[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.