Originally Posted by
racedo
There are a lot of soundings at the moment in relation to Eastern Ukraine and the possibility that Kiev Government will look to conduct a major attack on this area.
In 2014 the people in this area disliked the Maidan Sq protests and did one of the own which was attacked by Kiev. As this area is populated by people with more Ethnic ties to Russia than to Western Ukraine, the people got the support of Russia, overtly and covertly after being attacked by Kiev and probably a bit before as well.
Currently a large area is held by people who wish to have little to do with Kiev and seek a breakaway from it. The war of 2014 /15 was bloody and has left a phoney ceasefire since.
Ukrainian forces have been builing up military equipment over the last number of months, Ukrainian men of conscription age have been barred from leaving the country BUT not unsurprisingly it has had zero impact as Poland / Germany have had influx of people seeing to avoid being conscripted. Poland currently has 3 million people who have left since 2014 based on Polish work permit numbers, nobody knows who are there without permits.
Trump election in 2016 brought any hope that Kiev had of starting a war to an end, the ties with Biden and family are well publicised. The change in January has opened up lots of options.
Russia has responded in last 2 weeks in moving sizeable tranches of equipment into Crimea / along border areas with helicopter units being visible in the breakaway region.
Ukrainian President unpopular at home with a less than 20% approval rating needs something, US pressure is coming to bear as well and unspecified promises, shades of Saddam re Kuwait likely being made.
So questions are
Will the Ukrainian comic President seek to start a war ?
What has he been promised ?
Does he think NATO powers will intervene ?
Is he assumming that Turkish / Israeli drones which worked in Nagorno-Karabak will do the same here ?
Will Russian units in Transniestra / Crimea come under attack ?
Does anybody expect Russia to stand by and watch Svoboda / Other neo Nazi groups be allowed do as they please ?
At the moment I see it as a 50-50 chance of a war, lots of posturing but a real danger that Kiev goes for broke. I see next 4 weeks as being key as if nowt by May 1st then maybe it dies down. But as Duke of York found out you can only march men up the hill so many times.
Ukraine however is bankrupt, it has lost 1/3 of its population since 1998 and the advent of Nordstream 2 will reduce its income even further.
So how did that prediction go?