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.
That seems to be what is happening. But how long do they really think it can last? Financially, they are already digging into their reserves to keep the war going. And they are going to run out of soldiers sooner or later, either via desertion or straight death. And as they have fewer soldiers to hold the line and less money to support them, they will be pushed back further and further until they are right back at their previous border or worse.
I think that is one possible way this ends, but you might not like just how long they can keep feeding the meat grinder. I do think that if Ukraine can start taking russian land past the border you will start to see a change. The conscripts that as of now get to stay out of the trenches would be put in hard fighting (that the russians have shown they are not good at without taking massive casualties) and that would likely be the final part to russias internal collapse. Ether that happens due to them running out of prisoners/volunteers/poor people or russia itself being attacked.
@blarghly @M0oP0o You know, it's rather like Trump in Iran and Bibi in Palestine. All three entities are enmeshed in conflicts they cannot win, that are very unpopular both at home and abroad, that are destabilizing their economies (& now the world's), and are threatening their hold on power. I don't know that we have ever seen this happen in world politics before. Maybe we have. None can survive because they are adrift. It's a matter of time and opportunity.