Russia’s war in Ukraine is already in its 17th month. In that time, President Vladimir Putin has clearly demonstrated that he is not bothered by losses — whether they be financial, material, or human. His war will go on as long as he needs. And, judging by how the authorities have woven the so-called “special military operation” into Russian life, that will be a long time.

So whats the plan? How can this end?

He can wait to see if Trump becomes president, because we all know how it will end with his BFF in charge.

Any Republican, really. Just listen to Fox or the Republicans in Congress.

This is the long game, because if Trump wins, he can get the US out of NATO and that’s a constitutional crisis at home, and a serious flashpoint to drive Europe back into squabbling.

Not with this supreme court.

America is far from the only country providing support to Ukraine.

No, but it is definitely the singlemost important contributor by far.

Once US turns off the tap this war ends immediately. It’s really that simple.

No, it really isn’t. The rest of eastern Europe’s countries remember what it was like to live under the Russian thumb and they have plenty of modern weapons and well-trained soldiers salivating to ensure Russia is going to be a crippled husk for the next few generations. Western Europe is none to fond of Russia either. And if America stops helping because an obvious Russian puppet president has taken power, that’s only going to make it worse.

America may be the sole “superpower”, but bear in mind that that means Russia is not a “superpower”. They’re a peer to the various countries of Europe at best, and by this point I would not even call them that. Ukraine has more tanks than Russia does now. America’s already done a lot of the heavy lifting in breaking Russia, if they bowed out now it’s not like everything resets to the way it was in 2021. Russia is still on the ropes.

The rest of eastern Europe’s countries remember what it was like to live under the Russian thumb

Surveys conducted in 2013.

Gee, I wonder if anything might have happened from 2014 to present that would have changed those numbers a bit.

Also, to dig up an old favourite, you forgot Poland. And a bunch of others. More countries were “living under the Russian thumb” than just literal members of the USSR. Here’s 14 former Soviet republics that joined NATO, whose primary purpose is to defend against Russian attack.

True, but if America decides to provide support to Russia, the rest of NATO will stand down.

There’s a vast difference between America ceasing to support Ukraine and America supporting Russia. Simply never going to happen, that’s a loonie scenario.

NATO is not officially supporting Ukraine. It just so happens that all the various NATO member countries are all individually deciding that it’s in their interests to support Ukraine. If America drops out that’s not going to change whether it’s in the interests of those countries to continue supporting Ukraine. Indeed, it becomes all the more important for many of them to make sure Russia’s strength is broken if they don’t feel they can rely on America to support them.

You must know by now that Russiagate was a hoax?

Doesn’t matter. Trump wants Russia to win.

Sort of like the war in Afghanistan. It’ll go on for a very long time

Russia’s committing way more resources into this conflict than they ever did for previous similar operations though. Ukraine is claiming they killed/wounded over 200000 Russian soldiers. That’s not anywhere near comparable to previous post WWII conflicts.

Ukraine claims a lot of things, it’s called war propaganda. We won’t know what the actual losses are on each side until the war is over. It’s certainly absurd to take Ukrainian numbers uncritically. In fact, it doesn’t even match up with Ukraine having done multiple mobilizations now while Russia has only done one. If Russia was losing anywhere close to manpower Ukraine claims, then they would’ve had to do multiple mobilizations by now as well. Also, as many military experts have pointed out, this is primarily an artillery war and Russia has a huge artillery advantage over Ukraine. That’s where vast majority of casualties comes from.

Russia never really stopped mobilizing men. They started the mobilization back in autumn, then passed several reforms to allow them to keep mobilizing men in a less conspicuous way, like making the delivery of the mobilization letter electronic and without receipt, adding restrictions to those who don’t go the conscription office and other laws. All these were done in the winter and thousands of reports of electronic mobilization letters surfaced during these months on the internet. It’s a steady stream conscripts rather than big batches, but the result it’s the same.

Yup, that sure sounds like a credible report to me.

Human resources yeah, but financial? I’m not sure. The Iraq war cost 3 trillion dollars.

And mind you, you’re talking about the victors (mostly) the Korean war cost the lives of 2 million people. As did the Vietnam war.

Don’t you mean generated trillions of dollars (for private war profiteers)?

The thing about corruption is that it’s very inefficient. Spending a trillion dollars on weapons translates to only a couple of billions in the pockets of profiteers, the rest is used to actually make the weapons, move them in place, and to pay the people using them.

So with a useless war, you waste far more than you would if you just have the money to the profiteers.

The money would be wasted on things like super yachts anyways. At least a good chunk of this waste goes to things like feeding and housing soldiers and contractors and paying those people and all the people who make the food, supplies, etc. Seems less wasteful than just giving it to billionaires. Granted, the weapons, when they actually function at all, can be used to cause harm to many people…

Rule of Acquisition number 34: War is good for business.

A lot of western oligarchs are making very good profits off this war. Here’s an undercover interview with a Blackrock recruiter who openly says Blackrock is making money and they want the war to keep going https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOhAgYonAY4

Anybody who thinks that the west is there to protect Ukraine and defend democracy is brain damaged.

that is, 0.6% of the total number of people who can be drafted into the army.

The current political regime is not particularly concerned about military losses. even if we take into account the 2 million Russians who left, 200,000 people still make up about 1% of the number of conscripts. Even if we assume that half of them will somehow manage to escape from the Ministry of Defense, 15 million people can still be called up into the army.

You can call a lot of people, but the reality is that the Russian army gradually shifts from trained soldiers with tanks and artillery to Igor with a gun.

Their losses will skyrocket the moment they can’t provide sufficient counter-battery fire and air defence for their troops anymore.

the Russian army has never been well trained. Almost the entire composition of the army below the officers are forcibly conscripted civilians. the number of contractors is ridiculously small.

the Russian army has never been contracted. And a year of training of a forcibly conscripted person always gives approximately the same result.

UPD: if we lived in the world of starcraft, Russia would undoubtedly be Zerg. In general, the command and tactics are applied accordingly - a swarm of Zerg. I am generally surprised that conscripts are at least given weapons.

when I served in the army on universal conscription for 2.5 years of compulsory conscription many, years ago, I fired from a machine gun about 2 times. This is the average level of training of a Russian soldier.

You can’t really send every man able to hold a gun directly to the front without your economy completely collapsing. Even 1% of your abled men being suddenly dead is very serious in terms of the economy. Plus all the injured coming home from the war now suddenly being a burden rather than a productive asset to your economy.

Definitely not good for either country

Well, that’s right. But already now the business is starting to hire women more willingly than men who can conscripted. And just recently, a law was passed that those who could refuse the draft after entering the institute would still serve after the institute. Government introduced new much stricter laws against draft evasion. Look like preparation for the beginning of mobilization.

This number takes into account every men from the age bracket 15 to to 55, according to rosstat numbers. https://rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/Bul_chislen_nasel-pv_01-01-2022.pdf
This assumes a lot given that realistically there is no real way to know how many people are really living there. This is absolutely not the number of people who are eligible to be conscripted.

By the contract, a person of any age can now be called up until the rifle falls out of his hands. So it’s even less than it could theoretically be required. https://www.rbc.ru/politics/28/05/2022/6291e8e79a7947008579486b

In the Russian Federation, the same resolution on conscripts can be issued one day at any time.

True, technically the Russian government proclaims that everyone who can stand straight for a moment is a potential recruit. But if the previous mogilisation attempts showed us something, that even the most loyal putin’s dogs would prefer making war efforts from the comfort of their own homes.
I don’t have anything other than gut feelings after extensive reading of telegram channels to base this on, but my personal estimation that they could probably get another half of a million of meatbags or so, but after that the whole shit will just collapse in on itself.

The plan is to profit from war, and that’s the thing, it never ends.

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