War goals becomes more narrow in scope, allowing for Russia to win. Seems they are reorganising and ditching the maximalist plans to conquer Kyiv, Donbas, Odessa, Dnipr and Kharkiv all at once. This is wise of them probably. It doesn’t mean that they won’t attempt to continue advances towards Kyiv and encircle it, but it probably means that they will try to break the back of the Ukrainian forces in Donbas. Expect them to try pincer maneuvers and to create a kettle in Donetsk oblast. A very large part of the Ukrainian army is fighting there.
Also, of course, as Girkin says (now you understand why Moscow removed that mad imperialist, he is NO Yes-man 
! )
Pro Russian demo in Tel Aviv. Not very surprising.
Will it make a profit? Answer China
Will it make a loss? Answer Europe
Will it affect the next election cycle? Answer USA
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Capture of armour:
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Re Donbass plans etc, what I don’t understand is why are they telling this to us? Is it a trick or is this to inform their people? Otherwise it doesn’t look smart imo.
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Watch this (English sub).
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Imo, its an attempt to say “we always meant to do this”. i.e. “We always meant to only conquer Donbas and the Sea of Azov and all other attacks were diversions so that the enemy could not reinforce Donbas”. Moving war goals. It’s for internal consumption, not external. No one apart from the lamest of the lames amongst Russian propagandists believes this absolute bullshit. This is a way for Russia internally to save face and say “we won the war” if they conquer all of Donbas. Which they also likely will.
The conflict is playing out much the same as the Winter War. When the USSR attacked Finland, Finland had to fight to the end, or it would have lost sovereignty. In the end, it “lost” only a some territories, but through force of arms and bloodshed, maintained their state. I think this is what will happen here too. RU is likely to annex Donbas in addition to Crimea in the end. I don’t see, really I don’t, a Ukrainian counter attack that can one day recapture all of Donbas and Crimea. But Ukraine can “win” by surviving and cause a hell of a lot of attrition in RU, leading it to accept less conquest than what it’s original plans were.
Of course, I hope Ukraine can take back everything including Crimea, but I don’t think it likely, more likely this is Winter War 2-0
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With all due respect, I said similar things a couple of weeks ago and you vehemently disagreed.
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I intepreted it as if you wanted them to surrender Donbas when they were inflicting heavy damage on RU, because you wanted to fast forward and surrender Donbas. Even now, time is not one where Ukraine can surrender. They are far from exhausted ! Here , I talked about most likely outcome, not that I want them to play forward and settle for what I wrote !!! It is extremely different and not at all the same. I don’t see how it is comparable.
There is no reason to surrender at this point in time ! Truly, what you wrote was very different and I still vehemently disagree with it in every way possible. I don’t want to continue that discussion. I don’t want to fight or insult you.
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I don’t believe they will surrender, at least not for a long time. But what I find confusing is that all of a sudden the western talk about this strategically important Odessa plans dissappeared somehow. That’s why I think it might be a trap or something to buy time to adjust.
I think they still want to take Odessa. Complete domination of the coast must be very tempting. And remember, it is not as if attacks have stopped around Kharkiv and Kyiv. RU shelling fiercely there as well as bombing. Also mechanised combat exchanges.
I think it is also important not to take this face value from Kreml. They spin the tale how they think it should ideally be spun, and that has little resemblance of facts quite often They can easily move the goal posts in a more maximalist direction in a month from now. Hard to say. It depends on combat attrition and money to wage war. I don’t know how much of a war chest they have.
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