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As a Layman.
I just dont buy Russia invading NATO countries when they are legit struggling with Ukraine. Even if Russia somehow conquers all of Ukraine they are gonna have to leave a sizeable force there to just keep it under control. Like attacking another country while they just conquered Ukraine and barley control it ,sounds like all kinds of trouble.
I would say Russia is currently gaining combat experience on the largest and most modern battlefield in the world. So the Ukraine conflict does have value for its military if there are future conflicts. However, I feel that Russia will likely want a fairly lengthy period of peace afterward.
Also possible im completely and utterly wrong and Putin attacks Finland while I go for breakfast.
I don't think Russia is struggling in Ukraine. They intentionally chose to fight the war as a low intensity conflict with minimal impact on the civilian population. Although, that's now changing with the dismantling of the energy infrastructure. A war with Europe would look very different. Russia would not be holding back the way they do in Ukraine.
That said, the idea of Russia invading Europe is fantastical. There is no rational reason for Russia to do that. NATO build up in Ukraine was a threat to national security that Russia had to respond to.
Furthermore, people tend to think of security in a one dimensional fashion. Military invasion is just one vector. Look at how the US operates, open invasions are rare. Most of the time it's destabilizing the economy, interfering in politics, etc. That's precisely what Russia will do. Europe had already destroyed its own economy in pursuit of the war. There's political discontent in all the major countries with mainstream parties hovering around 10-20% approval. Russia will simply support the opposition and promise economic benefits from cooperation.
Russia is also driving a wedge between the US and Europe by having dialogue with the US. Russia's ultimate goal remains the break up of NATO, and that's looking increasingly likely The US wants to focus on China, and they now see Europe as a liability.
Once NATO falls apart, the EU is likely to follow, and then Russia will be able to negotiate with individual countries from a position of strength.
the denial of russia having any reason to invade ukraine other than putin waking up and choosing evil is critical to the fearmongering that they would likewise irrationally attack the rest of europe.
The West say Russia wants to annex all of Europe. The west also says Putin cant possibly take over Ukraine succesfully. Why am I being lied to
THE ENEMY IS BOTH VERY WEAK AND VERY STRONG
Oh absolutely, and it's impossible for the west to admit that Russia might have a legitimate reason because that would open up a lot of uncomfortable questions regarding what led to the war and what could've been done differently.
We maybe have different definitions of struggling but considering the amount of Russian lifes lost by even conservative estimates I dont consider this an easy conflict. Similar to the amount of lost material. Im sure a lot of that is just hyped up by the west but im sceptical the numbers look good. Coming from someone who thinks Ukraine will see some form of defeat. Ofc on the Ukranian site the numbers are probably also not peachy.
But im right to understand that Russia considers this conflict existential. So there will be some form of victory eventually.
The only numbers I know that have any methodology behind them were ones published by meduza, which is UK/Ukrainian collaab project. They looknat public data such as obituaries, and only account for around 100k losses. In absolute numbers that's a lot of people dead of course, but im the context of Russian population overal, it's a tiny percentage.
A big reason the conflict is dragging on so long is precisely because Russia refuses to do big offensives which would be costly. They slowly and methodically use attrition to grind down the AFU.
Ah, but you're not thinking like a lib! You see, conquering a country is like in a Paradox map painting game, once you conquer all their territory it transforms into your country's colour and is automatically considered a part of your country, there is usually some kind of "devastation" or "unrest" penalty for newly conquered territory, but Putin has probably min-maxxed to make sure that they are as minor as possible so he can take advantage of the new territory's resources to conquer more places ASAP.
My armchair perspective is that Russia absolutely could take Ukraine, but there's no desire to and no benefit to anyone. The conflict didn't start because of a desire to conquer Ukraine but to intervene in a genocide that was happening on the Russian border. It seems that Russia has the means to disable all of Ukraine's energy, water, and rail infrastructure any time they want, and to kill Zelensky, but they're not trying to do that level of American style emisseration.