Challenging Questions about the War in Ukraine: A Q&A

Intro

Shortly after starting my posts about the Russo-Ukraine War, a friend of mine asked me if I would like to participate in his website, realcavsfans.com, as a guest poster on the political thread. Of course, I said, “yes”. One of the threads he posted was a Q&A thread, and below are some incredibly thoughtful and hard-hitting questions about the on-going conflict in Ukraine. Hopefully, the answers (some of which may be “I don’t know”) will be useful and informative.

I should also state that the only information that I have about the conflict is what I read on open-source information, but my thoughts on this war are shaped by many years of experience in analyzing conflicts.

Note: I’ve taken some liberties with the order of the questions for sake of narrative and flow. Though they may be the original questions, they may not necessarily appear in the order in which they were asked.

Political support for Putin

Does Putin have the support of Russian oligarchs for this war or are these the actions of a madman?

So last part first, Putin is not a madman, and I don’t believe that he is terminally ill either. His actions are quite in keeping with the last 20-ish years of his prime ministerial/presidential reign…