It’s sad to see these final betrayals from Trump and Musk, but hardly surprising. Even now, there’s room for optimism though. These are desperate measures from Putin’s goon squad of supervillains. That isn’t even hyperbole, and it’s really shocking that we barely blink an eye that the president of the US and the richest man in the world are so obviously in cahoots with the Demon King of Moscow.
But - this is supposed to be optimistic. And here’s why: This is ALL they can do, and Ukraine still has the capability to say “Fuck Off”.
And also an upside - their masks are fully off. You can see who the teams are and what they care about.
This is not going to change the battlefield dynamics in a time frame where both Trump and Putin are alive and in power. It will force Ukraine to find some workarounds, and may reduce their capabilities, but does nothing to improve Russia’s in the near term.
There are more threats from the populists on putin’s payroll in Europe - but Ukraine doesn’t have to accept a bad peace just yet. There’s even cause for optimism that Trump and Musk have to do these things at all - it means that Russia is at a late stage of desperation and wants them to get Russia peace it doesn’t deserve on military basis.
Exactly. My whole thesis is that their flailing extortion is a pretty impotent display and admission that they can’t stop Ukraine in any conventional way. Russia’s critical economic infrastructure is completely indefensible and as long as Ukraine can make and deploy drones, not only is Russia fucked in terms of it’s goal of conquering and occupying Ukrainian land - Russia can’t protect it’s own.
The sheer size of Russia’s territory has always been both a strength and a weakness. And while they love to thump their chests about how big and therefore invincible russia is, the reality is that their population and industry is heavily tilted towards and algeria-sized piece of land in the far west of the country, which is permanently within firing range of increasingly powerful Ukrainan weapons.
There are SO many pieces of their economy and demography that Russia has completely mortgaged that can likely never be restored. Oil wells that can’t be restarted. Refineries that can’t be easily repaired. Transport infrastructure and pipelines that they lack the tools and expertise to fully repair. A soviet legacy inheritance than can never be replaced. Data centers that are 5x more expensive to repair than they were to build. Human labour that has been pissed away in Ukraine instead of adding value to the economy. And for what? So that an overpromoted gangster doesn’t have to admit his stupid vanity revenge project was a bad idea.