Not to mention Hamas fighters are motivated by marterdom, paradise and defending their home turf. Russian soldiers are motivated by money, if at all, or forced at gunpoint by superiors. Just apply enouh force, give them an exit and they'll run for it.
Discussion
...and then they'll come back the next day.
Ukraine puts a lot of effort into killing fleeing Russian soldiers precisely because it's not enough to scare them off. There's literally thousands of videos like this one, of Ukrainian drones hunting down fleeing Russians:
https://video.nostr.build/635a06dba1b6df87d12896185809fea776736ffdc250dfe051461c773fa53e5a.mp4
Not just soldiers either. Ukraine also uses drones to hunt down fleeing vehicles, including vehicles bring used to evacuate wounded (only specially marked, unarmed, ambulances have protection in international law):
https://video.nostr.build/1017a89f946fb697668edcd337a10b871bd1b8738d742ed5e7f39430441ef122.mp4
...and filmed by Russians themselves:
https://video.nostr.build/be2e1ae14d6020d976aa2cfe4d0ff8a5b75138a66653d5546b5d75b4c9151eaa.mp4
It's a very effective way to kill a lot of Russians who would otherwise try to kill Ukrainians later.
Ukrainian forces also regularly kill wounded Russians before they can be rescued. Again, there's literally thousands of videos like this one:
https://video.nostr.build/444c26fe13a2191951d8a390ed8ed4509bbdde3546a8b4ee728b65278780136f.mp4
There's arguments that this type of killing violates international law. But frankly I think that's absurd in this case, and if so, the law is weongy. Ukraine is fighting a defensive war against unjustified extermination. They should not be hobbled by concerns for the aggressors. Given that Russia regularly returns wounded soldiers to the front lines, killing them off when they're vulnerable saves Ukrainian lives.
It's bizarre and frankly disgusting how much you're willing to risk Ukrainian lives for the sake of the scumbags fighting for Russia. A lot more Ukrainians would be dead if they fought the way you want them to.
> 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.
* more important
Also note how I'm not criticizing Ukraine, I'm criticizing you. I'm sure that once the dust settles it turns out they committed many war crimes, but probably far few than the Russians, there might be mitigating circumstances, etc..
I very much doubt we're going to discover a secret Zelensky plan for genocide.
I'm also not particularly worried that they're suddenly going to get their hands on a nuke and use it against Moscow. Those are pure hypotheticals.
"I very much doubt we're going to discover secret Zelensky plan for genocide"
Given that people widely consider attacks on electricity grids to be potentially attempts at genocide – myself included – I can guarantee you that there is in fact a Zelensky plan for "genocide". Ukraine has been notably reluctant to do real damage to Russia's electricity grid even where they can, and that's very likely to be due to western pressure (unlikely to be by agreement with Russia, as Russia has no issue destroying Ukrainian infrastructure).
If that pressure changes, we'll likely find out that Zelensky had a plan for "genocide" all along as Russian cities are plunged into darkness.
I won't be surprised if that happens in the next two months: Trump is precisely the type of politician that _might_ reverse Biden's opposition to winning.
Afaik deliberately taking out civilian electricity grids is a war crime*. But although it can be part of a genocide, it isn't by itself.
Trump is a wildcard, can go both ways:
1. He just gives Ukraine to Russia
2. He'll indeed approve more aggresive action, especially ones that don't cost US tax payer money
Best we can hope for is probably (2) combined with the EU footing the entire weapons bill, because he does like exporting stuff.
* = and again, wouldn't tip the balance for anyone keeping score
The Gulf War opened with Iraq's civilian electricity grid being deliberately taken out. 28(!!!) power plants were taken out by 218 sorties, along with transformers and switching yards. This also took out most of their water supply and sewage filtration. The country was left without power for years.
I'm fine with that. Coalition forces didn't need to risk their lives making the fight more fair.
Just two days ago, Israel plunged much of Yemen into darkness, destroying two civilian power plants.
Again, I'm ok with that. Yemen is a valid target and there's no easy way for Israel to defeat the Houthies and stop their attacks on Israel. Crushing the economy is a decent option.
...and again, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, power plants and even water treatment plants were targeted. US forces also blew up civilian power plants, including hydroelectric dams, in North Vietnam.
It's absolutely bizarre that you don't think taking out Russia's electricity grid wouldn't "tip the balance". Every drone and missile Russia launches at Ukraine is paid for by the Russian economy. Collapse the economy, and the funding for those drones and missiles dries up.
The Russian economy runs on electricity, like any other economy. Taking out power will certainly cut economic activity.
Russia isn't spending billions taking out Ukraine's power grid just for fun....
...and yet another (indirect) example of a civilian power grid being intentionally taken down: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/world/middleeast/iran-economy-energy-crisis.html
Israel has effectively taken down much of Iran's power grid by blowing up natural gas pipelines which, among other things, fed gas turbine generators.
This is fine by me. Iran is in an aggressive war with Israel, and plenty of other countries. Crushing their economy is fair game, and probably the most effective thing Israel can do to win.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
"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.