Putin is looking to transform this humiliating defeat into a rallying cry. This is like the iceberg from the Titanic trying to rally against ocean liners.
To him, it's win-win. Either he expands territory and genocides Ukraine, or her consolidates power as a wartime dictator and commits internal genocide by purging dissidents, ethnic minorities, etc. All the while further concentrating power.
Our modern Hitler.
But the iceberg won..
The battle, sure, but industrialization is winning the war.
More like climate change is
Caused by the burning of fossile fuels caused by the industrialisation
It's like the titanic trying to lobby against lifeboats from the ocean floor.
I'm not dead. I'm getting better. I think I'll go for a walk...
even better!
After seeing Perun's video on how the Russian war economy is actually doing well, with the biggest limitation being a lack of bodies to fulfill all the jobs, it seems Putin stumbled into a probable stable future built on using human bodies as fuel for his money machine. There may come a point where Ukraine quits the fight, regardless of the outcome, and Russia's economy collapses.
I mean even before the war ends, 19% interest is not stable. Capital investment has fallen to a third of what it once was. (ignoring forced investments needed to workaround sanctions) The Russians will also run out of old Soviet stockpile weapons which will be a major hit to their GDP as Russia starts to go into recession.
It's stable for the medium and short term, not long term
Ooh forever war, how very 1984.
Maybe in a few years they were forever at war with China instead.
No need to reference Orwell, the Forever War is already its own piece of dystopian fiction
(A very good piece of dystopia fiction)
Russia is the new north korea
The Kremlin is scouting high windows for Vladimir Putin to walk by/lean against.
They have to cut their losses somehow.
They will probably make a fortune from Putin. Why would they fight him?
Yeah, you're probably right. There's probably nothing but intense satisfaction with how the war is going.
Because they'll make a fortune from the next guy too. But they won't see their entire labor pool decimated.
They don't care about "the labor pool".
Only when it cuts into their profits.
What would cut into their profits?? Have you never seen how authoritarian regimes work? Do you think North Korea officials want to revolt because of their starving labor pool?
Not a lot of North Korean billionaires living it up in the West though. To extract that level of wealth you need a better class of worker.
You keep saying that but it's not necessary to keep power as evidenced by... History.
History says that it is. There have opuoentoy wealthy people into Antiquity. But supporting the number of opuoentoy wealthy that modern Russia has requires an organized economy. You can't have 1,000 Billionaires in an 500B sized economy.
And yet he remains in power with no sign of that changing.
Some signs. But who knows if it's just chatter or real talk.
Western sanctions. Seizure of said profits. Inability to spend any of it on things they want. Devaluation of the ruble. Shrinking Russian economy.
These may not affect the very top that much. At least not for a while. But there are a lot of middle managers that got used to the good things in life.
Industry requires labor. And an extract based wealth generation scheme requires a large amount of unskilled and semi-skilled labor along with a relatively small amount of highly skilled specialists to operate.
It's in your interest for the unskilled and semi-skilled labor to be as vast as possible to keep costs down.
Indoctrinating kids, forcibly conscripting people, sending anyone who crosses you to the gulags...
Just grow the big mustache and smoke the pipe, Vlad.
Ah the fascists(russia today is basically that) got inspired by the stalinists
Or a failed artist with a silly mustache from Bravaria.
We no longer need hipsters, rappers, or lovers of Western culture — only Navalny supporters come from them,”
lol
Forever war? What happened to nuclear annihilation? Is Vlad Puta having second thoughts? Or has he been bluffing this entire time?
He should just lie to his base the way any other conservative would; declare victory and leave the area. Take some unearned victory laps and celebrate fake accomplishments for the next several years. Done.
This isn't about image or ideology for Putin, though he definitely can't afford to lose face either. This has always been about proving he could have won the cold war if people had just listened to him. This involves returning direct control, or at least very close alliances with his pawns in charge, with all of the former USSR territories. And winning against the West, though I'm not sure what criteria he has on that side of things besides bringing the US under his indirect control which he's half way there.
Somewhen in the 00s I had a probably friendship-breaking argument with a pal of mine about the whole 'patriotism' thing. Indeed, we lost any connection in the following years, and I suppose that was one of the reasons. Back then, we couldn't formulate what patriotism is, and he stood on the ground of defending this ephemeral construct while I was all for ditching it.
In the coming years I repeatedly reevaluated what it is for me, and for others, and for the state. While the state's position is obvious - patriotism is like an oath you take when you enter military service to unconditipnally follow what the state wants. For others it's a mixed bag, greatly defined not only by the great achievements of the past, but by insecurity that they'd lose even more if their tsar lose support, and the state how it is, even openly criticized, guarantees our material conditions would decline slowly and for a right reason, while the other choice is a chaos that would turn everything upside down like it was in the 90s.
For me, personally, the patriotism started to be a thing after I had a conversation with a lot of people from different regions and backgrounds. We, after all, a family that lives in a large house. Some of the rentees are deeply consumed by the war and the state propaganda, some aren't, but in the end we all share the same living space and would continue to do so whatever happens. What we all share though, and what led to such a degradation, is a decline in material and social conditions orchestrated by the kremlyads. And if there's a patriotism in loving your country and your own contrymen, it goes against the current admin, them stealing everything and sending our men into a meatgrinder, them bankrupting our culture, them exchanging our future to get loans from the likes of Iran and China, them giving handshakes or handjobs to Talibs and Kim.
A russian patriot, if there's one, gonna hate these phoney moves by the state instead of education, hate how it strips russian people bare and send them to die because it felt like it, hate how in a course of an endless VVP admin we turned from a promising country with a hope of establishing a democracy with living wages we turned into pariahs that can't even leave that bestest vision of the Motherland if we aren't rich like top propagandists do owning multiple properties in Europe. What I see the best for my country is not aligned with what 'The collective West' (as dumbfucks call it) wants us to do, it is to our own egoistic interest to return to the path of development and reinclusion into the world of less shitty states, because it would lead to us not having a second thought about buying okayish meat and bread instead of priced down garbage when we do groceries, and would make us raise kids without a fear that they'd be put down for some greater good.
From three day special operation to forever war, from world power to laughing stock.
Fatherland? Seems similar to another country 80 years ago but Ich kann es nicht genau sagen.
Can Putin admit he was wrong for the last couple years, or will he quadruple down and get mollywhopped back into the 1920s?
So sick of hearing about this short fuckin' loser making his tiny-dick threats. I hope his bald, inbred ass is reading this and it hurts him how much we all laugh at him.
Forever war? They won't last 5 years.
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