[pmontra]

I saw very few regime collapses unless an army steps into the capital. That's not going to happen to Russia (Mutual Assured Destruction.)

The worst it will happen to Putin is that he'll be locked in into Russia and have to kill more and more Russian people.

[dragonwriter]

> I saw very few regime collapses unless an army steps into the capital. That's not going to happen to Russia (Mutual Assured Destruction.)

The reference to MAD makes sense only in the context of foreign armies (and with the M only those of major nuclear powers), but if you look at the two immediate predecessors of the modern Russian Federation (the USSR and the Russian Empire), both fell without a foreign army entering the capital, and are hardly unique in history in doing so. And to the extent status as a major nuclear power is relevant to that, the USSR had it just as much as the Russian Federation does.

[lotusmars]

Why even discuss MAD or nuclear when Putin gets what he wants without it?

Germans finance his war efforts with billions of euros and drag their feet on arming Ukraine.

Europeans generally pressure Ukraine to surrender.

Why risk it? Just wait, time is on his side.

[prox]

The army of Russia has explicitly been kept underpowered just for that reason and generals get rotated around a lot. A strong army is a threat to Putin. Source : CSIS.