[Skybird]

Why pyrric victory? The objective never was to "save" the city in any meaning of the term, but to drive out the enemy. And the enemy is gone. That battle has seen a total victory with the victor now doing as he pleases, or not?

Interesting that Putin has started to reduce Russian forces in Syria, indicating he does not further want to support any military fancy or war by Assad (who recently said he wants to regain all of Syria, which currently is questionable - and cannot be done without Russian aid). It seems to me Putin plans to keep Syria open ended and thus: instabile, so that he always will be needed by the regime, and he always can fall back to playing the Syria card, also against the West. If it were about securing a military victory in the war, the next logical step would have been to now forcus all military wrath on Idlib, the last remaining major stronghold of the various rebel groups. Assad probbaly could not do that alone without havign his forces bogging down, and Russia seems to currently not being in the mood to head for Idlib, so I think the conclusion is evident.

As the chief of the security conference in Munich recently said: we in the West, especially Europe, and here especially Germany, must stop thinking, claiming and saying that "there cannot be a military solution", something that especially German diplomats love to say over and over and over again. There can, Russia repeatedly demonstrated that now. Even if the wanted solution is an open ended solution, and is intended destabilization. The Kremlin got what it wants - with military means. Period. Like in the Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula as well.

Brute force can be very convincing, no matter whether morally okay or not.