Quote from: be.open on Today at 07:15:39 AM

I think Russia is now in no hurry to invade Western Ukraine, because the ideas of radical nationalism have penetrated very deeply into the mentality and they are almost all Nazis there, demilitarization can transform into mass genocide. It is necessary at least first to completely defeat the regular army of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donbass in order to demoralize the militants in the Lviv region and try to push them to Poland to the maximum so that this becomes Europe's problem with refugees on its territory.

I've always somehow just 'sensed' that Russia will arrange for Kiev and Odessa to be easily under their grasp then use them as bargaining chips for a settlement which makes Eastern Ukraine an autonomous or maybe full state (and obviously a client state or protectorate).

My 'instinct' about this might be mostly because it would be about what I'd do to the degree that I understand what Russia probably wants and needs, and what they probably have no interest in. e.g., trying to deal with a bunch of Ukrainian ultra-nationalist miscreants who are strategically more desirable to have as the West's problem.

It would not surprise me at all of the wrath of the ultra-nationalists would be much more raw toward the West who totally fucked them up the ass. It's pretty understandable even to them that the Eastern people (even if they are Soviet era stay-behind settlers) did what they had to do to avoid the attempted genocide that they were implementing in Donbass. OTOH, the West promising them the moon and then leaving them out in the cold to be decimated when the going got rough has got to sting. They are already pre-disposed to blame 'the Jews', and it isn't hard to make that case. I'm not expecting these people to be easy-going and friendly toward anybody for quite some time. That's not to say that they won't be 'useful' for a variety of operations though.