Depending on Russia’s ultimate goals it could amount to large scale territorial expansion, the addition of several new puppet states, and/or the complete annihilation of a hostile regime on their doorstep. Let’s not pretend that Russia doesn’t have an upside in this conflict.
Ok, Russia having fucked logistics and being right now most sanctioned nation on earth is news to you, or you just don't understand the effect of those?
Yes, China has the same problem Germany has, it has to import its energy to maintain its industry.
Which is why I have always been on team light infantry. Tanks are imposing, but even the US found out to its detriment they are useless without a swarm of light infantry around them to keep the enemy away from them. Which sort of defeats their advantages. Which is the whole mechanized advance thing. The idea of the armored spearhead is nice and all, but IMO, all Tanks offer is artillery support. Which would be better served by, well, actual artillery. Mechanized (and Armored) artillery behind the infantry line that is capable of responding to fire requests from the front. That is where any expensive Armored unit needs to be.
Those come with their own problems though. Russia already had Crimea, and the Donbass Republics in the bag. They didn't need a war for those. Annexing more territory would mean annexing territory which carries heavy anti Russian sentiments. The more territory they take the more people who would be willing to fight in an insurgency they would be turning into Russian citizens. Zelensky and his government was supposed to be the "moderate" option. The next two political candidates with the most support were anti russian nationalists. There is not a strong foundation for a pro russian government in Kiev. That would require either permanent occupation or just accepting that the Ukrainians seize back control as soon as the Russians leave.
Considering how the Russkies were treating the Crimean Tatars, I am shocked it took this long.
They're not necessarily as high. I ran across an interesting twitter thread from a retired US general earlier today about the issue of Russian losses and his opinion on the subject. The short of it being that in his judgment, most of the vehicles that Russia's using are death traps if they get hit. While Ukraine's using a lot of the same shit, they're the ones using infantry with anti-tank rockets to blow up vehicles which will usually contain multiple people that'll be injured or killed. He also thinks Ukraine's better able to treat and evacuate its wounded than Russia is. If his opinion is accurate, it would certainly explain quite a bit about why estimates of Russia's military losses have ranged so much higher than estimates of Ukraine's military losses.
Not seeing a single Nog, can't be Frogland.
Militarily, all Russia needs to do is keep wrecking shit until Zelensky cucks out. It's a war of attrition now. They don't need to wololo Kiev, or even the east, to win.
>When someone uses the skins from last season because they think they're cool, even though they've been nerfed and the new characters have been feature crept.
There is also just the general truism of war that the defender by default takes fewer losses then the attacker.
I'm using my autistic armchair general powers to assess that even though the Ukrainians likely aren't losing as many people in tanks and trucks, they're likely losing more men to Russian artillery. Of course tank crews are more valuable than infantry grunts. So I'm sure someone will eventually have to calculate what the tactical gains and losses were.
