They're really pushing the narrative that "Russia wants to conquer all of Ukraine" so that when that doesn't happen they can claim victory.
They know Russia isn't actually going to invade Europe, but they probably want to whip the Poles into a frenzy anyway.
How else are you going to scare the EU into buying all that US military junk that, as it so happens, isn't that better than the Soviet-based improved weaponry?
yeah I think that's exactly it, since it's very likely that Russia will stop at western Ukraine, western media can start doing victory laps at that point
Something tells me that Russia won't even go that far - they might take a few oblasts like Kharkov and Odessa, where the people are more Russian-aligned, leave everything else intact and then pick their people for the new government. The post-conflict rump Ukraine is unlikely to be in any shape to be a threat for a very long time, the decaying US empire seems to be interested more and more in targeting China, and also - absorbing a rotting tumor would mean that all the Banderites will be free to metastasize through the veins, possibly waging Crocus-like asymmetrical warfare on Russia for years. It might at the end be too costly and inconvenient, as things stand.
I think that's likely as well. I doubt Russia would want to run an occupation. The rump Ukraine will also act as an albatross around Europe's neck. They're gonna be forced to keep pouring money into it or risk a huge immigration crisis. This is going to exacerbate the economic crisis that's already unfolding.
Exactly. Running an occupation, which aside from being very unpopular would necessitate at least some rebuilding, lest they want a very economically and socially unstable region inside the federation. Also, that may be the reason they aren't in a hurry right now - part "sparing the lives of their personnel", part "attrition by vast economic superiority", part "eh, whatever, let them implode from the inside perhaps". If they wanted the land, they 1) wouldn't have given the land back to Georgia in 2008; 2) started from Armenia or Belarus - why not? they're smaller; 3) entered with 750,000 soldiers, rather than 150-190 thousand (+ some Bars/Alpha/whatever), and wouldn't have gone through the Istanbul shtick.
One reason why we see the "conquer all Ukraine" fearmongering from the West and from Ukraine as well is to manufacture consent - this idea would perhaps force more people into giving themselves up to the grinder voluntarily.
That's really the elephant in the room, if Russia cared about territorial conquest then they'd start with small weak states in the south that could be taken far easier. The whole trouble in Ukraine started with the idea of NATO membership, and making sure that NATO isn't in Ukraine is still the primary concern for Russia.
the military triumph of reaching the EU’s borders
Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania are all EU countries that border Russia.
If they managed to somehow shove Ukraine into EU membership, that would just mean one more EU border shared with Russia, which the westoids would still spin as some kind of fucking encroachment.
I love how they are so petrified at the prospect of even just a fraction of the USSR being restored. This is why they are writing so much bullshit about how Russia supposedly plans to conquer the Baltics and the central Asian states next. It's not because Russia thinks about doing this, it's because they, the Western elite and their lackeys in the media, lie awake at night dreading a return of the USSR, even in an incarnation that is not socialist, because they know if that ever happens their gravy train ends and they will not be able to get away with half the shit they do now.
Here's hoping all their actions only serve to push the former USSR, closer and closer into reintegration and the re-establishment of socialism.
While Russia is far, far away from either of the two at the moment, the west has done impeccable work instigating the first seeds of change. What we have today is a revitalized Russia, working ever-closer with Belarus, the central Asian former Soviet republics, and with China- one that has gotten the oligarchs in check (thanks NATO, for your seizures of Russian oligarchs' assets! 😂 ), which has begun a vibrant re-industrialization and is leading the way (along with China and the rest of BRICS) in another wave of de-colonization, and which has cleansed itself of much of western corporate meddling....
The west has proven itself (as if there were ever any doubt) so abhorrent, so intolerable, so revolting, that they are sowing the seeds for world peace and integration (so long as the west doesn't manage to drive our species extinct prior). If it's not too much to ask, hopefully next up they can work their magic to instigate the revival of the United Arab Republic, Gran Colombia, and the Centroamerican Republic (ideally all under socialist rule, but that can be a WIP) or maybe the German Democratic Republic?
Or even a tenth of the shit.
Boy they really want us to be afraid of Russia winning.
Same warmongering as "the USSR will attack you next!" in the 1950s. An excuse more than anything else