"but increasing probability Russia uses a tactical nuke in Ukraine."
Not likely. They would have nothing to gain from it. In their narrative, they are protecting the ukrainians ( which are actually russians, whether they want or not) from the fascist ukrainians. Nuking russian soil does not go together with this and Putin struggles already to not loose his base. And any military advantage this would gain, would be offset by massive upscaling of international aid. Also the russian army is in no shape anymore, to fight in fallout areas.
I expect a stalemate at the current frontlines, with not much changes in the long term.
I agree it is not likely but their made up reasons have nothing to do with it. The narratives shift weekly and at no point they've been internally consistent.
Hm, I surely did not follow every speech of Putin or RT news in general, but as far as I did, the narrative that the Ukrainian needs to be liberated as Russians, did not change and has been pretty consistent.
What did change, were the various threats towards the west and stated goals of what to achieve and back and forth with mobilisation and such.
Putins goal is clear, he wants a Eurasian Empire. But he is apparently not clear on how to achieve it.
(For example he would like Belarussia to join russia and join the war, but so far he was not able to enforce it )
No, the narrative is anywhere from "we're defending Russia proper from invasion" to "we're going after every Ukrainian and their children" between different (and sometimes the same) TV hosts and public figures.
Like I said, I am not really a follower of russian TV, I mainly just read various Speeches Putin gave. And there was never anything close of "we're going after every Ukrainian and their children", that I remember.
It was variations of "the NATO is coming closer to us everyday and we have to fight back". If you know more and different, pls share.
You must have missed the speech when Putin officially annexed the territory he grabbed thus far. The imperial irredentism has little to do with the NATO narrative. But as I said the consistency in Russian propaganda is never sought after, neither by the propagandists nor the willing recipients.
But... how else are we going to keep up the image that we're on the side of the good guys?
People have been saying this shit for months, about how Russia will invade the rest of Europe, or drops nukes, or go crazy, and low and behold, they so far only did exactly what they said they were going to do, nothing more.
If you cant support the war given those facts, and need to make up stories about nukes and total conquest, then maybe war isnt good no matter which side youre on.
…exactly what they said? They were saying they are not going to invade as late as February 20, 2022. Then they said their objectives are total conquest on February 24, 2022 in a public TV address. They threatened nukes (everyone from Putin himself to TV pundits) for months until Xi publicly chided him.
But I am impressed how one can take perhaps the most morally unambiguous conflict in the century so far and still make it an uncertainty.
>how else are we going to keep up the image that we're on the side of the good guys?
Everything we are seeing and hearing from the people in the liberated areas seems to be working pretty well. I guess they bought into the narrative too.
I'd guess it's more the stories of the Russians raping and torturing them that is making it so obviously unambiguous that the Ukrainians are the good guys.
Not likely. They would have nothing to gain from it. In their narrative, they are protecting the ukrainians ( which are actually russians, whether they want or not) from the fascist ukrainians. Nuking russian soil does not go together with this and Putin struggles already to not loose his base. And any military advantage this would gain, would be offset by massive upscaling of international aid. Also the russian army is in no shape anymore, to fight in fallout areas.
I expect a stalemate at the current frontlines, with not much changes in the long term.