Why do they keep going? Sunk cost fallacy? It’s mind boggling…
The war kills Ukrainians and undesirable Russian minorities, keeps Ukraine out of EU and NATO, and doesn’t affect the elites in Moscow.
So it’s a win-win for the Kremlin.Also pushed Sweden and Finland into NATO, so I dunno about that
The “Finlandization” of the Baltics and Georgia was a stated policy goal for a while. Browbeat and threaten them into not being in NATO enough to keep border secure. Might be worthwhile to try to get Ukranian industry, grain, and sea access, but that means they just opened up a whole new front in the north.
It’s destroying their military equipment and stockpiles. This isn’t win win for the Kremlin, they’re in trouble.
Russia has been the top recruiter for NATO in the last two years.
everything you said is ridiculous, but this part is the best
keeps Ukraine out of EU and NATO
Ukraine is now a proxy NATO country with a NATO army fighting and killing Russians and destroying the Russian military… it couldn’t have failed more spectacularly…
Showing weakness usually doesn’t end well for authoritarian leaders and at the same time they aren’t the ones currently suffering the consequences. In some regards it might even have expanded the powers they have internally (at least in the short term).
So in some twisted way there is some logic from their point of view. The fault really lies in starting this whole thing under the assumption it would be an easy win, while not having a way to back out again, while saving face.
The service members go because it’s go and risk being killed or die at home. The government won’t stop sending them because stopping means weakness to them.weakness = bad for them.
This war was lost over a year ago. None of their aims were achievable after that point.
To understand why it continues you have to understand two things:
Putin will cease to be leader if he ends this.
Putin believes in luck. The longer this continues the more likely of some random event going in his favour or of the West getting bored and withdrawing their support.
He’s intentionally dragging out the conflict. The tactics they use are designed to do nothing more than slow down how much territory is lost over time.
Every so often they attack to achieve a little ‘victory’. This is then twisted into a massive victory on every tv across Russia. This plus huge pay offerings, gives them endless volunteers. Particularly from rural regions where education is lacking.
Putin does not care how many of his own people he kills. They are nothing to him. The tactic putin is using is based on throwing 10, 20, 100 or whatever number to kill one Ukrainian. That is one less Ukrainian. That is what matters to him.
300k people mostly forced to fight.
Over 4x the British Army
What’s the Achievement Unlocked bonus, F-16?
