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> and then they'll come back the next day.

For small individual battles yes, but that's not I'm referring to. I'm thinking more of the big routs back in 2022. Those will happen again if Ukraine gets proper support. Which they won't if they follow your advice of committing war crimes.

Upholding the international rules based order is far more impressive than this particular war. I understand how you feel about that, but you're just not impartial.

Peter Todd 1y ago

The big routs didn't stop the war. The survivors, and surviving equipment, came back and fought again.

If you were right, this wouldn't have happened. Russia would have felt defeated and given up. Lots of people, including myself, hoped that would happen. But Russia and the Russian population are more persistent than that.

...which Ukraine knew. If Ukraine had thought it was enough to just encourage Russia to retreat, they would have only destroyed the front of the convoys heading to Kyiv, allowing the Russians to turn around and go home.

They didn't do that. Ukrainian forces risked their lives in appalling winter conditions to sneak into the forests around the full length of the convoys. That was how they killed Russians along the full length of the convoys, ensuring thst tens of thousands of Russians and their machines wouldn't be able to retreat to fight another day.

It was a bloodbath, and it's likely that a few thousand Ukrainians died in the process of killing tens of thousands of Russians. But it was worth risking Ukrainian lives because Russia wasn't going to give up so easily. Those men were just going to come back to kill again. Better to kill them while the odds are in your favor; Ukraine is low time preference.

Frankly, by saying we "just need some big routs" to defeat Russia, what you're actually doing is prioritizing the lives of Russians over Ukrainians. You want to see hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians risking their lives going up directly against dug-in Russian forces rather than see the supply chains to those forces cut off. It's absurd to ask Ukrainians to give up their lives so the Russian economy can be spared.

Conversely, if the Russian economy is collapsed, the supply chains feeding those dug in troops collapse with it. Killing and capturing troops that are literally starving, and out of ammo, will cost far fewer Ukrainian lives in the process.

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Sjors Provoost 1y ago

> 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.

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.