Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[StateBoiler]

Creating an Asian NATO has long been floated among academics, but I doubt there will be a willingness to do so unless China does something blatantly aggressive (such as invading Taiwan). The lack of interest is mostly due to lingering disputes/issues between possible members (S. Korea and Japan for example) and China's overall increasingly dominant influence over the region. China would make all efforts to prevent SE Asian nations from joining.

The reason the Quad is even a thing is because Australia and Japan really want it. India are engaged as well but have been more slow-moving on it than those two countries.

[StateBoiler]

The mollify Russia to encircle China idea is a tempting one but I think has a couple of big problems:

1) There's very little evidence that the Russian leadership is interested in allying with the West against China. Their ideal situation would be to have their own sphere of influence encompassing the former USSR that allows them to remain an independent great power actor and play China and the US off against each other. Actually committing to an alliance against China would expose Russia to military conflict with its largest and most powerful neighbour for what benefit?

There was some Chinese strategic thought in say the first half of Trump's presidency that they thought this was his goal. Become friends with Russia to use them to counter Chinese power. Regardless of if you think that was Trump's plan or not or whether he even had a plan, our foreign policy establishment ("the Blob" as Ben Rhodes calls them) was never going to accept that, fought him tooth and nail on it his whole presidency, and it didn't last past him leaving office. His "China are not a friend" stance did.

If the US was happy enough sacrificing independent democratic allies and free speech for geopolitical benefit, then it could just as easily surrender Taiwan to China, shut up about Xinjiang and Tibet and negotiate an evolution of the international order to accommodate a grand bargain with China. In fact, given China's greater power that would probably make more sense than sacrificing it for the sake of Russian neutrality.

In 2022, China is way more an existential threat to the future and livelihood of the people of the United States than Russia is, it's not close. I'm not talking in military terms either. Russia even when it was Soviet never had as a goal manipulate all our multinational corporations to not offend Chinese political sensibilities and a policy to put mass numbers of people in this country out of work. That does not excuse Russia invading Ukraine, but our first geopolitical priority should be China, not Russia.

[StateBoiler]

The NATO and U.S. response to Russia was leaked to a Spanish newspaper, and the U.S. said it was real. Not much for the Russians in it.

https://www.politico.eu/article/us-nato-accuse-russia-provocative-troop-missile-deployments/

So what is this magical diplomacy answer the Ukrainians think will stop war? The Russians are not giving away anything and the Americans/NATO are not giving away anything.

[StateBoiler]

If the US was happy enough sacrificing independent democratic allies and free speech for geopolitical benefit, then it could just as easily surrender Taiwan to China, shut up about Xinjiang and Tibet and negotiate an evolution of the international order to accommodate a grand bargain with China. In fact, given China's greater power that would probably make more sense than sacrificing it for the sake of Russian neutrality.

In 2022, China is way more an existential threat to the future and livelihood of the people of the United States than Russia is, it's not close. I'm not talking in military terms either. Russia even when it was Soviet never had as a goal manipulate all our multinational corporations to not offend Chinese political sensibilities and a policy to put mass numbers of people in this country out of work. That does not excuse Russia invading Ukraine, but our first geopolitical priority should be China, not Russia.

I agree. The problem is that if you concede to Russia its desire to remake the international order into one akin to the Concert of Europe, where great powers carve up the world into spheres of influence according to their strategic interest, abrogating smaller nations' right to democratic self-determination, with noninterference in domestic human rights issues as a fundamental principle, then you're already pretty much conceding what China's vision of the global order is also. What would there be to fight about?

2) The US/West would have to offer the Russian leadership regime security, i.e. opposing peaceful protests and muzzling free press and NGOs in Russia, Russia's sphere and at home. I don't think that's compatible with US and European countries remaining liberal democracies, or at least upholding liberal and democratic values. This is a fundamental unbridgeable divide that is probably the major factor driving Russia and China together as a club of autocracies who feel their regimes and nations are under threat by the values of the Western-led liberal international order.

The whole "ally with Russia against China" concept is essentially a white supremacist meme, essentially unite all white Christian peoples to fight against the great Yellow Peril. White supremacists, including dabblers like Trump, really couldn't care less about your point #2 so to them it's not an impediment at all, in fact they probably prefer their government behave that way as long as it is on their side.

Right. I think this misses that the current Russian leadership doesn't conceive of Russians as part of a universal brotherhood of white Christian people or whatever, but as a nation historically situated between East and West in a way that marks Russians off from the West culturally. Michael McFaul had a funny anecdote about this:
 

In March 2011, I was in the room during a meeting between then-Vice President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin (who was then serving as Russia’s prime minister until he returned to the presidency not long thereafter). At one point, Putin told Biden (and I’m paraphrasing from memory), “You look at us and you see our skin and then assume we think like you. But we don’t.” To emphasize his point, Putin slid his index finger down his white cheek.

But sure. Josh Hawley would probably approve if the US government shut down Amnesty International to appease the Kremlin. It's possible such a view could eventually become mainstreamed in the Republican party post-Trump. But as above it conflicts with democracy promotion as a strategic weapon against China and opens the door to similar corporate self-censorship that US conservatives hate. It's just difficult for me to see such a vision cohere.

Democracy promotion as a strategic weapon against autocracies died with Iraq and Afghanistan. The West en masse said they can't be bothered any longer.

[StateBoiler]

 
I agree. The problem is that if you concede to Russia its desire to remake the international order into one akin to the Concert of Europe, where great powers carve up the world into spheres of influence according to their strategic interest, abrogating smaller nations' right to democratic self-determination, with noninterference in domestic human rights issues as a fundamental principle, then you're already pretty much conceding what China's vision of the global order is also. What would there be to fight about?

So your vision for USA foreign policy is really just a Western Left version of Jihad.  This sounds like a recipe for eternal conflict with a resonable risk of a Greater Power war.

If you want to have eternal conflict, remove the ironclad notion held in most geopolitics post-World War II that territorial sovereignty is sacrosanct above all us (i.e. no wars for land grabs).

[StateBoiler]

The problem is, of course, that whilst that principle was adopted for overwhelmingly just and obvious reasons there are times when rigidly sticking to it come what may causes problems.

It remains a total nonsense that almost no states will recognise Somaliland, for instance.

I agree, although that's not a war for a land grab as much as a splintering of a failed state such as Yugoslavia that everyone has approved of save Kosovo.

[StateBoiler]

The NATO and U.S. response to Russia was leaked to a Spanish newspaper, and the U.S. said it was real. Not much for the Russians in it.

https://www.politico.eu/article/us-nato-accuse-russia-provocative-troop-missile-deployments/

So what is this magical diplomacy answer the Ukrainians think will stop war? The Russians are not giving away anything and the Americans/NATO are not giving away anything.

Not so sure there is not much for Russians in it.  The key sentence is

"The United States continues to firmly support NATO's Open Door Policy, and believes that the NRC is the appropriate forum for discussions of that issue,"

Note the use of "continues" weakens this position since it implies it is a historical carryover versus a core belief.  Also " believes that the NRC is the appropriate forum for discussions of that issue" implies that this issue NATO expansion is a topic of future discussion and that the USA could be open to some sort of compromise.  

Clearly it is not the USA backing down but it does leave the door open for some give and take in future discussions.

They did not concede anything in their reply. Their "we'll talk months from now" is the diplomatic equivalent of sending a bill about a current problem to committee where it is never heard from again. The U.S. know the Russians are not going to plant their deployed soldiers in place 6 months to see how an NRC forum discussion in August turns out.

I'm not saying they should concede, but neither side coming towards the other at all leads to 2 potential outcomes:

-Russians withdraw gaining nothing, which would incredibly lose Putin face and power and would be very Khrushchev post-Cuban Missile Crisis
-Russians go into Ukraine

If what everyone thinks of Putin is true, then he's only doing the 2nd of those options. Therefore, why aren't the Ukrainians prepared? What is the Ukrainian Foreign Minister's magical diplomatic solution to this that will remove Russian troops from the state's borders if they do not believe a Russian invasion into the country will happen in the near-term? I'm led to suspect they don't have much of a plan at all and expect the Russians to invade...for which they are intentionally not mobilizing their military further for, all the while having received these shiny defensive aids from the U.S. and European countries. Meanwhile Zelenskyy on Tuesday signed something increasing the size of the Ukrainian military by 100,000 over the next 3 years, which troops added in 2024 don't help you in February 2022.

Politico's National Security Daily from afternoon of 2/3:

The Biden administration alleges the Kremlin could create a pretext for a Ukraine invasion by distributing a fake video of Kyiv’s forces targeting Russian territory or Russian-speakers — thereby giving President VLADIMIR PUTIN what he needs to send troops rolling over the border.

A senior administration official told NatSec Daily that Moscow has already recruited people to be in the video and that Russian intelligence officials are “intimately involved” in the plot.

“This video likely will depict graphic scenes of a staged false explosion with corpses, actors depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations and military equipment,” the official said. “We believe that the military equipment used in this fabricated attack will be made to look like it is Ukrainian or from allied nations.” It’s also possible Russia will make it look like Ukraine used Turkish-made Bayraktar drones in the staged strike.

To be crystal clear: The administration isn’t saying that such a video has been made but rather that Russia is in the pre-production planning stage.

The official made clear that this is just one option among others at Putin’s disposal. “We are publicizing it in the hopes that it dissuades Russia from its intended course of action,” the official said.

“We don’t know definitively that this is the route they’re going to take,” deputy national security adviser JON FINER told MSNBC’s ANDREA MITCHELL today. Should Russia go ahead with this plan, though, Finer said making this information public would complicate the Kremlin’s efforts to spread disinformation about its reason for escalating the Ukraine war while keeping America’s allies and partners aligned.

Finer also reiterated that a Russian invasion “could happen at any time, that means it could happen immediately or it could happen over a longer period of time.”

Another option is that Putin could say he’s acting to protect a newly recognized nation composed of separatist territories within Ukraine, the senior administration official said.

There’s currently a recognition measure moving through Russia’s rubber-stamp Parliament to formally treat breakaway parts of Ukraine as independent. If passed and agreed to by Putin, the Kremlin boss could then claim his forces are simply backing this new nation against Kyiv’s aggressions.

“In line with its previous interventions, Russia would portray its actions as defending ethnic Russians and coming at the request of a sovereign government for assistance,” the senior administration official told us.

The U.S. shared the intel with NATO allies before releasing it, per an official of a European NATO country.

Since January, President JOE BIDEN’s team has said that Russia was working on a pretext plan but never provided concrete evidence of what that would entail. We still haven’t seen such evidence — officials aren’t releasing intelligence to safeguard sources and methods, they say.

Even so, the administration is right to note that the Kremlin has often used these playbooks in the past ahead of invasions, so it’s not as far-fetched as, say, claiming Iraq has yellowcake.

Releasing this information is another indicator that the U.S., along with its allies, is pessimistic about the prospects for a negotiated peace. While the administration still seeks a diplomatic resolution, it seems the Kremlin is making other plans.

Seriously, I think that's the end game, because no one is doing worthwhile diplomacy right now. And the Ukrainians are just sitting around. The Russians will invade a couple weeks, the Ukrainians are not well-prepared on purpose, they'll inflict some casualties but will ultimately have to withdraw from whatever the Russians want to take, and more Ukrainians will die than Russians will probably. I guess losing your territory as a foreign power kills your citizens is worth it to serve your geopolitical end goal of we're closer to Europe and have all this shiny new military equipment that we didn't use to its potential in the war we just lost.

There's I guess the possibility the Ukrainians are playing coy and smart and have this brilliant secret strategy planned out to prevent war and defeat the Russians, but if they were capable of such a thing, they would've never lost Crimea or Donbass to start with. Whatever, elect more competent political leadership next election I guess.

[StateBoiler]

This is what happens when you constantly stoke the Kremlin's paranoia.

If the US and its NATO allies aren't prepared to send their own citizens over to defend Ukraine, then they should just shut up about "serious consequences" for Russia (more sanctions won't work). I'm tired of this chicken hawkery from geopolitical chess playing Blob suits who have never had to face anything remotely approaching war.

Sanctions are mere virtue signalling that make it harder for people across boundaries to interact as part of one global world order. Much like what the Cuba sanctions did.
The only real winner from round no. 3,532 of sanctions is China. That, and media aiming to use culture war against Russia for clicks and ratings.

Strange logic. Sanctions are to raise the costs for Russia deciding to invade a neighbouring country.

That happened 7 years ago after Crimea. And here we are.

This is one of those classic international relations dilemmas where it's unclear what Putin's intentions are so it's hard to read the situation. If he just wants to formally annex Crimea and keep Ukraine from joining NATO as you noted it could ultimately end up making NATO stronger in the region and put Russia in a worse geopolitical situation even with Ukraine out of NATO. But some people think his goal is to discredit the entire NATO alliance, in which case he's going to keep stepping over the line until he forces a confrontation, hoping that NATO and especially the US will back down, proving the agreement to be a bluff. Hopefully that's not the case, because it could put everyone in a very dangerous situation.

If his goal is to prove the agreement a bluff, then game theory says he should take action that would cause the more dovish members to split from the more hawkish members on actions. This is all private discussions we don't know the details of, but that almost assuredly happened over Georgia 2008 considering the different public takes on the conflict. On Crimea I don't know what happened as far as the Obama administration's talks with Europe but they acted like they were united about it publicly unlike what happened with Georgia.

So Putin would need to cause an action that makes the U.S. want X while others, probably Germany being the easiest one to look at, say no. I can see certain eastern European members of NATO leaking to media any NATO leaders that decided to go dovish if the Russians invade Ukraine out of spite.

(German-wise, it's great timing, the country just changed control so the leader is new at the job and he's from the left-wing probably more anti-conflict party.)

All above is why I think we'll see a limited invasion. It allows Putin to save face with all the buildup, weaken Ukraine, stabilize their control of Crimea, stabilize the breakaway eastern regions, remove Ukraine further from Black Sea naval control and influence, but not overrun the whole country because the Russians don't want to deal with a guerilla insurgency. If they were going to overrun the whole country, I'd expect the Russian-supported Transnistrian forces to go into Ukraine from its west for purposes of diversion, opening another front to weaken Ukraine's overall military response. Is there any sign of Transnistrian mobilization?

Scholz is meeting Biden today at the White House. Macron is meeting Putin today in Moscow, before heading to Kiev.

[StateBoiler]

If the US and its NATO allies aren't prepared to send their own citizens over to defend Ukraine, then they should just shut up about "serious consequences" for Russia (more sanctions won't work). I'm tired of this chicken hawkery from geopolitical chess playing Blob suits who have never had to face anything remotely approaching war.

This post explains the failure of the West's engagement in the Syrian conflict in a nutshell.

[StateBoiler]

Reads like Macron got nothing in Moscow.

https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-russia-welcomes-emmanuel-macron-france-into-his-lair-kremlin-ukraine/

[StateBoiler]

The cancellation is meant for public consumption because I don't think Ukraine are doing any diplomacy that would lead to this conflict not occurring, i.e. they're not conceding anything and are counting on the West doing all the diplomacy. What it does is shame Germany publicly. That CNN got told the story tells you the Ukrainians want the Americans to know this, when that tweet from Tapper occurred the same day as the Biden-Scholz summit.

[StateBoiler]

I think the collective West is splitting into the Anglosphere (US UK) and the Carolingian Empire (Germany France Italy) on the Russia issue.  The Carolingian Empire will try to go for a deal.  It will be fun to see the Carolingian Empire does come up with a deal with Putin what the Anglosphere reaction will be.

Are France and Italy really as eager for a deal as the Germans? I haven't gotten that vibe from the way Macron is acting (and I haven't seen anything about Draghi)

Putin has said a couple times he wants to work with Draghi. So take that for what the Russians think.

[StateBoiler]

I think the collective West is splitting into the Anglosphere (US UK) and the Carolingian Empire (Germany France Italy) on the Russia issue.  The Carolingian Empire will try to go for a deal.  It will be fun to see the Carolingian Empire does come up with a deal with Putin what the Anglosphere reaction will be.

Seriously, what would be the deal they would offer? France, Germany, etc. can all go to Putin right now and say "we will sign a secret treaty that we will veto Ukrainian integration into NATO?" Are they going to recognize Russian annexation of Crimea? Are they going to recognize Donbass as an autonomous region? I keep waiting to hear what the hell the diplomatic solution to this crisis is that does not lead to wholesale retreat from either side.

[StateBoiler]

I think the collective West is splitting into the Anglosphere (US UK) and the Carolingian Empire (Germany France Italy) on the Russia issue.  The Carolingian Empire will try to go for a deal.  It will be fun to see the Carolingian Empire does come up with a deal with Putin what the Anglosphere reaction will be.

Or, y'know, we could just call it the Euro-American Split. It's been a long time coming.

Well the Baltics are clearly on the side of the Anglosphere as is Poland and most likely Romania so it is not just Euro-American as some East European countries are on the Anglosphere side

All countries on the periphery of the EU and unlikely to stay on for further integration, which is what "Euro" refers to in this context.

This is a statement without much evidence in support.

[StateBoiler]

Good thread on invasion timing. 20th-21st of this month is the highest risk date but before or after that can't be ruled out. At this point Russia has the ability to start military action at very short notice.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1491521222437445633?s=20&t=6Dni_tsl2m3B33...

21st makes sense if the Chinese are on board.

[StateBoiler]

Full invasion like this one?

Yes although I read that Kyiv falling in 72 hours is US intelligence's worst case assessment. I think that number was given to Congress because of the criticism they received over Afghanistan.

Chair of the Joint Chiefs Milley said Kiev could fall in 72 hours.

[StateBoiler]

OK then let's assume the above assessment is correct. Kiev falls in 2-3 days.....and then what??

Go old school. Pre-1945:

-Russians force a settlement on Ukrainian government to sign. Troops won't leave until they do.
-Russians withdraw back to whatever they want to keep. Allows them to stabilize their control of Crimea, remove further Ukrainian influence in the Black Sea so may take coastline. Probably push west a bit from Donbass, but it's plains, who cares. Their fall-back position should allow them the ability to respond quickly if Ukraine starts to act outside the agreement or negate it.
-Western politicians will argue agreements made under military duress have no standing in the modern world and like they are ignoring Crimea is now by fact Russian, they'll ignore whatever agreement results. (This is a laughable stance in realpolitik. Try to imagine the end of World War II with Japan making this argument.) It's like a lawyer trying to argue with no army standing behind him against how things have worked for thousands of years in international relations.
-Sanctions will be imposed, the Russians won't care.
-What will Germany do on Nord Stream 2? If they keep it going I can see that ripping Europe in two diplomatically. In NATO, American hegemony will keep the talking peace. There's no American hegemon in the EU.
-Macron's EU military/independent foreign policy is dead on arrival. Europe will be NATO militarily because the French Army and other Western European states can't/won't protect the eastern states of the union from Russia like the U.S. can.
-A grab bag of states will recognize Russian territory changes. NATO states won't. Key will be what does China do. If China recognizes, I see most of the "Non-Aligned Movement" world following.
-Zelensky being a leader that just lost a war will have to deal with passionate internal political discord inside Ukraine like Saakashvili did in Georgia and Pushinyan in Armenia. I see him trying to deflect blame for the war defeat to the Americans because "when in doubt blame the Americans" is a tried and true strategy and is also a global sport.

Frankly if Kiev falls in 3 days I'm asking serious questions of Ukrainian military and political competence considering all the defense weapons they just got sent from multiple countries. The military aid has not been meant to change the result of war, but it was meant to increase the risk of invasion, make the Russians bleed more. You're not forcing them to bleed a lot if you lose the capital in 3 days.

The Ukrainians here have been quite uppity diplomatically-speaking to the point it almost feels like they want war. Their diplomacy as it exists is way more concerned with Germany than it is Russia for example. So if Kiev falls do they never concede anything? Go setup a new capital somewhere else, western Ukraine? Out of country? Which would force Russia then to occupy?

[StateBoiler]

There's finally a diplomatic plan from the French and Germans: get both sides back on the Minsk II agreement. Problem is the how and the Ukrainians say it won't work.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/09/can-ukraine-and-russia-be-persuaded-to-abide-by-minsk-accords

The next day in Kyiv, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, reaffirmed to Macron what he has been saying for months: Ukraine is committed to fulfilling the Minsk accords, as long as this happens in the way Kyiv interprets them.

Privately, however, Ukrainian officials are more downbeat. “Minsk is impossible to fulfil. It would lead to the destruction of Ukraine as a state if we did,” said one high-ranking government official.

And that ladies and gentlemen is why you need smart people running your country's foreign policy.

The Minsk accords were signed in February 2015, after a 16-hour overnight negotiating session in the Belarusian capital. Of the four leaders involved: Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko, France’s François Hollande and Germany’s Angela Merkel, only Putin is still in office.

The document called for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and did bring major military hostilities to an end, but the conflict has continued to simmer and little progress has been made on any of the political steps.

The agreement calls for the withdrawal of foreign troops and mercenaries, as well as constitutional reform in Ukraine that would provide for decentralisation and elections in the current territories, which are financed and administered by Moscow.

For a long time, the main stumbling block was over sequencing. Kyiv insisted the separatists should first disarm, while Moscow demanded political reform first.

There is little appetite in Ukrainian society for any Minsk-based settlement that could give parliamentary seats to Russia’s proxies, and essentially give Moscow a say in the running of Ukraine.

There is also the fact that seven years have elapsed since the accords were signed. A de facto line of control now snakes through the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and since the coronavirus pandemic hit, crossings have fallen dramatically in number.

“The people on the other side have spent eight years being subjected to propaganda about Ukraine, most of them have been given Russian passports. Their leaders are Russian citizens. How are we expected now to integrate them back, and have their representatives sit in Kyiv? It doesn’t make sense,” said the high-ranking official.

Russia has given out more than 700,000 passports to residents of the territories, according to a recent statement by a Russian official.

Is this official tacitly admitting Crimea and Donbass are never coming back to Ukraine?

Critics of the Minsk agreement say Poroshenko signed it in 2015 because a gun was pointed at Ukraine’s head, as Kyiv’s forces faced total military defeat from an enemy that was receiving covert support from the Kremlin.

“From my point of view, the Minsk agreements were born dead,” said Volodymyr Ariev, an MP from Poroshenko’s party. “The conditions were always impossible to implement. We understood it clearly at the time, but we signed it to buy time for Ukraine: to have time to restore our government, our army, intelligence and security system.”

Lock and reload, onward to the next Punic War!

He said many of the points in Minsk were incompatible with the Ukrainian constitution, and that with Russia, Ukraine could not be expected to fulfil its demands.

“Macron cannot compel Ukraine to do it Moscow’s way,” said Ariev.

Asked during his press conference with Macron about Ukraine’s reluctance to implement the Minsk accords, Putin used a phrase that some interpreted as carrying sinister undertones: “Like it or not, you’ll have to tolerate it, my beauty.”

The next day, Zelenskiy responded that Ukraine was indeed “tolerant”, as it put up with so much from Russia. But keen to avoid a Russian invasion, as well as to remove the looming threat of one which is eroding Ukraine’s economy, Zelenskiy is also pushing Minsk as a viable solution, at least in public.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said the accords could still provide a viable roadmap if interpreted correctly.

“Within the Minsk framework it is really possible to pass to peace through any difficulties, but the steps and their content can only be those that fully respect the sovereignty of Ukraine,” he said.

[StateBoiler]

But if Putin’s endgame is to seize Kiev and declare checkmate on Zelensky, isn’t the best move (while humanly awful) on Zelensky part is to move the government out of Kiev to a city in the Western part of Ukraine and vow to never given in and force Russia to a longer and costlier war then they wanted?

Strategically, yes. However, the optics of the leader leaving the capital and what that tells everyone else look terrible.

As good a place as any to post, Russian Nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky reported yesterday to be in a hospital and really bad shape.

[StateBoiler]

But if Putin’s endgame is to seize Kiev and declare checkmate on Zelensky, isn’t the best move (while humanly awful) on Zelensky part is to move the government out of Kiev to a city in the Western part of Ukraine and vow to never given in and force Russia to a longer and costlier war then they wanted?

Strategically, yes. However, the optics of the leader leaving the capital and what that tells everyone else look terrible.

As good a place as any to post, Russian Nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky reported yesterday to be in a hospital and really nad shape.

True but staying at Kiev and just staying their for it to fall and risk his own capture has also horrible optics to it

Yes. If they do that decision, it will be made last minute.

[StateBoiler]

If there's an invasion then 'optics' are really the least important of things...

When you choose to be the leader of a country, part of the deal is you lose the right to treat your life as more important than the country: kings come and go, the state remains.

So the leader is going to retreat while telling the troops and citizens "fight hard and be brave"? What does that do to morale when it would already be incredibly low?

[StateBoiler]

It seems clear that plenty of high-ranking Germans would jump at the opportunity to sign a modern day version of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact if given the chance.

https://twitter.com/general_ben/status/1492035185524752391

Well, the Russians have done a good job imposing their will and position into the richest economy in Europe.

[StateBoiler]

Markets down this morning on war fears but erased most of its losses when Russia’s Lavrov says Putin backs continuing talks with west

I can't think of a better signal that market buyers and sellers are reactionary idiots than that. One, the rampup to war has been going on since November. Two, that Lavrov's statement is taken by buyers as "oh, well that's truth then".

[StateBoiler]

Vague in first place and backtracked later, but diplomats usually don't improvise. Test balloon?

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1493116643572072451

https://twitter.com/POLITICOEurope/status/1493167291369984002

Appears like flinching to me, which tells me the Ukrainians are getting nervous this is actually going to happen.

[StateBoiler]

I would also like the USA to present at the UN evidence they have that shows Russia will invade imminently.  They did it in the Cuban Missile Crisis, why not now ?   

It's a lot easier to show pictures of static units in place than to show pictures of static units in place that may in the future move hundreds of kilometers.