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.
the war will end with Russia getting at most Crimea
This would require the complete and total collapse of Russia and the formation of a new country. Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk are legally Russia under Russian law. There is no mechanism via which they can be ceded. When everyone eventually sits down at the table they legally can not be put on it by the negotiators that form the Russian side.
I personally think Russia will take everything south of the Dnipro river then hand over the parts that are not Donbass as a political means of showing that the west won against them in some way.
Even if there were a mechanism by which these could be tabled I don’t see why they would. They are winning, the counteroffensive is achieving absolutely zero, support is very low across Europe and there is very little evidence that their gains will stop.
What mechanism are you thinking of here? Serious question. How? The only way what you’re claiming will happen could possibly occur is via a massive pushback, but that’s clearly not happening. You’d need nato to deploy and to kick off ww3 properly.
a coup in the US is completely unrealistic as of now.
I know. But the factionalism and divisions make it more likely than in Russia at the present moment in time. That was the point, to highlight that is incredibly unrealistic to expect it to happen in Russia after we’ve just had a demonstration of failure with almost no division barring the tantrum that occurred.
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.
What metric are you using to determine this?
This would require the complete and total collapse of Russia and the formation of a new country. Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk are legally Russia under Russian law. There is no mechanism via which they can be ceded. When everyone eventually sits down at the table they legally can not be put on it by the negotiators that form the Russian side.
I personally think Russia will take everything south of the Dnipro river then hand over the parts that are not Donbass as a political means of showing that the west won against them in some way.
Even if there were a mechanism by which these could be tabled I don’t see why they would. They are winning, the counteroffensive is achieving absolutely zero, support is very low across Europe and there is very little evidence that their gains will stop.
What mechanism are you thinking of here? Serious question. How? The only way what you’re claiming will happen could possibly occur is via a massive pushback, but that’s clearly not happening. You’d need nato to deploy and to kick off ww3 properly.
I know. But the factionalism and divisions make it more likely than in Russia at the present moment in time. That was the point, to highlight that is incredibly unrealistic to expect it to happen in Russia after we’ve just had a demonstration of failure with almost no division barring the tantrum that occurred.
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.