The first phase of Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a tragedy. The current phase is a farce.
This is not your great-grandfather's Russian Army. They spent so much time fighting unarmed dissidents, they appear to have forgotten how to fight and win a war where both sides get a vote.
Too bad, so sad.
Yet some blowhards will tell you "The Plan Is Working!", which of course explains why Ukraine fell 80 days ago, Zelenskyy was executed, and Putin is in full control of the adoring Russian fanboys in the Soviet Unio Russia's newest province. Oh, wait, none of that has even come close to happening, and Russia's even losing their grip on the eastern bits they scarfed up early on.
As to who's winning, here's a cluebat upside the head for ya.
Shocked. Shocked, I am.
12 comments:
Whether you and I think what Putin is doing is right or wrong doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that Putin will never withdraw and surrender his gains in Ukraine. If anyone thinks that Putin will eventually decide to withdraw from Ukraine and order all of his troops back to Russia they are badly mistaken. On the other hand Zelensky is willing to let every Ukranian of miliary fighting age die if necessary and is willing to allow every city in his country to be bombed/shelled until every building is reduced to ruble. How does he think that could ever be considered a victory? Zelensky will be a multi-billionaire if he can keep the war going and that is what he wants. Russia will either win this war or the world will find itself in WWIII. It is that simple. If America and the other countries in Europe continue to pump money and armaments into Ukraine then they are only going to get more Ukranians and Russians killed. Eventually Ukraine will run out of fighting age men before Russia does and if the West decides to send their Armies into Ukraine to fight the Russians then bingo, WWIII! If Putin can survive attempts on his life then this is what will happen. Buckle up!
Putin would look brilliant with this invasion if the goal had been to dispose of all cold war equipment and kill-off the worst units.
Prediction: If he deploys a tac nuke or two, it won't be in support of the invasion efforts but will instead come from his global and absolute humiliation, and will likely come moments before he gets the Ceausescu dispatch.
You really have to word it up if you want the comments. Which btw seem to be dwindling. MSM isn't really giving you much to work with but you are making lemonade from lemons.
I have zero work to do, and so far, the lemons all seem to be on trying to find any good news for Russia. That should be seen as an indicator of how well Russia isn't doing. Their army doesn't to be there, the Ukrainians don't want them there, so this is entirely Putin's war, as the one who started it, and the only one who wants it to continue. The consequences to that are a daily thing, but the ultimate ones will be even worse.
And as a war ostensibly explained as a bid to halt NATO expansion, Putin has re-united the alliance like nothing since Stalin, or Kruschev building a wall through Germany, and actually grown it, the exact opposite of his desire.
This is an epic strategic failure on Putin's part, and he owns that even if he captures all of Ukraine and slaughters them all, which seems to be his only discernible aim.
Some fuck-ups can't be walked back.
You picked the winner correctly.
Putin's Short Victorious War is slogging towards its 3rd Month.
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It has been neither Short, nor Victorious.
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Unless Putin is removed from power or Western support for Ukraine collapses, we are looking at a years and years long war. The wild card is a nuclear exchange, in which case everyone on Earth Loses.
We are not looking at a years long war, nor an inevitable victory for Russia. The Russian logistics can not stand up to this. They do not have the industrial and technological capacity needed to maintain this war effort indefinitely, or even through to next year, and probably not past the next few months.
The Russians have been throwing everything they have into the Donbass and have gained a couple inches here and there.
The choice the Russians will be presented with is fairly simple: run out of supplies and have the entire combat force collapse all along the front and all the soldiers start individually heading back to the rodina via whatever means they can scrounge (with optional murderous Ukrainian pursuit all along the way), or, realize said situation is fast approaching and do it voluntarily and in a semi-organized fashion.
The second one leaves them with an army and a fig leaf of deniability, the first one doesn't. If Putin stays true to form, his ego will force him to take the first one.
Russia wins. 100$. Any takers? Wanna set time/conditions/whatevers? Nukes cancel? 100$ what's up....
Define "wins".
They've already lost between 10-20% of their frontline combat forces, are worldwide pariahs, shut off from trading with most of the world's actual economic powers, and facing economic catastrophe and severe food shortages in the next year. NATO is stronger and more unified than ever, universally loathes and fears Russia's long-term goals, and is liable to gain new members in Finland and centuries'-neutral Sweden, and is committed to seriously bulking up their forces and capabilities to directly oppose Russia for the rest of this century.
They could take all of Ukraine tomorrow, execute Zelenskyy and the entire Ukraine government the day after that, annex the whole country kicking and screaming back into the Soviet U...er, Russia, get a decades-long insurgency there that would make their 1989 defeat in Afghanistan look like a church picnic pie fight, and still need another 50-100 years to recover from this debacle. As it is now, even without that, the strategic blunder is something they'll never overcome in Putin's lifetime.
You'll never live to see this in the "W" column for Russia, and could never hope to collect on your wager, unless we set the bar for that so low as to be "blew the hell out of hundreds of square miles of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure and killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians."
Even Genghis Khan had higher standards than that.
Putin "Wins" by surviving the onslaught of far more money and military gifts than the whole NATO budget and the USA collapses into a smoldering rubble of rioting over power blackouts and food shortages (ALL SELF GOALS, as you say Aesop).
Can you say Pyrrhic Victory Aesop?
China WINS.
Russia has also shown that their equipment is crap, and they're running out of it. Their training is extra crap, and they're losing the few people who are able to do that.
Their leadership is super crap, and they're losing generals at a rate never ever seen before.
And that's just right now. If they keep this up, they just get weaker and weaker. They can't afford to lose their young people, as they don't have that much. They don't have the industrial capability to replace their equipment. Nor can they afford to up their game, as they're losing lots of money because they are pariahs.
The longer they go down this road, the more likely it is that Russia is going to become another province of China, and not one of the especially well treated ones either. China will do to Russia what Russia wanted to do to Ukraine.
A Pyrhhic victory is no victory, which is exactly what Vlad's getting for Christmas.
If he lives that long.
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