Russia’s Crimean Red Line Has Been Erased, by the completely hinged and very sensible people at Foreign Policy.

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Suckered by Russian propaganda surrounding the peninsula’s supposedly pro-Russian tilt and convinced that any Ukrainian assault on Crimea could spark potential military escalation, Western voices largely shied away from backing any attempts at returning the peninsula to Kyiv’s control. This was seen perhaps most spectacularly last month, when news emerged that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had undercut Ukrainian efforts to target the peninsula because of concerns any attack “could lead to a nuclear war.”

Those concerns were perhaps understandable, insofar as Russian officials have continually rattled a nuclear saber about protecting Crimea from any Ukrainian reclamation efforts. But now, as Ukraine unleashes near-daily assaults on the peninsula, the notion that Crimea presents some kind of Temple Mount—or even any kind of red line—for Russians has crumbled.

In the face of continued drone attacks, long-range missile fires, sabotage operations, and annihilation of military assets across Crimea, Russians have hardly treated the Ukrainian peninsula as some kind of sacred land. Rather than rushing to protect Crimea, Russians have instead begun fleeing the region en masse. Rather than seeing Russians lining up to enlist to aid the Kremlin’s defense of the peninsula, Moscow continues mooting the potential of a second, and far broader, forced mobilization. And rather than resulting in any kind of nuclear conflagration, Russians’ subdued reaction to the continued bombardment of Crimea has dissolved Putin’s claims that the peninsula is some kind of special, sacrosanct land. As McGill University professor Maria Popova recently posted on X (formerly known as Twitter), “Crimea isn’t special, let alone a red line.”

Indeed, with few even noticing, Ukraine’s continued shelling and strikes on the peninsula have illustrated one clear lesson: The idea that Crimea is some kind of holy land that Russians will race to defend—an idea that far too many in the West previously swallowed—is dead. And in that death, a wealth of new opportunities has opened up for Kyiv and for the Western partners who are suddenly realizing Crimea is hardly the sacral land Putin once claimed.

I'm having trouble forming a sentence to reply to this. I am baffled. I am utterly bewildered. This might be the single stupidest article I have read since the counteroffensive began.

They say that Russians aren't rushing to defend Crimea because Russian tourists (that is literally the article they link to, I am not making this up, go click it) don't want to get hit by Ukrainian drone strikes. They say that Russia isn't doing a second mobilization because, presumably, they think that Putin (with an 80% approval rating, over twice that of many western leaders) couldn't do it without his population rebelling against him, and they think that the Russian government is lying about how many people are volunteering and signing up for service, and because so many tens of thousands of Russians are being killed every month on the battlefields, something must eventually break. At no point is there the consideration that perhaps Russian deaths and casualties - in a defensive environment - are actually very low. Or that the Russian government might actually be telling the truth about the recruitment figures.

If Russia had nuked Ukraine over them hitting Crimea with dronestrikes, that would evidence of their barbarity, their brutality, and their weakness because they have no other method to response because their army is broken and destroyed. If Russia doesn't nuke Ukraine over Crimea, it proves that Crimea isn't special, that Russians are cowards that don't want to defend it, that Russia can't stop the strikes, and thus that Russia is weak. Completely nonfalsifiable ideology.

The fact that we're still getting these kinds of articles four months after the counteroffensive began and with no breakthrough by Ukraine really demonstrates the stunning levels of cognitive dissonance that Western analysts are capable of having. Ukraine has essentially not even moved with the combined effort of months and months of military buildup and training, throwing equipment and men at the Russian lines since June, and the conclusion we are meant to draw at this stage? That Ukraine taking Crimea (probably) wouldn't get them nuked after all! It's fair game! We need to support their efforts to retake it! I mean this as genuinely as I can convey it: What the fuck are you talking about?

The universe might be a giant laboratory simulation to see to what depths people can plunge when repeatedly shown evidence that contradicts their worldviews. I hope when Ukraine collapses and Russia marches in, whenever that may be, their brains start leaking out of their skulls as their eyes cannot comprehend what is happening, and we are spared their analysis forevermore. May god have mercy on their souls.