A Rough Estimate on Ukraine

 Russia continues to redeploy significant assets in ways that look like it is preparing for war. It has chosen to redeploy dozens of deniable Wagner PMC assets from Africa to Europe, and is today moving its Pacific Fleet through the Suez Canal to take up position somewhere closer to Europe -- the final destination is unclear at this time, but even from the Mediterranean they could provide some support. Like the existing deployments of forces on the border, the Pacific Fleet maneuver is expensive and cannot be maintained for a very long time without sacrificing a strategic asset in a strategic region. 

My personal guess is that the Russians will use Belarus to provoke (or more likely fake) a Ukrainian 'provocation' the Belarussians will respond to, allowing Russia to invade under the pretense of defending its allies from Ukrainian aggression. They will use the overwhelming force they are accumulating behind special operations and aircraft fires to rapidly seize and hold the eastern half of the country only, I estimate, where most of the population speaks Russia and conceives of themselves as Russians. If they then consolidate that position, there will be a long front that can be dug in and defended. Western diplomatic pressure to make them concede it will be exactly as effective as it has been in South Ossetia and Crimea, i.e., not at all.

Russia is in a perfect position to steal a march on the West, take the portion of Ukraine that will be easiest to take and easiest to hold, and to do so at a low cost in lives and resources. It's the most sensible play, and in accord with Putin's past operations. They could do something more aggressive, but it would also be more expensive and be more likely to create a long-term problem for them like an insurgency behind their lines.

I'm guessing Belarus will do it this time because their President just publicly issued a more aggressive statement on Ukraine than Russia has done. They've already allowed Russian military assets onto their territory, and are openly inviting many more 'if attacked.' If they're staging up to take the lead, then Russia gets to come in not as aggressor -- the chief war crime -- but as a defender and savior of its (allegedly invaded) ally. This will also serve as a pretense that the Russians are not aggressively gobbling up territory again, though of course the collapse of the West and of American power under the Biden administration has made such realignments inevitable. 

Expecting a play of that sort is probably also why the Ukrainian government is trying to get the Biden administration and others to lower their tone, as they want to avoid any appearance of provoking or encouraging conflict. The last thing they could want at this time is to give any appearance of being an aggressor in this conflict. (CNN analysts are a good reverse barometer, so if you read this analysis you'll see both that lowering the tone is the wise play and also that the Biden administration is almost certain to go the other way, thinking they are being 'muscular' rather than walking into a trap.)

Anyway, that's my estimate of what military intelligence calls the 'Most Likely Enemy Course of Action' (MLECOA). This differs from the 'Most Dangerous Enemy Course of Action,' (MDECOA), which I'm not going to lay out in public. I doubt most Americans care enough about any of this to want to get involved, but the Biden administration has shown a stark disconnect from being able to care about, or even entertain concerns from, ordinary Americans.