If Putin is killed I suspect the country would devolve into chaos with different factions from the oligarchs, the military, the (non-government) mafia, the FSB, Wagner and every other random sociopath fighting for control at the top of the criminal organization known as the Russian government. This would likely look a lot like the years immediately following parastroika where crime and violence was rampant. You might say, "who cares as long as they get out of Ukraine and stop trolling the rest of the world". Well, the problem is that they still have a lot of nuclear weapons. Say, what you will about Putin but he is not stupid or reckless. He is a cold, calculating, corrupt bastard. The next guy that wins the power struggle could just end up being the most blood-thirsty maniac of the bunch. If so, the entire planet could be in trouble.
Could come to nukes even with Putin IMO. I don't see him taking the L here. War of attrition until Ukraine submits, or if a loss is inevitable he may pull out the big guns.
If he's dead, his ego is out of the way. I think that gives Russia more flexibility to GTFO of Ukraine.
I think if Putin dies "naturally" they'll Weekend at Bernies him for years using his prop doubles. Whichever Oligarch is in charge will have an actual puppet.
He could already be dead for all we know. There's a few different doubles that show up to public events. Do I think that's true, frankly no, but stranger things have happened.
These gangsters aren't going to resort to a nuclear exchange. Look how many times Ukraine has crossed their redlines in the last few months. We have near daily drone attacks on the heart of Moscow. The biggest thing the west gets wrong is fear of escalation. The Ukrainians don't care or worry about escalation, because at this point Russia has no realistic levers of escalation left.
Putin's major strength in Russia is that he is probably the only person that can't be bought. He was able to flip the script on the oligarch's several years ago once he became wealthier than them and could control them through fear. I don't see any of his successors having the type of control over them that Putin has and I don't think Russia can be ruled without support from the oligarchy. They'll take power back from Putin as soon as they can and will be really careful about who they support next. Falling from windows tends to make people more cautious.
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This is significant because Armenia is a CTSO country that relies on Russia for defense and is home to a Russian base. The CTSO being Russia's wish.com answer to NATO. Armenia has been against Russia's aggression in Ukraine however, and refused to allow the CTSO to use Armenia for drills since the invasion and has also refused to supply staff to the CTSO exercises in Belarus out of protest.
For background context, there is an enclave of ~120k ethnic Armenians in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan government however, does not look after the people there well. The enclave, which is within Azerbaijan's borders relies on aid and supplies from Armenia to survive. Russian forces are supposed to be acting like peace keepers to keep the road open from Armenia to the enclave, but Azerbaijan closed the road while Russia has done nothing. They are either refusing or unable to control the situation. This has led to severe shortages of food, medicine, and fuel for the Armenians living in Azerbaijan and some human rights groups think it could be the start of another genocide.
Despite historically relying on Russia due to their geographic position and necessity, Armenia has in the past shown interest in joining the EU one day and from my understanding, Armenians consider themselves fully "European". It's a slippery slope because historically, Armenia was considered to be on the Asian side of the divide therefore technically ineligible for the EU, however many people now consider the the border between Asia and Europe to be more of a wide transitional one and the Caucasus countries to be trans-continental.
Anyway, hopefully this is a sign that Russia is losing its grip within their own house.
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Turkey was also using Azerbaijan as a puppet to reduce Armenia fairly recently, and Russia did nothing to help them. This was before the war in Ukraine.
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I think if Putin dies "naturally" they'll Weekend at Bernies him for years using his prop doubles. Whichever Oligarch is in charge will have an actual puppet.
Lots of Windows in he Kremlin.
Lots of windows....
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He could already be dead for all we know. There's a few different doubles that show up to public events. Do I think that's true, frankly no, but stranger things have happened.
These gangsters aren't going to resort to a nuclear exchange. Look how many times Ukraine has crossed their redlines in the last few months. We have near daily drone attacks on the heart of Moscow. The biggest thing the west gets wrong is fear of escalation. The Ukrainians don't care or worry about escalation, because at this point Russia has no realistic levers of escalation left.
Nuclear war stops the money train. Not going to happen.
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Forward is better than backward, but these are pretty insignificant gains.
Are you speaking in terms of distance or of the strategic impact? The two can be quite different, depending on how the Russians were defending it, the type of ground and roads intersecting there, gaining control can be massive if even only a small amount of territory.
But if both distance and strategic importance are small than I would agree, I just don’t have the info to know that.
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Are you speaking in terms of distance or of the strategic impact? The two can be quite different, depending on how the Russians were defending it, the type of ground and roads intersecting there, gaining control can be massive if even only a small amount of territory.
But if both distance and strategic importance are small than I would agree, I just don’t have the info to know that.
It can't really be massive at this point, no. A plot of land of a small village is really at best going to have somewhat outsized tactical significance, but when compared to the size of the front and the amount of fortifications at the front, we're just way past the point in the war where miniscule plots of land have much real significance. At best it moves the front a bit, but the exact positions of the battle lines are really of fairly little significance right now, unless they start moving at a much faster pace.
And yeah, as far as I can tell, these little dots on the map aren't particularly significant. Again, forward is better than backward, but really I'd be more interested to know the estimated casualty rates than the names of the villages.
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It can't really be massive at this point, no. A plot of land of a small village is really at best going to have somewhat outsized tactical significance, but when compared to the size of the front and the amount of fortifications at the front, we're just way past the point in the war where miniscule plots of land have much real significance. At best it moves the front a bit, but the exact positions of the battle lines are really of fairly little significance right now, unless they start moving at a much faster pace.
And yeah, as far as I can tell, these little dots on the map aren't particularly significant. Again, forward is better than backward, but really I'd be more interested to know the estimated casualty rates than the names of the villages.
As you said, the tactical significance will be an unexpected gap in ability to protect a vector from attack allowing a major breach in defense. That's only going to happen from attrition or political upheaval, neither of which can be deduced from a map. The momentum needs to continue to be in Ukraine's favour for Ukraine to win the war, so in that sense territorial gains are important.
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