Russia and Ukraine

[Anomalocaris]

i think russians have simplified their approach after their initial efforts to be fancy have all failed.   they’ve fallen back on the simple fact that russia is bigger, more populous and richer than ukraine by a big enough margin so that she can outlast western support and run ukraine out of money and manpower.

ukraine overestimated the significance of her own initial success and the value of fancy western weapons to the fundamental balance of power,  and also continue to overestimate the real value of emotionally satisfying pin pricks she successfully publicized as glorious triumphs,  so ukraine has not yet rationalized her own approach based on her position as russia has.

so at the beginning the russians made all the blunders.   since last spring the russians have done well and ukraine is making all the blunders.

Russia never did well enough to suffer from victory disease but remains fundamentally the stronger side.   ukraine continues to suffer from victory disease even while balance of power tilts further away from her.