[FDSGSG]

>Russian society isn't anywhere near enthusiastic. That's why Putin has been searching for ever dumber excuses. Give him an actual indefensible incident to rally society around, and he'll get a lot more manpower. That could expand the war to Odessa and Moldova, and also 'retaliatory' cyberwar in the West.

That's just absurd fanfic. Sending in untrained "manpower" with no equipment would not help advance Russian goals.

"Cyberwar"? Russia has never before needed any excuses to unleash wiper worms like NotPetya onto the whole world.

>It's attacking civilians as to influence their government

Exactly like sanctions. Are you against sanctions too? If not, how do you explain that inconsistency?

[yyyk]

>That's just absurd fanfic. Sending in untrained "manpower" with no equipment would not help advance Russian goals.

Some of them probably have military training, and quantity has a quality of its own. Regardless, Russia will not be able to subdue Ukraine, but there's nothing good coming from a more enthusiastic Russian society.

>"Cyberwar"? Russia has never before needed any excuses to unleash wiper worms like NotPetya onto the whole world.

Our tolerance for that was absurd. As is our tolerance for this action.

>Exactly like sanctions. Are you against sanctions too? If not, how do you explain that inconsistency?

I'm for sanctions. It's not inconsistent. There's a law for these things. That law allows sanctions but not attacking random civilians. It also prefers actions by legitimate authorities and not random vigilants. It also states that any possible harm to civilians must be incidental to the method, and that any harm be proportional to the possibility of achieving a legitimate goal (kicking Russia out).

This action was by a random person (not even an Ukrainian), unauthorized by anyone (definitely not any Ukrainian authority), and was at best counterproductive (nobody has given me any way where this advances kicking Russia out), so any possibility of civilian harm is criminal.

[FDSGSG]

> Regardless, Russia will not be able to subdue Ukraine, but there's nothing good coming from a more enthusiastic Russian society.

You are mistaken if you believe that Russian society isn't already enthusiastic. But this isn't a country with the warrior culture US has, dying for your country isn't cool in Russia, it just means that you were too poor and/or stupid to dodge the draft.

> There's a law for these things. That law allows sanctions but not attacking random civilians.

Which law is that?

> It also states that any possible harm to civilians must be incidental to the method

Many of the sanctions are specifically targeting civilians, civilian businesses.

> and that any harm be proportional to the possibility of achieving a legitimate goal (kicking Russia out).

Oh no, you're deeply mistaken. The sanctions will not go away even if Russia gets kicked out of Ukraine, they're very much intended to be punitive.

[yyyk]

>You are mistaken if you believe that Russian society isn't already enthusiastic.

It's a society where showing up for what the authorities do is common.

>Which law is that?

A long codicil of war conventions (Geneva, Hague) and anti-terrorism conventions. What I wrote is a common exegesis.

>Many of the sanctions... The sanctions will not go away.

As I wrote, there's a difference between 'we won't trade with you' and actively harming someone. Also, if Russia withdraws completely and lets Ukraine join NATO, I'm pretty sure the West will drop sanctions. There'll be no point in maintaining them - if you want to change Russia, you'll need a finer instrument.

[FDSGSG]

>It's a society where showing up for what the authorities do is common.

For a variety of reasons much of my circle of friend consists of Russians living abroad, you're mistaken if you believe that they support Russian leadership out of fear of what might happen if they didn't.

>A long codicil of war conventions (Geneva, Hague) and anti-terrorism conventions. What I wrote is a common exegesis.

But sanctions do exactly that. Attack random civilians.

> As I wrote, there's a difference between 'we won't trade with you' and actively harming someone.

It's not "we won't trade with you", that's a dishonest way of putting it. It's "we won't allow others to trade with you", which is very much actively harming someone.