According to internal assessments within the UK government, the UK should prepare for the scenario of an unexpected collapse of the Russian Federation so that such events do not take London by surprise.
My comment was intended to highlight how fundamentally our views differ and not to start a discussion. I’m aware that my view is not completely neutral but I feel like your view is too different from mine to productively discuss them.
Yes, the Russian economy is doing better than expected but, obviously, a country at war with embargoes and large amounts of the workforce at the front will suffer. And yes, the current counter-offensive is not going as well as planned but the fact that Ukraine even started it and is making, albeit small, gains shows that they are at least on approximately even footing.
It’s not doing better than expected, it has entirely reverted. Its quarterly growth is now outperforming most of the EU. Meanwhile the EU is becoming vassalised by the US as a result of this, which is precisely what the US wanted the war for in the first place and precisely why the US bombed the german-owned Nordstream 2 pipeline. The vast majority of the motivation for this proxy war from the US side is simply that it is vastly increasing european dependency on the US and removing what little sovereignty we had left.
and is making, albeit small, gains
They are making no gains, zero. They have not crossed a single Russian defensive line. They have not come within sight of a dragon’s tooth. They have been repelled by artillery before reaching the first line every single time. There are three lines to cross.
Taking a field or a village of 200 people is not a “gain” it is simply space that nobody felt like defending being used for propaganda. These spaces would equally be abandoned by Ukraine at the first sign of pressure because they’re simply not worth holding. Highlighting these is desperate cope by the online propagandists that you have to look past and focus on what matters - the actual lines of defence and control.
My comment was intended to highlight how fundamentally our views differ and not to start a discussion. I’m aware that my view is not completely neutral but I feel like your view is too different from mine to productively discuss them.
Yes, the Russian economy is doing better than expected but, obviously, a country at war with embargoes and large amounts of the workforce at the front will suffer. And yes, the current counter-offensive is not going as well as planned but the fact that Ukraine even started it and is making, albeit small, gains shows that they are at least on approximately even footing.
It’s not doing better than expected, it has entirely reverted. Its quarterly growth is now outperforming most of the EU. Meanwhile the EU is becoming vassalised by the US as a result of this, which is precisely what the US wanted the war for in the first place and precisely why the US bombed the german-owned Nordstream 2 pipeline. The vast majority of the motivation for this proxy war from the US side is simply that it is vastly increasing european dependency on the US and removing what little sovereignty we had left.
They are making no gains, zero. They have not crossed a single Russian defensive line. They have not come within sight of a dragon’s tooth. They have been repelled by artillery before reaching the first line every single time. There are three lines to cross.
Taking a field or a village of 200 people is not a “gain” it is simply space that nobody felt like defending being used for propaganda. These spaces would equally be abandoned by Ukraine at the first sign of pressure because they’re simply not worth holding. Highlighting these is desperate cope by the online propagandists that you have to look past and focus on what matters - the actual lines of defence and control.