Russia and Ukraine

[Deesse23]

Putin has no incentive to stop the war.

Putin had no incentive to stop this war anyway. He's staked the survival of his regime on it, because he knew going in that defeat would almost certainly lead to the same dissolution that happened in 1992 in the wake of the defeat in Afghanistan, which took down Gorbachev, or the same dissolution that took down the Tsar after the defeat in 1917. He knew from the get-go that failure was not an option, and is now staring failure in its merciless face.

His regime will not survive this war, absent some hardline Stalinist GuLag crackdown which will only erode his support even further. The timer has already started on his rule; he's baking.

According to official russian sources in 2023 the budget for "interal security" has increased more than the defense budget. Almost as if the ability to fight EXTERNAL enemies is not the top concern.