That definitely is a possibility, but keep in mind that Putin is also heavily invested in keeping Lukashenko's regime in power as that is the cheapest and easiest way to keep it a Russian satellite. Lukashenko's Belarus is much weaker and more unstable than Putin's Russia and this war seems much less popular in Belarus than Russia. If Putin is willing to have Belarusian soldiers slaughtered, he might be sacrificing his closest ally for minor gains in this war.
That's still going to make whoever sent to fix the damage a very vulnerable target. And if the Russian sent some troops and toys to defend them, that's more resources diverted from their offensive preparation
"Zelensky didn't commit suicide," time to get in on this meme while it's still fresh!
fighting so closely to a NATO border, alone, is massively beneficial to Ukraine and the narrative of unhinged Westward expansion from the Russians. This is literally bordering on a NATO security risk, better to funnel Belarusian manpower into already existing fronts.
Who the fuck runs trains through enemy controlled territory. (Probably Russians.)
I've asked this before. Define "win".If you girls think Ukraine is going to "win" this war..... Good luck with that hypothesis Reddit. wow
The thing was, the growth rate from the Tsardom to the USSR was absolutely tremendous...until it wasn't. That growth rate was what made people predict the USSR linearly eclipsing the USA at multiple points in the future, but the anticipated date kept getting pushed back.
...got a source on that? There's been a lot of conflicting claims made about this video, namely regarding whether it's Azov or not (willing to consider there might be Azov members outside Mariupol), but they all agree it's near Kharkiv or near the border.Its the Azov nazi dudes. Likely just blew up a railway to keep anymore civ's from evacuating mariupol. Need more dead woman and children for twitter propaganda and meat shields.
Hence the quotes. I disagree with the premise Russia cares about infrastructure. They fucking built it, for starters, and what I have seen of the "infrastrukkkture" there, it isn't much that can't be replaced immediately. We didn't bomb the living fuck out of every
I don't think Russia wants all of Ukraine. It would be too difficult and costly to control. I personally have my conditions for a total Russian win being them making all of Novorossiya independent, the east of the Dnieper being under Russian control in some way, recognition of Crimea being Russian, and the rump Ukraine having agreed to permanent neutrality, with more minor wins being only getting Crimea, the Donbas republics, neutrality, and maybe Kherson Oblast.
I disagree a bit. While Tsarist Russia was backwards prior to the 20th century, its economy was absolutely exploding around the turn-of-the-century and up to World War I. More liberal economic policies pretty much guaranteed it, and Russia's growth so worried the German General Staff that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand presented potentially the final opportunity to stop Russia in its tracks while it was still vulnerable.
If Putin wanted to win, he'd just puppet/annex the areas with Russian sympathy, meaning some of the southern and eastern Oblasts and end things there, at least it won't be such a painful occupation as it would be more concentrated, and you could find some locals who aren't random people off the street to manage villages and cities. If Putin decides to go for the whole or most of the pie, he'll be stuck in another Afghanistan except sharing a border with NATO where supplies would constantly fall into the hands of Insurrectionists.
Because America can afford to repair that infrastructure and bombing goat hoarder huts does a lot less monetary damage than bombing a modern building or Khrushchyovka. Russia already has to worry about insurrectionists if they take over Ukraine, not helping repair the damage they did will just ensure the problem is even worse, but they can't afford to rebuild cities.
Who do you think pays to fix it? The basketcase country you just smashed to bits? No. Russia does. The bill for all of this if they "win" will be entirely paid by them. Occupying a broken hostile nation lacking infrastructure and industry and resources is a drain strategically. Not an asset. We just got through 20 years of watching the US learn this lesson the hard way. Do you think Russia has some special tool in their arsenal that makes them immune to this shit? They don't. In fact these kind of issues were exactly why the USSR fucking collapsed. They couldn't economically keep their pact together. They couldn't afford the bills of operating it anymore.
It is just utterly inconceivable that the Russians have not taken a city with a total area of 350 km2 (140 sq mi) and a pre-war population of 1,433,886 with a density of 4,500/km2 (12,000/sq mi) when fighting against a solidly 2nd Rate+ Army that has been trained and supplied by NATO in a contested airspace in 3 days. Oh wait it actually is not seeing as how it took well over 100,000 troops that had the full backing of an international military coalition with complete and utter air dominance 9 months to take Mosul (a city that is literally half the size geographically of Kharkiv) back from less than 15,000 ISIS Fighters equipped with standard Middle eastern Militia equipment.
Careful, you're going to start making it sound like Russia wasn't prepared for this war in the slightest.
China would fix it, Russia is now a client state of China. Russians won somehow.
Exactly. The modern city is practically today's version of a medieval castle or star fort. If the defenders want to hold their ground, the city could survive for weeks and weeks and bleed the attackers raw. There's just so many sites for ambushes that taking a city even remotely intact is extremely costly. You either need an insane amount of artillery or carpet bombing (i.e. crimes against humanity-tier) just to significantly reduce the city's value, but even then, buildings will have enough of a shell left that they can still function as ambush sites. You practically need WMDs to take a city in a quick time.
So what you are saying is the Russians took a bad war and are getting their military and equipment destroyed for pennies on the dollar by western powers?
