Russia - threadbanned users in OP

And yet they have been attacking Belgorod for months

Moving troops across the border would be completely different.

There is an easy way to hold territory & win over the locals. Give them no corruption, free elections & western standards.

@Pa ElGrande The Russian administration is not about to lose this .

They lost the moment they rolled into ukraine,they are losing more today,they will keep on losing until they have been completely removed from Ukraine.

There is not mighty Russian army to come to the rescue.

They don't have to move troops in ,but they can also encourage resupply runs to further the humiliation on the russians

Lets look at this from another angle. The West (via NATO) has been involved in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria over the past 2 decades. How have those wars turned out, any complete victory to report after two decades. Lot's of treasure spent, whose standard of living has increased in that time?

How do you think the West will react to a weak Russia that refuses to trade with them? Do you not think that the temptation would be to assemble an EU army and invade Russia? Or how about a scenario where Russia is losing and goes all out scorched earth and starts adopt American tactics to systematically take out the civilian infrastructure (water, electricity, transport) in Ukraine? Would the political pressure become greater across Europe for a more direct intervention (humanitarian aid), albeit it would take them 2 to 3 years to reorganise the European economy around war production.

Well in fairness, he's consistent anyway in terms of lavish threats. Not sure that calling for the demise of your own military commanders is very wise though. Maybe he has very good security.

@Pa ElGrande How do you think the West will react to a weak Russia that refuses to trade with them? Do you not think that the temptation would be to assemble an EU army and invade Russia.

Put down the bottle

No, I can't see reason why 'Europe' or the 'EU' would assemble an army and invade Russia. That is assuming it returns to being a relatively normal stable state. If it maintains itself as a terrorist state attacking it's neighbours, then maybe but unlikely as that gets very expensive.

This war has being caused by Russian dreams of restoring some or all of the former USSR. The Brits and other empires have accepted the decline of their territories over time. It's clear that Russian nationalists haven't to date.

The sooner that idea is knocked from their heads the better for everyone.

And no, I don't believe this war was caused by NATO expansion.

Who claims the spoils of a defeated Russia? Recent Blitzkrieg tactics success aside in one part of the region, the war had become a stagnant trench warfare type grind with neither having the momentum to finish off the other in a timely manner. That has to come to an end somehow, in World War I it came to an end when the Americans poured fresh troops in and exhausted the Germans, if they had not it is likely the countries would have come to an agreement among themselves. In Russia and Ukraine, the authorities have silenced most opposition to them, and the ordinary citizen understands very well the pressure that can be applied if they step out of line, so the Russians can continue the grind albeit with reduced ambitions.

There is no evidence that the Russian economy is grinding to a halt, there is however evidence that Western Europe may be ground down by a depression caused by lack of material to run it's industries economically.

Wars don't last forever and at current rate it maybe the early 2030s before we have economic stability returned to Europe. So the question is what does a long lasting peaceful resolution look like?

Ukraine doesn't want to capture Russian territory, they want Russia off their territory. This isn't 1945

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria were all fractured countries held together before war by brutal force rather than anything resembling a legitimate government. Once the leadership were removed they fractured into multiple factions, often fighting for different reasons and usually among themselves.

Ukraine is entirely different. For one thing, we haven't seen the kind of pervasive incompetence and inability to co-ordinate air, ground and logistics as we have seen from Russia. They have been pathetic, the incompetence and lack of intelligent oversight seems to run from the very top to the very bottom.

A weak Russia that refuses to trade with the west will be ignored and tolerated, like North Korea 2.0.