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It is, and has been from the beginning. Most people thought it would be a walk in the park for the 'great' Russian army, especially the Russians. The only real
by celticninja 5y ago
It is, and has been from the beginning. Most people thought it would be a walk in the park for the 'great' Russian army, especially the Russians. The only real holdouts to this opinion were the Ukrainians. And as it turns out they were bang on the money on this one.
First of all I would ask what is this win scenario you envision?
Is it:
1)Russia takes over all of Ukraine and installs a puppet government, subservient to the Kremlin? That option is long gone.
2) Russia expends thousands of tanks and young men to capture some of East Ukraine? They would face an insurgency and ongoing battles for control, not like ISIS in Afghanistan, more like the trench warfare from WWI or urban fighting from WWII.
There is no win scenario for Russia that will account for the loss of:
1. soldiers
2. Military equipment (destroyed/captured/spent)
3. The mythos of the Russian Armed forces being destroyed
4. Russia's Economy
5. The young talent fleeing the country (brain drain)
All of these losses will take decades to recover from and the Russian people will suffer long and hard, they already had a falling population, this will accelerate the problem.
- orionblastar 5y agoA phyric victory that comes at a great cost to Russia.
- baremetal 5y agodo we know what the actual goals of the russians are? In Sun Tzu's inimitable Art of War, he observes, “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive.”[1] [1] google
- mlonkibjuyhv 5y agoI believe a major objective has been to destabilise the EU. The initial reaction at least looks to have been the opposite.
- rsynnott 5y agoOne fairly plausible explanation is that Putin is not, as everyone assumed, an evil genius, but is rather an evil idiot. But it was probably largely to shore up his internal position (one of the downsides of being a dictator is that your retirement options are limited, so they often go very odd in their old age as they try to avoid appearing weak), and that might even work. There's some indication he's more popular internally than he was a couple of months ago. Like, there's no outcomes here that are good for Russia, but there are outcomes which are good for Putin personally, and that's likely all he's interested in.
- rasz 5y agoNuke Kyiv, claim all land east of Dnieper, exterminate/send remaining Ukr population to Siberian gulags. Its still on the table.
- yen223 5y agoWhat's the win for Russia in this scenario?