Expensive-Document41
Expensive-Document41 t1_ja6dl8y wrote
Reply to comment by sicariobrothers in Putin casts war as a battle for Russias survival by R1ckCrypto
Not quite. Russia has already lost in every meaningful way. At this point all they can really do is take land.
​
Russia is still fighting the Ukrainians to secure the "annexed" portions. Right now the war has clear lines between Russian control and Ukrainian control, which is why Russia hasn't gotten to the hard part. If (big if) the Russians manage to hold any of what they currently occupy then they have to occupy it in perpetuity.
​
As an analogy, when the U.S. went into Iraq, the war part analogous to what is happening in Ukraine was over in months. Russia just rolled over into 1 year. The part where the U.S. lost the vast majority of it's soldiers was to unsymmetrical warfare. IEDS and partisans hiding in the general populace. If Russia can't win just the invasion then they have no idea how hard the occupation will be.
​
Russia has crippled a generation of it's youth, become an international pariah with crippling sanctions, shown to be an untrustworthy source of energy and doesn't have any of it's objectives comfortably secured.
​
TL;DR: Russia has already lost. Now it's just sunk-cost fallacy.
Expensive-Document41 t1_jae7q1b wrote
Reply to comment by Budson420 in Kremlin: Russia open to Ukraine talks, but won't give up annexed regions by jacobhong
Russia started this, Russia can end it unilaterally by leaving Ukraine.
​
Beyond that, the only people who get to say when they're done are the Ukrainians.