[Waterluvian]

The logic I’ve heard is that one of the more palatable defeat conditions for Russia is that they’d rather lose to NATO than Ukraine. So they’re fine to push limits because even the worst case scenario gives them better options.

[znnajdla]

This. Losing to Ukraine is a massive humiliation. Losing to NATO is “fair” in their eyes. Even now, pro-Russian sources refuse to believe the current drone swarms and highly advanced deep strike drones wrecking havoc on Russian oil infrastructure (see the official state of emergency declared in Crimea and fuel shortages in other regions) are caused by Ukrainian drones. They keep making up some sore loser nonsense about these being NATO drones or some clever trick like drones released from trucks inside Russia. Meanwhile even the Pentagon is buying Ukrainian made drones: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraine-a...

[bluegatty]

No - Putin believes he can win, this is to scare NATO.

He's not wrong - this is a war of attrition and Russia is about to raise 500K-1M soldiers - if they can do that, and keep Ukraine on their backs, it's possible Russia could break through.

Unlikely but possible.

Ukraine has difficulty recruiting and equally high desertion rates.

'Eventually something has to give'.

I think it's unlikely and that Ukraine will be able to hold out.

[tremon]

> about to raise 500K-1M soldiers

Russia has developed necromancy?