Thinking aloud. I don't think Putin's goal is to occupy Ukraine, I think his goal is to wreck it, turning it into a failed state. I think what we now call the "Ukraine crisis" will become a new normal, as he uses everything in his repertoire to make Ukraine unstable
With ~150,000 troops, he has enough for an invasion but not enough for an occupation, and definitely not enough to fight an insurgency. Think what a nightmare Iraq was for the US? Ukraine is much bigger than Iraq and its population is more than double Iraq's 2003 population.
In fact I can even venture to say that if there's a way to utterly destroy Putin's regime, it would be for him to try to occupy & hold Ukraine. It would wreck him politically, militarily, and economically. It would be his end. He's far too smart to do this, he knows better.
I think Putin has already assessed that he can't really "keep" Ukraine, at least the pro-Western parts of Ukraine (which is most of Ukraine). But he needs a buffer state. If not a pro-Russian buffer state, then a totally wrecked, failed, unstable, unlivable buffer state.
For a country to live under constant imminent threat of devastation, constant cyber attacks, constant disinformation warfare, constant sabotage, plus a constant low-level creeping occupation that can flare up at any moment. "If I can't have you, I'll utterly wreck you."
This is why Ukraine's social resilience and political unity during this time is the best resistance. The fact that life is "normal" in Kyiv, etc. This is also why the hysteria driven by Western announcements hurts Ukraine by punishing it economically.
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