Great News for the Rootin' For Putin crowd: After four full years of Russia's three-day Special Military Operation, the number of Russian armor casualties has dropped off a cliff, compared to the relatively massive losses in the early days of the war.
Bad news: That's because the number of available Russian tanks still running has also dropped off a cliff. In the timeless words of Bob Dylan, in Like A Rollin' Stone: "When you got nothin', you got nothin' to lose". Bummer for Vladophiles.
To date, Russian army casualties are somewhere around 11,000 tanks, and 1,500,000 casualties, including half a million dead. They're gaining ground at a rate best measured with a pocket ruler each day, and at the current rate, they'll be in Kiev again by about the year 2576.
What they've succeeded in doing is showing the world their military is fourth rate on their best day, while taking Ukraine from a second-world nation to a third-world one over the last four years, and tanking the economies of both countries for probably the next 50 years, or until someone in Russia holds a Makarov retirement party for Putin, and Russia pries their fists and feet out of the Ukrainian tar baby.
Final answer: this is a geopolitical disaster for Russia, like we told you when they failed to conclude it in the first 96 hours. Russia has suffered more casualties than the U.S. did from VJ Day to yesterday, plus more casualties than Russia suffered in Afghanistan before concluding they'd lost that one too. This is why Hubris and Inertia are the two worst generals to lead in a war of attrition.
Charlie Brown, to date, has fallen on his ass trying to kick the football Lucy holds less times than the Russian military has in the last four years.
That makes the continued conflict a clowncarnucopia of fail, providing endless wailing and gnashing of teeth for those who keep Rootin' For Putin. The only thing funnier, at this point, than Russia unassing Ukraine, would be them winning, and embarking on the next century of endless guerrilla warfare there. It's only a pity we never hear about the underground that must be doing a thing or two in Russia every day. But at least Vlad has gotten used to constant defeat, and has stopped pushing his generals out of unfortunately open twelfth floor windows in the middle of Russian winters.
At this point, Russia's best gamble is the Grand Fenwick strategy: Pick a direct fight with the U.S., surrender immediately, and then rake in endless fortunes in post-war restoration projects, and hope for a renaissance worthy of post-WW2 Germany and Japan.
The conflict continues to be funny, but in a vaudeville-circa-1960 way: the joke is old, and the audience who cares is shrinking due to actuarial inevitability.
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