Thoughts on Russia / Ukraine

 I know very little about this conflict and I'm not about to start posting pithy declarations about what must be true. If you want that, go to Twitter!

But, there seems to be a clear communications exercise in play that, despite very little concrete information about what is going on on the ground, paints the Russian invasion as an abject failure. The contrarian side of my mind doesn't like a wholly one-sided story.

The media coverage of this situation is confusing. Long periods of time go by without any real news for such an allegedly active conflict, and much of it is devoid of context. There's a lack of significant photography - significant because the worst possible photos are quick to make it to the fore when they are available - and some of it is said to be fake,  misinterpreted, or from prior conflicts. It's almost as if there is no meaningful long-term foreign media presence (or interest) in the country.

So, there are some of the factors that interest the contrarian side of my mind:

1. If you don't know what Putin's goals are (as almost everyone says that they do not), how can you say that he has failed?
1. He has not yet invested serious firepower in the conflict.
2. It was always and still is unreasonable to expect that an army of 150K people would invade and occupy/hold a country as large as Ukraine - especially inclusive of multiple, large urban centres. That's why nobody expected it to be done.
3. What if this is a "mowing the grass" exercise? Or one with explicit targets that are not easily understood or not tasty enough to report on?
4. The idea that Putin "would not have realized" how hostile some parts of Ukraine were to Russian involvement and misjudged the effect of this on their ability to advance seems laughable. I knew about this hostility and I know hardly anything about Ukraine. The whole premise for the invasion (faulty or not) was on hostility toward pro-Russian areas of the country.
5. Extend #4 to the idea that the difficulty of taking urban areas was misjudged. Russia has been active in Syria for years, and Syria is a very urban country.
2. Russia's government debt as a % of GDP is under 20%. Impressive.
3. China now knows what to expect if they have designs on Taiwan. Most Western hands have now been played, and have been shown that they can be cohesive in a hurry. Sanctions on China would more directly affect US prosperity and would presumably therefore be less severe (though military involvement may be on the table there, whereas it is not here). The sanctions against Russia presumably expose the worst case.
4. Canada has cut off Putin's funding. He must be as dangerous as those protestors that occupied Ottawa a few weeks ago. It puts it into perspective how extreme that "go after their money" aspect of the move against the protestors really was.
5. Hopefully Russia doesn't have technological backdoors into US or European infrastructure. This is the time you hold those types of things in reserve for.
6. Russian gas supply to Europe. It'd be a shame if something was to happen to that. I'm sure it'd be an accident if it did.
7. Unlike Donald Trump, Putin has not yet violated Twitter's terms of service and the Russian presidential account is still active.

I generally believe that, if you are dealing with smart people and something doesn't make sense to you, then it's because you don't understand their perspective or don't have the same aims or value system. That is to say, what they are doing makes sense only when you figure out how to look at it properly.

And on top of that, I say all of this recognizing that autocratic rule as exists in Russia is of a very different nature to democratic rule. The power dynamics are different; the personal costs and risks of failure to the leader are different. I recognize it, but I don't understand it. I can barely identify the real motives of democratic governments most of the time!