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by inglor_cz 1527 days ago
Russia has a ton of land (with most of it being unproductive land in Siberia), but that won't help them to win the war.

It is actually more of a problem than an asset, because they must guard very long shores and borders against unfriendly neighbors. And if they decide to redeploy a unit from Khabarovsk to Ukraine, it takes at least a week to move it by rail. Probably longer than that. Not exactly a recipe for flexibility.
1 comments
throw0101a 1527 days ago
> It is actually more of a problem than an asset, because they must guard very long shores and borders against unfriendly neighbors.

On the flip side they can afford to give up a lot of terrain while they get their act together. And now the other side has super long supply chains that they have to deal with.

See World War 2.

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inglor_cz 1527 days ago
Yes, for defense, it is great (on the other side of this scale would be Israel that lacks any strategic depth and thus must defend the border regions at almost any cost).

The Napoleonic wars were yet another great example of a strategic retreat and bleeding the enemy dry in the endless frozen steppe.

But for attacking someone else, the situation reverses and now it is Russia that faces serious logistical problems correlated to its sheer size.

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