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I think the challenge there is convincing the majority of propaganda-drenched Russians that we (the west) do not pose an existential threat to Russia. It's so obvious to us, but so many of them are utterly brainwashed.
ffm-
If you watch 1420 on Youtube you can see the problem is not even that they really believe all the crap they have been spewed. The problem is that they are willing to keep supporting "Homeland" no matter what. You hear it all over again from the older people. Just chanting "We are strong, we can not be defeated" is easier intellectually than accepting the Ruzzian state is vulnerable. I just saw recently a great clip from before the collapse in 90s. The RT today has exact same arguments.
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It's not only propaganda, centuries of Russian geopolitics have been based on controlling a large enough area of the Northern European Steppe such that the avenues for largescale movement of armies into their territory is constrained by mountain ranges, rivers, etc. Basically, they want to limit the routes of tanks into Russia to topographical bottlenecks that they can easily plug. It sounds daft and may well be daft, but it's not entirely uninformed by history. When you understand that this is a key part of the Russian perspective, you see why NATO expansion into former Warsaw Pact countries is interpreted as aggression - the available routes for forces to enter Russia have become thousands of kilometers wide, Belarus is at risk of becoming an indefensible salient, etc. I'm not saying this is a correct or helpful way to view the world, because overall we will not progress by treating the planet like a giant game of Risk. However it does render some of the batshit comprehensible.
Imagine how much of this shit could be avoided if people didn't get so excited about Clausewitz.
Rox
GeneralStrike
The US 2024 Presidential election looms large. Republicans are much more amenable to Putin, presumably because he won them the 2016 election, and should they win then the supply of ammunition and weapons will end very quickly.
I'm sure the Ukrainian government is well aware of this, so imagine they'd like to get in a position this year where a Russian strategic withdrawal is Putin's only option.