Russia - threadbanned users in OP

I don't think perfection is reducing your armed capabilities to that of a 3rd rate power. The loss of thousands of your forces and elites. The complete isolation of your country and helped expand the border of NATO.

It's perfect alright. A perfect way to fcuk up your own country.

They haven't lost those sales yet. Back a month ago even US news sites were saying there's no replacement for the likes of Hungary and southeast Europe. Germany and Italy now willing to pay in Rubles.

Not yet, it's hard to see a true effect as with worldwide prices being so high and potentially EU countries stockpiling or filling their reserves, it could lead to an abrupt cutoff from Russia. All we hear is people spewing out random numbers like 1bil a day or 10bil a week going to Russia, or something crazy like that.

Russia have cut off I think Poland, Bulgaria and Finland, I highly doubt they will be coming back as a customer. More and more Eu countries are reducing their reliance on Russian Gas and Oil and Russia is selling it's excess for a discount on the open market (I believe Russian oil is one of the most expensive to extract also, possibly down to the Kleptocracy)

They look at things long term, 10, 20, 50 years from now.

Finland, Sweden joining Nato didn't come into their plans. The threat of nuclear weapons was supposed to keep them cowering and out.

The losses are supposed to be martyrs to be celebrated and avenged. Nothing to government.

The way they look at it get to next winter, heck just in a few months in Africa with famine on the TV and next winter in Europe with people dying from cold if they don't buy Russian gas and they'll have won. Even the UN is trying to get countries to deal with Russia again at this point in time and even with what is proven war crimes in Ukraine.

I'm as anti Russian as they come but unless we see a full scale operation and relief of Ukraine by UK and US forces in the air and on the ground then I fear Putin has played this well long term for ground gained. All the Russians have to do is let the cards fall, famine in the world, dying from cold in Europe.

I sure hope none of those countries who face famine didn't vote against or abstain the various UN resolutions condemning the war.

You will find EU countries are filling their reserves to see them over the winter. Even before the war, it makes sense to buy cheap during summer to stockpile for winter. Obviously it's not that simple, but it's incomparable to a famine.

Where has the UN been trying to get countries to deal with Russia again?

Are they asking countries to export arms to Russia again or buy more Russian Oil & Gas?

I think we've seen how useless the UN is.

Putin hasn't played anything well. Geopolitically, he is a hundred of times worse off than before February 24th.

The plan was to take Ukraine quickly. That didn't work, at all. It doesn't really look like there was a grand strategic plan behind it - Russia is now a pariah state, and Ukraine is in ruins. It's an absurd notion that this was Putin's plan all along.

Russia doesn't really manufacture anything, and they need western imports for pretty much anything beyond basic goods and possibly weapons. They have a lot of natural resources, but they either refuse to sell them or are unable to. Russia needs the rest of the world more than the rest of the world needs Russia, even if there will be a shortage of Russian/Belarussian/Ukrainian grain, fertiliser and whatnot.

Even if Russia gains some territory from the war, then what? They will be worse off, and then have new territories that are in ruins and have a hostile population. They played all their cards already.

There must be thousands of Russians phoning home and telling it like it is. The truth will have to seep in eventually, especially with all this talk from the courts about war crimes.

reason for invading was to get back to the good old USSR days for starters and as collateral damage weaken the west/democracy’s while he is at it. He has said so himself in very clear language

They will also still have full sanctions against them and the likelihood of their energy pot shrinking as the EU unwinds its exposure.

This sounds a lot more like your own personal frustrations. They are doing these things even if you think you know better. The oil and gas moves take time. Ukraine has stated they don't plan to apply for NATO and if you understood the requirements of the EU accession process you'd be aware just how far off the criteria they are. As Macron said probably decades. Ukrainian intelligence in recent weeks have suggested August will be a key month and a likely end to all of this by year end.

Russia got 12bn for its Wheat last year, food is deeply undervalued.

There would be a good argument to suggest that EU food policy for the last 20 years has been driven by Russia for its own strategic interests.

Just on appeasement and I mentioned it here before the biggest and most egregious appeasers of world war 2 were Churchill, Roosevelt and Clement atlee. The way they abandoned Eastern Europe to Stalin and deported people in mass population transfers from Western Europe to a life in the gulags in the aftermath of world war 2 far outweighs the appeasement of chamberlain. Of course it was airbrushed from history. But we are paying for the actions of those men in the current war today. Appeasement never goes away it is ever present in time of war. And there will be major appeasement in the final settlement of this war you can be sure.

With a very fair "legal" process of course.

That's a balanced post.

Another way to look at it is to wind the clock back to late 2021 and consider how the political, energy and security universe has changed in ways that would have been truly unfathomable at the time.