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The Russia-Ukraine War at Six Months
- anovikov 4y agoI believe it will be a permanent, maybe generational war. It will take a very long time to get Russians to exhaust their artillery munitions stocks. Anywhere from 3 to 30 years by different assessments. That moment will come, there is no way Russians could replace the spent shells one for one, but it is far away. Economic effects on Russia are heavy for their people and will be heavier but they will never stop Putin. Security apparatus and propaganda is sufficient to handle situation under absolutely any circumstances, remember Putin's regime safety is based on support of non-Russian, non-Slavic nations living in Russia, so they won't stop from even wholesale slaughter of their own people simply because they don't see Russians as their own people. This is also why Ukrainian war goes without much strain on Russian morale - most Russians are convinced that Ukrainians are same people so many expected problems in that department - the worst atrocities are simply commissioned by non-Russian, non-Slavic units. Russians will by some point run out of artillery stocks, but it takes patience. It already happened with guided missiles and that was a big relief for Ukraine. If artillery fire rate falls as much as guided missile fire rate fell in August vs March (suggesting difference between what they can fire and what they can produce on the go when stocks were out), Ukrainian victory will be easy. In the meantime, Ukraine has to be bankrolled by the West. It's not expensive at all: what the author misses is that economic cost of getting away from Russian fossil fuels are several times over the entire Ukrainian GDP. And the fossil fuel part needs to be done, no one puts it under a tiniest doubt. So support of Ukraine is, in relative terms, not at all expensive.