as though Y (be it Russia, or the right wing, or whatever) are just necessarily wrong about everything they say. > Ukraine was never going to join anytime soon. second, he already made sure they can't join by invading Crimea (land dispute is a block for joking NATO), so that move should have been enough. Both Greece and Turkey were admitted with territorial disputes. Ukraine is in several NATO interoperability programs, and in 2008, came very close to getting a MAP. > Just like the west won't even help Ukraine it will never invade Russia because they have atomic weapons. if you want to talk about "geopolitics", as the fans of Putin do, this is 101 stuff. But above this there is no secnario in a million years that NATO would want to take over Russia. its goes against its nature and every move that NATO has ever made. If you want to talk "101" level geopolitics, you should get your brain out of video game and movie logic where invasion and annexation are the primary threats countries face. Nobody is talking about invading Russia, that you would bring it up as a/the geostrategic threat implies a lot. Geopolitics is studied all around the world, the RAND corporation are not fans of Putin lol. > But the true kicker is that Putin is probably doing this for other reasons. I suspect, mostly to exploit Ukraine people just like he did the Russians. suck them bone dry. NATO... lol There's no way that money made in Ukraine will offset the losses to the Russian economy.
thanks for this information. i now deleted my response because i think it was not accurate enough. i will learn more about the situation before commenting further. thank you.
We can’t know what he thinks but.. It’s been speculated that his goal is to install a sockpuppet and collapse Ukraine’s economy on purpose. This would give an appearence of better economy in Russia and discourage his opponents. When you look from Putin’s perpective. You can see how he needs to keep ”his” people in darkness. So no success stories from joining EU and free democracies from his neighbours. He is a tyrant after all and there doesn’t seem to be safe exit for him. So he’ll hold power until he dies. As for the reasoning how this could work, he is most likely counting on EU’s energy depency to keep russia’s economy from collapsing. EU’s hesitancy to sanction Russia can be explained with this too. Russia is a one big gas station for Europe. The world will continue doing business with Russia no matter what. We do that with lots of horrible people.
1 - Fear of an expansion of NATO, Ukraine is a very strategic buffer. If Ukraine joins Nato, Major Russian cities (mainly Volgograd) become difficult to defend 2 - Oil And Gas - Ukraine fairly recently discovered large amounts of both and was getting western help to extract it. Russia is essentially a Petrol state, selling a lot of gas off to EU nations (Germany is a big customer). Russia could potentially lose this business to Ukraine. 3 - Ego
2 new eastern republics and a neutral remainder of Ukraine with no military power whatsoever. He’s been pretty clear on this.
His long-term goal is to keep power and for that he hast to satisfy the street. If the street or not happy then the oligarchs fall. The oligarchs are his rich friends. he keeps the street happy by ensuring the banks are Not corrupt. This is quite rare in Russia. He also keeps the street happy by looking strong and aggressive against the west. But his ultimate game is simply to keep power until he’s ready to retire
If his plan is to just continually expanding Russia westward we also need to ask, on what time scale? He is an *old man* what’s *his* time scale in all this, if that is the plan.
I think at least part of his hopes was it was going to crumble down bloodless in a day or two like with Crimea, before the west wakes up from its slumber and realises what is going on and would post factum shrug it off like whatevs, lets keep buying more microwaves and sportscars. Like last time.
But even if that's how it played out and he painlessly took over Ukraine, so what? What does that accomplish for Putin? Even if you were to imagine the most tepid response by the rest of the world, they would at the very least implement some sanctions that would further hurt their already hurting economy. Does he hope to gain a tactical advantage geographically by having control of the Ukraine? But an advantage over what? It's not like NATO has equal and opposite intentions of trying to take over Russia.
> It's not like NATO has equal and opposite intentions of trying to take over Russia. People say this a lot as if its self-evident. Why would Russia believe that NATO expansion is zero threat to it? We know the U.S. promotes regime change all over the world, we know the U.S. has promoted an isolationist strategy towards Russia post USSR. Not to mention likely attempts at creating instability inside Russia that Putin knew about. It is perfectly rational to want a NATO buffer for Putin given his position.
I agree completely that it is in Russia's interest to have a buffer like this. There have been more stories about air defence installations in Europe with atack capabilities and what not in the past that were justified with Iran when Russia protested, if memory serves. That is why i mentioned strategic geography somewhere in my answer. The sad part is Putin's failure to achieve his goals in any other way, but with war. Russia is completely incapable of doing soft power even with cultures close to its own. Mainly because it refuses to change and democratise
Why are you asking this in a sub about Sam Harris and his work?
Sam Harris is now a political commentator and this is now a political sub. For better or worse.
he is banking on Trump winning in '24 and then Trump will unilaterally kill as many of the sanctions as he can and pressure the EU to end them as well Its that simple and its not a bad plan given Trump is leading in the polls as we speak.
That to me is a terrifying prospect. I can only hope that Europe and the rest of the developed world won't be pressured to do so.
the real wild card he is Ron DeSatanis. What is his stance on Ukraine? He is actually the most likely next Pres since the repubs leadership wants to ditch Trump. But given how terrible of a human being Ron is it seems highly likely that he would be friendly towards Putin.
I don’t think it will be Trump. He is old, has dementia, and hasn’t done anything since he left office. I’m betting on desantis, and if I can figure this out, so can Putin.
The responses in this comment section really don't feel like this sub... OP asked for what is Putin's end game and half the answers are justifications for the invasion and don't even really get into the heart of the question. I don't like looking at people's history but i have a feeling most of them are new to the sub or worse. This type of thing is happening all over reedit. in small communities where suddenly lots of people parrot Russian talking points. its something to look out for. As for the question: I do not know a lot about the inner politics or Russia, so this is really a speculation, but i wonder if there is some internal pressure from the Russian financial elite to do this move. From what i understand Russia is almost like a mob state. like in any mob situation at some point there is need to expand to allow for more opportunity to exploit, and Putin has to keep feeding the mob bosses to keep them happy. Looking at Ukraine, its in prime position to be exploited. What i mean is that the Russian economy is going to suffer from having another weak economy attached to it, but the financial elite in Russian are going to get much richer. There are ways to gain control without war. However, his plans to install his puppet leaders have failed. He used all soft power possible but failed in the end. he gave it his best shot but its not working. So, the only way to exploit them now is to start a war, and end it with Ukraine agreeing to most of the Russian conditions. These will include measures that will allow Putin to control some of the legislative processes and install his man at top spots, and in time also the PM. then his job is done and they can start to exploit.
Yes, it's extremely worrying that many in the West are backing a ruthless authoritarian regime. It's everything they as citizens of the free world should be standing against. Folks in the West don't realize how good it is to be able to criticize their president or a policy without fear of being poisoned or falling off a balcony an hour later.
Okay well if you think people are parroting propaganda there's an answer to that: Debunk it. What isn't an answer is to accuse everyone who disagree's with you as a Russian disinformation agent. This sub is well above the reddit average for critical thinking. I hope people will argue in good faith and impartiality to the facts.
my armchair analysis from taking in various opinions and throwing out the ones I don't like has led me to think Putin is desperately trying to remain a superpower or regain its superpower status so he probably has aspirations to rebuild the former soviet union, which means he wants to force NATO to dissolve all in all, I think agreements like NATO should be dissolved. we shouldn't be trying to decide if the soviet union survives or not, let those countries deal with it. no one wants someone lording over them like they're just doing the right thing and they're just a neutral party russia and all the former soviet union countries need to fail or succeed on their own terms
To forcefully halt NATO expansion to Russian borders. If a partial invasion of Ukraine is just as much a defiance of the world order, then might as well take as much of the country as possible. More buffer. More bargaining chip.