Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

Time for some depressing numbers.  Since 2014, a conservative estimate of deaths for both sides in the russo-ukranian war, is 200k.  Many, many many many more wounded, displaced, captured, kidnapped, missing - and straight up fled.  If we split that right down the middle, assuming that russian forces are the most fearsome and competent invaders the world has ever seen..literally all evidence to the contrary, this is a fucking disaster for all parties involved.  I wonder if it even needs to be said that at the current intensity of fighting, 1k kia a day (and lets again assume that russian supersoldiers are inflicting the same on ukranian defenders) this literally cannot continue.  In short order, there will be just a handful of people left to so much as throw a rock at the other guy on either side.  It reminds me of that old (possibly apocryphal) albert e line.  No clue what weapons ww3 will be fought with, but ww4, sticks and stones.    Didn't even take a nuke to realize this situation..and it's unlikely that the use of tactical nukes, so often threatened, would actually make the situation worse for the combatants on either side.  Not because they aren't horrific, but because russia is really digging a basement under "horrific" already.  Presumably, so that they have some place to hide all those bodies.

Personally, I'm beyond the point of thinking that even a return to pre 2014 borders is credible.  Putin, or his successor, will simply try again.  I have some sympathy for the russian person who, looking at this, thinks there really is something to the idea of it being an existential conflict - because even though it didn't start out that way or even in the same universe, the russian admin has since done everything it possibly could to convince the world that there probably shouldn't be any russia, in future.  I have no belief whatsoever in the ability of the russian people to change this situation, and I don't blame them for this predicament in the least.  I'm disgusted, I'm disappointed, but I do understand.

I don’t think this is still going to work for the Russians. Wagner is no longer able to recruit prisoners to join the ranks of the army. All prisoners seem to prefer the living standards of soviet-era prisons to becoming cannon fodder in the ranks of Wagner. Half of the population has fled. Young Russians are even starting to live in Turkey (they are able to come here without a visa) rather than remaining in their own country (whose economy is still growing and were they are normally able to have a better living).
 
   We don’t have a crystal ball in front of us. But people speculate that a defeat in Ukraine (as it happened in Afghanistan in the Soviet Era) can mean many armed and angry soldiers returning to their homeland and willing to overthrow a regime which is clearly corrupt and is not working for the good of the people. So things can happen. And the lifeline of such regimes is usually oil. These are regimes who can only survive if they are able to get some free cash from some place. So I would talk to China + India on these issues. And I don’t know a lot about these things, But the day we are out of fossil energies is also the day in which all those petro-dictatorships (including places like Saudi-Arabia) will be gone and we as the rest of the world will be able to live our lives more easily.