Ukraine struck Moscow yesterday with a furious drone attack that appeared to be the largest of its kind in the more than four years since the war began. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was clear about its intent. “If Ukraine burns, then your Moscow will burn as well,” he said. The strikes destroyed an oil refinery, filling the skies with greasy, toxic smoke. They shuttered four airports. They closed down part of the highway that rings the city, which is home to 13 million people.
Putin is a coward. He is scared of democracy. It terrifies him.
This is going to cripple Moscow’s economy. Really, it will cripple Russia’s economy.
The people of Russia and the Russian army need to find Putin’s doorstep.
This is kind of funny. There are no tanks or armor to drive there. Much of the Russian air force is gone.
But the attack on Moscow has made Russian hard-liners apoplectic. They want the Kremlin to deploy the full might of Russia’s military to stop Ukraine from continuing its attacks within the country. “We must strike the enemy mercilessly, without hesitation,” one told the Russian news outlet RTVI. He called on Moscow to “eliminate the entire leadership, destroy all command centers, bring the entire industrial sector to its knees.”
It is coming to pass that the Russian incompetence and death will turn the Russian army against the Kremlin when nothing is left to defend Putin.
Putin is thinking of the last three Russian leaders who didn’t win: Khrushchev, Yeltsin, and Gorbachev. All three were pretty quickly dispatched after their respective fumbles; and I’m pretty sure Putin recognizes the history.
Wars are easy to start and hard to finish. @desertdaveataol used to say something along the lines of wars end when both sides say it ends, or when one side can’t fight anymore.
Ukraine is playing the long game. They developed robust drone technology almost from scratch and are now starting to really apply the screws. In Crimea, Ukraine has hit fuel and logistics operations like ferries and bridges hard. Gas stations are now barred from selling fuel to non-government customers, outdoor gatherings have been banned, some work hours have been reduced, and there are electricity shortages. And it is only going to get worse.
Sure, but I am mindful of how long it takes to get a large, hulking government to abandon a policy when it has spent so much capital getting it going. The analogy of “the ocean liner” has it right.
In the US public opinion about the Vietnam war turned around 1967, and particularly with the Tet offensive in 1968, yet we were still in Vietnam until 1973. (And, I note, that is in a “free” society where demonstrations could take place and people voice their grievances.)
The US Congress was still full of old men who thought it unpatriotic to protest, who remember the heroism of World War II, etc. so they weren’t going to cut it off. The thought leaders in the country - including most of the major media - were similarly bogged down in “old thought”, and it took quite a while before they began openly showing pictures of what was really happening.
I would guess that such things would work even more slowly in Russia, as the media is subservient, people unlikely to publicly demonstrate, and (as we are seeing here now) a political leader surround by sycophants doesn’t really hear anything but what he wants to hear anyway.
The Soviet Union stayed in Afghanistan longer than 9 years. We were there even longer. We were in Vietnam for more than a decade. I’d love to see Russia about face and leave Ukraine, but I doubt Putin wants to admit defeat, nor is he being pushed to do so, at least as far as I can tell.
There are two things that give me hope that the war will end a lot sooner than either: the drone technology that Ukraine has and, especially, the casualty rate. As to the latter, while we don’t know exactly how many Russian soldiers have died in this hateful venture, estimates right now are between 350,000 and 500,000. Those numbers dwarf both the Russian Afghanistan and US Vietnam tolls by many multiples.
And it appears that Russia might not be able to generate as many soldiers as it is losing. If this goes on long enough, Russia will be forced to use involuntary callups, or otherwise rethink their strategy.
He has a much bigger problem than our Vietnam tragedy. Ukraine is on its European border. He possibly can not simply call things off. His army and Ukraine’s drones are next to him in Moscow…compared to Afghanistan.
The US can walk away. Since Vietnam, we have gaged when to walk away. Trump walks away fast. The rest not so fast. If we had to merit Trump in some way that matters.
In US political talk, it is a primitive thought that we can not walk away. It is also primitive to think we are stuck on staying.
