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Ukraine: Situation Analysis
What are the key factors that will determine the outcome of Putin’s war?
It is more than apparent now that Russia’s forces in Ukraine are ill-trained, ill-equipped, and ill-led. For the most part, Russian troops can be considered as little more than rabble in uniform devoted more to committing war crimes and raping, torturing, maiming, and murdering unarmed civilians than to continuing to attempt to promote Putin’s mindless invasion. Nevertheless, although tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have fled before the recent Ukrainian advances, leaving behind weapon systems and materiel as well as plentiful evidence of atrocities, it’s clear Putin has no intention of accepting defeat.
So what are the likely next moves for Putin’s uniformed rabble as they seek to cling on to territory they still occupy and somehow appease Putin’s appetite for a totally undefined and impossible-to-achieve “victory?”
In Ukraine the nights are now cold, often dropping to below zero degrees Celsius. Winter is coming, and with it will come icy conditions and snow-covered fields. Although for the most part Russian forces lack meaningful protective gear, it seems clear that Russian commanders — who don’t give a damn about the frostbite and gangrene that strikes down those under their misrule — are imagining that winter will…
