Not sure what reliability or relevance any poll on public opinion is in a kleptocratic slave state like Russia. Asking individuals what they think isn’t the same there as it is here where we, you know, vote. And that’s not what drives change in mafia style dictatoships anyways. Russia is the kind of country where power changes by factions and coups - control is seized, not given from a fair mandate of voters. I agree with you, the war ends when Putin does, and that the only path for Ukraine that brings lasting peace is to degrade Russia’s ability to fight long enough until there is fundamental change in the pollitical leadership.

Yep, you’re probably right. This war lasts as long as he does. Increasingly, he seems to be aware of that and is making himself less visibile than in even the recent past.

thanks kindly. I think Trump is actively trying to erode the financial priorities of Ukraine’s backers by launching the Iran war, plus it helps his boss besides. As in - if you can’t MAKE them stop supporting Ukraine, try and recession them into doing it themselves. And make a few bucks manipulating markets while you’re at it.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz is litearlly in the Russian’s war contingency plans, and lo and behold - they did it. Also - the FIRST thing - the VERY FIRST policy decision that Trump did after launching the Iran war? “Temporary” removal of Russian oil sanctions. Which, of course, are permanent. They even “talked” about revoking them, but - gee golly - guess what they actually did - kept them in place, without making too big a stink about it. Keep the water murky in order to confuse people not paying attention, and get the money train rolling again.

Think you’re right, their clumsy, ham-fisted backing of fascist franchises across Europe is going WORSE with them in charge than it was pre-Trump. There’s, ironically, an unintended Trump effect that galvanizes opposition to him, both in America and especially Europe, where his handling of the Ukraine war isn’t just a partisan sideshow, but rather, a literal imminnet threat to life and liberty right next door.

I’m for big sensational strikes like the kerch bridge and attacking Moscow more directly and more often too. I don’t see what else Russia is likely to do in response - this IS their full court press, because anything less than that would make no strategic sense for what is a stupid vanity war of revenge for an overpromoted gangster ghoul.

Every passing day, Russia gets weaker, and probably things become less sustainable than they are for Ukraine. I think Ukraine can continue to trade small slices of land, get better at cost effective air defense and increasingly automating their kill capacity, while russia has to spend more and more resources and manpower than they can afford to. Their 2026 offensive is achieving absolutely nothing, if they needed 500,000 more troops today than they have to make a strategic difference, then they would have needed to mobilize those forces 6 months ago. Guess what - they didn’t, and I think they know they can’t. It’s endgame stuff now - Trump’s impotent indifference, <6m before whatever is going to come out of U.S. midterms, Putin’s increasing paranoia, rising discontent in Russia, and the static nature of the frontlines are all signs that there’s not much more Russia and Krasnov can do.

Call me a bit wary - the Russians didn’t seem quite furious enough about losing their obvious stooge agent vessel that they use to screw up NATO & the EU. That made me think they might just have been better at hiding their influence on Magyar, presenting it like a win for the west but really just slow playing things. They’re down to having ONLY Fico as an obvious spoiler, and he has been less obstructionist than Orban was so far.

Ukraine could absolutely be fighting a dirtier war than it is. They could be much more aggressive with attacking soft targets in big russian cities, car bombs, shooting up stores, assassinating government figures, blowing up civilian structures. They’ve already shown a capability and willingness to do this, assassinating Dugin’s daughter and some high priority targets here and there over time.

But - unlike the russians, they have allies/supporters who care about moral conduct of a war and an ethical high ground, thus they don’t bother with those kinds of attacks at scale. But if Russia were to start using nukes to kill large numbers of Ukrainians in a clear final act of extermination (a Final Solution, if you will) , there would be no reason for them not to fully unleash a terroristic campaign like that, and really make the passive enabling Russian population feel the venom that their government has unleashed.

A tactical nuke is just a big shell - depending on a programmable explosive yield, it might blow up a single building or a few city blocks. Militarily, there isn’t a single target that changes the trajectory of the war by being nuked - but politically and strategically, using any level of nuke probably creates way way way more problems for russia than it solves.

Why believe that? Because they clearly didn’t use them at points where there were more concentrated Ukrainian defences that might at least at a simple tactical level, have an argument for their use if you turned off your brain and soul and thought like a Russian does, for a minute. They could have used them against any number of fortress belt cities where Ukrainians were (or are still) stubbornly entrenched like Bakhmut, Sieverodonetsk, Avdiivka, Pokrovsk, Mynohrad etc, and expect that the Ukrainians would quickly retreat and reconsider their defensive posture for the next town down the road. But - the central contradiction here for Russia is that they insist Ukraine belongs to them - ergo is their property. Why would you nuke your own property, especially with all the other entanglements it presents. This is a war of land seizure by a mafia state looking to steal wealth and treasure from their neighbour. You can’t extract value as quickly from a completely decimated moonscape, plus your reconstruction costs are higher.

They’re not going to use nukes of any kind. And China probably would pull all support if they did, which would QUICKLY deindustrialize the Russian army to the point where they’d be using slingshots and sticks on meat assaults in a couple of months.

You think the vulgar talking yam will be out within the next 6 months? That’s optimism up the ying yang.

think that this war is in stalemate position for russia. It cant win, but continues to fight just to delay inevitable loss.

It does not matter whether huilo ends or continues war. Economics and society will collapse because of sanctions and being tired of putin.

Ukraine, while does not have ability to actually win back on front, can cause disaters in the back, and keep defensive positions with continued support from allies.

Rose @lemmy.zip to [email protected] • What Exactly is the Russian Theory of Victory At This Point? In the short term, it’s probably what Russia says it is: getting the territories that it wrote into the constitution. Stopping at the areas currently in control would also be acceptable, as that’s already more than Russia had before 2022. Then it’s going to be about regrouping for new attacks and invasions, which don’t have to be aimed at Ukraine. Even if attacking Europe were out of the picture, there are former Soviet countries to its south.

Sure, but those states have already aligned themselves to China (Kazazhstan and the rest of the Central Asian Republics), Turkey (Azeris) or otherwise disavowed themselves from Russia like Armenia. Georgia and Belraus are pale consolation prizes for what was a one-time shot at restoring the great russian empire.

Well - here’s the thing. The worst part of the war for Russia might not even have started - occupation. A war of conquest is only meaninful if you can exploit and extract value from that territory. If Ukraine retains the ability to snipe, drone, bomb, harass and kill occupation forces and any moronic Russian pioneer replacement settlers, then what good is owning burning rubble. Just like the U.S. experience in Vietnam, if the terrioty you take can’t be held or pacified when your most qualified troops are killed or move to the next objective, then what has been the point of taking Hill 835 or whatever. You have to leave at some point because it’s not worth the ongoing bloodshed, and then the ‘enemy’ just comes back.

But territory can only be exploited from economic activity underwritten by a peaceful state of things. And occupation forces can’t live in smouldering puddles of rain water - they live in barracks among communities that generate economic wealth. Russia is YEARS away from reaping occupation, reconstruction and repopulation benefits, and that’s assuming Ukraine stops shooting at all. Nobody seriously expects Russia NOT to try again in a couple years, so from Ukraine’s perspective, the only path to lasting peace is to keep bleeding the Russians dry until something fundamental changes withe the political leadership

He may not have a reason, but he has many barriers, including the loss of support from his overlord in Beijing. And the military folks who have to execute his order have family that is going to live on this earth longer than he will. It’s less about his lack of restraint and more about the likelihood that it doesn’t actually achieve anything positive for Russia. They’re just a big, posionous bomb. Used against territory they claim as their own. It’s shitting on your own birthday cake.

Ukraine haven’t even mobilzed people under 25. It’s terrible what they’ve suffered, but they’re nowhere near societal collapse. Russia has been in a nearly net-zero state of casulaties to recruits for nearly two years. And what’s not stated there is the declining quality of the average Russian Fighting Man. They started off as a fairly professional mechanized army - destroyed that. Then they went with mass of men and materiel, as they always do, but perofmance and quality declined. Then they went to irregular units driving buggies, bikes and horses into combat. And at each stage, their forward progress and the cost of recruiting new troops rose higher and higher to absurd levels.

Even globally, there is a finite amount of idiots willing to die for a paycheque that likely won’t be paid anyways. Just like how ISIS found there is a finite amount of devoted islamists willing to die directly figthing an organized enemy in Iraq and Syria, until they melted away. Russia wants you to think they’re bottomless, and not just in terms of their depravity. But - nothing is infinte, and just being able to replace raw numbers without any regard to training quality is obviously leading to decreased performance of your slave army. Russia is losing net territory so far this year, and that’s pretty darn hard to hide, or reverse. If they COULD be doing 1% better than they are now, they would be doing eveyrthing to achieve it. This is it - this is the most they’re willing to do - throwing useless mouths into pounded rubble until they are blown to bits, and hoping Ukraine gives them something to go away. You know - like a terrorist does asking for ransom.

I keep thinking how giddy Xi must have been with this idiotic quid pro quo where Russia would attack Ukraine first before Xi pressed on some Taiwan reunification threat. Without losing a single soldier or piece of equipment, China has become the undisputed leader of the Axis of Authoritarian Hell Holes, taken influential control of the Central Asian republics today, will control eastern Russia tomorrow, can make any demand of Russia going forward with no chance of them saying no. They have secured all the resource materials, energy, fresh water that China will ever need, and gained naval use of the erstwhile Russian North Pacific, something they have never, ever had in 5000 years.

The spirit of this question might be more “how would you win”, though. It’s tricky, by all accounts Russia is running out of manpower and seems afraid to conscript more aggressively. Their foreign reserves will run out eventually too (although they’re deeper than I had realised). Most conventional tactics or strategies that are scalable are being tried and not working. I guess they could try bombing some new things.

That leaves escalating to tactical nuclear weapons, and hoping Europe doesn’t respond by directly fighting Russia. Of course, potentially ending the world might be too heavy a cost if you’re not just a Lemming running a hypothetical.

There’s a few other twists and turns before you go to tactical nuclear weapons - which may not achieve anything militarily. It’s bad juju to run a war of conquest to own an irradiated wasteland. Big Poppa Xi probably wouldn’t allow anything but a small show of force in terms of nulear weapons - a demonstrative underground detonation, let’s say. But let’s be clear - why would such a tantrum change Ukraine’s defense calculus? This is already a genocidal war where russia presumes ukraine ‘Belongs’ to them and they have no right to exist. It’s win or die, full stop. Tactical nukes wouldn’t change that and if the Russians could precisely target military targets that efficiently, they’d already do it. The delivery systems are the same - only the warhead would be different.

If Russia uses any type of nuclear weapon, you’ll immediately see China’s support change for the worse from Russia’s perspective, and you’d see an instant all-gloves-off response from Ukraine. There would be mass assassination & suicide bomber attacks in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as there would be absolytely nothing restraining Ukraine doing as much damage as possible if you’re being incinerated out of existence anyways.

TL:DR - Can’t see nukes making anything better for Russia.

Hard to disagree. Others have said he’s a poker player who wants you to believe he’s a chess player. All bluff, all the time. In a strongman state, the state of that strongman is all that really matters. And my two cents is that Putin is an overpromoted gangster ghoul, and your hypothesis is correct - it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Ukraine wasn’t supposed to be capable of such resistance, Putin understood his mortality and decided that there was never going to be better conditions than now to try and go for his 20th century revenge project. That’s very, very dangerous for a guy who’s so personally invested in victory or death - you’re implying, and probably correct - that the war ONLY ends when he ends.

Not a bad theory, but Trump will likely be politcally neutered in the mid-terms, or his hand will be forced where he tries to cancel elections, and the U.S. descends into total chaos. Probably, the octogenarian dictator and his band of lickspittles aren’t competent enough to get their way, and a more democratic consensus comes out of the U.S.

But - let’s say it doesn’t, and the U.S. continues to be run by Krasnov, unchecked. The Ukrainian War, for Europeans, isn’t some abstract side act to domestic partisan games like it is in the U.S. It is a clear and present threat where Russia fully intends to colonize or make puppet states out of Europe if it can find any way to do so.

You could argue that there’s been a galvanizing effect in Europe to the second Trump presidency - including in France and Germany - his nutso grift has helped more democratic forces there than his far right Kremlin franchisees. France, Germany, Britain, even Italy’s erstwhile-right leaning leadership openly messages against Trump, and doesn’t kiss his ass. It’s hard to argue that far right populism has benefitted from a Trump’s insane carnival show - in fact maybe the opposite. As in - there is still a relevant bloc of euros who live in a world of common sense and might be more energized to defend their democracy from russian corrosion with a Trump presidency more than without it.

TL:DR - Trump might not be helping getting fascists elected in Germany and France. If this is their plan - it doesn’t seem to be a good one.

That’s true. Rolling crematoriums to incinerate military and political leadership. A specific plan on precisely how many people would have be to murdered to cow the rest into submission. The Russians seem particularly given to this type of casual industrialized death.