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> The big routs didn't stop the war.

Because Ukraine didn't have the means to followed up on them. That's because Europe and the USA have been too slow to give them weapons and permission to use them. One of the things we agree on afaik.

That gave Russia time to build up their defense and since then things have been depressing.

I have no objection to attacking supply lines inside of Russia and I have no desire to save the Russian economy, so I don't know what you're objecting to there.

Peter Todd 1y ago

Like I said, if Russia was magically pushed back to the Ukrainian borders that most likely still wouldn't be the end of the war. Russia can use long range weapons to crush Ukraine without stepping a single foot on Ukraine. Then, once Ukraine is crushed sufficiently, negotiate a one-sided "diplomatic" peace to get Ukraine to surrender.

After all, we did exactly that to Japan in WW2. Hardly any Allied forces actually stepped foot on Japanese homeland soil. We just relentlessly destroyed Japan's economy from the air and sea until they almost unconditionally surrendered.

Equally, we see that in northern Ukraine, better Kyiv and Kharkiv. Pushing Russia back to the border didn't stop the attacks on Ukrainian cities in those areas. Russia continued to relentlessly shell areas near the border, including the entire city of Kharkiv. Indeed, that's one of the reasons why Ukraine has invaded and taken Russian territory: simply to move the fighting far enough past the border that shells are landing on Russian soil rather than Ukrainian cities.

The most likely end to this war is to collapse the Russian economy. Practical ways of doing that will inevitably result in large numbers of Russian "civilians" dying. A lot less Ukrainians will die if the western world accepts that.

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Sjors Provoost 1y ago

> The most likely end to this war is to collapse the Russian economy.

That or a coup, which could be trigger by a big enough rout.

I agree that merely pushing over the border is not enough deterrence.

> Practical ways of doing that will inevitably result in large numbers of Russian "civilians" dying.

Not inevitable, depends on what happens. Again I'm not opposed to the idea of collateral damage. Genocide is defined by intent, not numbers.

E.g. if Ukraine needs to march on Moscow to convince Russia to stop bombing from a distance, and to never invade again, that will probably result in a lot casualties, but wouldn't be illegal or immoral.

If they then go in and murder every non combatant woman and child in Moscow that's a different story. And I have no reason to believe Ukraine would do that.

Peter Todd 1y ago

"and murder every non-combatant [Russian] woman and child"

...which is not an argument I'm making.

Like you say, intent matters. I want to see Russia defeated. It's perfectly ok to intend for Russians involved in the war to die. Which with war at this scale, involves the entire working population because the entire economy is significantly contributing to the war.

I know full well the collateral damage will kill plenty of others in Russia (including some of the many thousands of abducted Ukrainian children, as an example). But, such is war.

Russia simply has no valid argument there. They have zero rights to fire a single bullet in the direction of Ukraine. Every single thing done in aggression against Ukraine is a crime, and everyone supporting that effort is a criminal.