[_kbh_]

Russia. I don't see how anyone can see the massive losses Russia has had as well as the lasting impacts of sanctions as anything but suicidal. Russia cannot even build a modern car with ABS and airbags, let alone a plane or a tank while sanctions are in place.

[weatherlite]

They will get whatever tech they need from China in return for their oil and gas. I also think for sure overall invading Ukraine was a bad move but calling it suicidal sounds like a reach to me; at least as far as we can see so far - Russia is holding on and shows no signs of cracking.

[_kbh_]

I don't think they will find drop in replacements for all the parts, or even replacements in general that meet the same quality standards for some of the parts. This issue will likely require a drastic redesign of a large number of parts and will halt production for a while.

> Russia is holding on and shows no signs of cracking.

I don't understand how people can think this when Russia is heavily recruiting from prisons and rolling out ancient T-62s, Russias modern weaponry continually gets depleted whilst Ukraine gets more modern weaponry every month. I think the first main cracking point will be the Russian retreat / Ukrainian recapture of Kherson in the coming months.

[weatherlite]

Honestly I have no idea how's the fighting going there...it seems like we've reached peak interest a few months ago unfortunately. Russia can just keep Ukraine in this weak state, maybe fire a few rockets now and then. It doesn't even have to keep up the invasion if it doesn't want to...Ukraine would still be a very dysfunctional country with the threat of Russian invasion always on the background. No one sane will want to invest or buy an apartment there. What does Russia gain out of all this shit I have no idea but my point remains is that Russia can keep this up if it wants to. The average Russian citizen is either fine with what's happening (surprisingly many) or too afraid to do anything. It's very hard to predict but the chance of Russia making it like this cannot be ignored imo. If you want to this how a country can make it like this look at Iran.

[_kbh_]

> Honestly I have no idea how's the fighting going there...it seems like we've reached peak interest a few months ago unfortunately. Russia can just keep Ukraine in this weak state, maybe fire a few rockets now and then.

This is not an option, due to the amount of lives and equipment lost I don't think Russia has the option to pull out. It's a bit hard to have 50k casualties and lose thousands of pieces armoured equipment, hundreds of planes and just be like 'actually that was for nothing'.

> Ukraine would still be a very dysfunctional country with the threat of Russian invasion always on the background

I think Russia has more of a problem the longer the war goes on Ukraine is already going to receive NASAMS and IRIS-T anti air equipment from the US and Germany, which would significantly change the balance in the ability for Ukraine to control the sky.

The weapons aren't going to stop until Ukraine wins, pulling out also means losing Crimea and all the other gains they had made from 2014 until prior to the full on invasion.

Ukraine is more than capable of hitting installations in Russia even in their current degraded state, I don't think anyones gonna let Russia go back over the line and wash their hands of it.

> What does Russia gain out of all this shit I have no idea but my point remains is that Russia can keep this up if it wants to

Can it though? Russia is quickly running out of pretty much everything, they aren't using T-62s (tanks that don't even have a autoloader, a staple of Russian and even USSR tanks) because they want to its because they have to. I think the systemic corruption in Russia means they cannot fight this war for that long, for more then now? sure, but for years? im not so sure.

> The average Russian citizen is either fine with what's happening (surprisingly many) or too afraid to do anything. It's very hard to predict but the chance of Russia making it like this cannot be ignored imo. If you want to this how a country can make it like this look at Iran.

The longer this goes on the more the average Russian will be affected, the more assets that will be seized, the more people that will be sanctioned and the more companies that will pull out.

[weatherlite]

It's fun playing predictions but truth is no one knows what is going to happen. I hope Russia retreats and gives up as you are implying but I am very skeptical it will happen soon. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised...

[random314]

Russia is a virtual entity. The real person involved is Putin, and it is hard to see how this affects Putin at all.

With Bush's invasion of Iraq, he ran the risk of losing the 2004 reelection. Putin doesn't even face that risk.

[_kbh_]

if Russia loses the war and the army collapses there could be some very consequences from Putin, and that it seperate from the consequence of the slow moving collapse of the Russian economy that has already started.

[random314]

The Russian rouble is outperforming the usd this year. That does not look like a collapsing economy. In fact, it has gained 40% on the euro.

If Russia loses, they will withdraw to their borders. In the worst case they lose access to the Caspian sea. If not, they will acquire Ukraine.

The real loser is Ukraine, no matter what happens from here on.

[_kbh_]

> The Russian rouble is outperforming the usd this year. That does not look like a collapsing economy. In fact, it has gained 40% on the euro.

It only looks like this because it’s being propped up by massive cash spending of Russian foreign reserves and because it cannot be traded internationally in any significant volume.

If the economy is doing so well why did Gazprom and Sberbank cancel it’s dividend with Russia?. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/06/30/state-firms-gazpro...

> If Russia loses, they will withdraw to their borders. In the worst case they lose access to the Caspian sea. If not, they will acquire Ukraine.

If Russia losses they lose access to their Black Sea headquarters and also Crimea. They also face quite badly, but I guess that’s really already come to pass no one thinks Russia is the number two army in the world anymore.

Even if Russia did capture Ukraine they would face a long insurgency that would make Afghanistan look like a cake walk. I initially thought Russia would capture a lot of land early on but I didn’t they would be able to hold it, and we already seeing this with how many collaborators and Russian soldiers keep dying in occupied cities from partisans.

> The real loser is Ukraine, no matter what happens from here on.

This is hundred percent true but they lose much harder if they just let the genocidal Russians take over Ukraine and keep committing genocide against them.