• Putin makes a big deal out of how fighting in Ukraine is by volunteers and contained so that "regular russians" are safe. This fight goes on in areas defended by conscripted soldiers, breaking that safety layer.

It also allows Ukraine to continue playing defensively now that they have the territory which has shown to be a good strategy so far for bleeding Russia of troops and equipment.

I read it as credibility with Russia's citizens. They believed that their government will prevent any attack coming to Russian soil.

They also have very little perceived military strength at this point, right? Apart from their nukes I guess.

Well if the Russian playbook is the same, they will have to raze their own villages to get them back.

Even if they now activate conscripts to do this, the casualty rate will be high and involve people from all over Russia. So the Russian public will be made aware of the costs.

And Ukranians can do what they do on the eastern front, pull back in defensive manner and concede ground in a controlled manner. Forcing the Russians to remain on the offensive when they actually cannot anymore.

I personally think the Russians are overcommitted already, cannibalizing everything everywhere. We will now see what they can muster from what is left.

Force the {enemy} to over commit. Then pull back.

As used to stunning effect in Vietnam. And Afghanistan. And Afghanistan. And Afghanistan. And Afghanistan.

As a completely uncredentialed internet commenter, this looks like true maneuver warfare in action. The goal is destroying the ability of enemy forces rather than capturing territory. A subtle but important distinction. Any territory taken should be in furtherance of the main goal, and if holding the territory distracts from that it is to be abandoned.

(If numbers are anything close to believable) this has been happening inside Ukraine where defensible positions are held by Ukrainians to cause huge losses to attacking Russian forces, yet the Ukrainians don't immediately press the local advance often to take back disputed territory. A big exception was Ukraine's initial, and I think it will come out as disastrous armored offensive early in the war, probably a result of over confidence in thinking they'd whittled down the Russian forces that early. Looks like lessons learned as Ukraine has become much more cautious of large scale offensives. I believe last year they were assaulting Russian defensive lines inside Ukraine but (if numbers are to be believed) they were inflicting more losses on the defenders than they were taking, which is insane for assaulting static positions. Russia seems to have held those positions by simply pouring fresh troops into them over and over, sacrificing men to prevent the lines on the map from moving. Years of those kinds of losses seem to be at the point where Russia can't pivot to defend itself in any kind of reasonable time. Even if the Ukrainians pull out of the Russian territory, the damage by showing what they are able to do is done.

In a funny twist, at least from the snippets of news reporting (which I stress we should always be willing to rethink) it sounds like the Ukraine incursion is using a sort of variant of "deep battle" by bypassing enemy defenses with the majority of its forces. This is funny because early in the war the massive Russian tank losses from their disorganized dollar store thunder run were explained as expected deep battle losses by pro-Russians on the internet.

I read that this attack isn't meant to keep the territory occupied and is more of wake up call for the Russians.

Battle of Suomussalmi

China won’t attack Russia. They’ll simply start moving there and gaslight that it’s Chinese land.

I dont understand, why doesn't Ross, the largest of the friends, not simply eat the other friends?

China has zero interest in harming Russia at this stage. The US and its allies are investing massive resources in Ukraine, so is Russia. Russia needs chinas goodwill and tech to keep going, that’s a win. The US can’t use the money it puts into Ukraine into the pacific, that’s another win.

China is happy if everything stays as it is