And Germans and Americans are waiting for war fatigue to catch on to start pumping billions into Russian economy and joint companies with Putin. Traitors.
The sheer size of Russia combined with hyper centralization in Moscow is not sustainable.
Russian Federation is RSFSR left intact with its borders and regional partition.
Crushing parliament with tanks in 1993 left the country without any checks to presidential power.
Yeltsin constitution gave enormous power to president. For example he can introduce general attorney (the only one who can open investigation on president). Or judges of supreme and costitutional courts (that can introduce changes to constitution itself). Once you've got a puppet parliament, you're free to go, unchecked power.
All regions besides Moscow (or hyper loyal enclaves like Chechnya) are ruled by capital as colonies.
It's evident not only in Russian regions but also occupied territories of Ukraine and Crimea. The assets are quickly divided between Moscow, Chechen and local gangs. Dissent is crushed and voices are forever silenced.
This should be the top comment. As a Russian myself I totally agree.
The USSR should've been broken up until a number of sustainably small republics left. Let Islamic regions go that themselves wanted out (and Russians wanted and still want them out as well) and which resulted in bloody wars on Caucausus.
What actually happened is a quiet takeover by party apparatchiks. The "dissolution" of USSR was performed by three major communist party members so that most important asset Russia (de facto RSFSR left intact) was not broken up.
The power was still centralized in Kremlin as well. The first and last actually elected parliament (elected back under Gorbachev) was crushed in 1993 by Kremlin.
KGB was allowed to regroup as FSB, hide a lot of crimes and then run for power in 1999.
This is a falsely attributed quote. There's zero record of Zhukov (or anyone, particularly none of the various people this quote has been attributed to) saying this. It's a lazy stereotype of the CCCP's strategy during WWII and absolutely incorrect.
Crimea is closer to a regular Russian region. Criminal groups affiliated to state and police rule. All dissent is suppressed and you’ll more likely to be harassed than murdered or disappear. DNR and LNR are more brutal, severe and chaotic.
People in Russia can swallow poverty, injustice, corruption no problem. But they cannot swallow war defeat. This tsar is weak, need a better tsar who wins.
Theirs nothing weak about HIMARS and 500 T72 tanks, this myth of weak arm supplies is nothing more then that, a myth.
Ukraine is getting heaps of weapons and decimating Russian logistics and command and control with it. Enough that even the Russian propaganda is complaining about it.
> Judging by weak arms supplies by Europeans who don’t want to anger their gas supplier - Putin is far from defeat.
The subthread was discussing what would happen in the event Russia was forced to abandon the invasion, if you want to object to discussing that possibility as reasonable, the place is several posts upthread.
(Also, Western aid delivered since the major escalation by Russia this year has been several multiples of Ukraine’s annual defense spending and a sizable fraction of Russia’s annual defense spending. It is not “weak” arms supplies by any reasonable standard.)
Historically—not universally, of course, but frequently enough to be noteworthy—people have been observed to be displeased with leadership that unproductively transforms large numbers of their youth into corpses.
Listen to recordings of calls to Russian soldiers’s mothers. The families fully support invasion. They are glued to TV and Telegram which explain that Ukrainians bomb themselves and Russian soldiers are brave liberators fighting against gay Nazi Americans.
Besides that soldiers send a lot of stolen goods back home. There was an infamous video from the office of a transport company with dozens of soldiers sending loot like washing machines.
Most of the country was miserable, malnourished and in poverty for years anyway. It’s not like Putin’s elites care. It’s basically a serfdom. As long as people obey, and Putin’s clique can build palaces, it can go on for decades.
Very observably not. Russia seems to be actually incapable of buying any modern weapons for the billions of euros it receives from Germany. Even China considers such cooperation too risky.
The technical level of Russian equipment deployed in the battles in Ukraine has gone downhill since February. Now they are pulling really old stuff (designed or even manufactured in the 1950s-1960s) from storage. And some of their auxiliaries from the separatist republics literally use WWI and WWII small arms.
Money matters in war, but it cannot substitute for a missing/inadequate supply chain. You can't bury the enemy in an avalanche of euros, you actually need to procure the necessary equipment.
There is no need in sophisticated weaponry or even artillery when you have endless literal cannon fodder. Hide or deny losses and drag on just enough to exhaust your opponent.
A year of slow territorial gains? Two? More? Not a problem as long as economy is propped by European money, Germans don’t bother sending enough weapons and Western media is tired of war and looks elsewhere.
Russia already had poor demographics before and now it is possibly spending years losing military age males?
Russia as a low prospect J-curve state might not be entertaining to the western media but it is basically the outcome the US has been gunning for since Gorbachev left, always with a lot of resistance from Germany. After a few more years of setting up alternative gas routes, I'm not sure Germany will even have a way to offer Russia yet another chance.
Russia doesn’t have endless cannon fodder. And has had a lot of difficulty sourcing troops. They are fine losing troops but their army isn’t as big as people imagine. And the logistics needed to get people to the front with basic supplies is hard.
Russia is itself the 2nd supplier of weapons on the international market and buying from the 1st (the US) is pretty pointless as whatever the US is selling is incompatible with the Russian systems. Who you envision Russia would need to buy weapons from?
I feel like a protracted proxy war in Ukraine was never really on the table.
What we've seen so far is the US and its allies forcing Russia to pay a "price" for its adventurism. The value of this is both to act as a deterrent against future actions and to strengthen Ukraine's negotiating power when it ultimately surrenders.
I suspect that at a certain point everybody will be satisfied with the level of pain exacted, Ukraine surrenders, and Russia ends up with at least a large chunk of Ukraine.
Yes Ukrainian people is the bastion and are fighting bravely.
Feels like Europeans (namely Germany and France) will provide as little weapons as possible to exhaust Ukrainians so they get tired and surrender themselves.
Once Ukrainian public is ready, Biden will pressure Zelinsky. Biden has already said “we told him but he didn’t want to listen” hinting that he can throw Zelinsky under the bus if he doesn’t behave.
Surrender (“peace”) would be an awful option for Ukraine because Putin will regroup and in a couple of years launch a new assault on the remaining part of the country.
There won’t be mercy from him, judging by executions on occupied territory.
Poland will continue cooperating with America (who give most of the aid). The current government is anti-Russia and even if they lose elections, the only pro-Russia people are authoritarian right wing nutjobs who probably won't even win a single seat.
Yes Polish people have shown a lot of resilience and deserve great respect in this situation. Batlic states as well of course. Hope they won’t allow Germany sweep Ukraine under the rug.
Not a critically high price anyway. Gas prices cover everything and complicit German politicians don’t consider stopping paying. Looks like Putin’s gamble played well once again, he knows his European counterparts well.
