[throwaway0a5e]

You and the parent comment are operating on totally different time scales.

Russia will "win" the invasion. But so long as enough Ukrainians (it need only be a small minority) would prefer to die than be subjugated and there are enough others to materially support them the conclusion is a forgone one. The Russian people will run out of fucks to give long before Ukraine runs out of people.

[Bayart]

Poland is also a good reference point for the argument you're making. They had a long lasting resistance movement, hundreds of thousands of diehard fighters. Yet it had to wait until 1989 for any sort of independence. As for material support, it assumes both ability and willingness on the part of sympathizers. The ability might be gone were the Baltics or Finland be invaded, and the willingness might vanish when the war takes a sufficiently heavy toll.

[vba616]

>Yet it had to wait until 1989 for any sort of independence.

Is it not fair to say the nuclear deterrent has weakened, and the reason Poland had to wait was because NATO was afraid of supporting the resistance too much?