Putin beordrar styrkor att gå in i Ukraina - INVASION NU (2022-02-24)

Ryska regioner får bilda paramilitära företag
En ny lag har nu godkänts i det ryska parlamentet som kommer tillåta regionala guvernörer att bilda paramilitära företag på president Putins begäran.

Det rapporterar den oberoende ryska tidningen Novaya Gazeta. Dessa paramilitära styrkor kommer få ekonomiska medel, samt vapen och ammunition av den ryska regeringen.

Russian President Vladimir Putin set as his objectives the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine. By the first, he presumably meant regime change, in which case the war has clearly been a failure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s position is as strong as ever. As for demilitarization, Ukraine is on its way to becoming the most militarized country in Europe. Many of the Russian speakers in Ukraine on whose behalf Putin claimed to be acting now prefer to speak Ukrainian, while the Russian-speaking areas of the Donbas have been battered, deindustrialized, and depopulated because of this ruinous war.
Russian forces have failed to take complete control of any of the four oblasts, or administrative regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—that Putin claimed for Russia in September 2022.

Were Putin to accept a cease-fire based on current positions, it would ease the threat to Crimea and allow the Russian occupation of what is still a sizable chunk of Ukrainian territory. It would, however, confirm that none of Putin’s goals have been met. This would become even more obvious if discussions around a cease-fire led to pressure for Russian forces to abandon some of the land they have taken. Being stuck with bits and pieces of Ukrainian territory with hostile populations, massive reconstruction bills, and long frontlines with an undefeated Ukraine would not look like a big win—especially when set against the many casualties incurred by Russian forces, the degradation of the Russian army, the sputtering Russian economy, and the knock to Russia’s standing as a great and influential power. As soon as the fighting stopped and troops started to come home, there would be a national reckoning, and it would not reflect well on Putin.
But now, Putin must face an even more disturbing possibility: suppose the reckoning cannot be postponed and comes before a definitive end to the fighting, not afterward. All trends—military, economic, diplomatic—continue to point in the wrong direction, and Putin has no convincing explanation for how the situation can be salvaged. The Russian president finds himself boxed in with no good options. He may indeed already be aware that the reckoning has begun.

When answering about possible participants in a new rebellion against Putin, Gudkov noted that the business elite also hates the dictator.

In business circles, according to the politician, the head of the Kremlin is only tolerated.

“We are ready for now, because it is too dangerous to swim against the current now. Especially in business circles, people hate Putin — he ruined their lives, put them under sanctions. Everyone understands that there is a long-term destruction of the Russian economy. But acting against Putin now, before a revolutionary situation sets in, is too dangerous. But in a situation when the clans collide with each other, everything is possible,” added Gudkov.