"If you offer to pay people to kill our people, we will do our best to make you lose this money" is IMO a pretty fair statement when published. Not only it calls the bluff of depending on mercenaries performing the Russian war machine duties, it might discourage them from doing that in the future, since the Ukrainian side is now going to use that money in defense while paying only the costs of their own covert operation.
Knowing how the Russians operate, they might decide to take the money back in skin.
They do tend to be pretty vindictive.
But it is kind of a funny concept, which is sort of an anodyne for an otherwise, really horrible situation. The Ukraine war is experiencing WWI-level casualties.
> Knowing how the Russians operate, they might decide to take the money back in skin.
>They do tend to be pretty vindictive.
I don't think it's any more risky for the Ukrainian military. They've already collectively been on Russia's wanted list for years and it's not like the country might get invaded by the Russian army any harder since it would have already happened long ago.
Good point. I was thinking of the individuals, as opposed to the institutions. The big guys will be protected, but the delivery people and analysts won’t be, on the Russian side, and the lower-level folks on the Ukrainian side could be selected for extra attention.
They are already at war. Russia clearly doesn't have any other hand to play, that's why they're offering a bounty.
Ukraine has nothing more to fear from Russia, because Russia doesn't have anything else to threaten them with apart from nukes, which also is not an option that will give them victory.
