As far as new allies and markets Russia's managed to lock in Iran (broke, getting broker, doesn't need Russia for much really) and win over North Korea (broker, somehow). Sanctions HAVE managed to impact Russia's economy significantly and in ways where they are making suboptimal tradeoffs. If the US conspires to crash energy prices and succeeds, being Uncle Vlad's Discount LNG Emporium is a strategic defeat.
If that happens Russia will just become a chinese satellite state, they are already bound to become fused at the hip in the near future. The way things are going future historians will point out this failure to keep Russia closer to the west and instead letting it fall into China's arms as one of the biggest blunders we've ever made............that and electing Miley Cyrus as president in 2036.
in some implausible return to Hitlerite Pan-European anti-slav genocidal fervor
Maybe you could sell that to the russians if our media hadn't engaged in a massive racist tirade worthy of Goebbels, calling russians orcs and demanding all russian culture even old stuff like ballet and Dostoyevsky be banned.
This war was a miscalculation
The 2014 bullshit rebellion was a miscalculation, this is just the continuation of that.
Trump can cuck America and give in to every demand at the negotiation table
How are we being cucked for leaving this shitstorm? what are we losing?
massively escalate the conflict into the great European war the liberals, neocons and bug eaters in Brussels want.
I doubt brussels really wants that given that most euro countries have been raking on the debt to replace russian gas for our LNG, and their industries have lost what competitiveness they had left. Besides they know that if shit gets really bad we're gonna leave them to support Ukraine alone, we abandoned Afghanistan after 20 years we can abandon this too.
and increasingly nationalistic movements in Germany, France and elsewhere.
I wouldn't worry about that, better worry about the number of islamic fighters they just let in.
China is still much too strong for us to antagonize openly
And only getting stronger, suddenly Russia's "strike first while you still can" attitude doesn't seem that insane does it?
Is the war just that unpopular in Ukraine?
Has been for a while, see that interview they did to draft dodgers.
cannot just throw a spanner in the hands of the remaning women and tell them to fill all the stuff electricians, mechanics, plumbers, construction workers, loaders, etc were doing.
They could but we both know they're gonna just cross the border and get an OF.