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GenZedong @lemmygrad.ml
King_Simp @lemmygrad.ml

What [do you think] will Russian victory in the ukraine actually look like?

I know no one here is part of the Russian government, so I'm not expecting concrete answers here.

What I'm asking is simply what will happen if [well, when, at this point] The Ukraine ends up...falling, per se?

That's a question in of itself really. Will Ukraine fight until the AFU collapses? Will there be a coup? Would a pro russian or neutral ukraine be established across all of what is currently the Ukraine, or will there be an attempt to make a "taiwan-ified" state in the west?

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  • The AFU collapsing seems like the more probable scenario because the extreme right wing is the main political force in Ukraine right now. So, even if Zelensky were removed, it's almost certain he'd be replaced by somebody who'd continue the war. The nationalist battalions being broken will end the war, however.

    The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is that Russia will run referendums in all the oblasts that are pro-Russian or neutral and absorb them. Then, they're going to leave a rump western Ukraine that's not going to be viable as a problem for the west to deal with. It's going to be a huge economic burden on Europe because if it's allowed to fail, that will result in a massive refugee crisis at a time when the European economy is hanging by a thread. And the alternative is to keep pouring money in to prop it up, making it an economic black hole. It's also possible that Poland, Hungary, and Romania decide to carve up what's left of Ukraine.

    • I agree with most points but I don't think allowing a West Ukrainian rump state to still join the EU and NATO is a palatable settlement for Russia. If this state was left to its own devices it'd just be waiting for a second war.

      I think the best-case scenario for Russia would be to negotiate a joint appointed government for the western half for a few years before allowing elections. That'd take a total victory to be able to demand, so a more likely middle ground is a permanent ceasefire that would provide justification to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO with the "can't join while at war" article.

      I think it'd take a major colapse European Union core states for Russia to ever be able to demilitarise that border safely.

      • Oh yeah I agree, NATO is absolutely off the table and likely EU membership as well at this point given that EU is becoming more of a military alliance at this point. I also wouldn't rule out total victory, once the AFU starts collapsing then there's really not going to be any way to reverse that. At that point, Russia can dictate whatever terms it wants. I really can't imagine Russia settling for any sort of a ceasefire, they're going to finish this decisively.

        I also don't really see the EU being able to do much here. They can pump money into Ukraine, but they can't solve the manpower problem or provide ammunition in volumes that would remotely make a difference. The US is needed to keep the war going, and even the US industry isn't keeping up anymore now that the existing stocks have run down.

        The collapse of the EU core states shouldn't be ruled out either given how things are going in UK, Germany, and France right now. I actually wrote about this in some detail recently. https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-terminal-crisis-of-european-neoliberalism

    • Could you see Belarus taking some parts of northern Ukraine in that last scenario?

  • Will Ukraine fight until the AFU collapses?

    Most likely.

    Will there be a coup?

    Like, a pro-Russian one? Most unlikely.

    Would a pro russian or neutral ukraine be established across all of what is currently the Ukraine, or will there be an attempt to make a “taiwan-ified” state in the west?

    Strategically speaking, Russia needs the most industrialized regions and the entire shoreline. Demilitarization of the rest too. Which way what remains of "independent" Ukraine leans doesn't matter a lot at that point, only that it remains. But it might be better for Russia, if it's westward, so that Russia doesn't have to rebuild at least that. Neutral status on paper though.

    Which way what remains of "independent" Ukraine leans doesn't matter a lot at that point, only that it remains.

    I should clarify. That's because the Russian government is clearly trying to do it "right". SMO isn't breaking international law, which is why there aren't any sanctions, like, UN ones, only unilateral restrictions from individual countries(which are, ironically, illegal). Annexation of Ukraine wasn't in the declared goals at any point. And leaving it be, albeit demilitarized, would be the final nail in the coffin of already ridiculous genocide allegations. Good for propaganda in a different way too. Independent Ukraine is yet another entity people in the West that have a good idea of what's going on can point at as an example of NATO using up it's supposes allies and leaving them the worse for wear, whereas annexing the entire thing just adds to the rUsSiAn ImPeRiAlIsT cOnQuErErS narrative, even if Ukraine asks for it till the end.

    • Wait, can you tell me more about how the SMO isn't breaking international law? That seems interesting.

    • How sure are we that Russia’s SMO isn’t violating international law? This caught my eye, because this would be an chef’s kiss talking point against the Russophobic liberals if it were true, but unfortunately all the evidence I could find didn’t point in that direction.

      A UN general assembly voted 141-5 (35 abstentions) to demand Russia withdraw all military forces. As well as the ICJ ordering Russia to “immediately suspend” military operations in Ukraine.

      The lack of UN sanctions on Russia is because Russia has veto power in the UNSC and has exercised it, so theoretically any of the 5 permanent members can commit crimes without being sanctioned as long as they use their veto power. Note that while the general assembly has condemned it, their actions are generally not legally binding. A better example is the general assembly of US ongoing blockade of Cuba, but nothing happens because US veto power on the UNSC.

      As for the unilateral sanctions, there is ongoing debate over whether those are illegal, with some bodies like the Hague claiming they are illegal, as they bypass the UNSC, but there’s obviously the issue of one of the UNSC members themselves committing the initial crime unilaterally and vetoing resulting sanctions.

      All of this to say that NATO of course is the ultimate evil in this tragic scenario, but I don’t think you could objectively say that the Russian SMO is within international law, even if it’s hand was illegally forced by NATO. If the point can be argued, however, then I’d be very curious to learn! Because that would be an excellent talking point against Russophobic liberals. ___

      • Unilateral sanctions are definitely illegal.

        As for the General Assembly voting to condemn Russia, they did so under extreme pressure from the West in 2022. The same goes for rulings by international institutions like the ICJ. All are vulnerable to threats, blackmail, political and media pressure. More recent UN votes have actually swung in favor of Russia. The global south is clearly on Russia's side.

        The fact remains that Russia's intervention is legal according to article 51 of the UN charter pertaining to collective self-defense. Russia invoked this article when they accepted the call for aid from the newly recognized Donbass republics in 2022, which had the right to secede according to the internationally enshrined right of all people to self-determination, and which were clearly under attack by Ukrainian forces.

        This is one-to-one NATO's Kosovo playbook, except it was actually legitimate this time and not backed by false claims. The West calling Russia's intervention illegal is tantamount to calling their own actions in Serbia illegal. The global south can see the hypocrisy.

      • It's the good old point about the West having "rules for thee...". I just surprised you with the angle, I guess.

        I see what you are saying about the five untouchables, but cases against them happened. Just as political statements, with no hope of result. No one even tried sanctions this time though.

        ICJ case was a circus on three levels: Ukraine literally did a strawman by claiming that Russia justifies the invasion with Genocide Convention, when Russia openly invoked article 51 of the UN charter; the ruling had little to nothing to do with the application; was unintentional self-trolling by the US diplomats that no doubt worked on the case, because... I'll save it for Christmas.

        As for the unilateral sanctions, there is ongoing debate over whether those are illegal, with some bodies like the Hague claiming they are illegal, as they bypass the UNSC, but there’s obviously the issue of one of the UNSC members themselves committing the initial crime unilaterally and vetoing resulting sanctions.

        That is...not at all how law works. Mob justice is a criminal offence in most countries. Probably in all countries.

        I'm not saying Russia had UN mandate to invade. What I am saying is that Russia made all the moves and got diametrically opposed results to those of NATO. Russia recognised LPR and DPR, signed agreements with them, even the blind OSCE monkeys in Donbass registered hundreds of ceasefire violations by Ukraine and only about two weeks later Putin came out with his stand up bit.

        Which brings me to Christmas. The UN didn't sanction Yugoslavia bombings. But ICJ ruled they were humanitarian intervention. Under what? Under Genocide Convention. Need I remind that Milošević was aquited by Hague tribunal after death?

        Neither spirit nor the letter are broken. Rulings of an organization headquartered in NYC that can't give a straight answer when asked about the US blatantly stealing oil in Syria are another matter.

        So no new talking points for you, comrade) Not really. Just another angle to ridicule the so called rules based order.

  • Russia should advance the front until they cut off Ukraine entirely from the Black Sea. That should ensure Ukraine becomes bigger, shittier Kosovo.

    Once there, Russia should also join up with Transnistria (like how they already border Abkhazia and South Ossetia) to prevent Moldova from invading it at NATO's orders.

    • I expect that's very likely the plan. Once Zaporozhye falls, I expect Odessa will be next and from there there's a straight path to Transnistria. Russia is likely planning to exhaust the AFU in the north first, and take Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) which will cut the logistics between the north and the south.

  • Honestly i don't know. But at this moment a negotiated solution seems farther away than ever. Which means that it will have to be fought to its inevitable conclusion. What that will look like depends on how much longer the Ukrainians are willing to allow themselves to be sacrificed by the Nazi junta in Kiev and the deranged dictator Zelensky. The longer it goes on the more territory Russia will take. And I'm not just talking about the four new Russian regions. Those are already non-negotiable.

    As far as what happens in Ukraine, nothing is off the table right now. There may be a coup at some point or they might just fight until the AFU completely collapses. That depends entirely on how successfully the Zelensky clique can suppress the internal opposition. Mind you, whoever ends up in power after a coup would still be a fascist, because there are only fascists left in Ukraine who have the influence and power to do it. It's a lot of fash on fash infighting there at the moment.

    At some point the West (specifically the Europeans) may become so desperate that they try to insert troops into Ukraine to keep a rump NATO aligned state alive, but the Russians have already said they will not tolerate that and will just strike any foreign troops on Ukrainian soil. At the moment the Russians seem confident and determined that they will get what they want one way or another. The only kind of government that Russia will tolerate on Ukrainian soil is one that is not hostile to Russia.

    The only question is whether any Ukrainian state survives at all. There are hardliners in Russia that consider it safer to just do away with the whole thing, but the moderate (and i would say almost pathologically liberal) faction currently dominant in the Kremlin doesn't want that. They want to keep some form of Ukrainian state because it's easier for Russia that way. Just so long as it's not NATO aligned. I can certainly understand that viewpoint. But things can always change...

    Long story short, i personally rate the likelihood of a Korean scenario very low right now. That would require a stalemate, but despite what the western media likes to claim, there just isn't one at the moment. In fact the longer this goes on the weaker Ukraine gets and the stronger the Russians become. The rate of disintegration of the AFU will accelerate and with it the pace of the Russian advance. We are already seeing this. They just don't have the reserves anymore to put out every fire at once.

    • The most interesting scenario, the implications of which I haven't really seen discussed much, is that Russia absorbs everything aside from a rump western Ukraine where anti-Russian sentiment is the strongest. That would become Europe's problem, and since it wouldn't be a viable state economically, that would mean Europe having to dump billions into propping it up. If Europe allows it to collapse then there will be a refugee crisis compounding the current economic disaster.

      From Russian perspective, Ukraine isn't the root problem, it's just a tool that NATO is using to fight them. So, their goal has to be to neutralize NATO as a threat. Putting stress on the economy in Europe seems like the logical way to go about it. We're already seeing a huge political crisis unfolding with the neoliberal centre collapsing, and that's creating political opportunities for Russia to exploit. I'm sure I thought of this, it must've been gamed by Russian planners as well.

  • It's difficult to say right now exactly what will happen, but all that's for certain is that the Ukrainian state as we know it has no future. Drowning in debt, depopulation, and mass privatization - the entire country being sold off to the highest bidder already, piece by piece. It's a tool for war profiteering of NATO and the broader US empire, to be discarded when it can no longer be used, and initially intended to be a tool to destabilize an adversary of Washington and Brussels, Russia, through the Maidan coup in 2014 which has failed miserably - as did a similar "escapade" proving Western incompetence in Afghanistan. A cog in the forever war machine that might serve as one of their final bastions of hope for the rotting corpse that is Western unipolarity.

    Ukraine and its NATO puppet masters are facing precarity and desperation more than ever before if we speak of so-called "victory" (tbh a term that becomes vague if the entire dialectic of prolonged profiteering isn't omitted. "Winning" for the bourgeoisie can just as well mean profit maximization, obviously, which they're achieving), with Ukraine now resorting to kidnappings of random civilians on the streets for enforced draft. Russia has practically achieved most of its primary goals, and has de facto annexed and liberated eastern regions which are undergoing rapid urban renewal and restoration of vital infrastructure by Russia, gradually leading to better living standards than they ever saw under the decay and stagnation offered by Ukraine. This, combined with an end to linguistic repression (most of them are Russian native speakers), will undoubtedly be a PR boost for Moscow from the inhabitants too. Though an end to the entire proxy war is not something Russia nor Zelensky's Neo-Nazi comprador regime in Kiev can at all achieve on their own - it all rests on the core beneficiaries who orchestrated this entire ordeal to begin with: Washington and Brussels. Comprador Zelensky acts on their behalf, as we all know. With recent developments, such as the seizure of Russian assets for redistribution towards the Ukrainian war machine by Europe, and the new wave of Russophobic fearmongering campaigns in Europe intended to manufacture consent for continued war (surrounding all the drone nonsense in particular), the writing is already on the wall. "Until the last Ukrainian" isn't an outdated phrase to use.

    Putting the US aside here, its European vassals, to me at least, seem really interested in prolonging this conflict - moreso than their masters in Washington. What comes to mind is Europe's own military industrial complex which has become an even bigger topic of debate after Trump was elected (noo big daddy America don't you remember the Marshall Plan?!), and this is just a personal take but I guess Ukraine can serve as a testing ground for Europe's militarization project - it'll drive massive profits, serve to manufacture consent for further welfare austerity against the still highly liberal European working class, and allow Europe to develop repressive tools and intelligence which it could hypothetically turn inwards once the contradictions of capitalism in the EU become so dire that its ruling class needs to resort to fascism to prevent mass left-wing working class uprisings as the multipolar world order rises year after year, burying Western hegemony and hacking away at their beloved imperialist superprofits.

    The best answer I can provide is that this ugly proxy war will continue for at least a few more years, until NATO will be forced into admitting defeat and signing a peace treaty with Russia ("forced" how exactly? Time will tell). De jure Russian annexation of the eastern territories will certainly happen, and what will be left of Ukraine is a debt-riddled rump statelet under short-term NATO occupation, reduced in size possibly even only to the Ukrainian speaking regions of the west(?) surviving on EU grants with a Zelensky-like figurehead in power if not a pseudo-neutral comprador figure, as we have to consider that Russia would only accept a neutral state, rightfully so. Azov and its ilk might see a fate similar to other extremist proxies that were once useful to the US empire, such as al-Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS. They might even seize the rump state within no time, or be dealt with by Russia. But this is all only the tip of the ice berg, there's no knowing what further developments could take place.

  • I'm getting to the point where I don't see an end to the war until after usa and China have exchanged nukes. The Treaty of Versailles will look like minor changes to geopolitical landscape by the time there is peace in Ukraine.

  • I hope for the best - integration of russian-speaking eastern Ukraine and creation of independent Union State member in western

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