RE: Russia and Ukraine
February 10, 2025 at 3:32 pm
(This post was last modified: February 10, 2025 at 3:56 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
The idea that the minerals in ukraine were worth cratering russia..which has plenty of minerals itself, has always been a russian control campaign to leverage international cynicism (itself a massive urban myth) and build domestic support for putins existential ideological war. They had de facto control of those minerals in a functioning extraction chain before the war. To really put a nail in that coffin.
And yes, operationally speaking, russia advances slowly and falls back suddenly, whereas ukraine falls back slowly and advances suddenly, somewhere around november-december russia was at it's territorial height for the year..itself still a net loss since the start of the full scale invasion, but it manages to lose as much territory as it had gained at great cost in blood and over the course of the whole year between december and february - the recent push in kursk -not the initial occupation- finally tipping the scales to a net loss.
The tale of the tape is that ukraine is better at post-soviet reflexive defense and western combined arms maneuver. The ukrainians, ofc, are fighting for their lives, while the russians are fighting for paychecks they are not recieiving. Perhaps things would be different if the russian soldiers were properly motivated - but I don't think russia knows how to do that, or could do it even if they knew how. The people that could have helped there, people I personally met years before and held in high professional regard, were the first to die in the botched invasion. Best course of action from the conflicts point of view is to fuck off back to russia, rebuild, and reinvade...but putins personal existential fears will not allow this. Seeing as how the best course of action is unavialable for reasons of dictatorial cowardice, the next best thing is to flood the zone with shit. Any rationaliziation which might stick with anyone and lead to any loss of foreign support for ukraine...whether that's because the target audience agrees, or because they believe that the alleged aim is financially compelling even if otherwise indefensible.
TLDR, it's window season in russia again, in a russia that is now smaller than it was last window season. The russian mod is unlikely to make gains in the coming spring mud, so they will have to settle for cracking down on dissidents and failures™ at home to keep the smash and grab constituency in moscow and st pete mollified.
And yes, operationally speaking, russia advances slowly and falls back suddenly, whereas ukraine falls back slowly and advances suddenly, somewhere around november-december russia was at it's territorial height for the year..itself still a net loss since the start of the full scale invasion, but it manages to lose as much territory as it had gained at great cost in blood and over the course of the whole year between december and february - the recent push in kursk -not the initial occupation- finally tipping the scales to a net loss.
The tale of the tape is that ukraine is better at post-soviet reflexive defense and western combined arms maneuver. The ukrainians, ofc, are fighting for their lives, while the russians are fighting for paychecks they are not recieiving. Perhaps things would be different if the russian soldiers were properly motivated - but I don't think russia knows how to do that, or could do it even if they knew how. The people that could have helped there, people I personally met years before and held in high professional regard, were the first to die in the botched invasion. Best course of action from the conflicts point of view is to fuck off back to russia, rebuild, and reinvade...but putins personal existential fears will not allow this. Seeing as how the best course of action is unavialable for reasons of dictatorial cowardice, the next best thing is to flood the zone with shit. Any rationaliziation which might stick with anyone and lead to any loss of foreign support for ukraine...whether that's because the target audience agrees, or because they believe that the alleged aim is financially compelling even if otherwise indefensible.
TLDR, it's window season in russia again, in a russia that is now smaller than it was last window season. The russian mod is unlikely to make gains in the coming spring mud, so they will have to settle for cracking down on dissidents and failures™ at home to keep the smash and grab constituency in moscow and st pete mollified.
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