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Comment by knowhy | Hacker News Reader

If the current state if the Ukraine war is success from Russian perspective how would a failure look like?

Invasion was successful because they successfully moved their armies into Ukraine and they are still there. Invasion would fail if they didn't manage to do that.

Rational people still, in 2026, operate under a notion that Putin has some definitive target. Well, he does not, the invasion IS a target. The process is a target. So while the war goes on, the whole operation is a success to him personally.

Same with hypothetical NATO invasion. It's target won't be neither victory over the alliance, nor any gains in territory or cities. The point would be to create a permanent ongoing invasion(s) inside NATO member's borders and sustain it.

May I ask what does Putin win by having part of its army inside Ukraine, spending resources, and also, having Russian cities attacked in response? If you're going to say that it's his way to remain in power, it doesn't look he had trouble doing that prior to the invasion.

He has fun. It looks like that over past years war is the only thing which genuinely interests him. And his end goal by my guess, is producing a photo of him sitting next to Xi and Trump, titled "Yalta 2". That is literally all he cares about. This war will never end until he is alive. And given that he has a private hospital built-in in his residence and he had even dismantled street wires along his route to Kremlin to make helicopter evac possible at all points, he will live pretty darn long.

I think Biden, the UK and others in Feb 2022 should have said to Putin that if he invades the air forces of those countries would take out the invading troops which probably would have resulted in it not happening at all, or maybe being repelled.

As it is it's kind of a mess with many dead on both sides.

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