Thread by @phl43

Article by @akarlin0 making the case that Russia will almost certainly invade Ukraine. I agree 1-4 are good reasons to believe that, but I think he underestimates the cost and I'm still inclined to think it won't happen, but very interesting nonetheless. akarlin.substack.com/p/regathering-…

When discussing reason #4, he draws a lot on this article published by Putin last July, which I had missed. I think it's more ambiguous than @akarlin0 makes it out to be, but it's still a very interesting window into the official Russian ideology. en.kremlin.ru/events/preside…

Again, I think all of 1-4 are good reasons to believe that Russia will invade, but for me it's 2 that moved the needle the most. The fact that Russia published a list of demands that it must have known the US would never accept is hard to explain if it's not planning to invade.

Still, I think his prediction of how easy it would be for Russia not only to militarily defeat Ukraine (this part I completely agree with), but also to occupy and absorb most of it into a unitary pan-Russian state is extremely optimistic and I doubt Putin shares it.

This doesn't rule out anything, but I also think this kind of statement 1) makes it unlikely Russia will invade and 2) can be interpreted as a way for Russia not to invade without losing face by spinning the whole thing as a creation of Western propaganda.

https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/1493504425301889026

Yes, when I say @akarlin0 underestimates the cost, this is part of what I mean. I don't see how it makes sense for Russia to invade Ukraine now if the goal is just to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.

https://twitter.com/MrMaitra/status/1494387550798163977

However, he thinks the goal is actually to absorb most of Ukraine, so I guess this argument has less force on him. I just disagree that Putin really is the kind of pan-Russian ideologue he assumes and think his article from last July admits of a much weaker reading.

The reason why I think it makes it unlikely to invade is that, to launch an invasion after such a statement, Russia would need the Ukrainians to do something really crazy in the Donbass and who can believe they would be stupid enough to do that now?

https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1494386602050830340

I get that Russia could use a false flag operation to justify the invasion, but it would have to be minimally plausible, and after making such a strong statement (it has made other similar ones since then), they can't go to war over some business as usual skirmish in the Donbass.