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> if the general population just fights you Big if. 99% of the people just want to live their lives. But media had a selection bias. You only hear about the

> if the general population just fights you Big if. 99% of the people just want to live their lives. But media had a selection bias. You only hear about the 1% who go and pick up a Kalashnikov, and do some patrol duty around a hospital or a bomb shelter. But 99% just want this to be over with. They want to go home, sleep in their bed, eat some warm food, take a shower. They hate the Russians, but love their children, and know that being a hero can very easily translate into their children growing up without a parent (and maybe the other parent in jail). My Mom had to live as a little kid with har father in jail for 2 years. Because he had been a police officer before the communists took over. Not fun. I can’t even begin to imagine what would’ve happened if he had been an active resistance fighter.

ericmay 5y ago
I agree that 99% wants this to be over with, but in a country of 44 million people (minus however many people the Russians have murdered) that's still 440,000 people, and even if only half of those people are actively resisting that's still 220,000 people to fight on their homeland against a 150,000-200,000 person strong Russian army, and even then you have to subtract some number of Russian soldiers who are in pure support roles, etc. whereas you don't really have to subtract that number for the Ukrainians. And those are very conservative numbers and the Russians are really not getting any help from the locals whereas the active resistance fighters for sure are getting assistance. Now imagine we take those extremely conservative numbers and put the number at say, 3%. Whole different ball game. Especially when the defenders are armed to the teeth. I do agree it's a big if, but I think in this case it's proving to not be in doubt so far. Eventually Russia is likely to "win", though I'm not sure what their victory conditions are... maybe installing a puppet Ukrainian government that's not recognized internationally and then some large number of people want to get on with their lives as you say and maybe 80%+ of the population stops resisting, but if people keep resisting (back to my post) I just don't see what Russia is going to do here. Maybe they'll conscript hundreds of thousands of Russians? I'm thinking that Russia is likely to add a puppet government and then take the military and keep fighting on to Moldova and march through and bring the Belorussian military to the Baltics. We are only at the opening stage. My fear is that they start conscripting Ukrainians who, as you say, just want to stay out of trouble but get thrust into combat anyway and have no choice but to shoot back. All of sudden by conquering countries and conscripting people, Putin enlarges his army. But I just don't know how the logistics of that work here. Either he will continue and press on and it's going to get really crazy or here soon the entire thing is going to fall apart drastically. Too bad the Ukrainians can't march on to liberate Moscow and Russia.

ericmay 5y ago

I agree that 99% wants this to be over with, but in a country of 44 million people (minus however many people the Russians have murdered) that's still 440,000 people, and even if only half of those people are actively resisting that's still 220,000 people to fight on their homeland against a 150,000-200,000 person strong Russian army, and even then you have to subtract some number of Russian soldiers who are in pure support roles, etc. whereas you don't really have to subtract that number for the Ukrainians. And those are very conservative numbers and the Russians are really not getting any help from the locals whereas the active resistance fighters for sure are getting assistance. Now imagine we take those extremely conservative numbers and put the number at say, 3%. Whole different ball game. Especially when the defenders are armed to the teeth. I do agree it's a big if, but I think in this case it's proving to not be in doubt so far. Eventually Russia is likely to "win", though I'm not sure what their victory conditions are... maybe installing a puppet Ukrainian government that's not recognized internationally and then some large number of people want to get on with their lives as you say and maybe 80%+ of the population stops resisting, but if people keep resisting (back to my post) I just don't see what Russia is going to do here. Maybe they'll conscript hundreds of thousands of Russians? I'm thinking that Russia is likely to add a puppet government and then take the military and keep fighting on to Moldova and march through and bring the Belorussian military to the Baltics. We are only at the opening stage. My fear is that they start conscripting Ukrainians who, as you say, just want to stay out of trouble but get thrust into combat anyway and have no choice but to shoot back. All of sudden by conquering countries and conscripting people, Putin enlarges his army. But I just don't know how the logistics of that work here. Either he will continue and press on and it's going to get really crazy or here soon the entire thing is going to fall apart drastically. Too bad the Ukrainians can't march on to liberate Moscow and Russia.