Putin announced abstract objectives in his declaration of war, but his exact tactical and strategic goals remain unclear. I see at least five possibilities. THREAD
1. Capture additional territories in the South/East/North, but refrain from taking oblast capital cities. Then use them to bargain for a new settlement with the West resulting in federalism, neutrality clauses for Ukraine and recognition of Crimea/Donbas loss.
2. Capture major cities, like Kharkiv, Kherson, Odessa, and seek to form new administrative units out of them and govern them on permanent basis as quasi-Russian territories. This would mean Ukraine’s permanent partition along Dnieper river.
3. Capture Kyiv in addition to major cities in the East and South and seek to install puppet government in “left bank” Ukraine to govern it through his proxies. This would mean division of Ukraine into two halves with pro-Russian and pro-Western governments.
4. Impose max destruction on Ukrainian civilian and military infrastructure, ports, airports, railways, military, factories, arms storages and military bases. Then withdraw ground troops and threaten to repeat if Ukraine maintains its pro-W course and seeks to rearm.
5. Capture as much of Ukrainian territory as possible even crossing into “right bank,” targeted killing of local resistance, installing local collaborators to govern occupied parts and turning rest of UA into a buffer that could be flattened at any point if aligns with the West.
Only N1 presumes possibility of a diplomatic solution in the short term. The rest of the scenarios presume perpetual conflict with the West and war with Ukrainian people. END
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