Trolls & bots fail to understand or accept that Russia is anything but infinite and inevitable - but numbers are numbers. They've spent half of their entire Soviet inheritance to steal what they sit on today. The war doesn't end when they get to zero vehicles. The half they've squandered is surely the BETTER half, and they still need an army for territorial defense and internal repression. Ukraine is not about the break, and this is probably the best position Russia is ever going to be in. This is the endgame of this messy, abusive Divorce, and Pootz has to come up with some whopper lies to say it was all worthwhile.

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[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.ee 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

I keep repeating this, but I'll repeat it again:

I believe at this point Putin already knows the Russia has lost, but he also understands that what comes after the war is worse for the Russia than anything this war can possibly offer.
90 000 soldiers returning from Afghanistan to USSR with 300 million inhabitants caused the absolute clusterfuck that the 1990's in the Russia were. Those soldiers, gotten used to violence, were a horror. They are what was the base that gave birth to the internationally famously violent Russian mafia back then.

And now there aren't going to be 90 000 soldiers returning, but 700 000. And not to a country of 300 million, but to a country of 140 million. That's a 15-fold problem in comparison to population size compared to the end of 1980's and the 1990's. They're gonna have the 1990's again, only multiplied by 15. And because the soldiers are now much more cruel yet than the Soviets were in Afghanistan, the multiplier should actually be even higher than "mere" 15.

Putin can get the Russians to stay in the war for another half a year or year by talking NATO NATO NATO blah blah. It's several months more time before the onset of an absolute mayhem unheard of even in the Russia. Eventually the war will end, the soldiers will return home and, well, streets in all cities will have twelve bandits per hundred metres.

I believe it would still make more sense for almost everybody in the Russia to let the mayhem begin sooner than later, because if they wait more, it will be even crazier. It's already at the point where the only thing that can be done is for local groups to arise, and basically become independent countries, then denouncing the "heroes" and starting to actively protect their own area from the returning orcs. The Russia cannot do this, but Tatarstan can, and Republic of Sakha can. The earlier they end the war, the less people they will lose, and the more refineries and such they will have left.

Anyway: Putin knows he's lost the war. He just wants to delay the inevitable as much as possible. If you assume this, the rest actually starts making a lot of sense.