[thaufeki]

>Maybe they want Putin to invest more and more and grind Russia down slowly? Losing too quickly would leave Russia with too much left? Of course, the cost of such a strategy would be borne by the Ukrainians, who pay in blood.

I think this has been the conventional wisdom for a while. One thing I ask people who are vociferous in their support of Ukraine (and our paying for that support) is, how is this going to end?

Russia quietly bleeds out and overthrows Putin? Is that realistic? If Putin is a madman dictator, do you really think he'll just whimper and disappear? It seems necessary that a negotiation take place at some point, and that negotiation result in lost territory for Ukraine. It's not a question of justice, but practicality.

[qqqwerty]

Russia has a history of throwing out leaders after failed wars. On one hand Putin appears to have a fairly tight grip on power right now, but it doesn't take much to actually execute a coup. A small group of of participants to capture or kill him, and maybe one or two handshake agreements with one of the many security or military forces might be enough. There is a reason Putin has been spending most of this war in his bunker after all. It is certainly not because he fears attacks from Ukraine. He know this war has greatly eroded his leverage over the oligarchs and as such he is acting accordingly.

Of course it is hard to even put a probability on something like this happening, but I think most folks are underestimating the odds. It is one of those things that feels very unlikely to happen, until it actually happens.

However, I do think that the highest probability outcome is Ukraine and Russia end up roughly where they were before the invasion, perhaps with slightly different boundaries. If you were not aware Russia and Ukraine have been at war for 8 years. For most of the years, it was effectively a stalemate, with a handful skirmishes to remind each other of the others presence. And the rest of the world for the most part carried on with business as usual. If feel like this is the most likely scenario, and if this is where we end up, I think it was 100% worth the cost as it means Ukraine maintains self-determination and Russia likely learns a really hard lesson regarding its Imperialistic ambitions.

[5560675260]

The result will not be just "lost territory" it's hundred thousands people left in Russian bondage. And that will not be the end of it - Putin will be back for more in a year or two. There can be no peace as long as his regime is in power and as long as russians cling to a fantasy of living in an empire. I don't know how realistic is to bleed Russia, but fighting it now is only viable option, there is nothing else.