Putin should have fully invaded all Ukraine in 2014, not just Crimea, and destroyed the fascist NATO putsch decisively before they built up an army. Letting fascists fester only leads to more and more working class deaths in the future, they must be excised
2014 Russia would’ve collapsed under the weight of sanctions and financial isolation. 2014 was very different from 2022. It’s very doubtful 2014 Iran, 2014 China, and 2014 India would’ve gone along with Russia. 2014 China, for one, actually condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea. You really think they would’ve actually supported Russia if Russia tried to invade the entire country instead of annexing a peninsula where everyone there was either Russian or Crimean Tatar? Plus, there’s also the matter with Syria, where half of 2014 Syria was controlled by ISIS. Obviously, if Russia had to devote the vast majority of their military to invade Ukraine in 2014, what would happen to Syria?
What the Western world gravely misjudged was thinking absolutely nothing happened in the subsequent 8 years. ISIS was completely crushed in Syria thanks in no small part to Russian and Iranian military support, Assad was able to maintain power in Syria, Iran had a change in government with the entrance of the so-called hardliners (ie people who refuse to suck up to the West), Russia had 8 years to begin economically decouple from the West, and China had a taste of open Western hostility and also began to economically decouple from the West.
Well then it sounds like Putin is taking initiative as early as he could have. Critical support in crushing NATO
tbf russia would have gotten absolutely wrecked by the current sanctions package had it been implemented back in 2014
in retrospect the only thing they really fucked up on was letting themselves get dicked around by the minsks, as opposed to not taking the west at its word and preparing more fully for the inevitable kinetic confrontation
Except the war has been going since 2014. Ukraine increased their shelling of civilians in the leadup to the Russian invasion. An anti-war perspective would agree that that eight year long aggression must be stopped.
Civilians in the Donbas are very safe now. The military aged males? Even safer.
What’s your point, that the anti-war position should be to let actual Nazis continue hitting hospitals and homes with artillery until they get tired of it?
Stopped by dominating the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk? Certainly.
But warped by making a long-shot push to take the capital and install a new government, and then turning a third of the country into a bombed-out combat zone? That’s a bit inept.
It would be inept if Russia wasn’t also facing the industrial might of NATO, people don’t seem to get what happened last year, Europe was completely emptied of Soviet arms, all of it went to Ukraine
MacGregor was absolutely correct when he said the Russians have destroyed three entire Ukrainian militaries built from the ground up while simultaneously dealing with the most severe sanctions regime in history and 8 years of western paid fortifications in the most defenseable region in the country
Turns out all of that results in a bit of a delay and maybe even a stalemate or two
