From Thomas Theiner, in response to Ukraines hawks: The reason why Russia is bringing in more and more heavy equipment is because plan A failed. Plan A was to go into Crimea, have the Ukrainian Army fight with the self-defence forces, then declare that there is a civil war going on in Crimea, invade Crimea with the Russian Army, have the Ukrainian troops switch sides or buy their commanders off, then spread the self defence forces into the East and intensify the fighting there, then people flee by the thousands, Putin then says: See that Maidan only brings civil war! Never try that my Russians! and sends the Army to Kyiv to end the civil war. That was plan A as evidenced by the entire Russian press reporting about the above events even though nothing of it came to be. Plan A assumed that the Ukrainians would exactly act as Putins team envisioned it and thats why the Russians only brought in light infantry troops and lots of airborne infantry as they expected no resistance and an easy walk to Kyiv. Now that they see: that no civil war is happening, they are trying to create one as excuse to intervene, but as the Ukrainian Army is not about to switch sides and is now actually expanding, increasing its combat readiness and getting more and more equipment into service, the Russians have to bring heavy equipment - tanks, air-defence missile systems, rocket artillery, etc. etc. to Ukraine before they can invade. So what the Ukrainian government did was correct - play for time, as the longer it takes Putin to invade, the more costly it will be for the Russian Army, the less likely it is that he will succeed... Also! if Ukraine fires first, the world wont really rally to support it (see Georgia 2008), but if Russia fires first, then the world will rally to Ukraine and support it fully. And that can be the difference between victory or defeat - as i.e. during the Yom Kippur War, when the US airlifted thousands of tons of equipment to Israel and hundreds of tanks and plans via sealift, as Israel had been attacked and thus the US could deliver military aid with the approval of most governments in the world. So, Ukraine has to play for time, stall as long as possible and make Russia shed the first blood. Then everything is in Ukraines favor.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 08:48:12 +0000
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