Yes but there are indications he has plans far beyond Ukraine.
He needs to take out Ukraine first because they are the biggest threat.
These are the things we can only guess at right now.
Could you elaborate on these indications? From what I've seen, I think it's quite possible that he won't even take all of Ukraine. John Mearsheimer, who correctly predicted that Russia would intervene in Ukraine years ago if the west didn't change course in regards to NATO, published an article in late June which I believe brought up a lot of good points as to Russia's goals. I started a thread that
quoted it extensively in the first post.
Here's part of it that applies to his views on Russia's current goals in Ukraine:
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Rhetoric about de-Nazifying and demilitarizing Ukraine aside, Russia’s concrete goals involve conquering and annexing a large portion of Ukrainian territory, while simultaneously turning Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state. As such, Ukraine’s ability to wage war against Russia would be greatly reduced and it would be unlikely to qualify for membership in either the EU or NATO. Moreover, a broken Ukraine, would be especially vulnerable to Russian interference in its domestic politics. In short, Ukraine would not be a Western bastion on Russia’s border.
What would that dysfunctional rump state look like? Moscow has officially annexed Crimea and four other Ukrainian oblasts – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporozhe – which together represent about 23 percent of Ukraine’s total territory before the crisis broke out in February 2014. Russian leaders have emphasized that they have no intention of surrendering that territory, some of which Russia does not yet control. In fact, there is reason to think Russia will annex additional Ukrainian territory if it has the military capability to do so at a reasonable cost. It is difficult, however, to say how much additional Ukrainian territory Moscow will seek to annex, as Putin himself makes clear.8
Russian thinking is likely to be influenced by three calculations. Moscow has a powerful incentive to conquer and permanently annex Ukrainian territory that is heavily populated with ethnic Russians and Russian speakers. It will want to protect them from the Ukrainian government – which has become hostile to all things Russian – and make sure there is no civil war anywhere in Ukraine like the one that took place in the Donbass between February 2014 and February 2022. At the same time, Russia will want to avoid controlling territory largely populated by hostile ethnic Ukrainians, which places significant limits on further Russian expansion. Finally, turning Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state will require Moscow to take substantial amounts of Ukrainian territory so it is well-positioned to do significant damage to its economy. Controlling all of Ukraine’s coastline along the Black Sea, for example, would give Moscow significant economic leverage over Kyiv.
Those three calculations suggest that Russia is likely to attempt to annex the four oblasts – Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Odessa – that are immediately to the west of the four oblasts it has already annexed – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporozhe. If that were to happen, Russia would control approximately 43 percent of Ukraine’s pre-2014 territory.9 Dmitri Trenin, a leading Russian strategist estimates that Russian leaders would seek to take even more Ukrainian territory – pushing westward in northern Ukraine to the Dnieper River and taking the part of Kyiv that sits on the east bank of that river. He writes that “A logical next step” after taking all of Ukraine from Kharkiv to Odessa “would be to expand Russian control to all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper River, including the part of Kyiv that lies on the that river’s eastern bank. If that were to happen, the Ukrainian state would shrink to include only the central and western regions of the country.”10
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Source:
The Darkness Ahead: Where The Ukraine War Is Headed | John Mearsheimer
This is an ongoing theory I have and it's not substantiated but Putin already has Belarus in his pocket.
I can certainly agree that he has a strong relationship with the President of Belarus, but I think we can agree that that has nothing to do with conquest.
I believe that after Ukraine falls he will go after Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Estonia is not really a problem for him but the other two are so a possible invasion of them or sever pressure may make them cave. Since Ukraine will be gone they will have little will power to resist.
Why would he want to invade any of those countries? For starters, none of those countries have been killing ethnic Russians for the past 8 years and they're all already -in- NATO, which would quite likely mean that NATO would respond in kind. Even in the case of Ukraine, Russia waited "8 endless years", as Putin has said, before finally determining that Europe's diplomacy on settling the issue was just lies to be able to build up Ukraine's military.
Once those are under his grasp I expect him to go after Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovakia using the excuse of Russian nationals living there.
Again, I see absolutely no reason why he'd do this for any of them. Both Bulgaria and Slovaka are in NATO, which would trigger a NATO response and Serbia actually has fairly good relations with Russia. Why attack a friend?
I believe he and the hardliners in leadership positions are trying to reform the Soviet block.
I've heard that theory before, but I've never seen any evidence for it. He's always said that his primary reasons to intervene in Ukraine was for the national security of Russia and to help the people in the Donbass region, many of them of ethnic Russian origin. I've never heard him say a peep in relation to any of the nations you mentioned. The -only- nation I could see him possibly intervening in might be Moldova, because of the breakaway state of Transnitria, which is comprised of around 29.1% ethnic Russians, the largest ethnic group in the region. If Moldova just leaves them alone, though, I think Russia will do the same in regards to Moldova. Earlier on, Moldova had threatened Transnitria with some things and Russia had growled in return, but after the growl, they apparently left Transnitrians alone.
But for all this to happen Ukraine needs to fall first as they are the biggest threat in the region.
We certainly agree that Russia's primary concern right now is Ukraine. The way things are going, however, I don't think that will be changing anytime soon.
And we are not talking all out war here, most of it will be done diplomatically but Russia will be in control.
Oh for diplomacy. I -wish- that's all that was happening right now. I just saw a scene from an episode of Dr. Who that I think epitomizes the terrible tragedy of war. It's here:
Some really good lines in it. One of my favourite: "How much blood will spill until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning, sit down and talk!"
This war with Ukraine will more than likely be the worst of the fighting which is why he went their first, to test the waters so to speak.
Did you know that he tried to resolve the civil war in Ukraine for 8 years diplomatically before finally intervening militarily? Did you know that during that time, European leaders lied to his face, pretending to actually want a peace deal, when all they wanted was to build up Ukraine's army so that they could try to militarily quash the rebellion in eastern Ukraine? Did you know that literally days prior to Russia's military intervention, the Ukraine military had increased their bombardment of the Donbass region exponentially, with strong evidence that they had been planning to try to retake it by force once more?
From all of this, it seems clear to me that Ukraine, and its western allies by extension, had been testing the waters against Russia. To see what would happen if they broke any semblance of trying to keep the peace in Eastern Ukraine. They clearly miscalculated. I'm guessing they just thought Russia would sit by as ethnic Russians were slaughtered in the Donbass region. They were wrong and they're paying the price now.
