roubaixtuesday
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I mean do I think that the war is having a horrific effect on the Russian economy? Of course albeit China, India and the UAE are still happily keeping Russia afloat. As said though, Russia officially has over 100 billionaires, tens of thousands of ‘ultra wealthy’ and around 500,000 millionaires and these are the people funding the war with anyone who dissents quickly disposed of and their funds confiscated.
Of course it’s a finite ability to fund the war, the Russians gamble is that ‘the west’ won’t be willing to fund another 5-10 years of this and Zelenskyy has said many times we have to beat Russia, we won’t outlast them.
There is a huge difference between wanting Russia to win and discussing the reality of where things stand today. I don’t believe anyone outside Russia supports them getting Donbas and Crimea as at best it puts off for a few years us having to confront Russia elsewhere, be it in Ukraine again, or Moldova.
Financially absolutely there will be a breaking point as discussed above, it isn’t going to be anytime soon though unfortunately.
From an ‘emotional’ perspective I think it’s extremely naive to believe that Russians will ever grow tired enough of this to stand up en masse and demand an end.
This is the country who just 80 years ago lost 27 million fighting and didn’t stand up and demand an end. Of course it was to our benefit that they were on our side then but now they’re not and they’re still the same people. Russias elderly are the kids/nieces/ nephews of those who died then and they’re deeply entrenched still in that mentality. The oldest ones being forced onto the battlefield now are their grandkids who grew up with that mindset indoctrinated into them by their parents who overwhelmingly support Putin and this war.
As we know, Russia is an oooooooooold country and their best youth got out long ago. As said before I work with 3 Russians here in Sweden and their parents in Moscow and St Petersburg who would be in their 50s now so young enough to know better still rabidly support the war.
Putin has been very clear that we won’t outlast Russia, and Zelenskyy agrees with him that we have to outright defeat them not expect to outlast them.
Of course we can hope that once Putin dies someone more sane succeeds him, but Putin has spent the past 5+ years completely isolated in a bunker, nobody is getting to him to end it anytime soon and once he dies there will be the mother of all power struggles to succeed him within his inner circle of oligarchs and ex FSB staff. The chance of someone sane enough to put a stop to this and bring Russia in from the cold winning out is pretty low…
And only the other side of the scales, far smaller loses in Afghanistan were a key part in bringing down the Soviet Union.
I'm always astonished by posts such as yours which exhibit such certainty about the future.
Dictatorships fail slowly at first, then suddenly all at once. I'm not predicting when Putin's fascist kleptocracy will fall, but one day it will.
In the meantime, we should support ukraine in their fight for freedom. It should be up to them whether they resist or surrender, not forced by a lack of support from us.