What does “win” even mean here? Russia’s goal seems to be some kind of prolonged occupation of the majority of Ukraine’s territory. I’m not sure how that sort of occupation ever ends.
The average Ukrainian is probably at the point where they feel Russian domination would be better than more years of war given the extreme measures men are taking to make it out of the country and avoid the draft. The average Ukrainian can't say anything about it though because the SBU will kill them.
1. Russia can certainly end the war any time it wants. They can simply move their forces back behind historical borders. 2. I have no idea where you’re getting your ideas about what Ukraine believes. It seems that you may have read headlines about men fleeing Russia’s mobilization and find/replaced the word Ukraine.
I don’t know if this is the famous “Russian propaganda trolling” we’re always reading about online, or if you’re just an amateur who spent too much time in the wrong corners of the Internet.
The west is absolutely slaughtering Russia when it comes to the propaganda war 100%. When it comes to the war of kinetic violence, Russia seems to be winning. The funny thing about the western perception of the war is that they believe you can win any war with only propaganda. That, and it's like 80% of the war. The Russians perception is that violence in 80% of war and propaganda is 20%.
My financial interest is in keeping Russia a slave state to the petrodollar which involves us winning. It would be very bad for my investments if we could no longer export inflation or trash other countries economies when we raise our rates. The petrodollar has been good to me, but this time I think they really got in over their heads and done fucked up. I will be amazed and mystified if they somehow pull a rabbit out of their hat here and win the war. I guess I should keep it down because there are children here who might be demoralized with this kind of talk, but I always viewed HN as an adult corner of the internet where we don't have to be so discrete. ;)
That you think I'm some sort of paid Russian troll is totally hilarious honestly. How many years of "Trump is a Russian asset" did we have and absolutely nothing came out of all of the innuendos and leaks and all that stuff. The left in America is the new full-on Doctor Strange love paranoid war party these days.
Oh hey, not my prediction, but I heard someone say John Bolton might win 2024 because America will be so backed into a corner by the losses in Ukraine that we'll be whipped up in a frenzy to reconquer the world.
I really doubt this, theres a lot of pro Russian people on here.
> I've been saying that since day 1. A lot of my thinking is influenced by J.R Nyquist who has been talking about the Russian plans to revive the Soviet Union since the 1990s.
This may have been true during the Soviet Union but I don't think the hollowed Russian military is capable of capturing all of Ukraine, maybe if all the defense money went to actual defense instead of yachts it may have been.
Im interested in how you think Russia will win the war when they cant even capture a city thats a mere 400km from their own border in 10 months.
Even Gen. Milley thought they would take Kiev in 2.5 days lol.
Right now they are burning through huge huge amounts of stockpile from Soviet times, etc. They aren't producing much. And their manpower is coming from reserves and prisoners recrutied by Wagner.
And relying on arms supplies from Iran and, apparently, the DPRK.
There are still no signs of this.
> The average Ukrainian is probably at the point where they feel Russian domination would be better than...
Not sure after what has happened in Bucha and other places.
"Winning the war" will just mean to add a few km of ashes to Russia.
The objective of disarming Ukranie has failed spectacularly. The battle to keep Nato boundaries far from Rusia was lost when they messed with Swedden and Finland. The separatist areas could not rely on selling anything in the Ukranian market anymore and will need a lot of money to be reconstructed.
And the rest of the world will not trust Russia in a long, long time.
At this moment I can't see any good way out for Russia to detach themselves from the huge mess created by Putin
A main reason the Western governments initially delayed in supplying lethal aid when the 2022 major invasion started is that they expected that the Ukrainian government would immediately be destroyed replaced with a Russian puppet regime which would control whatever was donated.
They did not underestimate Russia’s capabilities.