For serious discussion - like your thoughts beyond simple "Russians go home" platitudes. What even is a russian theory of victory at this point?
First off - this STILL seems to be a war where their only goal is conquest and capitulation of the Ukrainian government to a Russian puppet one. But - how do they intend realize that?
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Terroristic bombings against civilian targets from standoff distance has never, ever been successful at defeating an industrial society. It's way, way way too expensive to maintain and doesn't hold ground.
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Russia's mechanized forces in mass have largely been wiped out and is cost-ineffective compared to Ukraine's ability to stop them with drones.
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Russia's infantry tactics is literally sending in small infiltration teams into forward areas, where they are eventually either droned, sniped, mined, shelled or outright counter attacked and killed.
Ukraine seems capable of increasingly automating their defense AND assualt forces to be less manpower intensive, and able to trade a little bit of land temporarily until they can kill the infiltration teams that bum rush positions in cars, motorbikes or on foot. The latter is NOT a serious or effective strategy for occupying and pacifying conquered land.
In the big picture - Russia seems to just be prolonging the slaughter and hoping to be given something in return to make it stop. But - that doesn't seem likely to work. No serious minded thinkers expect Russia to honor any agreement, so why WOULDN'T Ukraine logically look at the stiatuion and conclude that the ONLY way to stop future russian aggression is to bleed out their army until there is fundamental change in Russian political leadership.
How does Russia 'win' this war? It's hard to see. Things feel very endgame, but also stagnant since life of their soldiers means absolutely nothing to the Kremlin, when they probably know the alternative is that stopping the war leads quickly and directly to total domestic collapse.
Your thoughts please.
Ukraine has been on the brink of collapsing several times and only heroic efforts on their part and the persistence of their allies have staved off the worst.
My sense is that Putin is hoping that another crisis will open up in the future, and that it will finally bring about Ukraine's surrender. Of course, Ukraine and Europe (not sure about the USA at this point) are hoping that the same happens to Russia: that it collapses under the weight of sanctions and internal discontent.
Just think of how giddy Putin must have been when Trump was elected, or when Trump started the war in Iran and made oil expensive. How he must have thought Orbán was going to block EU support forever. Why does everything have to go wrong for Vladimir?
Putin still has minions in the EU post-Orban, but no doubt the Russian position keeps getting worse and worse.
The US no longer sends any aid to Ukraine I understand, they simply are delivering equipment that EU countries have bought on behalf of Ukraine. This was a big win for Putin, but nowhere big enough. Add in EU shell manufacturing capacity growing so fast, along with just the general revitalization of EU arms manufacturing, I think the US' support is becoming less and less critical. Given the broad support Ukraine enjoys in the US, I would expect this to reverse in a few years, so there is another clock ticking for Russia.
Honestly, putting myself in Putin's shoes, it's one of two things. First, he has so successfully insulated himself, he has no idea how things are going. Second, he's just continuing to attack because to stop would mean his ouster and likely execution.
So long as Russia continues the war, Putin has an easier time of fending off potential internal enemies. Thousands of ordinary Russians will suffer and many die, but that's a sacrifice he's willing to make to keep holding on to power.
The longer he can hold on, the more chances subverting can change for him.
its mostly ethnic russians that are sent to die, hes avoiding st petersberg and moscow, thats where his influence and weakness is, since those are the 2 cities that are financially significant to putin.
I think this is it.
Ending the war sucks for Putin personally, and the longer it goes on the more likely it becomes for Ukraine or it's allies to suffer an intolerable crisis and sue for peace on terms favorable to Russia.
So the war continues even if there is no realistic chance to accomplish the States goals of the Russian federation.
And it's not like Putin is going to the front, or will be impoverished.
russia desperately had KRASNOV lift its oil sanctions, they mustve been pretty close to collapsing if he handt lifted it.
I keep thinking how giddy Xi must have been with this idiotic quid pro quo where Russia would attack Ukraine first before Xi pressed on some Taiwan reunification threat. Without losing a single soldier or piece of equipment, China has become the undisputed leader of the Axis of Authoritarian Hell Holes, taken influential control of the Central Asian republics today, will control eastern Russia tomorrow, can make any demand of Russia going forward with no chance of them saying no. They have secured all the resource materials, energy, fresh water that China will ever need, and gained naval use of the erstwhile Russian North Pacific, something they have never, ever had in 5000 years.
Aside from the very first months, do you have a citation for that? The roughest time for them since I can think of was when they couldn't get shells, and even then it didn't really translate into much movement of the front lines (since that's the main metric of short-term success or failure that's public).
It's a full scale war and conditions have been terrible, of course, but there's a difference between suffering and actually losing.
Yup. The general vibe is that even a tiny chance of an opening and a few more months to live is worth more than whatever conceding would bring Putin.