Russia - threadbanned users in OP

As explained umpteen times on this thread, Putin will not attack any NATO or EU members because it leads to an escalation and nuclear war - in which everyone (including Russia) loses massively.

Not quite the same type of sanctions as others but it's heartening if true from a non West aligned country. Pakistan say they will not repay Russian debt.

https://thefauxy.com/pakistan-imposes-economic-sanctions-on-russia-refuses-to-repay-loans/

Love the account handle!

"International federation has banned Russian and Belarussian ice skaters:with immediate effect and until further notice, no Skaters belonging to the ISU Members in Russia (Russian Skating Union and the Figure Skating Federation of Russia) and Belarus (Skating Union of Belarus) shall be invited or allowed to participate in International ice skating Competitions including ISU Championships and other ISU Events."

There's probably more to the equation than troop numbers. I don't think the Russians expect to win the hearts of every Ukrainian at this point. Maybe they don't even expect their puppet government to get much recognition, if/when it is installed. The primary stated objective is keeping Ukraine out of NATO (we can sidetrack into conspiracies of what this conflict is really about, but that's what's stated), so whether the puppet government is particularly effective or not wouldn't make much difference. The main thing would be that Ukraine is destabilised and in no position to join anything. The EU, for all its talk of fast-tracking Ukrainian accession, is probably never going to accept the country while in the grip of a protracted civil war or occupation by a belligerent power.

So, really, all Russia would need to do is keep enough troops in the country to keep it from being normal. America was able to prop up a puppet regime in Afghanistan for 20 years with a max level of 100,000 troops, and even that number was falling since 2010 or so. The real question to me would be if Russia could withstand the long term severance of economic ties with the West and still keep funding the project.

With the exception of a few enclaves in the southeast this would not be a civil war, it would be an uprising and as you say sanctions will play a massive part in that. They may ride out weeks of that but months or longer are just not sustainable. With the exception of energy they have been locked out of the world and that tool may also be hit soon enough.

The Ukrainians don't necessarily have to "defeat" the Russian military. They can make it untenable for those forces to stay in Ukraine. Demoralise enemy soldiers (many of whom don't seem too keen on this), Russian vehicles and armor suffer attrition (many videos of them breaking down and running out of fuel). Ukraine is receiving thousands of anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft missiles and light arms, enough to support a constant resistance. Also it's one of the largest European countries, very difficult for the Russians to hold such a land mass, very difficult without taking the cities. Even if they take a city, then what? if there is constant attacks and resistance it will be impossible to administrate it. Also the Ukrainians will never support any puppet control.

The whole time this is happening, Russia itself is under massive economic pressure, the deaths and casualties and images from this filtering through the censors and reach Russians themselves. Internal dissent could form against Putin. Mass protests could erupt.

It's a very tough position, but Russia by no means "has this in the bag" at all.

Of course, we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that they're always right. But considering that US intelligence was warning of an imminent Russian invasion while even the Ukrainians were denying it and saying the comments were "unhelpful", it would certainly be a big mistake to not give a lot of weight to what the US is saying.

I get the feeling that Russia has made the mistake of believing a lot of its own propaganda. They've spent a decade funding lies about the EU being a big bumbling, bureaucratic nightmare. Inefficient, over-reaching, fractured, undemocratic. Culminating in the Russian success of Brexit. None of it is true. It may have been, 20 years ago. But the EU has been continuously reforming since Lisbon to become a more efficient institution. The response we've seen from the EU over the last week isn't some massive departure from normal business, or violation of its own processes. It's a level of efficiency that has been built into the EU over a decade. It responded with speed and efficiency for Covid. Not fast enough for some maybe, but 27 independently sovereign countries moving in lockstep takes some doing.

Putin has underestimated the EU, partially because he believed the bullsh1t he was spreading about it.

He doesn't have an out, which is what makes this very dangerous. If he pulls back, then domestically he is fvcked. He will have to tighten down the bolts even harder to avoid losing everything. His only "out" at this stage is a win in Ukraine, whatever it takes. He may not be willing to drop nukes to get there, but nothing else will be off-limits. And it needs to be fast, because his country is only weeks away from an uprising if nobody can get paid or buy food.

Define "defeat".