US intelligence: Russia plans to attack Ukraine early next year

Seems like I missed that question by nosborne48.
Russian is my original or what is called mother tongue.
I began studying Ukrainian language at age of 8 in a second grade. Russian was the official language in Soviet Chernovtsi other languages were Ukrainian and some Romanian.
When we immigrated it was still Soviet.

 

My daughter-in-law grew up in Bulgaria. She was born right before the collapse of the USSR and Warsaw Pact. She has only a few memories, but in Bulgaria the old systems were pretty entrenched, so she has plenty of memories of that.

She is a remarkable woman. She's in her early 30s and fluent in Bulgarian, English and Spanish. A university graduate, she works as a billing and coding specialist for a health care company. She's also applying to medical schools, and it looks like she might get into a nearby DO program. They've been married for 10 years and just welcomed their first child last October. He's an Air Force veteran, a graduate of American Military University and has a master's from Penn State. He's an FBI analyst working narco-terrorism issues. They live part-way across town, so it's great to see them both from time-to-time.

 

Looks like Russia will use crisis in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan asks Russian-led alliance for help quelling protests
Kazakh interior ministry says eight police officers killed in unrest sparked by fuel price rise.
Kazakhstan’s President Tokayev said he has appealed to a Russian-led security bloc for help after failing to quell days of protests in the ex-Soviet nation that have seen state buildings torched and eight security personnel reported dead.

As usual Russia acused and warned US / West not to interfere, and at the same same time that west trained the insurgence and is behind it.

Moscow leads the CSTO security alliance, which includes five other former Soviet states.

Tokayev, who earlier imposed a nationwide state of emergency, said that terrorist groups – which he said “received extensive training abroad” – are “currently rampaging” across the country.
“They are seizing buildings and infrastructure and, most importantly, are seizing the premises where small arms are located,” he said, adding that they had also seized five planes at the airport in the country’s biggest city Almaty.

 

In Kazakhstan, Russia follows a playbook it developed in Ukraine

https://www.yahoo.com/news/kazakhstan-russia-follows-playbook-developed-205906065.html


Russia reacts to Blinken jibe over troops in Kazakhstan
Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Kazakhstan might have a hard time getting rid of Russian troops.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-reacts-furiously-blinken-jibe-133142338.html

 

Camel's nose under the tent....

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/anxious-ukrainians-react-to-bidens-prediction-on-russian-invasion-210204039.html

Anxious Ukrainians react to Biden's prediction on Russian invasion

https://www.yahoo.com/news/satellite-photos-show-russian-military-172017511.html

New satellite photos show the Russian military massing near Ukraine as US warns Russia could invade on 'short notice'

 

What is the likelihood that a quick overwhelming takeover by Russian forces would lead to protracted armed insurgency against the Russian (puppet?) government?

My guess is that such a thing should be a concern for Putin based on the simple fact that the previous Putin puppet government was overthrown. I don't really trust that my opinion would be shared by Putin though. There was no uprising in Crimea after all. What do others think?

 

Crimea was a little unique. Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine back when such things didn't matter materially. It really is more Russian and Ukrainian. (That doesn't excuse Russian military invasion, of course.) But I wonder how the Crimeans felt about it; it's 65% Russian and only 15% Ukrainian.

Russia might experience something quite different if they invade Ukraine. A lot will depend on whether or not the Ukrainian government can remain in power, and how much aid the West will provide. It could either be an all-out war, or it could be an asynchronous war (think: Vietnam and Afghanistan) where insurgents make life miserable for the occupying force.

But if the government can hang on and military aid can be rushed to the Ukrainians, Russia just might find its own home territory coming under fire. And that will not sit well with the people in general and the oligarchs in particular. Why are we fighting a war with an important trading partner?

 

Ukraine has already been disastrously damaged. Before Poroshenko, the Yanukovych was a pro-Russian president of the Ukraine. Now, Zelensky now is not.
But with this type of pressure on Ukraine, it appears to me there is no way they’re gonna come back and be a productive, healthy nation for a long, long time.

 

The Baltics are the only working example of how to shake off this pressure. Joining EU and NATO are not good policy choices; they are existential imperatives. And NATO is the more important of the two.

Putin khuylo.

 

The problem is that NATO is not going to welcome a country to NATO if they currently have a Russian invasion ongoing or even a Russian backed rebellion going on within their borders. I suspect that this is Putin's plan, at least for now.

 

Funny thing. Both Putin and Xi accuse the U.S. of interfering in their countries' "internal affairs". Don't quite see how Crimea and the rest of Ukraine can possibly be "internal" to Russia unless Putin thinks the USSR never ceased to exist. Alternative history is all very well for role playing games, not so good for international relations. As to Xi, he has a slightly better claim so long as we don't state officially that which is obvious to the most casual observer; we treat Taiwan as the sovereign nation she is.

 

Some might argue that that is exactly what Putin is thinking.

 

An interesting podcast, thanks for posting. Nothing startling but he did an excellent job I thought in framing and presenting the situation in his podcast. I especially liked the jealous ex-boyfriend analogy. I think that nailed it!

 

I'm sure it's not the entire story, but that YouTuber definitely offered some additional information (particularly Putin's own writings) to help paint a fuller picture.

 

Ukraine may soon loose some additional land that many of that areas Russians waiting for Russia to take over.
But it seems that the whole crisis is not so match about Ukraine and more about balance of power, Putin wants NATO gone from Europe and away from its borders.
Russian military made statements that they will take parts of Ukraine without moving any solders in to Ukraine, but by destroying Ukrainian military from Russia.
Critical time, will there be a deal made?

 

Watch the podcast that Messdiener linked to. Putin says in his own words what he wants with Ukraine. He said the biggest catastrophe of the twentieth century was the break up of the Soviet Union. To put that in perspective, there were some pretty damn bad things that happened in the twentieth century and in Putin's mind they were not as bad as the break up of the Soviet Union. Hence the jealous boyfriend analogy.

Your deal made question seems off the wall to me. The things that Putin is demanding is ridiculous. The question is whether Putin will attack or not. If he doesn't attack it will not be because any of his demands were meet. It will be because he decided it is not in his best interest to attack.

 

Yes, we should make a deal with Hit- I mean Putin, to let Germ- I mean Russia, occupy the Rhin-I mean Ukraine.

 

Look Putin issued ultimatum.
If he folds without achieving some goals, how do you think it will be seen?
Leaders are negotiating with him.
Like it or not they are making a deal.

I agree with Bill's comments.

I also see Russia making moves to rebalance the world power order.

 

And if he does? How do you think it will be seen?

Things Khuylo wants is for Ukraine to not have any agency or success. Go back to Yanyk time, weaken Ukraine some more from that point. Name one successful and free nation within Russia's "sphere of influence"; you can't because there isn't any. Not to mention how Ukraine is "not a real nation" according to him.