Ukrainian TV regularly describes the situation there - Kherson is lost, Berdyansk is lost, Mariupol is like Stalingrad when the defenders were pushed right to the Volga, Nikolaev - still not, and there is fighting around with various small villages and towns changing hands. Odessa - preparing for invasion, Russian Navy assault group is there and the smaller ships are hanging on the horizon periodically shelling the city. Some radars, etc. taken out by the bombing. I wonder what would you have to add/correct here.
Granted, Odessa falling will be huge in all respects. It would make the situation worse tremendously for Ukraine. It will also be a pretty tall order for Russian propaganda as for example i couldn't say which city is more dear to Russians - Kiev or Odessa. And Odessa will be fighting. It will be at least order of magnitude bigger/longer battle than Mariupol (especially given that Russian forces haven't yet encircled Odessa which is hard without taking Nikolaev, and attempting to take Odessa just by an assault from sea onto the mined beaches would be very risky). So, it isn't exactly a given that Russia can sustain such a fight given the Russian losses that have already happened and are going to happen - Russia is already starting to bring in military college cadets as well as calling reservists. Russia also wants Belarussian forces to join, yet given the Belarussian society feelings Lukashenko is afraid that the Belarussian army will desert to Ukrainians and would potentially turn against him while hoping that staying off may allow him to not go down with Putin/Russia.
Russia has also significantly decreased close air support for ground forces because of heavy losses of planes and helicopters. Thus they mostly bomb the cities from distance using unguided artillery and unguided MRLS like Grad/Smerch as well as unguided air bombing from higher altitudes. That mostly hits civilian population and civilian buildings/infrastructure while having much smaller effect against military targets. And thus even after such massive multi-days bombings the Russian ground forces still can't move ahead much.
I also don't see Russia backing down without some type of agreement that cedes territory or other significant concessions to them, which sets up a sort of moral hazzard. Then, a few years from now Russia does this sort of thing again. It would feel like the sort of appeasement policy used with Germany leading up to WWII.
I don't see a good way around that possibility that doesn't risk a huge escalation. Actually I may see one very imperfect option: Cede Crimea and maybe other concessions to Russia in exchange for and agreement of neutrality backed by allowing a very large build up if Ukrainian military power, and a guarantee of support from the West, to significantly deter Russia from doing this again. At the same time that specific and severe sanctions beyond what we've seen already will be rapidly implemented if Russia tries this with any other country.
Even this is problematic, and probably unrealistic that Russia would agree to it. And so it just comes down to how long Ukraine can hold out, or how strong of an insurgency they can mount for the long term & what price Russia is willing to pay (eventually they cut their losses in Afghanistan). But Russia probably decides that if they can't have Ukraine then then they'll destroy every city and as much infrastructure as possible on their way out (hints of that already)
It is truly hard for me to see any positive outcome here that is as likely as any of the many bad possible outcomes. Maybe if Putin's purges of political leadership cause then to launch a coup in self defense? Waging war among that chaos would be hard, and the West could negotiate with new leadership about getting out of Ukraine in exchange for lifting some of the sanctions.
You are right they won’t back off easily. That’s why we should considering all the possible ways to hurt Russia; at this point literally anything is a lesser evil.
Yes, I've thought from the start that this is the likely best case for Ukraine; acknowledging de jure the de facto loss of Crimea and Donbass since 2014, in exchange for
* an end to the war
* Austrian-style neutrality
* specific US/UK/other Western powers' guarantee (not NATO) of territorial integrity for rump Ukraine if Russia attacks it again
This would give Putin a way out by giving him a "win" for the domestic audience, cause no/minimal loss of additional territory for Ukraine, and give it as much security as it can hope for (since NATO membership isn't happening).
Maybe I'm wrong, the incessant reports of poor Russian morale and logistics really are completely true as opposed to having been massively spun by Ukraine's PR department, and we really will see that (as claimed just today by Ukraine) Russian troops will run out of supplies in three days. But I wouldn't bet money on it.
I am cautiously optimistic for Ukraine based on reports over the past month. But I am also aware of the history of war propaganda.
The front pages of US and UK newspapers during the Battle of France, for example, were filled with headlines talking about French successes in repelling the Hun. Anyone paying attention to the details, however, could see that the successes were constantly occurring closer and closer to Paris.
If Russia wins, there is going to be a lot of cognitive dissonance among those whose worldviews are entirely shaped by Reddit headlines and Twitter takes. I'd hope that having their worldviews shattered so abruptly and violently would cause such people to reexamine all of their preconceptions, but given how previous such cases (notably Brexit and Trump's election, both in 2016) mostly caused them to double down rather than seriously self reflect, I am not hopeful.