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  • Why should Putin be desperate? He doesn't give a shit about how many people and how much material he throws into the meat grinder, and he's winning in the long game of slowly but steadily dismantling western alliances through psy-ops.

    His largely unopposed propaganda and disinformation campaign bolstering far right groups in the west is bearing fruit, the US is ruled by Donald Trump once more (maybe once and for all), Austria has a far right government, Germany is going to be next if things don't drastically change. Nationalist extremists coming to power all over the West will dry up international support for Ukraine and break apart alliances like the EU and NATO. Then he has free reign enlarging his empire piece by piece as he pleases.

    • He doesn’t give a shit about how many people and how much material he throws into the meat grinder

      The immolation of two nations worth of young people is taking its toll on the country and the region at large. We saw Iran and Iraq hollowed out during the 80s war in much the same way (and for many of the same reasons - a Republican president playing both sides against the middle, hoping they'd both fail and fall into US sphere of influence).

      Russia isn't served by this war. It will only decay into a deindustrialized dictatorship further. The air war has immolated billions in Soviet era capital and severed access to European and Middle Eastern markets.

      Ukraine isn't served, as they land they've lost pales beside the obliteration of lives and livelihoods and working capital to the West.

      Putin's position on the world stage is significantly weaker than when he started, even with his friend Trump back in office. All Cheeto can do for him is staunch the bleeding, assuming he doesn't take the opportunity to stab Putin the back and boost up a more America friendly replacement.

      • Russia isn’t served by this war. It will only decay into a deindustrialized dictatorship further. The air war has immolated billions in Soviet era capital and severed access to European and Middle Eastern markets.

        Sure, Russia isn't served by this, but Putin doesn't care as long as he is in power and can live in luxury from being a cleptocrat dictator and inflate his ego by the size of his empire.

        Putin’s position on the world stage is significantly weaker than when he started, even with his friend Trump back in office. All Cheeto can do for him is staunch the bleeding, assuming he doesn’t take the opportunity to stab Putin the back and boost up a more America friendly replacement.

        Currently, his position on the world stage is weakened, but with western alliances falling apart, this won't matter, as long as he has a stronger position than the unfortunate isolated neighbour country he sets his sights on next. All Putler needs to secure Cheeto's support is supporting his hunhinged plans of annexing Canada, Greenland, or Panama. Of course, a certain risk of being stabbed in the back by a serial con artist like Trump exists, but Russia hasn't been an autocratic dictatorship only since yesterday. Even the Wagner rebellion failed. I doubt any backstabbing that could be done from abroad has any better chance of succeeding.

    • The fundamental problem is that the war in Ukraine makes a coup or a revolution more likely. We already saw Wagner march on Moscow after all. That will get worse with the economy in trouble amking paying the forces harder and living conditions falling, making revolutions more likely. The oligarchs are already paying a massive price for the war, but do not seem to revolte. Complaining about Putin increases fall risk by quite a bit in Russia. So any sane actor would hide it for as long as possible, to then go hard at Putin with the goal of full removal. If Putin can no forsee it, then the average dude in the West has no chance at all.

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