On Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 12:25:27 AM UTC, ltlee1 wrote:
On Friday, November 25, 2022 at 12:17:20 AM UTC, ltlee1 wrote:
"After recapturing Kherson city, Ukraine kept Russian forces guessing about their next move, pinning down occupying troops in defensive positions and rendering them unavailable for offensive operations.
Some 30,000 Russian troops that withdrew from the west bank of the Dnieper river earlier this month were entrenching themselves in the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions during the 39th week of the war, deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence
Major-General Vadym Skibitskyi, told the Kyiv Post.
“[The Russians] are waiting for our liberation offensive, that’s why they have created a defensive line in Kherson, another on the administrative border of [Kherson and] Crimea, and another in the northern Crimea region,” Skibitskiy said.
...
“If the Ukrainians continue to fight the methodical, logistically centric war that they have so far, then their next move will probably to try and extend the range of their weapons to fully separate Russian forces into completely unsupported zones,
said Phillips O’Brien, who teaches strategy at the University of St Andrews.
That means driving a wedge through Zaporizhia to the Sea of Azov, cutting off Russian forces in Kherson and Crimea from those in Donetsk and Luhansk, he said."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/24/russian-forces-in-kherson-alert-as-ukraine-plans-next-move
"WASHINGTON — For years, the United States has insisted that Crimea is still part of Ukraine. Yet the Biden administration has held to a hard line since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, refusing to provide Kyiv with the weapons it needs to target the
Crimean Peninsula, which Russia has been using as a base for launching devastating strikes.
Now that line is starting to soften.
After months of discussions with Ukrainian officials, the Biden administration is finally starting to concede that Kyiv may need the power to strike the Russian sanctuary, even if such a move increases the risk of escalation, according to several U.S.
officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive debate. Crimea, between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is home to tens of thousands of dug-in Russian troops and numerous Russian military bases.
The moderation in position has come about as the Biden administration has come to believe that if the Ukrainian military can show Russia that its control of Crimea can be threatened, that would strengthen Kyiv’s position in any future negotiations."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/us/politics/ukraine-crimea-military.html
American mission creep.
In response to recent Ukrainian set back in the East?
Is taking back Crimea good for Ukraine in the long run?
An European view per an interview by RadioFreeEuropean-RadioLiberty.
"RFE/RL: Let me ask you about the territories that Russia has seized and occupies now.
In March, you wrote that "even after Mr. Putin departs, any future Russian government
will find it exceedingly hard to retreat from Donbas, let alone Crimea, and retain legitimacy."
As things turn out, Ukraine might help in this regard.
Lieven: Well, my own view, actually, is that quite apart from any interest that Ukraine might
have -- and it does have an interest in not having a permanently dangerous and hostile
Russia on its eastern border -- if the Ukrainians did somehow get back Crimea, it would
simply be a never-ending source of danger and conflict.
It's flatly against Ukraine's interest to take back Crimea. If you want my ideal scenario -- it's
not going to happen, of course -- it would be that Ukraine conquered every inch of its territory
back to the 1991 frontier, staged referenda in Crimea and at least in the eastern Donbas, and
then if, as would probably happen, those referenda went for Russia, get rid of these people
[from Ukraine].
RFE/RL: Get rid of these people or get rid of the land, as well?
Lieven: Get rid of both. You can't ethnically cleanse them and you don't need to…. What you
want inside your territory, to the extent possible, are citizens loyal to the state. The last thing
you want is some constantly dissatisfied minority, with an inevitably, in the long run, more
powerful neighbor on the other side of your eastern frontier who's going to get excited on
their behalf.
No, what Ukraine wants is to consolidate everything but the eastern Donbas and Crimea, if it
could get them back, and then concentrate on rebuilding a prosperous, stable democracy. In
the long run, just as West Germany in the long run totally undermined East Germany by the
power of its example, I think that would be the most optimistic scenario for the Ukrainians.
I also realize it is impossible to say this to most Ukrainians at the moment, and it would be
impossible to say it to me if I was a Ukrainian. These people are fighting for their lives; they're
doing so with immense courage; they have suffered enormously.
Not merely have they been invaded, but by any standard the Russians have behaved appallingly
in many respects [with the] destruction of civilian infrastructure etc. So I absolutely understand
that it is very difficult to fight this kind of war with the patriotism and the commitment they have
and to retain a cool, hard-headed view of a peace settlement.
It's important for their leaders to push them gently in that direction, to change the terms in which
things are debated: Don't debate whether you're going to cede territory, debate whether you're going
to get rid of territory and the people on it who are unworthy of being your citizens and will be a
constant source of weakness and trouble….
It's not a very happy scenario for the Ukrainian population of Crimea in 2021, not a very happy
scenario for the…Crimean Tatars, who in some ways have been worse treated of all, but politics
and international relations are a hard-headed business."
"Historian Dominic Lieven is a visiting professor at the Department of International History at the London School of Economics. A fellow of the British Academy, Lieven writes about Russian history, empire, the Napoleonic era, and World War I. His latest
book, published in 2022, is titled In The Shadow Of The Gods: The Emperor In World History."
https://www.rferl.org/a/interview-dominic-lieven-ukraine-russia-war-crimea/32171757.html
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