[rich_sasha]

Some interesting entangled thoughts.

As per Clausevitz, wars end either when you kill every last soldier or the ones who are still alive decide not to fight. I can't see the former happening. So it's about ratcheting the pain of continuing to something unbearable. To the level where Russia can't make enough cash selling resources to make more tanks and bombs and also feed people.

The issue is of course that Russians seem incredibly resilient against the latter. They seem happy when Russia wins another 5m^2 of territory even if materially they are massively affected.

But even then if Russia can no longer recruit "marginal" people and the alternative to peace is even larger losses, people might reassess.

The higher the economic cost in the meantime, the sooner this moment comes.

[benterix]

> They seem happy when Russia wins another 5m^2

But who? People watching the national TV and followers of war bloggers for sure. But for the rest the current situation is just a very dark fragment in the history of Russia and everybody is just waiting for it to end.

[red-iron-pine]

they are not happy, they are distracted and vaguely know it's not going well.

the "russian firehose" approach and vryanyo (institutional lying) means they're bombarded with info but also know most of it is BS, but not necessarily how or why.

they know it's not going well but at this point much of the economy is on war-footing and if they're not drafted they're probably getting paid okay. STFU and keep your head down and you won't get drafted.