international relations type
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I don’t see how is it “neutral-ish” when it blatantly misrepresents Russian intentions. The complete subjugation of Ukraine was evident from the propaganda pieces released just after the incursion but when it was clear it won’t go according to the Russian plan they were removed - and these were non-veiled progenocidal nazi worded. Russia considers Ukraine a “rowdy, breakaway region” inhabited by ethnic Russians whose brains were washed by “CIA-financed fash government”. Evidence of plans of ethnic cleansing were found in towns liberated from Russians, the program of mass child kidnappings is also somewhat more sinister than mere “Finlandization”.
But let’s say I fell for the US propaganda with the abovementioned points. The piece in OP suggests that Russian missile strikes are designed to overwhelm the Ukrainian air defence and cripple their airforce afterwards. Well, the evidence from 2022/23 shows that the plan is to cripple Ukrainian civilian infrastructure by deliberately targeting power plants. We saw it in action and further confirmed by the Russian propaganda channels openly calling for “freeze them out” anti-civilian strategy.
This is not “neutral-ish”, this is peddling the Russian narrative wrapped in pretty words.
Not to mention that if we were to follow Russian war reporting the Ukrainian air force has been already destroyed twice over. So why start a massive costly campaign just to hit these particular units? Because that’s how facist propaganda works: the enemy is at the same time hopelessly inept (“we destroyed 367281 Ukrainian airplanes”) and terrifyingly powerful (“we need to spend huge number of expensive weapons to be able to even target these airplanes”)
This is my opinion: War comes down to logistics. Russia has the manpower to win a war of attrition against Ukraine that will keep Putin popular enough to sustain his dictatorship. Russia’s military failed to take Kyiv with the initial invasion; I do believe that Putin, being a former KGB agent, knows that a “rally around the flag” effect will take place in Russia (to an extent) long as there are battegrounds.
This opinion of yours sounds reasonable and comes from an understanding of how the wars and dictators work. I am not qualified enough to say if your understanding is 100% correct. But your comment does not openly misinterpret strategies and does not obfuscate war aims, unlike the article which does both.