Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Ukraine launched its invasion of Russia’s Kursk Oblast with Western backing to gain leverage for future negotiations.
The Russian leader said it was clear why Ukraine “refused our proposals to return to the plan for peaceful settlement.” Back in June, Putin made a public peace offer to Ukraine that would have required a full Ukrainian withdrawal from the oblasts Russia has annexed: Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.
“The enemy, with the help of its Western masters – it is doing their bidding, and the West is waging war against us using Ukrainians … seeks to improve its negotiating position in the future,” Putin said.
The US claims it was unaware of Ukraine’s plans to launch a ground incursion into Kursk. But the US is strongly backing the invasion by allowing Ukraine to use US-provided weapons, which marks a significant escalation of the proxy war.
Putin also appeared to say that he was ruling out negotiations with Ukraine. “But what kind of negotiations can we even talk about with people who indiscriminately strike civilians, civilian infrastructure or try to create threats to nuclear power facilities,” he said. “What can we even talk about with them?”
A Ukrainian soldier named Denys, who spoke to Financial Times, also said the purpose of the invasion was for negotiations. “We can fight here and take their territory. And then negotiations can start, and we will have some land of theirs to trade for our land,” the soldier said.
Denys also acknowledged that diverting troops for the Kursk incursion could lead to Russia capturing more towns in Donetsk, where Russian forces have been making steady gains.
Also on Monday, Ukrainian Commander in Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi claimed that his forces were now controlling 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of territory in Kursk. The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed it has stopped a major Ukrainian breakthrough, but the fighting continues to rage, and over 130,000 civilians have been displaced.
There are accounts that the elite group that invaded lightly defended Kursk have had 1500 casualties. It is likely that Russian military knew in advance of the motives of Kiev. It is also likely that not very many of the elite combatants will get out of the area alive. Interesting that this occurred nearly at the same time as the cooling tower at Zaporishia was hit by a drone. Putin was not amused.
I suspect Putin isn’t amused very often these days. The system he works in doesn’t seem to offer him the luxury of just saying “screw it, I’m done” like LBJ under similar circumstances.
Well, which is why this is so dangerous. And which why this – once more – is not going to end well. And which if it does not end in maximal catastrophe this is going to project even more misery in the future.
For the short term, you got to give to the Ukrainians, they did manage to humiliate the Russians. That however is not a strategy. It did accomplish though that the Russians have now abandoned the negotiations route. So now the question is where from here? Whatever the answer, it's going to be no where good.
Interesting you should bring this up: ” It did accomplish though that the Russians have now abandoned the negotiations route.”
They don’t want to negotiate with enemy troops on their territory.
And yet, when Zelenskyy said there could be no negotiations until Russian forces left Ukrainian territory, a bunch of people thought that was just crazy.
Ukraine did abandon the negotiations route long before Russia did. In fact Zelensky made it illegal. That was not a smart move indeed.
It needlessly cost them the Eastern part of their country. The Russians are confident they can push the Ukrainian invaders out and possibly create a permanent buffer zone on Ukrainian territory. If they can't and Ukraine annexes Kursk then eventually negotations will reemerge. I guess it depends on the likelihood of this outcome whether this was a smarter move from Zelensky than his first one.
LBJ was involved in a completely unjustified attack against Vietnam and most of Southeast Asia.
Putin is involved in protecting Russian people from the totalitarian US military empire and is more logically compared with Ho Chi MInh— One who enlightens.
Putin got his country into a completely optional and seemingly easily winnable war which has since become extraordinarily embarrassing.
Just like LBJ.
No, the war or SMO as the Russians call it wasn't optional for them. The US was never going to be placable in any way. The US decided they wanted to destroy Russia way long before 2022. The Russians know this. The Chinese are well on their way of learning the US decided the wanted to be their enemy. Syria learned just in time. Iraq and Lybia learned it too late. Iran was a slow learner but they finally got it. Venezuela knows this. Nicaragua learned it to never forget. Georgia did almost forget, but picked up a few things. Bangladesh didn't get the message in time. The world at large is being educated, only the Europeans are certifiably clueless. The Ukrianians wandered way off into lala land, possibly never to return.
Fun Fact Of the Day For Tankies #1!!!
On February 24th 2022, RUSSIAN troops entered Ukraine! Not NATO troops, RUSSIAN troops!
The war was entirely optional for Russia.
That’s a fact.
You don’t have to like the fact that it’s a fact. It’s a fact whether you like the fact that it’s a fact or not.
You might be confused about the concept of choice.
When I make insinuating threats that I might set your house on fire one day while you are asleep, which would translate into a high probability of killing not only you but your entire family, you might choose to deal with the threat that I pose to you. I will not go away and I will not stop and my behavior is certain to get worse with you not responding. You do indeed still technically have a choice to do nothing while I'm stocking on petrol and matches. You can permit yourself that reckless option if you live alone and are slightly suicidal, but not so much if you carry responsibility for others. Most people would agree that you'd have not much of choice here. This is not same sort of choice you'd have when deciding between a Kawasaki or a Ducati when the one you like is twice as expensive.
“You might be confused about the concept of choice.”
Well, one of us is.
Ukraine had neither the actual ability, nor the potential to develop the ability over a period of less than several decades, to present any substantial military threat to Russia.
There was also precisely zero chance that Ukraine would be able to join the only multi-country alliance to Russia’s west that could prevent such a threa (NATO).
Putin, like Biden, decided to engage in a little round of imperialist gamesmanship and both were obviously surprised at both the outcomes and the costs.
Yes, so now we're back in the realm of assessments and opinions in the context of security competition. There is plenty of mindreading going on in that area and that's a very problematic method to establish facts.
No, we're back in the realm of understanding that imperialists are going to imperial.
Okay, this ideological for you. The kind of thinking you get from that is perhaps principled but rigid. It is conducive to certainty. But being certain and being right are really two entirely different things.
You see what I and many others also see. Your mention of Iran opens the dooe for me to another place where I mentioned them… Two Iranian presidents ago admonished the US that when it finally gets its war; Do not send a grade B checker team against chess masters,
Here I repeat myself;
While it within Iran's national right to respond to Israeli assassins operating inside its border, the chess masters of Iran know without doubt that genocide and assassinations mark Israelis and their backers as dangerously insane.
What Israel and its sponsors have done requires world-wide unity of purpose. This form of solidarity will arise from world-wide discussion deciding how to shun Israel, the US, and many European countries.
Do not buy US bonds. Pay down credit cards. Cut back purchases. Plant a garden and organize significant community gardens on public transportation routes. Use a clothesline. Communicate about what real democracy might be like.
Iran can offer to build a method for Earth's people to harness computer assisted real Intelligence— CARI. Creating united human strength to change the world to peace is nonviolent revenge. Delicious.
Yes!
What about the ethnic Ukrainians living in Russia?
I AM STANDING HERE IN DEFENSE OF THE UKRIANIANS LIVING IN RUSSIA LIVING UNDER A REGIME THAT WANTS TO ANNIHILATE ANYTHING RELATED TO THEIR CULTURE
Just wait until the US starts importing millions of foreigners into Ukraine. The Russians will call you orcs.
ok buddy
The US imports millions here. Why would Ukraine be different? You’ve lost much of your reproductive age population…
why would we give millions of people to them
The US can’t take in everyone. Billions of people in the world are yearning to be rich. They envy how we have toilets and clean water, plenty of food.
Agreed, all because of western imperialistic exploitation of the 3rd world
“We aren’t not HELPING them become developed,
We are just exploiting them too much”
Well, take the example of Libya. The US destroyed it; so, Libyans desire employment elsewhere. Or take the examples of Syria or Venezuela: Migrants everywhere, treated like trash.
Yeah its quite sad for us
The US stopped "importing" people more than 150 years ago.
People deciding to move to the US without your permission isn't "importation." It's just people going where they want to go instead of where you order them to be.
Wait a minute, you're saying that regimes that want to annihilate cultures are not doing something right?
Well reality is Ukraine did everything, including murdering civilians, to snuff out anything smacking of Russian culture, language and religion in Ukraine (not only Russian culture by the way.)
The Ukrainian cultural genocide program (that at one time Zelensky criticized and part of the platform on which he was elected) is one of the main reasons for Russian military intervention.
At the time there wasn't much interest in the prevention of cultural annihilation from the West. Why all of the sudden it emerges now as a concern is perhaps less mysterious than it may seem at first glance.
Also Ukrainians are the third largest ethnic group of Russia. While there has been considerable influx of Ukrainians fleeing to Russia from Ukraine, the presence of Ukrainians in Russia is not a new phenomenon. And while there are tensions, of course also being deliberately exacerbated wherever possibly by Ukraine and the West in attempt to destabilize Russian society wherever and in whatever wat possible most ethnic Russians and Tatars and Ukrainians have fairly positive attitudes toward another inside Russia. They are after all Russian citizens together.
That is all a russian propgaganda. It takes the lightest digging to find out about Russian oppression against the Crimean Tatars and other Tatars. (Except for the ones in Russian. albeit even there theyve made it hard to learn their native language in Tatarstan)
In 2015. 70 percent of ethnic Russians in Ukraine preffered to stay with Ukraine and only 10% vouched to join Russia.
If the Ukrainians in Mélitopol were happy with the Russian occupation, they wouldn’t be a hotspot for Partisan Warfare
That's not propaganda, that's just history. I don't think it is even denied in the West, it is just ignored.
You don't see that fire as suspicious? A dormant cooling tower — that's made of metal and concrete — produces black smoke when "hit by a drone"?
https://gizmodo.com/fire-at-nuclear-power-plant-in-ukraine-puts-experts-on-edge-2000485875
Or, as was claimed by Ukraine, the Russians filled it with tires and lit it off to blame the Ukes?
imagine if in like a week 2 elite Russian brigades lost like 10% of their combat power.
Wait, I meant Ukrainian… For Russia there is no need to imagine
That cooling towers are just made from metal and concrete is not true. Most people would realise that the effectiveness of the cooling process depends on maximizing heat exchange between the coolant and the hot medium you want to cool. In an evaporative cooling processes you want the coolant (water) to be spread out in a very thin film on as great as possible a surface area to be maximally in contact with the hot medium from inlet to outlet. You want to maximize the phase transition of the coolant that withdraws the heat energy most effectively.
This is done by fill material that usually consists of a cheap and easy replacable material like plastic, like PVC or PP, or wood. I just don't know and haven't found yet what exactly kind of fillers or plates are applied at the Zaporizhzhia cooling towers.
By the way is everybody having so much trouble trying to log in to Disqus? It is getting nigh impossible for me now.
The fill material is one of those you mentioned and nothing else…!
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/iaea-unable-determine-cause-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-fire-2024-08-12/
I'm going to say our conversation is irrelevant until someone comes up with a cause…
I’ve had no trouble logging into Disqus … but it HAS been logging me out, requiring me to log in again, more frequently than usual.
You simply are not busy enough TK!
;-]
I'd assume the cooling towers are meant for efficient operation & power generation of the nuclear plant; and that actual fission-rod emergency cooling systems are separate from the towers ?
That seems to me to be the case indeed. I don't know enough about the procedures to say anything with confidence, but if this weren't the case and there would be a danger of emission of radioactive material I suspect among other parties involved the IAEA would become much more active very quickly.
Both Russia and Ukraine said that they have not detect any excess radiation… And the towers were apparently non-operational and dormant, meaning their fills were dry and more susceptible to spark or fire…! Could be a short in their fan electric motor located on top since these huge towers are usually draw-thru type…!
If anyone quotes directly from Mr. Putin and accepts it as fact that says something about there moral construct.
To quote Hillary: “We came, we saw, he died. cackle” The US made Libya safe for slavery.