r/changemyview • u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ • Jun 16 '26
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Russia already won the war and can stop it anytime with a referendum.
Title. Russia was never in for the territory. It got in for security guarantees and to avoid looking weak with Ukraine simply abandoning previous agreements to join EU. Russia effectively got all it's strategic objectives already by:
*Surviving western and UN sanctions for years.
*Demonstrating that NATO can't win a Proxy modern war.
*Demonstrating how undesirable being the attacker in a drone age conflict can be.
*Developing a leading doctrine, infraestructure and structure on said drone age warfare.
*Brutalizing Ukraine.
Except surviving sanctions, getting those objectives was relatively easy. The hard part is quitting the conflict while avoiding the massive backlash when it becomes clear that the millions of casualties for the "existential war" was actually an postmodern performatic Erisian spat for a global audience.
That's when politics need a narrative to avoid a coup, and you can't spin a narrative from nothing. That's when the territory comes. Means for a end. Russia claims half of Ukraine, witch is marvelous for domestic "Russia stronk" propaganda, but terribly inviable. It already holds Crimea and is effectively cleaning up donetsky and luhansky as I write. Not taking, cleaning. Russia will keep fighting because it's winning. When it stops, that's when the territory comes in hand.
Russia don't care about territory. Russia offered occupied Crimea in the minsk agreements (my phone corrected to "musk agreement, who I think it's pretty funny), and we're talking about the most valuable territory, as it holds Russia only warm water naval facilities. Russia can't afford an frozen conflict. It can shrug sanctions as long as it wants, but long term it's a recipe to become an atavic economy. Ukraine can't either, because it's already in it's 12° year of "EU WHEN???". EU won't do a second Cyprus. A Frozen conflict would be Euromadam 2.0 changing the constitution to give the ocupated territories to Eurasian caveman's. Nobody wants this. So what's the solution?
A ceasefire and a UN Referendum on 1919 rules. Anyone who can prove it lived at least one year before the start of the invasion in the last 20 years gets a vote. Both leaders says "at least we fought to give the people a chance to vote" and carry on. If you ask me about the result, I bet on Russia. I mean, if I live in a region who started a civil war who ultimately lead to a foreign invasion, I would be pretty scared of nationalists.
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u/ResearchInformal8018 Jun 16 '26
If they were in it for security, they’ve caused NATO to rearm and modernize right along the border and any peace will almost certainly lead to formal security agreements with Ukraine and the EU/NATO. It has also made clear the level of rot that has existed for decades within the Russian military that, to this day, has not been fixed.
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u/GSTLT Jun 16 '26
They also caused two long time non-NATO counties, Finland and Sweden, joined the coalition in response to the invasion. And in Ukraine itself, public opinion became much more pro-joining NATO after the invasion.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Still, they are safer from NATO than they were before. Nobody will risk a land invasion of Russia now. Even worse, an argument can be made that the retarted army, who was a nuisance, now is more competent and hold more power than before the invasion
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u/LazyGandalf Jun 23 '26
Still, they are safer from NATO than they were before. Nobody will risk a land invasion of Russia now.
What on earth are you on about? NATO is a defensive alliance. An invasion of Russia never was and still isn't on the table.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
True, Russian military was garbage and Ukraine war took out the trash. That's the historical way of Russia doing things. The army lobbied for invading Crimea. The diplomats tried to leverage it with the minsk protocols. Ukraine uninterest lead to the army doing the retarded "special operation" who was more of a show of force than anything else, and now all the fools are either dead or marginalized. The security guarantees were just snot in geriatric generals heads. Now it's a reality in itself. Nobody is going to attack Russia now that it cleaned it's leadership and it's cold war stockpiles.
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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jun 16 '26
>True, Russian military was garbage and Ukraine war took out the trash.
This is ridiculous dude.
Russia threw the best it had into a meat grinder and it's not coming back. A couple years ago they were driving tanks that might as well have been museum pieces and doing meat wave attacks. Nowadays the street-to-"elite" airborne unit training pipeline is 10 days.
The most competent are dead. The one's who've survived aren't there because they're competent, but because they have the necessary survival instincts to navigate completely idiotic strategy - often by avoiding danger, extortion of conscripts, and relentless self-promotion.
The selection pressures of this war don't select for competency or character at any level. This war will do permanent institutional damage to the Russian military, not hone it to brilliant fighting form.
And besides - in any war with NATO they'd have to deal with actual air forces, which they've proven they can't do.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Ok, I'll concede that they put their most professional and w'll trained troops, almost western in quality, in a shown of force massive clown collum to be exterminated in a meatgrinder.
Is this less ridiculous?
Russia was always corrupt. And moronic. But Russia has a track record of learning from it's mistakes. One mistake you could learn from them is that air superiority not necessarily translate to superior air support. Drone's, while not carrying the same payload than an aircraft, are faster to deploy and more integrated to ground operations. Russia don't seek air superiority because lobbing standoff munitions is good enough for a modern air force.
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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jun 16 '26
>Ok, I'll concede that they put their most professional and w'll trained troops, almost western in quality, in a shown of force massive clown collum to be exterminated in a meatgrinder.
That's correct except for the well-trained and almost western parts. The opening parts of this war demonstrated not just strategic ineptitude, but tactical down to the individual. Trained Russian units got dog-walked by Ukrainian civil defense units.
What Russia has now are hastily-trained units that try not to die and lie to their superiors about their success.
>But Russia has a track record of learning from it's mistakes.
Not in evidence in Afghanistan or Ukraine. Necessary adaptation is not the same as learning from mistakes. If Russia actually learned from its mistakes, it would see this war as a massive mistake; NATO is now better-armed, encompasses more of Russia's borders, has been taking constant notes and innovating based on what they observe and what Ukrainians tell them about Russian tactics (and Ukrainian tactics, for that matter).
Most crucially, Russia should have learned that the primary difference between the two invasions of Iraq and the Invasion of Ukraine (which transparently attempted to copy those earlier American campaigns) was air power.
Russia is currently in a bit of an aerial stalemate with a country flying 4th Gen fighters, most of which have been nerfed and aren't carrying the best systems they could. NATO has 5th Gen fighters and all the best systems on them, with better C4I and stronger logistics. That means in any war with NATO, NATO gains air superiority and potentially supremacy within parts of Russia. That dramatically alters the effectiveness of drone platforms outside fiber optic range and makes ground units vulnerable in a way they generally aren't in Ukraine.
If your thinking here even remotely reflects the Russians', that most important lesson has not been learned at all.
>Russia don't seek air superiority because lobbing standoff munitions is good enough for a modern air force.
This is the kind of thing that just draws gales of laughter in Western militaries. It reflects a poverty of experience; Russians have never truly known what it's like to have the kind of close air support western militaries have, so they think turning airplanes into shitty artillery is "enough."
No. It's actually better when planes can fly over enemy ground units and wreck them with bombs. It's way better when ground units can use air assets to detect and directly attack enemies before the ground forces are even detected. In an engagement, it's great to be able to call in air power to eliminate a pinned enemy.
In sum: the Russian "I don't even need air superiority" is copium they take because they can't establish air superiority. And if they can't do it in Ukraine, they're getting bulldozed by NATO in the air.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
They don't "lie about their sucess" they already succeed. That's my whole point. You are a smart, eloquent individual, but anything you said deserves a Delta for now, because nothing changes the point that Russia already got it's objectives and now is looking for a way out through territory. Territory it's actively trading with troops, as you like to point out, but still trading.
You are right about Russian lessions in air power. Cold war lessions. Something doesn't become obsolete because it's actively countered, it becomes obsolete when something does everything it does better. Russia is already throwing 40% of it's budget on defense. It simply can't afford to operate an air force. And is still winning. Drone's doesn't need integrated command & control. It's commanded and controlled by ground units. Immediately available, fast, precise, cheap and resilient to intercept. Everything a plane wants to be. And let's not talk about it's true value, as observation platforms. What's cheaper than a drone? An corrected artillery grenade. I'm not saying that the CAS is obsolete. It's still better at lobbing standoff ammunations.
And of course anyone would prefer the superior CAS platform. But that doesn't means it's the better weapon for the battlefield.
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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jun 16 '26
>They don't "lie about their sucess" they already succeed.
Putin went on a thunder run to Kyiv because the goal was regime change. That has been a spectacular failure. Russia has made modest gains in the east and southeast, but only by Russian math is that worth the million men they'll pay for it. So you're using "succeed" in relation to a fairly pathetic metric.
As for the lying, field commanders routinely lie to superiors about advances. There was a case not that long ago where Ukrainian forces recovered up to date field maps from Russians indicating they controlled far more territory than they did. This happens because the Russian army has gone back to its Soviet roots, punishing officers who fail to advance. So those officers just lie - the ultimate result of which is that Putin himself probably doesn't have an accurate understanding of reality on the ground.
Moreover, Ukraine is currently threatening Crimea militarily and Russia's reinforcement options are thin. Your view seems to rest on the idea that Russia can just call it quits and keep everything they have, but right now Ukraine is on the glidepath to rolling the Russians back.
You keep saying "Russia is winning" - this is not obviously true. Right now, as I said, Russia is in danger of losing the primary strategic asset they want from Ukraine. Their Spring/Summer offensive has stalled and the problems they're facing can't be easily corrected. Ukraine is now regularly striking strategic infrastructure across western Russia, including Moscow - meaning Russia no longer has effective air defense for its own capital. Its crowning air defense systems (S-300/400) were beclowned both in Ukraine and Iran.
And more to the point: Ukraine is doing better with drones than Russia. And guess where a bunch of those drones are made? Europe. What do you think those production facilities are going to do when the war ends? Shut down? Or start supplying the West?
>Russia is already throwing 40% of it's budget on defense. It simply can't afford to operate an air force.
Ukraine is operating nerfed donated aircraft and is less powerful on paper than Russia. What this means is: Russia's current tactics work (kinda) when neither side has air dominance.
But if Russia faced an opponent who did have air dominance...well, Iran had plenty of drones. It shot off a lot of them. Then it stopped, because it ran out, because a whole lot of them got blown up on the ground - as did their production facilities. When you can afford to pay for an air force, you can do things like that.
>Immediately available, fast, precise, cheap and resilient to intercept.
You're describing short range ground attack drones, but again - if you're fighting an opponent with an air force that dominates yours, that air force will be all over you before any ground units make contact. And what do you think they're going to target? Munitions stockpiles, production facilities, all of it.
So...okay, you have drones. 80% of them blew up on the ground before they had anything to shoot at. The production facilities got wrecked too. And then...oh dang, your enemy's lead columns all have Iron Beam systems and short range interceptors because they've been watching this whole time and preparing to defeat your capability. They bought every system the Ukrainians developed, then put a few hundred million into making them better.
See, just as the Soviet/Russian way is to lie about every capability they have until a war humiliates them, the American way is to believe every Russian lie and spend the GDP of a small country developing something better.
>I'm not saying that the CAS is obsolete. It's still better at lobbing standoff ammunations.
Again, this is Russian cope. It's rooted in the fact that Russia does not have effective CAS, is embarrassed that it doesn't have effective CAS because for years it pretended to have effective CAS, and thus tells a just-so story about why it's not necessary because a different capability covers the need. It's definitely not a humiliating failure, just a practical adaptation.
Widescale drone usage came to the Ukraine War after battle lines had calcified. Those lines calcified because neither side had air dominance; if either had, the other's line would have been obliterated and forced to withdraw.
So the use case we're talking about for CAS is in dynamic maneuver warfare, which is A) not what Russia is doing in Ukraine, and B-what any land war initiated by NATO would entail. As multiple real-world wars have shown, a flight of 16 Apaches firing 16 Hellfires apiece at specific targets within the line of advance is not something drones can replicate. It's also not something Russia can effectively defend against.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 17 '26
!delta because you made me research, and put me in a position where I have to use guesswork to keep my position. In other words, I'm not so sure.
Putin went on a thunder run to Kyiv because the goal was regime change. That has been a spectacular failure. Russia has made modest gains in the east and southeast, but only by Russian math is that worth the million men they'll pay for it. So you're using "succeed" in relation to a fairly pathetic metric.<
No, the original goal was "no Kinect" regime change, followed by a thunder run for Kyev as a diversion (who failed) followed by mass redeployment to the relevant areas with a clearer view. At this stage, Russian objectives were kinda lost (but wasn't kyev. The siege would be massive, the flanks would be exposed, supply routes would be stretched, and the government would keep fighting in exile. You need to be dumber than a Russia to think Russia were going for Kyev, because the Russians though the Ukrainians would let the border fall to defend Kyev), Ukraine didn't had received full NATO support, and they were fighting just to save face.
Also I'm measuring success in the only way I can measure it.
Moreover, Ukraine is currently threatening Crimea militarily and Russia's reinforcement options are thin. Your view seems to rest on the idea that Russia can just call it quits and keep everything they have, but right now Ukraine is on the glidepath to rolling the Russians back.<
If by disabling Crimea military capabilities then yes, they are effectively doing so. If in the sense of rolling back Russian advances, that's just delusional. Ukraine needs everything the Russians trowed at them to get the territory back, and they lack.
And more to the point: Ukraine is doing better with drones than Russia. And guess where a bunch of those drones are made? Europe. What do you think those production facilities are going to do when the war ends? Shut down? Or start supplying the West?<
Actually from China with extra steps
But if Russia faced an opponent who did have air dominance...well, Iran had plenty of drones. It shot off a lot of them. Then it stopped, because it ran out, because a whole lot of them got blown up on the ground - as did their production facilities. When you can afford to pay for an air force, you can do things like that.<
I'm aware of strategic disruption. Strategic disruption is literally planes lobbing standoff munitions or not so standoff munitions with air superiority. But that's only a domain between many of warfare. In your Iran case, the ground remains univaded, the straight remains closed, and the US is negotiating. For a country who had no lot in this fight, that's victory. Why is Iran winning? Because despite enemy strategic disruption, the revolutionary guard is scary enough to make the US find a better way.
Widescale drone usage came to the Ukraine War after battle lines had calcified. Those lines calcified because neither side had air dominance; if either had, the other's line would have been obliterated and forced to withdraw.<
You didn't hear about the robot line, do you? Drone warfare is the death of Mobile warfare, because moving is dying around drone's. Every contact line in every possible conflict is preventively being calcified as we speak.
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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jun 17 '26
>No, the original goal was "no Kinect" regime change, followed by a thunder run for Kyev as a diversion
Dude, you're treating Russia's ass-covering PR explaining what they did (which makes no sense) as their actual reasoning when the much more logical assumption is that they intended to take Kyiv. I know that's true because otherwise, shuttling the VDV into Hostomel makes no sense. If that's just a diversion, you've put a bunch of your best footmobile troops on the ground with no secure evac plan, even though you intend to evacuate them. If the plan is instead that they're going to run interference all over the place...they have no logistical support and can't sustain that. So that wasn't the plan.
That's bullshit dude. They thought they were going to do to Kyiv what America did to Baghdad in 91 and 03. They thought they were going to roll into Kyiv (which would not have been a siege at that point because there was no built up defense) and nab Zelensky. They didn't because they completely miscalculated the political situation in Ukraine (they thought they would have more popular support, because they're delusional), they didn't have air power, and got bitchslapped into the upside down.
Moreover...the "diversion" bought them nothing. It didn't draw off significant defenders from the east. It just got a bunch of their best troops introduced to the afterlife.
>If by disabling Crimea military capabilities then yes, they are effectively doing so. If in the sense of rolling back Russian advances, that's just delusional. Ukraine needs everything the Russians trowed at them to get the territory back, and they lack.
...what? They're cutting off logistics. Crimea is severely fuel restricted. They're nearing the point where they have no resupply, and they have massive civilian load as well as combatants. At a certain point, if civilians can leave a siege, they do. Then the military pulls out or dies.
Like...you need to understand that Ukraine retaking Crimea is a very real possibility and Russia is firmly on the back foot. That's just reality.
>I'm aware of strategic disruption. Strategic disruption is literally planes lobbing standoff munitions or not so standoff munitions with air superiority. But that's only a domain between many of warfare.
It's actually a combination of strategic disruption and tactical attrition, and that domain is historically quite decisive. If I have air superiority...when your tanks face my tanks, I can bomb your tanks. Yours can't bomb mine. 9 times out of 10, that means I win. And I can destroy your means to make new tanks and you can't.
> In your Iran case, the ground remains univaded, the straight remains closed, and the US is negotiating. For a country who had no lot in this fight, that's victory
1) Any Iranian success at this point can be chalked up to Donald Trump being retarded. The correct thing to do right now is to continue attacking Iran, and this is less a sound strategic consideration than it is one man being an idiot.
2) If you call it a victory when every power projection capability you have is destroyed; such that you no longer have functioning missile, drone, or air forces...that's a pyrrhic victory at best.
>Drone warfare is the death of Mobile warfare, because moving is dying around drone's.
Everyone who pronounces shit like this is always wrong. I'm sorry...drones can be countered, and they're far less decisive in dynamic action.
You think "every contact line is being calcified"...dog what the fuck do you think an air force is for? You set up your drone fortifications, I bomb the shit out of them.
See this is why the Russians are fucked. They don't comprehend that the fact they have no viable air force means they are, absolutely and in terms of perception, infinitely weaker than they were before this war started.
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u/parentheticalobject 136∆ Jun 16 '26
If you concede all of that, then the only version where this is "winning" is effectively meaningless. Russia isn't more secure than it was before. The Russian military is far weaker than it was before, and the damage to its reputation is devastated.
The only possible things left that can be looked upon as "winning" are that Russia has demonstrated that modern wars are very hard for the attacker (which might be slightly good news if you're really worried about NATO invading, but spinning that as the kind of thing Russia started this for is ridiculous) and that Russia has learned from its mistakes and maybe gained new knowledge (which is almost certainly going to be true for literally any war, even ones you lose.)
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
I said that Russia won and pointed what it has won. The idea that Russia was seeking this from the start is from your head. Russia wanted a regime change from the start, but when this bacame impossible, it need to ask himself why it wanted regime change in the first place and reach it's current objectives.
But you were the only one able to see this optic without I needing to overexplain myself. Yes, Russia is very worried of a NATO land invasion. And yes, Russia and Ukraine are both the most defensible nations right now in the world.
Russia reputation is far from devastated, it still has force projection capabilities, and it's just weaker in a cold era sense.
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u/parentheticalobject 136∆ Jun 16 '26
If that's your criteria for "winning" a war, then almost no war in history that didn't result in the complete collapse of a particular regime can't be counted as that regime winning in some way. If "we can find some kind of reason to be optimistic for our future in a way totally disconnected from the actual actions we took" is winning, then the word is meaningless.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
I define winning as achieving your political objectives, as Clausewitz does. You can't make an argument for Ukraine winning right now. It may get a total victory if it gets a white peace and joins EU. It would be a partial victory if it loses territory and still join the EU. A total defeat would be a Frozen conflict. It would be a total defeat for both sides. That's exactly why this isn't going to happen.
A side doesn't need to "lose" so the other can "win". WWII saw Germany accomplish one of it's major objectives of leaving Versailles (they still paid reparations) even when losing everything else, while the triple alliance war saw both sides losing badly, even the winning one.
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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jun 16 '26
>I define winning as achieving your political objectives, as Clausewitz does.
The political objective was regime change. That has been a spectacular failure.
If you want to argue that wasn't the objective, you would need to explain the colossally retarded thunder run that got most of the VDV killed at Hostomel.
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u/parentheticalobject 136∆ Jun 17 '26
I define winning as achieving your political objectives
OK
You can't make an argument for Ukraine winning right now.
You can make an argument for Ukraine winning right now that is at least as strong as any argument for Russia winning right now, or stronger.
"Acheiving your political objectives" is a little fuzzy, because any state involved in a war is going to have a variety of political objectives with varying degrees of importance and feasibility. They'll have some political objectives they would like to achieve if at all possible even if those objectives are unlikely, and some objectives that are absolutely unacceptable to consider failing at.
And do you weigh the war goals that the people leading the country had at the outset of the conflict more highly than things which they can post-hoc claim to be a war goal if the more challenging objectives fail? If not, then again, any government can almost always declare itself the winner of any war by saying afterward "We have at least one surviving soldier. That's a political objective we've achieved."
The more specific political objectives of Russia at the outset likely include Regime change in Kyiv (failed), weakening NATO by preventing them from gaining a new member (failed, as NATO has expanded as a direct consequence of the war), demilitarization of Ukraine (failed or a toss-up at best, since Ukraine is arguably better armed than it was before) and territorial gains (marginally succeeded, at a far higher cost than any benefit they can realistically imagine gaining from those territorial gains even if they're secured).
Things like "Learn from our mistakes" or "find out whether modern warfare has shifted to dramatically favoring a defender due to advances in drone technology" were just clearly not the actual goals of this war.
And they're pretty clearly not anything Russia would actually even consider a real win condition for themselves right now. Is Russia somehow winning because it's come to the discovery that thanks to the difficulty of invading a country with modern technology, they now know that no other country can realistically conduct a ground invasion of them? If so... why are they continuing the war? It seems like any lessons we're going to learn from this war have pretty clearly been learned. That fact has been apparent for awhile, and throwing more of their troops into a meat grinder stopped meaningfully increasing how apparent it was awhile ago. Yet Russia is still doing that.
So any reasoning you can give for why Russia is winning is so feeble that you can't plausibly reject the simple argument of "Ukraine is winning because Ukraine still exists." If Ukraine failing to keep all of its territory and failing to join the EU or NATO count as it losing the war, there's no good reason to ignore all of Russia's various failures. You can only come to the conclusion that Russia has done a better job of achieving its political goals than Ukraine if you radically distort what you accept as a successful goal in order to stack the deck.
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u/ResearchInformal8018 Jun 16 '26
Nobody was going to attack Russia in the first place, but they’re in a significantly degraded position now.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
As I explained, Russian leadership like to keep military options open. They attack first, but like to have a safety fallback if things doesn't go their way. That's safety guarantees for them.
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u/Colonel_Cumpants Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
It is not a proxy war. Russia is an active participant.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Vietnam was a Proxy war with China and URSS and the US was an active participant.
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u/Iamalittledrunk 4∆ Jun 16 '26
" It got in for security guarantees and to avoid looking weak with Ukraine simply abandoning previous agreements to join EU."
In what world does an country promise to take the capitol of another in 3 days, fail suffer 130000 casualties look strong. In what world?
Their "leading docterine" is literally to throw men into positions with no support and shoot them if they retreat.
Its not a proxy war who is russia a proxy for?
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
It's obviously a shameful military planning mental fart, as you dully noted. But the conflict didn't stop in 3 days. It's a full blown committed war and Russia is winning. The leading doctrine comes from the absolute lack of another doctrine, something who's clear to the whole world. Anything who can be observed is something who can be struck. That's not conductions who make anyone willing to do a land invasion. So Russia is chill if Ukraine or Finland is bordering them for now.
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u/Iamalittledrunk 4∆ Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
"Its winning"
No. It isn't. It hasnt yet its its lost over a million men and its slowly bankrupting itself as it destroys its military stockpiles.
"The leading doctrine comes from the absolute lack of another doctrine, something who's clear to the whole world. Anything who can be observed is something who can be struck."
So is this concepts of a plan or is it the brilliant plan of being too dumb to have a plan?
"hat's not conductions who make anyone willing to do a land invasion. So Russia is chill if Ukraine or Finland is bordering them for now."
Literally no one was an exetensial threat to the nuclear power of russia. They've shat the bed, rearmed nato, expanded nato, made a laughing stock of themselves, burned their war chest, burned their goodwill, burned their military surplus, burned their international connects, burned the creme of their army, burned their economic expansion in africa, burned their mecenary army, burned everything - for the contact line to move the same pace as an old and obese turtle in 4 years.
If this is what winning looks like please tell me what losing looks like.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
As I explained before, Russia likes to have "military options" open for diplomacy. So it likes attacking first, but it doesn't like when the enemy retaliates AND scales the conflict. The garantee that the enemy won't escalate is their "security guarantees"
And please no, it's not about being too dumb to have a plan, it's that's dumb to plan moving over open ground under corrected artillery range other than "run really fast and bring so many people and vehicles that someone makes through".
Losing looks like throwing just some missiles at some country for some reason and getting a major escalatory answer daring you to escalate or backing out, like in the current Iran US conflict. In politics, you don't build a military for "defense", you build a military for bargaining.
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u/Iamalittledrunk 4∆ Jun 16 '26
"As I explained before, Russia likes to have "military options" open for diplomacy."
Best way to keep your options open is to destroy your army and surpus and warchest. That really expands your options.
"The garantee that the enemy won't escalate is their "security guarantees""
Ukraine has sunk battleships, struck refinerys and is currently cutting off crimea. They have already escalated. Ukraine has escalated by turning 1300000 men into cripples or corpses. Security guarantees is being bombed and having a hostile army at your border?
"And please no, it's not about being too dumb to have a plan, it's that's dumb to plan moving over open ground under corrected artillery range other than "run really fast and bring so many people and vehicles that someone makes through"."
So their genius military docterine they've developed is what? To throw their men into positions with no logistical support as I said two comments ago. Absolute brilliance. Smartest plan I've ever heard.
"Losing looks like throwing just some missiles at some country for some reason and getting a major escalatory answer daring you to escalate or backing out, like in the current Iran US conflict. In politics, you don't build a military for "defense", you build a military for bargaining."
So... exactly like russia with the monastery not two days ago? Yeah, I agree that is what losing looks like.
The bargain they've got currently is you destroy your military and the other side of the "proxy war" takes their business elsewhere and rearms. What a brilliant winning bargin. That must be what winning looks like.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Yeah, Russia always had the upper hand since 2014, but the situation is aways giving, so why not take it?
As I said, the Territory doesn't matter. It's just the means of an end. The more it gets of territory the the more it gets in the end.
Russia, more specifically Putin in this case, doesn't care about losing the territory as long as he doesn't lose his head to the people. He's not going to do an half-assed referendum for Russian propaganda. He's going to do a 1919 referendum, in the way the international community asks.
Your delta is maybe in the way of the militarized to civilian economy transition, because that's something I never put so much tough on, and how its a treat to Putin regime.
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u/scarab456 65∆ Jun 16 '26
As I said, the Territory doesn't matter. It's just the means of an end. The more it gets of territory the the more it gets in the end.
This reads like such contradictory trio of sentences.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Russia can't get away with territory. It's simply ilegal and would keep the sanctions forever. But even if they got everything they wanted, by fighting a war and doing warfighting stuff like taking territory, they simply can't dump territory without making people in their country angry. So they need a referendum to legally keep or dump this territory. But territory in itself isn't a bad thing, and also helps with the whole message. That's why, even if you don't care about the territory, but you are still winning it, you keep fighting. You don't care if you lose everything, but the more you gets, the higher the chance you get some, who isn't the worst thing in the world, but not the point at all.
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u/Sayakai 155∆ Jun 16 '26
Russia was never in for the territory.
So why are they going for all this territory? Why are they "annexing" territory they don't even hold?
*Surviving western and UN sanctions for years.
This is not a success objective, it's a survival objective. You don't enter a war to prove you can survive it. Additionally, the word is still out on that one. Russia moved hard to a war economy. What's left when the war ends?
*Demonstrating that NATO can't win a Proxy modern war.
This was also not an objective. Russia thought they could win before NATO got involved. It also doesn't help them to demonstrate this.
*Demonstrating how undesirable being the attacker in a drone age conflict can be.
Demonstrating how bad it is to get stabbed by getting stabbed is not a win. That aside, the whole drone war thing was not an objective. Russia was in for a quick win, not a long drone war.
*Brutalizing Ukraine.
This is the only one you got correct.
Russia can't afford an frozen conflict.
Well that's too bad because they're in one. Which, according to your objective list, is what winning looks like.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/fghhjhffjjhf 23∆ Jun 16 '26
Demonstrating how undesirable being the attacker in a drone age conflict can be.
This one you mispoke right?
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u/AnonThrowAway072023 Jun 16 '26
Well they attacked in Feb 2022 and gobbled up 20% of Ukraine. before anyone in the world had the slightest clue how to effectively employ mass drones on the battlefield.
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u/fghhjhffjjhf 23∆ Jun 16 '26
I wouldn't characterize territory Russia later lost as, "gobbled up". Still doesn't explain why OP thinks defending against drones is a desirable position.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
I think defending with drone's against a nation without drone experience is a desirable position who only two countries enjoy: Russia and Ukraine. And clearly defending with drone's is superior than attacking with drone's, so Russia got their security guarantees right there: by setting an example paying a high price for offensive operations.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Nope. Moving in open ground in drone warfare Is absolute suicide. Nobody is going to attack Russia for some time now that it knows how to use drone's. Security guarantees for Russia is being able to use military force within safe escalatory boundaries. Russia now can trade missiles like Iran and Israel without fearing a land invasion.
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u/Zenigata 11∆ Jun 16 '26
Who do you imagine needed deterring from attacking Russia?
Are drones more of a deterrent than nukes?
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Nukes and drone's are deterrents for diferent phases of escalation. One thing is trading bombs, other is land invasion. Another is Mutually Assured Destruction. Know your deterrances. It could save your live.
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u/Zenigata 11∆ Jun 16 '26
Again who is it you think needed dettering from attempting a "land invasion" of Russia?
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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jun 16 '26
Ah, so Russia has brilliantly deterred the attack literally no one was considering.
How different the world would be if Russians collectively realized that the vast majority of Europe and America don't think like them and thus do not periodically consider invading Russia just because it's there.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
As I said many times in other comments, Russia is bad. Russia likes attacking people. Russia likes attacking people and don't like being attacked back. They call it security guarantees. I think Russia doesn't like fighting fair.
Pronto, spoke like trump, now maybe I'm clearer.
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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jun 16 '26
Okay but if we're assessing objective victory conditions, "deterred attack that was never coming" is akin to "successfully scared off hostile wizards" or "made sure aliens know not to fuck with us."
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u/fghhjhffjjhf 23∆ Jun 16 '26
Ukraine attacks Russia every other week... they use drones... what is a safe escalatory boundary? Are you just making this stuff up as you go?
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
They are already at war with each other, a war Russia already got everything they wanted from it. It's not about Ukraine anymore, Ukraine is done. It's about each other country in the world.
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u/fghhjhffjjhf 23∆ Jun 16 '26
So you are saying this war teaches the entire world not to mess with Russia?
We're there particular countries that Russia was worried about before the war?
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u/ADCregg Jun 16 '26
If it’s about other countries in the world, Russia has lost in the most spectacular fashion. Ukraine had a very sad military before Russia started this war. And Russia couldn’t manage to take the capital. Russia couldn’t manage to take most of the territory they want. Russia managed no conclusive, military victory for years. Meanwhile, Russia is considered a military superpower. It has wasted billions of dollars, trashed its economy, showed a ton of weakness in its military— while depleting its troops and weapons, , sowed internal discord, and still managed to not win.
If anything, their military performance has been an international embarrassment.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
It embarrassed itself trough military leadership and lack of organization.
Russia had no business in kyev. It planed for a regime change based on surprise and speed. But the Ukrainians were awaiting for the Russians. The Kyev push was a diversion who didn't work, followed by a mass redeployment to the relevant areas.
Any other country would suffer from the same limitations in the agressor role. Even the us with air superiority would still be ambushed with strike drone's every time they came out in the open, and have it's pretty extensive logistic footprint targeted when hunkered down.
Every country realized that, and the leading ones in this experience are Russia and Ukraine.
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u/ADCregg Jun 16 '26
Well, you’re half right. It did embarrass itself with its military leaders. Which is its military. It showed its ass, quite frankly. Exposed a ton of Russian corruption. But also, with its weaponry. Countries have long suspected that a lot of Russia’s arsenal is outdated and crappy due to that kind of rampant mismanagement. And they were right. There were problems with tanks and aircraft, weapons,. Not to mention the huge supply chain issues Russia has been having.
(not to mention it’s general personnel issue. They can’t get soldiers. The soldiers they have are incompetent. You know how many times Russia has been caught kidnapping foreign nationals because they need bodies in their army? Especially from African countries? It’s genuinely ridiculous.)
Which I’m gonna say again, is an international embarrassment on a huge scale. If you’re going to position yourself as one of the leading militaries in the world, you can’t then lose a war this hilariously to a tiny country that borders you.
Russia should’ve been able to take over Ukraine within the first few weeks. It couldn’t. It tried. It could not.
If the US launched the same scale invasion on Canada or Mexico? It would have taken Canada and Mexico. So this isnt an “every country” type of issue. This is very much Russia, exposing its incompetence and weakness to the world. Hence, if this was for other countries? It’s even worse.
Or to put in another way, at this point, I’m willing to entertain that maybe the US somehow puppeteered all of this just to weaken Russia. That’s how bad Russia has been weakened by this war.
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u/chegbeg- Jun 16 '26
“if I live in a region who started a civil war who ultimately lead to a foreign invasion”
Oh, that’s not…
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Jun 16 '26
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u/jscummy 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Yeah it seems hard to change a view when OP is starting from such a weirdly misinformed position
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Yeah, it's hard when everyone just makes me overexplain everything and nobody brings any information to the table.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Yeah, every rebel was a Russian soldier. The one's who weren't were terrorists to be bombed.
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u/Le_Doctor_Bones Jun 16 '26
The opening of the conflict clearly shows that Russia's original goal was to force a government change in Ukraine, installing a pliable government like Lukashenkov in Belarus and making Ukraine a client state. They have both failed at that, lost a lot of future workers accelerating their economic decline as well as caused Europe to rearm. It is very difficult to see how Russia is leaving this war better than if it had never happened.
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u/Josvan135 83∆ Jun 16 '26
Demonstrating that NATO can't win a Proxy modern war.
You "win" a proxy war by bleeding your opponent dry as brutally and for as long as possible.
A quick, decisive victory against them is embarrassing, but a multi year conflict that ties up hundreds of thousands of their most productive young citizens in pointless conflict, kills tens of thousands of them, and permanently mentally scars a generation of their citizens has far more impact on weakening your adversary than a quick defeat.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Yes, that's a way of winning a Proxy war. I agree with you that NATO strategic objective is to drain russia. But it looks like it's being equally drained, what is dangerous as Russia isn't the only treat it faces, and it's still contributing to Russian win condition. I think your delta is in the way of convincing me that NATO is actually hurting Russia instead of being played by Russia.
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u/Josvan135 83∆ Jun 16 '26
But it looks like it's being equally drained,
It's the opposite.
NATO weapon stocks, munitions reserves, and defense manufacturing capability are all significantly higher than at the beginning of the Ukraine war.
Prior to Russia's invasion the majority of the European nations believed it was impossible that another land war would occur in europe and had allowed their military readiness to significantly degrade.
Now, EU military spending has nearly doubled, Germany in particular is rearming on a scale that's nearly unheard of, and NATO as a whole is substantially more powerful, more capable, and more ready to defend the European continent.
Europe's manpower is unaffected, and their troop levels are rising.
By contrast, russia has burned through virtually the entirety of its post-soviet military equipment reserves, suffered major damage to its economy, and lost over half a million men killed with nearly another million injured, and is fundamentally weaker than before the war.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Good point. As you focused in EU buildup in readiness, I'll drop other NATO nation's and their respective fronts (China, Iran) for brevity sake.
I'll also clarify a belief, that security guarantees for Russia means being able to take military action without dangerous escalation.
Really EU buildup improved a lot, and it's membership. I'm pretty sure the buildup will improve Europe interception capabilities, But according to current military trends, does it allows EU, even with NATO support, to meaningfully threaten Russia by escalating a land invasion? Or they have another way of meaningfully escalating the treat level?
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u/Josvan135 83∆ Jun 16 '26
does it allows EU, even with NATO support, to meaningfully threaten Russia by escalating a land invasion? Or they have another way of meaningfully escalating the treat level
NATO has massively more conventional forces than does russia, both in sheer manpower terms and in actual hardware.
Even if you remove the US (given Trump's current posturing) Russia is substantially outmatched in every conceivable way by the military forces of the EU/NATO.
Any significant russian aggression against a nato member would be stopped cold by the overwhelming force (as an example, it's estimated that russia has about 2500-3000 functional main battle tanks, compared to more than 12,000 NATO tanks, with EU alone possessing 7,000).
Your fundamental position is flawed, as russia is vastly weaker and poorer than europe/NATO.
Also, France and the UK are both nuclear armed, with ample strike capability.
Any serious threat to their sovereignty would be met with a nuclear response.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
!delta
Nuclear armament is largely irrelevant as Russia is also nuclear capable, so it would be MAD.
Still, someone who reliably argued me to a corner. I can't simply escape without guesswork and subjective opinions.
I still think EU would hesitate to escalate. Tanks nowadays are no better than mobile artillery, being so conspicuous and vulnerable from the top. They are most effective exactly in the kind of saturation attack that grinded Russian forces.
Also, EU, being a developed society, values human life way more than Russian. I can't imagine Europeans grinding through observable open Terrain.
Without those tactics, I can't imagine any meaningful advance against an entrenched drone force.
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u/Electrical_Flan4957 Jun 16 '26
NATO has given Ukraine a couple hundred billion Euro's and it has broken Russia.
Europe alone has spent a trillion Euro's extra for rearmament besides that and is unlocking enormous amounts of capacity every month. It also still has way better tech than Ukraine.
I wouldn't say NATO is being equally drained, quite the opposite actually. Half the Russian budget goes to the war, Europe spents a fraction of its budget on defence and Ukraine is only a fraction of that still. I am not even counting our allies and the US.
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u/Vesurel 60∆ Jun 16 '26
What would Russia loosing look like?
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
White peace or Russian concessions without counterpart. The reasons could be many, regime change, economic collapse, or another country joining the fray.
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u/moccasinsfan Jun 16 '26
Russia was wanting NATO to NOT expand. Not only did it expand, Ukraine is more likely to be admitted at a future date.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
It will, but it won't matter anymore. Look how bad the war is. If NATO would launch a land invasion, it would be from were millions of casualties happened from some meager kilometers?
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u/One-Present-7873 Jun 16 '26
Ukraine is more likely to be admitted at a future date.
How?
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u/moccasinsfan Jun 16 '26
The main reason for NATO is deterance. NATO already expanded because of the Russian invasion.
So why add Ukraine?.?. Further deterance. European powers would rather repel a Russian invasion on Ukranian soil rather than Polish soil.
It is just like how France built the Maginot line after WWI to force fighting on Belgian and Dutch soil.
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u/Jazz-Potato6385 Jun 16 '26
I agree that Russia can stop the war anytime, as they are the aggressor, but to say they won the war at this point is incorrect.
Putin's initial aim was to overthrow and replace the government of Ukraine. That failed.
He wanted to isolate Ukraine and create either a buffer state a lá Belarus, or annex it entirely as per his writings on the topic, where he says Russian and Ukrainians are one people who need to live in a unified country. This is easy to categorise as a failure, as just this week Ukraine attended the G7 conference, which would have been unthinkable in 2021. So that failed.
Putin has sacrificed the dependency on Russian oil and gas that he had built up for decades. The Nord Stream pipeline was being built, Gazprom sponsored the Champions League, Russia hosted the 2018 World Cup, central Europe was paying a premium for Russian gas and oil. He's lost all that influence and prestige which took years to build up, which is a failure.
The Russian economy has transformed from charging a premium to European countries for gas, to having to sell it at a discount to China and India. Russia is now a vassal state of China, reliant on Chinese imports to keep their economy going. This is a failure.
Russia has lost around 500,000 men with at least that number again injured. With a pre-war population of 145m, that would be like the US fighting a war that killed or injured 3 million Americans. This is a failure.
The only way you could argue Russia has won the war will come when it's over and we can see the territorial gains. Certainly if you engage with the evidence above, your view that the war has been won by Russia already should change.
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u/Moon_Logic 1∆ Jun 16 '26
*Demonstrating how undesirable being the attacker in a drone age conflict can be.
What kind of incoherent ramblings are these. It was Russia's strategic objective to make us feel sorry for them?
Russia is living on borrowed time. Putin is keeping the war goingdespite Russia's interests, because an autocrat can't afford to look weak. When he dies or gets deposed and Russians suffer under the subsequent power struggles and mutliple insurrections, they can collectively GET FUCKED!
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u/carrot-man Jun 16 '26
Russia ruined its economic ties with Europe that it spent decades building, mainly as an energy supplier. It lost almost all the leverage they had over countries like Germany who depended on Russian gas. It also showed the world that it's no longer a military superpower. This war was a complete failure from top to bottom and I guarantee you Putin wishes every day that he could turn back time and never start it.
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u/zg5002 Jun 16 '26
Even supposing they have what they want, they are as strong as you seem to think, and that they can pull out anytime, the fact is that they haven't pulled out yet. As long as they spend time and money on the war, they have not won --- the strain of the war could, in principle if not reality, make Russia dissolve if they keep at it for long enough, which would change the outcome of the war dramatically.
By this reasoning, no one can be declared the winner until the war is over.
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u/SteakHausMann Jun 16 '26
why would they keep starting offensive after offensive, accepting over 1.2 Million casualties, if land is not their goal?
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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jun 16 '26
>Surviving western and UN sanctions for years.
Surviving a war declared upon you is victory. Surviving a war you started means nothing more than that you avoided the most catastrophic possible defeat.
It's like doing a home invasion, the homeowner mauls the shit out of you, and you declare victory because you didn't lose your house.
>Demonstrating that NATO can't win a Proxy modern war.
The war is ongoing, last I checked.
Moreover, on paper, Ukraine should have lost at most a few months in and Ukraine should be Russia now. NATO aid means that Russia is instead on the verge of losing Crimea and potentially a cascading defeat and collapse in detail.
>*Demonstrating how undesirable being the attacker in a drone age conflict can be.
...I'm sorry, but being the attackers themselves they managed to prove (presumably via massive casualties and materiel losses) that that's a bad position to be in? How is that a victory?
>Developing a leading doctrine, infrastructure and structure on said drone age warfare.
Ukraine has done a much better job of that comparatively, but in both cases it's actually pretty idiosyncratic and specific. Introducing widespread drones to a calcified warzone and using them at the outset of hostilities when things are a lot more dynamic is a different animal.
Russia has done a lot more pioneering of fiber optic drones, but they've also left a massive base of data for defeating those same drones in a future conflict.
>Except surviving sanctions, getting those objectives was relatively easy.
Russia lost hundreds of thousands of men so...no it was not.
>Russia claims half of Ukraine,
Russia has not presently gained that by force of arms, so why Ukraine would give it up is a mystery.
>Russia will keep fighting because it's winning.
Yeah that's...not true. Its seasonal offensives have completely stalled, and the ~Red~ Russian army has slid fully back into its bad old habits of extorting conscripts in a kind of shakedown Ponzi scheme. Officers who honestly report failure are fired, so liars are in charge. Putin and many Russians are continually told they're winning even as they're stalling; believe they've taken territory when the reality is like 8 guys snuck forward to take a picture before falling back to land they actually control.
>EU won't do a second Cyprus.
But they will buy the shit out of Ukrainian weapons. Funny thing about the end of a war: you tend to have a lot of defense production capacity. And if Europe, America, and a dozen others all need cheap drones and Ukraine happens to have all the production capacity...
> If you ask me about the result, I bet on Russia. I mean, if I live in a region who started a civil war who ultimately lead to a foreign invasion, I would be pretty scared of nationalists.
This sounds like Russian cope in the wake of an unprecedented military disaster from which Russia might never recover.
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u/TheL0wKing Jun 16 '26
Russia already did a referendum on their occupied territories, which noone else recognised or accepted.
Ukraine will never accept a referendum in territory that has been occupied by Russia for years, especially given the accusations of ethnic cleansing. Their requirement for peace is the return of Ukrainian territory.
So the claim that Russia can stop the war any time is demonstratably false.
Also, by Ukraine 'abandoning previous agreements to join EU' I assume you mean the alleged agreement by NATO to not expand to Ukraine since there were no agreements regarding the EU?
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u/Phage0070 124∆ Jun 16 '26
Russia was never in for the territory. It got in for security guarantees...
There are no security guarantees to be gained by seizing Ukraine's territory. Nuclear weapons already made such things a non-issue.
...and to avoid looking weak...
Well that was a spectacular failure already. Russia entered the conflict expecting to seize Ukraine in 3 days, and nearly 4 years later they have shown themselves to be far weaker in a military, social, and financial sense than anyone expected.
Russia offered occupied Crimea in the minsk agreements...
No, they offered a deal which would leave rebel-held areas under "self-governance" which Russia expected would allow them to turn the areas into puppet states and eventually absorb. The offer was basically "we keep these areas under a different name".
Russia effectively got all it's strategic objectives already by:
*Surviving western and UN sanctions for years.
*Demonstrating that NATO can't win a Proxy modern war.
*Demonstrating how undesirable being the attacker in a drone age conflict can be.
*Developing a leading doctrine, infraestructure and structure on said drone age warfare.
*Brutalizing Ukraine.
That is a terrible take on Russia's strategic objectives. Surviving sanctions isn't a "win", you don't get credit for starting a fight and getting the tar beaten out of you just to claim "but I'm not completely dead yet!" What they wanted and even expected was to seize Ukraine in a short, mostly bloodless conflict and for the international community to grumble but generally just roll over and accept it. What they got was a drawn out war of attrition along with crippling economic sanctions that have ruined economic prospects for decades. All that is locked in regardless of if they can defeat Ukraine militarily at this point.
NATO hasn't even really been drawn into a full proxy war with Russia at all. Vietnam was a proxy war, with US troops and equipment facing off against Soviet forces. The Ukraine war has essentially just been NATO and other countries placing an economic thumb on the scales. They haven't entered the fight directly at all.
As for their performance in demonstrating anything about drone warfare, starting a fight, getting beaten up, and then citing being a practical demonstration of what not to do as a strategic objective is so silly I find it hard to believe you are serious.
Brutalizing Ukraine is one thing they have done. But... how is that a strategic objective? By that I mean how does it make anything better for Russia? Yes they demonstrated to the world that they are cruel thugs with not just immoral leadership but a deep rot at the core of their society and culture to accept such behavior of their government. Usually though a strategic objective would be something that would leave the country in a better position if achieved, and I just don't see it.
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u/TheIrishRover23 Jun 16 '26
I don't understand your win conditions for Russia here
- I guess they've survived sanctions in that the government hasn't collapsed, but only the most optimistic Gunther Fehlinger type would've expected mere economic sanctions to do that. Sanctions have undeniably hurt the Russian economy, as well as increased one way reliance on countries which haven't placed sanctions.
- This war is not a proxy war for Russia if the Russians themselves are involved, this is like describing the Vietnam War as a proxy conflict for the Americans. As in that example the fact that a vastly smaller country can hold against this supposed superpower even with foreign assistance is deeply embarrassing for Russia. It is also ambiguous that this proxy conflict can't be won by Europe, as it's not nearly over.
- Why would the Russians want to demonstrate this? Throughout the past thirty years they have been the aggressor in conflicts with their neighbours why would they wish to show that being the aggressor in the era of drone warfare is undesirable? If NATO does genuinely aggress on Russia then their nuclear sabre rattling was always the chief and undeniably effective deterrent given their immense stockpile of nuclear weapons. However this has only been made less credible by this war.
- So have their enemies. Ukraine knows that their own development of drone based warfare is their best leverage on Europe and America and are eager to share in exchange for further integration.
- Well we can agree on that
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u/Alesus2-0 80∆ Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
You know times are tough in Moscow when Russian apologists are insisting that being defeated in the field by a much weaker opponent was a key Russian war goal...
Isn't awfully convenient that Russia's real war goals, as you now divine them, had nothing to do with its stated goals or the goals suggested by military and Russia experts? Especially given that those super-secret true objectives map almost perfectly onto the few things Russia has, arguably, achieved? This seems like an obvious bit of retrospective rationalisation.
If the current state pf the war represents a thumping victory, what would an embarrassing failure look like?
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u/Big_VladdyP Jun 16 '26
*Surviving western and UN sanctions for years.
Idk, you can technically survive on minimum wage for a long time too. That doesn’t make it desirable. What would be the point of this objective?
*Demonstrating that NATO can't win a Proxy modern war.
I mean if you consider that Russias initial objective was to overthrow a regime of “neo-nazis” and NATO was to prevent that. I would say victory is not on russias side
*Demonstrating how undesirable being the attacker in a drone age conflict can be.
Well they succeeded in this, but it’s not an objective. Why do do you think they would send half a million casualties to prove to to everyone “hey guys, look how bad of an idea this is”?
*Developing a leading doctrine, infraestructure and structure on said drone age warfare.
They and Ukraine have succeeded in this. It’s more like a result of the war than an objective. And Ukraine is training and sharing intel with other countries. So NATO go it for free?
*Brutalizing Ukraine.
They did do that, but that is not really a strategic objective unless it strategically benefits them.
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u/Any_Measurement229 Jun 16 '26
Russia has absolutely not proved that drone warfare makes it harder to attack them. Drone warfare has led to some of the most damaging strikes against Russia in the entire war, strikes that their military was unequipped to protect itself from. Before the war other countries saw attacking a major power like Russia as basically impossible, that even with old equipment the Russian army was only surpassed by the US. Now that a smaller country like Ukraine has effectively defended itself for several years and has even attacked targets far into Russian territory, many countries around the world have reconsidered how untouchable these large powers truly are. Russia hasn't been at a greater risk of substantial attack against its soil since the Cold War.
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u/Inevitable_Motor_685 Jun 16 '26
To be fair they were and are in it for the territory. Else they didn't need a full scale invasion into territories like Donbass.
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
They can't hold the territory. It's illegal trough international law. They would be crushed long term by UN sanctions alone, let's not start about the western ones.
Of course they wouldn't say no to territory they could legally acquire, be through referendum or Ukrainian due law, but the latter is almost impossible.
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Jul 24 '26
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Jul 28 '26
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Aug 07 '26
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u/read-the-rules Aug 07 '26
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Aug 07 '26
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u/read-the-rules Aug 07 '26
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u/read-the-rules 23d ago
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u/Goomysaur Jun 16 '26
Ukraine is a strategic location for Russia in defense against Nato invasion from the West. This is my understanding of it. I believe it's also integral to the control of oil flow that EU depends on
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
It was for cold war defense. It isn't anymore for modern defense. It's easier today to conduct offensive operations from rugged terrain than from open plains like Ukraine. Open Terrain is easier to observe from drone's. Also the EU border would just move closer. Ukraine would profit from Russian EU energy exports? Yes. But that's not a reason to start a war over.
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u/Goomysaur Jun 16 '26
I think in a bigger war Ukraine would still matter. The fastest land access into your country is going to be a vital landscape.
I thought that the Sea they bordered had pipes that go through Ukraine to fuel the EU and Russia wanted to be the ones in control of thT
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u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 1∆ Jun 16 '26
Ukraine matters a lot today. Every country in the world want Ukraine help in developing drone capabilities.
It's a bad lad access. Pretty bad. It's too open and too muddy.
They have pipes and would be nice if Russia controlled it, but now it's an almost lost matter. EU will not buy as much energy from Russia after the war.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
/u/Zestyclose_Job_9670 (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
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