TwinkleToes

Have to constantly remind myself - this is not where Russia wanted to be. And that's a good thing, even with all the suffering in mind.

We'd all like to have a movie-style exploding Death Star style ending where a fleet of A-10's and F-35's comes screaming across the horizon to the soundtrack of Rock You Like A Hurricane, and the Russians scurry back to mordor, but that's not realistic.

Russia has effectively been stopped. They are the ones talking peace terms. Their negotiating position went from TOTAL CAPITULATION to 4 ANNEXED REGIONS, DISARMAMENT & NEUTRALITY to 4 ANNEXED REGIONS PLUS CRIMEA to "Let us keep what we have", in about 6 weeks' time. They aren't mobilzing on a wide scale anymore, they are only continuing with terror bombing, and they're taking counterpunches whose effects are impossible to hide even from their flaccid sheep population.

This is the endgame. Which is rarely viscerally satisfying to either side. The fact that Zelensky can reply with a flat "No" to absurd Russian & Trumpian demands to cede territory means that Ukraine is in a better position than Russia. Now, and going forward.

He made many blunders. Broadly, I think the biggest ones were adopting a 'salami slice' strategy to bleed Russia long term to try and leverage their hubris about continuing this bloody war long after it was obvious it wasn't going to go the way russia wanted it.

Incremental escalation of weapons systems to keep Russia expending it's irreplaceable army hardware, so that they are neutered in the long run. As opposed to a quick, overwhelming NATO response where Russia retreats, gets the propaganda 'win' that they were indeed fighting all of NATO, and that their decision for restraint was to preserve global peace, and their defeat to an inferior 'little brother' race was not proof of their actual corrupt weakness. This isn't a bad strategy at all - if it works. But that leads to the REAL blunder - never planning a successor when it was clear he would be a one-termer, and assuming that Putin's cock-holster Trump could never win again. The classic Boomer problem, staying too long and failing to make plans for the next generation.

No-Fly zones are logistically significant, but not undoable. Totally agree with you, a no-fly zone is the end of the war. And Putin was not going to use nukes or attack anyone else, we can clearly see that now. Biden fell for escalation bluffs, but I also think his strategy was always going to be 'let's make them bleed themselves out', but again, under the bad assumption that his party wouldn't lose the next election to a brazen Russian asset.

Just how bad things are for Russia is nearly impossible to grasp in the short term. They can't advance in any meaningful way. That is, after having:

1. Squandered the soviet hardware stockpile inheritance
2. Destroyed the primary oil & gas market
3. Pissed away the 30 year war chest
4. Shown their army and it's equipment to be hot garbage.
5. Become junior vassal to China in the anti-west alliance of authoritarian shitholes
6. Lost Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran got smoked by Israel in all-out missile exchanges.
7. Lost power projection into the Black Sea and thus Mediterranean
8. Lost influence over the Central Asian republics to China.
9. Can refuse no demand China makes going forward
10. Lost significant potion of the strategic bomber fleet. And the Black Sea Fleet.
11. Lost any political credibility going forward
12. Have assembled a shitty coalition of corrupt ally countries that only run on bribes
13. Their entire Quantity > Quality Horde War philosophy is shown to be untrue, whether about men or machines.

The USSR used to have idelogical allies. Useful idiots in the west who would sell secrets to them for anti-capitalist sentiment. These days, it's plain to see they are simply a debauched, corrupt mafia. That's enough for some people, but maybe(?) less useful as a tool for finding new agents to do their bidding when money is the only motivator.

It's not all bad for them - they control the U.S. Emperor and his party - just imagine the kompromat they have on the entire GOP going forward. And they are ultimately best at corrosive disinformation, and are having great success farting up democracies with their right wing populist franchises across the West. That's probably where they will focus their energy going forward after having wasted their army in Ukraine.

Consider that they are rational and greedy. Like gangster barbarians, which they pretty much are, the only difference being they traded fur pelts for tailored suits. The smartest among them realizes that the project has failed, and that only hubris is keeping them going, hoping for something - anything - to change. But if having practical control over the obese, octogenarian U.S. president isn't enough to extract a favorable peace, then it's hard to see what else could possibly create a strategic win for Russia.

Why would they not fight to the last man, tank and artillery piece?

Because even now, life is worth living for the perverted gangster ghouls in charge. They haven't really lost anything personally significant. There is no opposition, and they can still live comfortably by Russian oligarch standards. Their biggest fear is each other.

You still need an army for token territorial defense and internal oppression. Russia is run by their intelligence services, after all. They're not fighting to the last man. They are already in negotiations with a position growing weaker by the day.

Said this a few weeks ago. The degree to which Russia has fucked itself is hard to comprehend on a day to day basis. This is an absolutely historic self-own unparalleled since the Persians decided to go teach that upstart Alexander a lesson about who the big dog was. Obviously the goal was complete and total conquest, and yet in the last month, Pootz' demands have slid from a) TOTAL SURRENDER AND DISARMAMENT to b) ALL 4 ANNEXED REGIONS, CRIMEA, CONSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY, DISARMAMENT AND NEVER NATO to c) Please give us Donetsk and Luhansk to d) Maybe Ukrakine can exist, but how about via my stooge UN appointee? And please give me something....

In the meantime, nothing strategically relevant has changed on the battlefield, nor is Russia even gearing up beyond their regular conscription runs. If you need troops and equipment today, you needed to mobilize them 6-12 months ago and be doing non-stop training since then. They're not even doing that. This is the endgame.

It's your observable track record that makes it easy. When contemplating an argument with strangers, it's helpful to know if it's worthwhile. That there's a person who would say something interesting.

It's also painfully cringe to read garden variety snark like "hurr durr, russia is about to implode, guys! I swear". Great. Never see those high value responses.

Exactly. Xi must be absolutely laughing himself to sleep every day. He has solved all of China's oil, mineral, grain and fresh water supply problems for the next half century. They have unquestioned top dog influence over the Central Asian republics now, a weaker rival for bribable global anti-western allies, and can demand anything from Russia that can't be refused going forward. Including access to the North Pacific, which China has never, ever had.

All without expending a single soldier or loss of a single piece of hardware.

that's not the only win condition. If they can't win new territory because their army's effectiveness has been so degraded, then Ukraine wins.

Mind you - your Comments history is a never endthing thread of bilious haikus and snarky limericks, so - you be you. Changing your tone would be like throwing ice cubes at the sun.

Which would assure their complete and total destruction. Of course nukes are a big thing. They're the LAST thing.

Honestly - I think that's probably what anyone would say to a Mad King. They honestly probably thought that life is too good to screw it up - that he wouldn't actually invade and ruin the whole damn party. The intelligence services and siloviki (baron merchant oligarchs) were all fat, rich and controlled a huge, fairly rich country life a mafia. Why screw it all up? For the vanity of a wicked old perverted gangster ghoul.

sure. but I don't think Ukraine is much in a negotiating mood to give away things that Russia can't even hold. That's not even the laws of war. You get what you can hold. If you can't hold it, then you never really had it.

That chauvanism makes a lot of sense, that it is unacceptable to admit even a stalemate versus a presumed "little brother" inferior race. But - what are your options? Are they willing to lose ALL face AND remaining military might in an actual, sustainted battle with NATO? With what objective? To get your ass kicked just enough to say that it's okay you lost to the full weight of NATO, versus admitting you put your dick in a woodchipper in Ukraine?

The thing they're actually best at is corrosive lies. Lies are the very language of Russia - if they stopped fighting today and simply claimed glorious triumph over the combined forces of NATO, the population would on the whole accept it and be thankful the whole damn thing is if not over - at least paused. I don't think it suits them to ACTUALLY fight NATO, if all you're looking to gain is an excuse for losing.

So - why keep fighting? , other than the old chestnut of sunk cost fallacy. No wars are infinite, especially at this intensity in terms of resource and human life consumtpion. Russia seems to figure there is still something to gain from slugging on. Whatever that is, who knows. They're putting a LOOOOOOOOT of resources into fueling right wing populists across the globe and it does appear to be working well enough to continue. Whether that matters on the battlefield of Ukraine in a time scale that aligns with Putin's remaining life span is a whole other question.

What I'd close with re: "why keep fighting" is this: Russia knows that their campaign of terror bombing civilians and pushing small infiltration teams forward isn't a great long term strategy for territorial occupation. Pootz said recently "wherever we put a russian boot is OURS!". That is a childish and absurd thing to say, but - he is a big boy who said it for a reason. In that clumsy attempt to redfine what it takes to legitimize spoils of war, it maybe reveals that they know that their current strategy does not achieve their objectives. Fine - you can push small groups of men into farm fields and abandoned villages very slowly. But what good is that if Ukraine can almost certainly kill them all EVENTUALLY with drones, artillery, snipers, etc. Infiltration isn't a great occupation strategy.

So - keep fighting, until....something else happens. That's always been the russian way. Keep dying, in massive numbers, until something else happens. The problem with their history is that that 'something' is often a revolution that overthrows the current government.