What?
After four years of armed conflict, 10,000 casualties and 1.5 million internally displaced, the dangerous situation between Ukraine and Russia escalated again on Nov. 25. Russian military vessels rammed, shot at and seized three Ukrainian military ships that were routinely and legally passing through the Kerch Strait.
This represents a new dimension of the conflict. Unlike the covert operation in 2014, which led to the annexation of Crimea, or the Russian-supported militant uprisings in eastern Ukraine, the Russian military is this time visibly engaged in using force against Kiev. [emphasis added]
I'm stunned. How anybody can state that Russian military forces weren't visibly engaged in combat in both Crimea and in the Donbas is beyond me.
But that inability to see the obvious is the crucial third point of Russia's so-called revolutionary "hybrid" warfare:
1) Russia invades a country,
2) Russia denies invading a country, and
3) Westerners go along with the Russian fiction.
All the West needs to do is stop its part 3 role rather than study it like it's a mysterious new riddle inside an enigma.
Further, the authors want to impose Russia-compliant "neutrality" on Ukraine. Without Russia even giving back their conquests.
Which is hardly a deterrent to Russia trying the same thing again. So I'd reject their notions of defeat out of hand.
Oh, and hilariously the authors say that Ukraine's neutrality could result in behaviors that Sweden, as one example, conducts.
I'm good with that example as a general rule! But would Russia agree?
I say helping Ukraine send body bags back to Russia is the way to go.
