Comments by "Sean Cidy" (@seancidy6008) on "Bad assumptions and the belief in Russian victory" video.

"The idea that a Russian victory is inevitable is prolonging the war". The Russians think that they'll win eventually; I am not sure that has anything to do with what opinion in the West is. You can tell them they won't win but unless they believe you, the war will not end even if they are pushed back inside their own borders, where with more infrastructure they can continue fighting and firing missiles. So what is Ukraine's plan for ending the war? You cannot be a winner unless you are the one that decides the war is over.
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@andrzejbarcelonafrlk6416 America has painted itself into a corner with statements about how Putin cannot be allowed to get any result he can consider a win. Putin has burnt his domestic political bridges by making territory captured and since lost back to Ukraine deemed part of Russia, and even making territory never occupied by Russia and still controlled by Ukraine in Russian law officially part of Russia. The Russian army has no problem retreating; that makes them difficult to destroy, impose prohibitive attrition on. All indications are that even if they strategically withdraw back to the borders of Russia they intend to end the war only when that have much more territory than they have so far occupied. The workarounds for a country of Russia's resources and technical infrastructure will be many in the medium term My feeling is to get the Russian's to accept they are in a stalemate will take several years; we are going to be still discussing this in a year's time.
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Obama vetoed Blinken and others' urging to send weapons to Ukraine because he said Russia had "escalatory dominance'. His belief has not been falsified by events, because Russia has escalated to an astounding degree, which perhaps indicates a perception that they faced an existential threat. To feel compelled to fight is not necessarily motivated by a belief that one will win. We don't know whether Putin ordered the invasion in a state of exultation or desperation. America is not terribly worried about Ukraine being decimated and Russia may not have anything more to throw at Ukraine, but the menacing statements are not aimed at Ukraine they are aimed at the US, which seems to be taking them seriously judging by how Ukraine have been denied ATACMS. Russia cannot be defeated in the sense that Saddam's Iraq or Hitler's Germany was, so it would not be existential for the leadership to withdraw and sign a peace treaty with guarantees of no future repetition of the invasion. But whether they could domestically survive a failure in Ukraine is dubious. Full mobilization or even more drastic measures such as clear warnings of a very big bang would be tried before Russia accepted being pushed back. There could also be some kind of attack on US surveillance satellites planes or bases, possible bey electronic warfare or laser to begin with. If forced to accept a defeat in the field against medium sized technologically middling country like Ukraine the RF might as well disarm because they cannot beat anyone. A common scenario wargamed by Nato has been coming to the aid of Russia invaded by China; maybe Russia will lose (you have made a good case), but in the global strategic context any such Ukraine/NATO/ US victory will prove to be a pyrrhically costly one in the long term I suspect. So the assumptions may not just be bad in the Kremlin
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"Russia is headung for defeat" . No, Bakhmut .
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@mariaf.6601 Does America want Ukraine to get the kind of victory that Zelensky is saying is what he would settle for? I don't think the US has ever said that or supplied Ukraine with the advanced long range missiles to do it.
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@mariaf.6601 The early gains were headlong drives by columns of vehicles along roads; not methodical and accompanied by fortification and mine laying. The current Russian offensive is more ratchet than pendulum.
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@shuathe2nd Why all this now? Because the West knows Ukraine is about to need it. Newsflash: Russia is advancing on multiple fronts
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