After the fiasco in Afghanistan, I can see how intelligence agencies could become cynical about the commitment of local populations to fight for their own freedom.
However, we discovered that the people of Ukraine were not cowards like the people of Afghanistan
holy shit holy shit someone should drop this fucker in a warzone
It comes down to blood. Which side can bleed more. And the answer is Russia. Someone can correct me on this story, but it goes like this… A country goes to war agains China. Every day the Chinese lose one million fighters. After 100 days the enemy surrenders to China. Suffering and dying is part of the Russian psyche. They will bleed their own country dry and consider it a patriotic gesture.
They actually still believe they are dying in droves, just naruto running into the bullets in human wave attacks.
These deeply unserious people managed to find an old bottle of vintage N*zi Germany era anti-Slavic racism and have been gulping it down heavily. It's literally the "superior Western Europeans cannot be defeated by the inferior and stupid Slavic hordes RUZZIAN ORCZ. Operation Barbarossa will be a success!" all over again.
Russia won’t pull out, Putin has to appear powerful. It doesn’t matter if it ruins Russia economically, he won’t ever stop.
Russia is the fastest growing economy in Europe.
They have a birth rate well below replacement and are bordering on demographic collapse. They can't afford to lose millions of men like they could in WW2.
Once about 32 million Russians die (probably early 2025) then the door will be locked in and the whole rotten edifice will fall down.
What I hate is most people don't seem to realise it's not only about Ukraine. Letting Russia win opens a whole other can of worms. Do we really want authoritarian powers with imperialistic ambitions around the world to think they can just invade what they want and wait until the West gets tired?
The west is the vanguard of anti-imperialism.
Meanwhile, Russia has had to sell oil at loses, has had assets frozen, has suffered heavy sanctions meaning lack of materials and equipment/technology, and has had to switch to a war time economy.
Meanwhile, it has barely made a dent in the wests finances.
Kinda me, I remember watching Lazerpig videos and stuff about how smelly big bad Russia is and slava ukraini and stuff like that, before I went all the way left... now I'm sitting here, thinking about how badly Russia is totally for real legitsies I promise losing.