• RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Putin will not win…he is at a huge deficit, is getting old and facing threats from within, and has been giving up more and more to fake allies like China to stay alive.

    Him saying he has doubled the military budget this year means nothing. For one, we know where the military budget goes, and 2, budget means nothing if you can’t buy the goods. These other countries will not be able to keep selling to Putin, while all the powers of europe and the West are giving these things for free.

    Part of this conflict, and to the detriment of the Ukranians, is to completely ruin Putin while not directly getting involved in combat, removing Russia as a world power entirely. Dragging it along is sadly a good thing for our politicians.

    Putin is 71 years old now, has been the president of Russia in some form for over 25 years. He will die in that seat before the war is over.

    • letmesleep@feddit.de
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      11 months ago

      Putin is 71 years old now, has been the president of Russia in some form for over 25 years. He will die in that seat before the war is over.

      Yeah, but that could be in decades. I.e. the west shouldn’t merely commit to making Ukraine win, it should commit to make Ukraine win soon. That would obviously entail delivering more and more controversial weapons systems and lifting limits on those, but I don’t see much of an downside in that.

      Russia won’t risk its entire population being wiped out just because Western cruise missiles fired by Ukraine blew up a few military bases in the Russian mainland and maybe the odd ministry in Moscow. At this point Russia likely questions whether it actually could start a nuclear war. The Americans have shown how much intelligence they have and how much more advanced their weaponry is. I.e. if Russia escalates in the direction of nuclear, it may very well be decapitated before any of its missiles leave the ground. So fears that delivering weapons to bomb Russian mainland will lead to world war 3 are overblown. That would require a lot of rich people in Russia being willing to die for nothing.