"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again."

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Glider said:
Just a thought based I admit on no personal information. Much is understandably made of the much larger Russian population which gives it the ability to use almost WW1 like meat grinder tactics.
However there must be a limit which may not be so far away which once reached puts Russia in trouble. The poorer outlying areas of Russia are being bled white to supply the troops needed. The major cities comparatively have hardly been touched by the call up. The reason is both obvious and clear, the major cities are large centres of populations, which are also fundamental to keeping the economy going and the hardest to control should there be a revolt.

In numbers Putin has a large advantage, but how much more can he rely on the more distant parts of Russia. A lot of these areas see themselves as independent areas which are controlled by Russia.

Russia's population advantage is in my view the difference between how much he has bled the outlying areas and how much more he can bleed them. Once Putin starts to draw on the resources of the larger cities, the risk to his control will increase rapidly. The size of his personal guard has increased dramatically over the last six to nine months and I cannot help but think that this could be the reason behind that growth.
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Thanks for that, and what I was trying to emphasize (perhaps not as cogently) in posts 26,176 & 26,177, above.
 
There was also the issue Imperial Russia had with the public after they withdrew from WWI after suffering roughly 2,000,000 military dead.

Their economy was ruined from the war, there was increasing food shortages along with runaway inflation and we know what happened next.

Putin is setting himself up for a new version of Red October.
 
Glider said:
The size of his personal guard has increased dramatically over the last six to nine months and I cannot help but think that this could be the reason behind that growth.
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And his body doubles will have additional bodyguards as well because otherwise you will be able to pick a double by the lack of guards.

I wonder if he has "recruited" any additional body doubles for high risk situations
 
Warspite63 said:
I recall reading that 80% of Soviet males born in 1923 were dead by the end of the war (a truly harrowing figure...). No way to hide that sort of statistic these days. Not to mention that the Soviret Union was drafting from all the republics, not just the Russian Republic
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Right, the current disparate drafting from far-fling oblasts while avoiding drafts from Moscow, St Pete, and other large urban areas also bespeaks the Putin regime's concerns about word-of-mouth. They're definitely concerned with keeping the human costs of this war buried into places which have both less information and less voice.

How long that may work is open to conjecture.
 
JDCAVE said:
There were strong protests, bordering on revolts in Moscow and other cities in the Soviet Union prior to its dissolution. That was what forced the end of the Soviet Union. There was also a severe economic collapse. The CCCP simply could not "out-defense-spend" NATO. One can hope (but not expect) for that to happen again. That would be a more important outcome rather than a coup or "decapitation" of Putin.
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In the late 80s the populace in the USSR was quiescent until the costs of the war in Afghanistan became apparent, not only in body bags but also the expenditures which showed up in the civilian marketplace in the form of higher costs and longer lines and a lower standard of living.

You can ask a lot of the populace but you need to deliver returnables in order to maintain civilian support. And of course sitting atop an autocracy stamping dissent out is nominally easier.

Whether Putin's government can negotiate this pass is up in the air. This is why he's kissing Xi's ass.
 
GrauGeist said:
There was also the issue Imperial Russia had with the public after they withdrew from WWI after suffering roughly 2,000,000 military dead.

Their economy was ruined from the war, there was increasing food shortages along with runaway inflation and we know what happened next.

Putin is setting himself up for a new version of Red October.
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Go back to the beginning of this thread. You'll see that I've written that even if Russia wins, they will lose, because they will get sucked into an endless insurgency which will eventually tire Russia out.

It may or may not deliver 2,000,000 dead, but it will cripple Putin's government in both maintaining the civilian economy while at the same time, suffering bread and flour shortages presents a oversupply of bodybags. That's a bad recipe even for an autocracy.
 
GTX said:
Zelensky's mixed reception in Washington may be a taste of political storm to come
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Given current events, this was a sound prediction I would say.

I think the US will approve the latest funding for Ukraine, if not by the end of 2024 then in Jan-Feb. But I think Ukraine needs to appreciate that this may well be the final US funding package for Ukraine. Thankfully Ukraine's other backers are increasingly stepping up on their military aid, but Ukraine may find that this non-US bump and the latest US aid package will be all they'll get for 2024. Given that, and the failure to regain territory in 2023 with the billions $$ already provided, I find it unlikely that Ukraine will gain much more territory before being forced to the negotiating table in 2025 - certainly the odds of retaking Crimea are nigh improbable. I could then see whatever constitutes Ukraine being granted EU and NATO membership before 2028 in order to deter Russia from taking a third swing at Ukraine.

Life will have to go on for Ukraine with its reduced territory, just the same as Poland, (Territorial evolution of Poland - Wikipedia), Denmark (Borders of Denmark - Wikipedia) and most other countries in Europe and much of the world that faced coerced border changes, List of national border changes (1914–present) - Wikipedia
 
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Admiral Beez said:
I find it unlikely that Ukraine will gain much more territory before being forced to the negotiating table in 2025. I could then see whatever constitutes Ukraine being granted EU and NATO membership before 2028 in order to deter Russia was taking a third swing at Ukraine.

Life will have to go on for Ukraine with its reduced territory, just the same as Poland, (Territorial evolution of Poland - Wikipedia), Denmark (Borders of Denmark - Wikipedia) and most other countries in Europe and much of the world that faced coerced border changes, List of national border changes (1914–present) - Wikipedia
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I fear it won't even be as good as this - see the comments from Fiona Hill. The implications of letting Putin get away with what he has and the *potential* failure of the West will have long term ramifications...
 
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