Russia and Ukraine

[Anomalocaris]

So, I was wondering; Russia has a higher population than Ukraine, but still, it kinda seems to me (but not completely) that Russia is losing troops fast, and is giving little training when they recruit new troops for the war. So, how do you you all think this war of attrition thing will end for Russia? I mean, even should Russia win, it will be costly. If they continue what they are doing now, they will lose a lot of lives and resources, so the war can't be that beneficial for them.

What do you all think, though?

This will end when Ukraine runs out of manpower,  coinciding with disintegration of western resolve to pay the necessary price to continue to support the proxy war, and Russia sniff the opportunity to launch a counter attack to force a ceasefire that would leave Russia in control of the territory it seized, and Ukraine in effect will be barred from joining NATO.

In the long run, Russia will have vastly weakened Ukraine’s potential as a viable independent state by forcing a large percentage of the young and educated to leave as refugees to Europe from whence they will never come back, and by opening or widening chasms in Ukrainian society between those who fought, those who profiteered, and those who fled to another country, leaving Ukraine with a nearly unviable demography and domestic political landscape.    While some of those remaining may be true believers, majority of those remaining will feel a sense of resentment because the touted benefit of the pro-western course since 2004 will manifestly not have materialized while the losses incurred in its pursuit could not be made up.     So in the long run, while the settlement might seem to be partial and superficial success for Russia, it would in fact be a deeper strategic success for Russia because Russia will likely regain her pre color revolution influence in Ukraine and dominating influence in Ukraine’s internal landscape.    So what is left of Ukraine will be become a semi-satellite buffer state for Russia as she had been through the 1990s and early 2000s, de facto if not de jure, but with much less economic infrastructure and potential remaining to provide bargaining power with Russia and other countries around the world in her own service.    For Ukraine the best theoretical scenario for internal politics and external stance is finlandization, as Finland pursued in the shadow of the USSR from the end of WWII to the end of cold war, but Ukraine manifestly lack Finland’s internal political flexibility and ethnic unity, and resulting national pragmatism.  So the practical scenario for Ukraine is Russophile kepto state, as she had been on and off between 1991 and 2014.

Russia would be superficially weakened by its isolation from the west and by the  cost of the war. However the isolation from the west would not continue for very long if China under Xi Resumes its interventionist and aggressive stance, especially if Taiwan issue moves towards open conflict.    Between China and Russia, China is a far more capable immediate and long term threat to western led world order no matter how much the west plays up the importance of Russia attack on Ukraine.  The west would quickly try to establish a rapprochement with Russia once the guns fall silent in order to isolate China and help offset the likely effect of a favorable conclusion for Russia in Ukraine on China’s view of subjugating Taiwan.    So Russia is much more likely to be able to make up her lost ground due the war than Ukraine is.