This is what Putin just tried to do. Failed spectacularly. I'm honestly of better opinion of the CCP. Last time when they fucked up things that badly, was the Great Leap Forward and that was 65 years ago.
Look at the actual facts on the ground: land-bridge to Crimea, Luhansk 100% under Russian control, Donetsk most probably getting there, also some chunks of Kharkiv province, about 7 million Ukrainian refugees, Ukrainian's army potential drastically reduced (i.e. "demilitarisation" that seemed to have worked), how is all this "failing spectacularly"?
Original objective of a decapitation strike in Kyiv failed. All the forces committed to the north of the country have been destroyed or retreated.
Ukrainians have slowly been driven out of the south, but have generally held the Russians at the Siverskyi Donets river. Spectacular footage exists of the failed attempt to cross it with two BTGs which were entirely destroyed.
And the big failure is political: Sweden and Finland have been driven to immediately join NATO. Attacking Ukraine has moved NATO's border eastwards. Countries adjoining Russia and Ukraine and Belarus have decided they need to arm themselves rapidly. Russia has been cut off from replacement supplies of Western goods, and can no longer e.g. make cars.
The war will continue for the forseeable future, like the war in Syria, but with gradually reducing intensity and slow pushing back by the Ukranians.
From the same facts I have the completely opposite reading that you have. Despite the constant propaganda telling you otherwise in the USA, Ukraine has been a major defeat for NATO.
Economic sanctions on Russia were useless. China didn’t budge nor did India nor did most of Africa and South America highlighting the new irrelevance of the USA. Ukraine failed to properly negotiate after stopping the Kiev advance when it would have been advantageous to do so because the USA was a poor steward and is now sure to lose significant territories in the south. The war will not be allowed to keep going for long because it has a significant impact on Ukraine allies economies and these allies are already significantly pushing for new negotiations to take place. Sweden and Finland joined NATO at significant cost to them in their negotiations with Turkey. It’s not far from a complete debacle honestly.
The sanctions on Russia have caused them to be unable to wage war in a way that they could have previously, which was the point.
On top of the number of people living below the poverty line in Russia in the first quarter of 2022 rose by 69%. Probably not all the sanctions, but given the amount of jobs that just up and left its likely related.
> China didn’t budge nor did India nor did most of Africa and South America highlighting the new irrelevance of the USA
China, Russias 'closest' ally with a 'unlimited friendship' isn't doing anything outside of providing humanitarian aid to Russia. They clearly want no part of it.
> Ukraine failed to properly negotiate after stopping the Kiev advance when it would have been advantageous to do so because the USA was a poor steward and is now sure to lose significant territories in the south
Ukraine will now likely retake Crimea if things keep going how they have been the past two weeks, if Russia never invaded they would of ironically kept more land. I await the day that Russia loses their black sea fleet.
> The war will not be allowed to keep going for long because it has a significant impact on Ukraine allies economies and these allies are already significantly pushing for new negotiations to take place. Sweden and Finland joined NATO at significant cost to them in their negotiations with Turkey. It’s not far from a complete debacle honestly.
Ukraines allies have repeatedly said that any negotiations are up to Ukraine, I think that a lot of the allies (especially eastern European states that have felt the thumb of Russia before) know that this war is about a lot more than Ukraine and Russia.
To quickly reply to you (at that point a long answer would be a waste of my time), sanctions didn’t meaningfully impact Russia revenue which raised with gaz and oil prices. China is actually importing things from Russia. Ukraine has no chance of retaking Crimea - which doesn’t want to be retaken anyway - and is currently losing territories, infrastructures and seeing a very real erosion of its available manpower not winning them. Negotiations have to be made by Ukraine obviously but allies have a lot of sway there. Ukraine couldn’t wage this war without the support of NATO countries and these countries are first and foremost serving their own interests as usual.
The statistics of the number of people under the poverty line come from the Russian government so theirs no delusion there.
Ukraine will retake all of its territory in time.
If Russia is winning so much why are they rolling out units that are compromised of volunteers that are nearly geriatric?.
Why is Russia using weapons that where designed to take out America aircraft carriers against Ukrainian shopping malls? (kh-22).
Why is Russia using tanks that where made in the 1960's (T-62).
Ukraine already has weapons that far outstrip anything that Russia has deployed against them so far (HIMARS, m777's, CESARS, KRABS and Panzerhaubitze 2000) and they are getting more as time goes (NASAMS and M270's).
Multiple Russian ammo depots explode nearly every day from HIMARS, and Russia has no effective counter to them, because of the way that Russian logistics work this will be devastating if it's kept up.
Russia is and always has been a paper tiger, never forget they lost in Chechnya and they lost in Afghanistan.
In a war everybody loses. Blowing up buildings and killing people how could that not be a defeat for everybody. The question is who started it? Who is the aggressor?
I remain a Clausewitzian at heart. War is the continuation of politics. When the dust will settle, the situation between both side will have been altered in way which couldn’t be reached diplomatically and at this point I think the end result seems more favorable to Russia than the west.
Countries start wars all the time. The USA started four since I was born including one outside of the international framework which would have given it a thin veneer of legitimacy.
I dislike wars as much as anyone else. They are a waste of resources especially when they drag for no reason. But they are more or less a fact of life. What matter is understanding whose interests they serve and why they are waged so we can build the conditions of a stable peace. Ideals are not going to get you far in international politics but they certainly are an easy string to tug on for propaganda purpose.
> Ukrainian's army potential drastically reduced (i.e. "demilitarisation" that seemed to have worked)
Ukraine’s army is being modernised by backers that eclipse Russia’s industrial capacity many times over. This is a war of attrition Russia is spending decades-old back catalog on to fuel a domestic narrative.
It is very much a war of attrition, but I'm not sure it is necessarily a war that Russia is going to lose. So far Russia is slowly progressing on their primary objective. They have had significant losses but they have a huge amount of dumb rockets and artillery that they can throw at the problem. They have have failed in most blitz actions with highly mobile forces, but the slow grind seem to work for them, although obviously with high costs for both sides.
They lack manpower but, unfortunately for their victims, they seem to be managing by conscripting the occupied population.
The key will be on whether the West will lose interest in supporting Ukraine before Russia runs out of resources.
Well, thing is they might not care. As long as they can leave dealing with insurgency mostly to the new "independent" government and not have to report the losses at home, while still controlling the resources and enjoying the buffer zone they might be ok to returning to the previous lower intensity warfare of the last decade.
Obviously toppling the government proved to be well beyond Russia's means, but I wouldn't be surprised if they might try to take advantage of the post war hardships for a coup. It will be important for the West to help Ukraine with reconstruction to avoid this.
Except they’re not. And they won’t be able to. For the time being, light insurgency and the threat of shelling all but foreclose resource development in eastern Ukraine for years to come.
This is Russia’s Afghanistan. Except unlike the U.S. or USSR, Russia is not a superpower. (Its economy is eclipsed by California’s. And its military struggles even miles off its border.)
It is unlikely that a large ape will be able to go around Moscow without setting all kind of alerts, so it won't be effective.
Kidding aside, Ukraine has nothing to gain with attacking the Russian population with terror attacks as that might be the excuse Putin needs for forced conscription and further escalation (even nuclear).
Non conventional attacks on military assets in the occupied areas are to be expected though and are in fact already happening.
Which guerilla? Russia is mostly taking part of Ukraine with low support for the federal government. It’s not to the point of Crimea which had been trying to be independent since 1991 but they definitely have a good chance of actually annexing the parts they are occupying without to much resistance from the inside.
But the war is still ongoing. That’s the regular army using guerilla tactics. If what happened in 2014 happens again (big if as Crimea had a very poor relationship with Ukraine while the rest had a slightly better one), Russia should hold.
People leaving russia is not an indication that they are definitely losing the war in ukraine.
Russia may be in demographic decline - but there's still tonnes of time before that problem becomes insurmountable. The regime doesn't care about that anyway.
Originally there were many predictions about how Ukraine would fall in 2-3 weeks at most (Putin even said a few years ago he could take Kiev in 14 days). With respect to that goal it has been a miserable failure, but I think most people expect Russia to still 'win' at least in some sense even if not 100% of Ukraine.
They will definitely follow that path if China can depend on Russia for mineral resources, and at this point it seems like it can depend. You don't need to control the seaways to bring iron, coal, gas or oil from Siberia and the Russian Far East into China. Mongolia next door has some of the biggest copper mines in the world that has just opened. [1]
How self sufficient is Russia? I heard that they have plenty of natural resources, but not enough engineering to exploit them effectively without importing the necessary technology.
