r/YUROP • u/Prior-Case58 • Jun 08 '25
What is he trying to achieve? What is the master plan here?
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u/to_glory_we_steer Don't blame me I voted Jun 08 '25
Same thing as they did in Syria, their ground forces were relatively shite, as were their partner forces. So they levelled every city that stood in their path with overwhelming firepower which:
- Forcibly depopulated those areas
- Reducing the number of people who would stay and fight
- Overloading defending forces medical facilities
- Causing mass immigration to Europe which led to an upsurge in Russia friendly or neutral political parties
- Avoiding political blowback as they could claim that they were only targeting empty cities and anyone remaining was a combattant
Obviously they can't claim to be fighting religious extremism here (they focussed on moderate forces in Syria) so the dog whistle is that these lands were 'historically Russian.' They're arguably not.
There is a psychological aspect where they believe that strategic bombing will break the willpower of the resisting population (historically speaking it never has). But internationally it plays into the false narrative that Russia cannot be beaten and to resist is to suffer horrifically. In reality they're a paper tiger with nukes. This is literally the only reason Russian forces aren't subject to coalition airstrikes currently.
The long term strategy is "if you forget about this we'll give you lots of money/resources." Sadly we have some absolute scumbags who would jump at the chance of this. It still doesn't put Russia in a winning position as their population is in catastrophic decline.
So this is ultimately a use it or lose it war of conquest that leverages their existing population. It also keeps the responsible elites, namely Putin out of political trouble so long as they can claim military progress.
I should make this funny in line with the subreddit but there's nothing funny about Russian barbarism.
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u/In-All-Unseriousness Jun 08 '25
Just pure terror tactics. You'd think it was in NATO or Europe's interest to do anything to reduce civilian casualties. Imagine if they stood up against ruzzia the way they stood up against Yugoslavia.
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Jun 08 '25
But that's what we've been doing tho?
Operation Allied Force in Yugoslavia cost around 7.5 billion dollars to NATO countries.
With Ukraine we are past 300 billion dollars into the aid, and that's not counting anything prior to 2022 nor the economic costs we've imposed on ourselves for sanctions.
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u/userrr3 Yuropean first Austrian second Jun 08 '25
The plan is a war of attrition. He wants Ukraine to sign an unconditional surrender ideally, or at least give up large parts of their rightful territory. He thinks Russia can hold out longer than Ukraine. But also he probably thinks that civilian casualties on the Ukrainian side make them more likely to end the war on whichever terms he demands. (obligatory fuck putin)
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u/yibtk Jun 08 '25
"Bombing civilians has no consequences on the international scene. You do you." Netanyahou
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u/chrischi3 Schleswig-Holstein Jun 08 '25
The plan is that 99% of all strategic bombing campaigns stop days before the enemy's morale collapses overnight.
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u/great_escape_fleur Jun 08 '25
In his mind he's punishing the inhabitants for being the nuisance in the way of his "natural" expansion.
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u/kroketspeciaal Jun 08 '25
"Why won't you fucking give up already and hand over your everything" - Putain
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u/GreenEyeOfADemon EUROPE ENDS IN LUHANSK! Jun 09 '25
russian troops are a joke, they're like the Italian "Armata Brancaleoni" and, since they are not able to advance, they turn every city into the ground, so there is nothing left to be defended for the Defence forces.
Heavily shelling civilians has a dual purpose: to reduce the populace (hence the double tap and warheads loaded with cluster ammunition and thermobaric) and to break the populace morale, hoping that they will insurrect against the Government, asking for ending the war. Shelling at night is another factor: all the people are at home: more kills and less sleep, causing all the possible related mental issues. 1,5 million Ukrainian children suffer of PTSD.
The russian troops will not change if or when putin is gone, they have always behave like we saw in Syria and in Ukraine, the only difference is that nowadays there is slightly more coverage and there is no sign that they will change behaviour in the future with a change in the russian junta.
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u/Miltiadis_178GR Ελλάδα Jun 10 '25
The best part is that Sun Tzu's art of war advises against attacking cities.
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u/mechalenchon Normandie Jun 08 '25
The "plan" went out the window when they lost in Hostomel. Since then it's only murder as a coping mechanism.