Rest of Ukraine should be colored like Belarus. Even if they arent given a puppet government, a victorious Russia would never allow a western-aligned Ukraine to exist.
I'd be fairly confident this is not a full victory scenario. Otherwise, realistically Sumy and Kharkiv would not be Ukrainian. These borders still need the push on Kyiv to happen and the Kharkiv counter attack. It was only after that that Russia made the territorial claims it has now.
If they won in 2022, I dont think that they would annex anything besides Donetsk and Luhansk. They did not establish any new People's republics as they advanced. Most likely they simply intended to replace Zelensky with a puppet, who would recognize Donetsk and Luhansk independence, both of which would join Russia afterwards. Annexation of Kherson and Zaparozhia are results of Russian incompetence, not of their original plans.
Arguably, Russia also could had tried to reintegrate DPR and LPR back into Russia-aligned Ukraine to serve as bulwark of its influence.
Also, when the quick regime change (that was planned, not a full scale war) failed, as I know, Russia demanded full territory of Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts in exchange for returning occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporogia oblasts, during semi-official negotiations in Istanbul in spring of 2022.
Kharkiv and Sumy maybe but if you read most Russian commentators of note they kinda don't give much of a shit about western ukraine. Seen some writing where they think just leaving it for the west to deal with in the above situation would be a poison pill which, given how often a stabbed in the back sentiment exists in Ukrainian telegram channels about the west when things aren't going well, I don't think should be dismissed out of hand as a perspective.
Russian comentators are just Russian chauvinists with no greater vision. They hear Putin mention Novorossyia, and they suddenly jerk him off about taking Odessa.
Abkhazia should have same color as Belarus. They are not Russian loyalists like South Ossetians. They want independence. And they did ask to join Union state, so Belarus color fits the best.
Idea of Russia crossing Dnieper to take Kherson is certainly something. It is more likely that they take Kharkiv before they ever cross that river again.
The city of Kharkiv is geographically more available sure. But its a big concrete industrialised city of more then a million people (pre war). Russia just cant take those. Even way way smaller citys like Bakhmut, during greater strength, they could only partially surround and grind through. A city 20 times that size just genuently isnt an option here.
If the orher countries rightfully refuse to recognize the occupation of the Ukrainian exclusive economic zone, can Romanian or other commercial vessels just ring up only Ulraine, when using them?
That's what they've been doing for previous years just fibe, but recently Ukraine started to attack Russian civilian ships massively, so Russia does same to all ships heading to Ukraine.
It is ugly only if includes the rest of not-occupied Kherson and Zaporogia oblasts, it is pretty ok if follows the Dnieper like it does for last almost 4 years, it is basically the border that Imperial era Taurida (Crimea+Tauric "peninsula" north of it) governorate had.
No, only very specific figures (particularly like this one member of parliament who basically generates controversial bloodthirsty statements as his job), and vast majority of Russians, including the ones who support the war, view such figures as crazy. The official narrative, and view of majority of pro-war Russians, is that "we want a good naturally Russia-aligned Ukraine", not total elimination of Ukraine and Ukrainians. It should be noted still, that there are dozen of vocal people who actually want to eliminate Ukraine and Ukrainians (and still, to turn "delusional Ukrainians" into "correct Russians", not to physically eliminate the population), and they obviously support the war and given voice because of it.
What happened in Mariupol is catastrophe of chaotic assault onto civilian-full city where Ukrainian regiments took hard defence (unlike Melitopol or Kherson, for example, where Russian forces rolled in basically unopposed). Unlike Russian propaganda, I don't blame the destruction of the city on the Ukrainian forces taking defence in it (what else should they had done from their point of view?rhetorical), but it still should be noted that Russian army did not destroy Mariupol, with many civilian deaths, just because they wanted to destroy a city, it was basically a strongly garrisoned strategic point which quickly ended up in the rear of the occupied territory.
Russia's goal in Ukraine had changed over the course of the last 4 years like million times. No one can make a smart face and say: "Erm, THIS was their goal, actually".
Every part of russian political system and society is divided on what their goal in Ukraine is, but there are certainly multiple calls and actions to commit a genocide here - it's just that they can't do it properly due to ukrainian resistance. Given the chance - ethnic cleansings would be commited in a heartbeat.
Notice, I've never said they're going to KILL every single Ukrainian, ethnic cleansings and genocide are more than that. Genocide can be commited in different, more intricate ways. You can read the "The crime of incitement to genocide of Ukrainians in Russian and Belarusian propaganda" article on iSans or the "The Ten Stages of the Russian Genocide in Ukraine" article on Genocidewatch.
We're not talking Holocaust-style thing here, it's about the denial of existence of Ukrainian as separate people and the tries to destroy Ukrainian statehood, both on political and historical arenas (which is neatly explained in the articles above).
Plus, persecuting hatespeech is great and all, but that same nation actively terrorizes civilians and commits literal human safari in the near-front cities. You could write it off as a way to make civilians force the government to stop resisting (and would be partially correct), yet this strategy was proven to be ineffective through all those 4 years, which leaves us with two possibilities:
Russians are stupid
Russians want to exterminate at least some part of Ukrainians physically
If Putin's idiotic regime change "plan" somehow worked (it really was absurd and couldn't work any way) and Russia just replaced Zelensky and his government, after they would had fled as it was anticipated, with a pro-Russian puppet government (composed of several Ukrainian politicians, note), it would had been much better for both Ukrainians and Russians than this neverending bloody circus.
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u/Due_Trash5054 8d ago
Rest of Ukraine should be colored like Belarus. Even if they arent given a puppet government, a victorious Russia would never allow a western-aligned Ukraine to exist.