Comment by bojan
16 hours ago
> But russia-ukraine is also a much more contained war between 2 parties that will likely end in a stalemate.
The whole of Europe is affected, it might seem contained only if you live very far away. Every European country is affected in one way or another.
It's not a stalemate if Ukraine ends up losing 30% of its territory. That's Russian victory.
> It's not a stalemate if Ukraine ends up losing 30% of its territory. That's Russian victory.
I'd call that both sides losing. Russia certainly did not achieve its geopolitical goals with that outcome.
Ukraine will never de jure give up those territories and majority of nations will never recognize those as part of Russia. And it’s 20%, not 30%. Pre full scale war it was 7%, now it is 19%, so during the five years they’ve captured 12% of Ukraine's territory.
Russian goals were:
- Quick decapitation - fail
- Change of government - fail
- Prove that majority of Ukrainians are phone Russians and the moment greater Russia comes everyone will see that Ukraine is not a real state - fail
- Make second Belarus out of Ukraine - fail
- Stop NATO enlargement, Finland and Sweden joined NATO essentially doubling border with NATO - fail
- Dissuade Ukraine from joining EU and make it pro Russian first - fail
- Prove that Russia is a great military power on par with US that can topple regimes at will - fail
- Make Russia strategically independent- fail, Russia is now completely dependent on China
- Destabilize EU - fail, Europe is united like never under US/Russia/China threat
This war will enter history as one of the worst blunders.