Quote:
Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
The problem for Putin is losing the war is a literal death sentence for him personally and probably his family, they will be strung up on lamp posts within a few weeks of defeat, so he has nothing to lose and there really isnt anything we can offer that alters that for him, to go back to the pre war borders after the pain Russia has and will go through will be seen as a massive crushing defeat for Putin
I really dont see an out at this point, the idiot has doubled down to hard to give himself an exit
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I thought so too earlier in the war, but now when I look at it, I'm thinking that if failures and stupid decisions could do him in, that would have happened already. His chokehold on power seems more absolute than ever.
In the long term he's likely created massive amounts of new dissidents, but it could be years before the effects of that start to seriously show.
His control of Russian media also gives him a lot of room to spin things. All the talk about nuclear war for example could make just backing down fairly popular.
"Militarily we could fight and win in Ukraine, but we fear that the nazi's in Ukraine have secretly kept some nuclear weapons and would rather burn the country than let it become free." Or what ever. "We have successfully evacuated the Russian population that was under the threat of genocide, we can let Ukraine have the land now."
It can be total BS, but the main thing is, I don't think the war itself is very popular, it's just that people want their side to win or not lose.
When you give people a nice narrative that "we backed down for peace and greater good of humanity and also we achieved what we set out to do because look at all the refugees who are now safe in Russia and we destroyed that nazi brigade in Mariupol", most people will likely choose to believe it.