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sicariobrothers t1_ja5filc wrote

Reply to comment by Wendigo_lockout in Putin casts war as a battle for Russias survival by R1ckCrypto

Well losing UKraine war is the context of the “if”

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Expensive-Document41 t1_ja6dl8y wrote

Not quite. Russia has already lost in every meaningful way. At this point all they can really do is take land.

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Russia is still fighting the Ukrainians to secure the "annexed" portions. Right now the war has clear lines between Russian control and Ukrainian control, which is why Russia hasn't gotten to the hard part. If (big if) the Russians manage to hold any of what they currently occupy then they have to occupy it in perpetuity.

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As an analogy, when the U.S. went into Iraq, the war part analogous to what is happening in Ukraine was over in months. Russia just rolled over into 1 year. The part where the U.S. lost the vast majority of it's soldiers was to unsymmetrical warfare. IEDS and partisans hiding in the general populace. If Russia can't win just the invasion then they have no idea how hard the occupation will be.

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Russia has crippled a generation of it's youth, become an international pariah with crippling sanctions, shown to be an untrustworthy source of energy and doesn't have any of it's objectives comfortably secured.

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TL;DR: Russia has already lost. Now it's just sunk-cost fallacy.

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255001434 t1_ja6rigi wrote

You're not wrong, but what matters for Putin is whether or not the Russian public believes they lost. They know it isn't going easily, but they don't know they have no hope of winning and that Ukraine will never be theirs. A difficult war is one thing, but retreating in shame and failure is another.

When they stop recruiting soldiers and instead they come home with nothing gained, Putin will look like a fool and will be overthrown. They will tolerate a brute, but not a failure.

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sicariobrothers t1_ja95297 wrote

I agree overall. My point was specific to perception of winning or losing amongst the power elite in Russia related to turning on Putin.

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