Who are we talking about here? Rutte?

I don’t think Rutte is telling ukraine they need to compromise - I think he’s stating a fact that neither side is likley to get a full and complete military victory. Reading between the lines, this is probably a message to the Russians to get serious about fucking off with their ridiculous maximalist demands.

Exactly. Ukraine has multiple paths to victory. Russia has none. This isn’t a board game where all the Russian pieces have to be moved across a line for them to have lost.

Russia would have been way, way smarter to declare a ceasefire after the 2023 Kherson counter offensive by the Ukrainians. They would still have all the territory they’re still on 3 years later, they wouldn’t have lost another million men and god knows how much equipment. They could have said “we’ve made our point about our security”, declared that NATO had chickened out to fight them, blah blah blah.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive had just failed, their backers might have said “this is the best we’re gonna get”, Russia would have been reintegrated to the global economic system by now. Ukraine wouldn’t have gotten to the point where they could attack their oil industry, wild berries/ozon and their data centers.

But - nope. They’re greedy idiot pigs, so they have spent 3 more years dying and getting weaker and weaker.

I know that’s what’s the Belgians said, but not sure how believable it is. That stash of money is one of the few true levers they have in negotiations with Moscow.

I think 1905-1917 was the first chapter of the Russian empire collapse, 1991 the second, and we’re speed running to the third.

Who’s going to require them to do that? No chance any Russian leader could survive politically by agreeing to pay reparations. Never, ever happen.

I think that’s exactly why the EU has done nothing with the ~$300B of frozen russian assets so far. They know that if the Russian Federation continues to exist in its current form, they will never pay reparations. Thus the only assets for reconstruction costs that can actually be given to Ukraine in compensation is this money.

Otherwise, reconstruction costs will come directly from EU countries. They are entering a political climate in France and Germany where that is not likely to be welcomed by the public.

given those options, wouldn’t you rather go into Ukrainian custody? Join the russian free legions? I dunno. As much as I’d like to say that the average soldier isn’t a dangerous animal that needs to be eliminated - there is LOTS of video evidence of Russians fighting pretty damn hard, long after you’d expect them to surrender. Whatever their reasons, there is still a lot of them that fight to the death.

The russian mind is not singular, and even if it were, it’s bloody hard to understand. They don’t value anyone’s life, including their own, like other cultures do.

Day to day you don’t feel like anything really matters in terms of a historic timeline. It’s hard to step back and say “this is what this means”.

But I try to imagine - where are we going with this? What will the Wikipedia page of 2120 say about this war? I think Russia has made an incredibly bad mistake by launching and continuing to run this war. Like, a HISTORIC mistake. The scale of failure of this idiotic invasion as an empire punching itself in the dick in a nation-wrecking way is up there with the Persians getting their ass folded 12 times by Alexander the Great.

Further, I think Russia is undergoing a Loooooooong collapse. Like the Ottoman Empire did - namely, it doesn’t all happen at once. The Ottomans collapsed over 300 years in phases of declining leadership, societal corruption, military degradation, loss of trade networks, loss of diplomatic clout, loss of proftable western colonies, losing wars they were expected to win, before finally collapsing into a mostly-secular ethnic rump state of Turkey today. I think that’s Russia’s future - a smaller heartland west of the Urals, and they lose direct control over everything else, including Dagestan, Chechnya, Yakutia, Bashkortostan etc. That will be a messy, awful process, as there are ethnic russians all over these places which will trigger some violent migration similar to the India:Pakistan partition. And some of them will end up fighting each other, like Armenia an Azerbaijan have done. But - on the other hand…Fuck 'Em. Russia is a failed gangster state that only exports death, misery and mischief to the world. The world will be better off with something else in Russia’s place. But it will be a violent process to get there.

Russia should be rich and prosperous. Few countries have ever been blessed with such gifts and advantages. But they are run by unqualified kings and barbarian gangsters who only understand pain and power.

In both 1917 and 1991, russia had allowed some institutional opposition to exist which became the seeds of revolution. the modern petromafia ganster state has shown intense reflexive overkill against ANY dissent. Murdering politicians, journalists, bloggers, not allowing people to carry signs in public. I would love for Russia’s cynical sheep to rise up - but don’t see it happening. Sees much more likely that some aspiring warlord will make a grab for the throne, and then some factions will emerge. The people will just want to know who’s going to win - many things can happen quickly if there is any form of power struggle.

<free shrugs> - I dunno i hope youre right. But I doubt it. Frankly, i don’t give a shit precisely HOW russia crumbles, it would be nice if it happens sooner than later so they stop killing Ukrainians for no fucking reason except the greed and hubris of overpromoted gangsters.

You’re very kind, thank you. Bang on, the Lyman counterattack is a great example of the weakness of Russia’s ‘thin as film’ approach not being able or willing to consolidate their gains.

I don’t know what to do. But I know that attacking Russia’s economic potential is making them squeal. Should probably keep doing that. At the highest level - I think the only way to lasting peace is to keep the russian war machine bleeding until they themselves become convinced that this war was a bad idea, and that they shouldn’t do it again.

When Trump or Putin are removed from the board, many other things that seem impossible now may become less so.

That would be nice. We’d all love the Star Wars ending where Gerasimov throws Putin down the exhaust shaft like Vader chucking Palpatine and the Death Star explodes. Or a fleet of F35’s and A-10 Warthogs screams over the horizon to vaporize the russians to the soundtrack of Rock You Like A Hurricane. But that’s movie stuff.

IRL - it will be more likely that it happens slowly and incrementally. Ukraine is in a much better position right now than the russians are. That’s why they’re squealing for absurd peace terms. If the war were going their way, they wouldn’t even be doing that.

I agree. People misunderstand his power base - he is the avatar of the real power in russia - the Security Services. He gets to play role of Rough Daddy, but it’s the FSB and their skull crackers down the line that keep them in power. When Putin dies, there may be some factionalism and a power struggle, but I agree that nothing will change in terms of overall leaderhsip until then.

They do many things poorly, but they’re VERY good at not letting even the tiniest ember of opposition that actually represents the people emerge. Any post-Putin power struggle will probably split along established regional ethno-corporate lines of warlords trying to seize the throne. Russia has always been an absolutist monarchy, and nothing is going to change that until the state falls apart. Which it might. But that’s another story.

However we get there, if it makes Russia weaker and therefore unable to menace it’s neighbours, that’s fine by me.

Totally agree. It will be a ceasefire, and an open wound on both countries’ fronteirs. Ukraine wouldn’t be just surrendering land - they’d be walking away from millions of it’s citizens - making them slaves of Russia. That ain’t happening.

Ukraine isn’t at a point where they have to accept those kinds of terms. The shooting might stop for now - which would STILL be a victory for Ukraine and a loss for Russia.

But time is a factor here. Post-Putin will present many challenges for Russia and opportunities for Ukraine.

You would think. But I’ve seen enough videos of russians wading forwrad through their comrades’ guts to question if I really understand their psyche.

I mean - I have trouble grasping how they don’t put 1+1 together, look at the guys who went out yesterday and never came back, then get told “right - we’re going to <objective alpha>, let’s go” - and not say ‘hold on a minute’.

Worse - there’s tons of footage of them literally marching through completely obliterated corpse fields of their fellow soldiers, and still pushing on. I understand coercion and can grasp having a very fatalist attitude to life in general if you accept that Russian life is a grey, grinding, living hell at the best of times. But how do you just waltz through open graveyards of deconstructed human pulp and think “this is okay, I know what I’M doing, I wont end up like these guys”.

Then the last confused seconds of their lives, they hear a buzzing noise, turn to face it, then they make a stupid, terrorized face and feel a hot pressure wave for a millsecond as the drones assplode them into canned pasta.

How do they get them to leave the camp? Why do they keep moving forward into certain death? Are they literally that fucking stupid? You understand the institutional cruelty, the barrier troops, the brutal punishments for refusing orders. But - I mean - gruseome death seems certain when you leave that trench. I mean - the reality may be that they go off marching often all over the front, and we only see the aggregated videos of successful drone strikes. It’s surprising that there aren’t more reports of fragging and fratricide. Or maybe there are, and the overall shit performance of their assault forces is a reflection of their lack of motivation.

I’ve also seen accounts from captured soldiers that they often don’t even realize that they’re on an assault. Their commanders lie to them and say “go to point x, there will be supplies and comrades waiting there, then await further instructions”. But in reality, they’re being sent to unsecure locations, often to try and expose Ukrainian firing positions and be bullet sponges that the Russians can then try to target with artillery, drones and higher quality assault forces. That deception would explain why you sometimes see low quality, poorly equipped troops just mushing across open fields in very undisciplined looking formation as they’re attacked by drones.

I don’t know dude. This war is a vulgar, disgusting thing at every level. While I’m eager for it to end, I’m also callously thankful that Russia is so stupid and arrogant that they continue to destroy themselves hopelessly. Every dead vatnik today is a loss to the russian state’s ability to invade again in the future.

In a war, you’d rather be the grinder than the meat.

It’s all a tragedy, and Ukraine is suffering of course - but if this is how Russia is forced to continue this industrial murder project, then they are going to lose badly. Now, and later.

If that’s correct, then the quality and motivation of a guy literally kidnapped and pressed into service doesn’t sound like it would be very high. That’s not a winning strategy, and if Russia is forced to resort to such despearte, barrel scraping measures for recruits, then Ukraine is going to win this war.

very sorry to hear that, and wish you strength to endure. It’s important even when talking about the macro of things to acknowledge the misery of the current expeirence Russia is committing against you.

The Yandex data center strikes have probably had more effect on bot traffic than the russians would dare admit. This U.S. midterm cycle had a more muted and boring experience. Find it highly unlikley this is a coincidence.

Further - out of all the strategic weaknesses russia has proven unable to defend - I find the data centers one to be the most interesting. Why?

Becuase there’s so few of them in russia for starters - only 6 i think. Big, indefensible, stationary server farms. The bot farms are also an essential part of Russia’s strategy to fart out corrosive bullshit onto the world. They’re very good at it - it’s one of the few things they do REALLY well, and the tech oligarchs have shown themselves to be NO ally of the west in terms of stopping it, as long as it drives engagement on their platforms.

Further - you hear a lot of “it won’t matter, because Russia will just move the data elsewhere”. Think about that for a second. Their bot farms are a critical, effective strategic tool. Moving one of your best capabilities out of your data centers to, say, China’s, is like moving your nuclear weapon infrastrcture from your control to someone else’s. China has copied and stolen everything it can get it’s hands on for over a century. They will surely be stealing everything that Russia shares with them. These are not simple commercial agreements that have enforceable contract law - these are critical national defense assets with a proven capability to influence the population of your enemy. They got Donald Fucking Trump elected - twice - by serving social media bullshit to racist uncles and groyper troll fascist millenials. Powerful stuff.

It is strategically a MASSIVE vulnerability to have to move your server farms to another country that isn’t REALLY an ally. China is China’s friend, full stop. Nobody else’s. It serves them to have a weak, junior vassal colony in Russia that they can treat like a resource yard.

The people running the strategy aren’t proper people.

Just perfect.