You’re thinking about it in terms of a probable military outcome. I think almost all serious minded people expect that this would result in russia getting their heads kicked in. Quickly.

But what I’m suggesting is a brief, murky invasion into the Baltics where the actual military outcome is irrelevant. Yes, they’ll lose. But they’re losing now. We already know that Russia doesn’t give a shit about their losses. The goal of such an invasion isn’t to win - it’s purely to have Trump play his last part in declining to get invovled, and therefore causing a theoretical crisis within NATO about the sanctity of Article 5, and cause more chaos inside the U.S. itself.

And for the record - I don’t think that would have the impact Russia wants. I think some European states would act unilaterally, especially Finland, Poland and maybe Romania. All those states bordering Russia or it’s proxies have much more skin in the game of keeping russia where they are instead of waiting for them to be cheek-to-cheek with their territory.

Russia hopes this is a NATO-breaking move. But frankly, I think everyone in NATO leadership understands what Trump is, and that he will never honor an Article 5 call. But - that they have plans to act without him, and will look to repair the historic NATO relationship after he croaks. Trying to get Trump to honor any commitment is like shooting rubber bands at the stars.

Interesting war gaming. How would they get to Georgia? I don’t see Turkey or Armenia allowing a ground invasion thorugh their territory, and a naval invasion from the Black Sea seems like a non-starter. Also - Rostov would mean in invasion of sovreign russian territory. That’s a pretty big matzo ball right there. Think it’s more likely that eurpoe sinks a bunch of the Baltic fleet and starts flying patrols for a no-fly zone/drone interception before they start thinking about an actual invasion of Russia.

I can’t see them doing anything to Poland, as it’s the strongest country they could possibly choose to mess with, and it would require a massive build up thorugh Belarus that would be easy to spot. Estonia seems the softest target, they hold grudges and would like to flex on Kaja Kallas if they felt they could get away with it.

Likesay - the military outcome of a test of NATO is almost irrelevant - the victory would be to show that article 5 doesn’t really exist if you’re not one of the big members. I expect there would be a European response independent of however the US weaseled it’s way out of a committed response, though.

We keep talking about what ‘the US’ would do, when people really mean what Trump would do. Trump is special, he’s clearly a russian asset and once he dies, it seems highly likely that whatever follows won’t be as personally invested in the russian corruption project. That’s frankly what makes me think it’s likely that the russians try some fuckery sooner than people think - Trump is their once-in-a-millenia prize and his window to help them is closing, maybe as soon as the midterm elections in the states.

European NATO leaders aren’t morons. They probably know a lot more of the specifics of how Trump works for the Russians more then average muggle does, and have prepared responses ready independent of the United States.

Dangerous to underestimate him, or expect that he will take his SMO lessons and act in a more restrained manner. He has always historically escalated things rather than scaling back. Assessing him as not knowing shit might mean the risk of another stupid invasion is MORE rather than less likely.

No doubt. Poland is a non-starter not least of which because of Poland’s strength, but that it would endanger Kaliningrad and even Belarus. If they DID invade anywhere in the Baltics though, Poland might unilaterally provide military support even if the rest of NATO wavers. And what hasn’t really been considered much either is the Finnish response. The Finns have a more truculent and sober view of the threat. It’s not crazy to consider that in case of a Baltic invasion, both Finland and Poland might decide to unilaterally exceed whatever response NATO decided on. The threat to them is MUCH more immediate than it is to the rest of the alliance. I don’t think the current state of the Russian Army could handle fighting EITHER the Finns or Poles in addition to Ukraine. Dangerous time.

You’re absolutely right if the goal is to “win” by seizing & holding territory. I’m suggesting that that ship has sailed, and they might consider an alternative to victory where they invade the Baltics, and the military outcome doens’t matter. The damage to American & NATO unity is enough of a spoiler goal given their other options. Just packing up and admitting that the mere, inferior little brother Ukrainians kicked their ass is non-starter for the Russians. They need another story, even if it’s completely delusional. “Yes, we lost, but only to the full might of NATO” is a story that just might fly. Certainly Russians have never had a problem getting onboard to a wide collective lie to salvage their undeserved pride before.

True - but you’re thinking logically and as though he wants to objectively win militarily. As in, invade and take & hold ground.

I’m suggesting a scenario where the goal isn’t to seize the baltics, but rather to just prove that Trump won’t honor Article 5 and therefore trigger a crisis within NATO & the U.S. and call that a victory. Even though all of Trump’s shittiness is likely to be walked back under future presidencies, the damage that such a move can do to NATO & America in the limited window they have to be assured Trump won’t intervene to help an ally might be a basis for a worthwhile offramp for the war. They could delude themselves into saying “we proved America is a bad ally and eroded NATO unity”. As in, hoping that substitues for the fact that they have achieved nothing in Ukraine and made a permanent, capable enemy on their borders.

No doubt. Frankly, corrosive corruption is what they do the absolute best - way better than their actual warfighting capabilities. That’s an expensive game to keep all those stooges feeding at the trough though. In past decades, that corruption project was fueled by energy revenues. Russia ain’t got quite the same bankroll going forward that they used to have. Will be interesting to see if they can fund their global stooge network on a re-adjusted oil & gas exports baseline.

Thanks for the analysis, you know the players on the field for sure. But this implies that there is a contunity of the Russian Federation post-Putin. I have no doubt that will be the desire of these vile gangsters, but - in cases where fairly modern states have collapsed into warlordism, like China and post-Yugoslavia, they split into ethnic/crime syndicate boundaries that they’re able to control. Of course they WANT the entire state, but - so do the other sides. My point being - it could be ALL of these guys fighting for slices of the pie. Public support is always fluid as smaller factions flow to the likely winners, and the common people appeal to whoever can provide the best local stability and prevent lawlessness.

Modern Russia has always put all blame on the last guy during transition periods, you saw that with Nicholas, Stalin, Krushchev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin. Meanwhile, the demons scurry to secure their positions and then purges happen. Putin has made the RF so singularly depedent on his brittle brutality, that it would take quite a character to keep it all together after he goes. I don’t think that person exists, or he would have killed them already. Thus - a balkanized russia along ethno-corporate warlord lines seems more likelty than Shoigu, Bortnikov, Belousov just stepping into the post-Putin role. What these guys have said publicly is likely irrelevant as a predictor of how they would rule - it’s dangerous to appear like a competent successor in a mafia goon state like Russia. Just look at that clown Medvedev. He does everything in his power to make himself look like a homicidal idiot that makes Putin look like a stable statesman by comparison. That’s probably a good strategy to keep your life.

What these gangster ghouls actually would do post-Putin is total mystery. Hopefully, they turn on each other and take the hell on earth experiment they call the Russian Federation down with them.

st being disrupted would maybe disrupt their ability to produce food, and it might produce cascading economic losses, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they lose the ability to obtain food. Like, food is a global market. So to cut Russia off from that, you need to either:

Kill their ability to afford food on the global market (including discouraging anyone who might provide it for non-financial reasons).

Blockade Russia.

I doubt that (2), blockading Russia is practical. Russia’s got a ton of overland routes that would be hard to disable, and in any shortage of fuel, the government is going to prioritize food transport.

(1) basically requires that everyone poorer than Russia in her wartime state starve too, and while I can certainly believe that Russia is poorer for being in a war with Ukraine, I don’t think that it’s poorer-than-all-the-countries-out-there-not-having-a-famine poor. The world isn’t in a situation where it can’t feed the global population.

Like, I will very much buy that fuel unavailability has a lot of potential to cause cascading economic problems for Russia due to logistics issues. That’d cause more economic pressure than just the loss of production in the oil and gas industry. But I’m dubious that there’s a direct fuel shortage->famine line.

Body

Good points. You’re right, there’s no way to blockade or starve russia out - way too huge, way too much border you have no access to including China. Not realistic at all. Famine is too strong a word, I take it back. But China can’t subsidize Russian food shortages long term. And within Russia, a reduction in consumer lifestyles is already underway, and the average russians don’t seem to like that very much. That’s probably the basis to continue attacking energy & economic targets, and let the consumer mass of the population fuel unrest to erode support for the war.

Interesting, thanks. I’d assumed it would have to come out to the surface at some point, which…brings you back to it being a juicy, stationary target even more vulerable than moving fuel in disguised milk trucks and what not.

But - let’s say he does have an actual plan and this isn’t complete lip service over literally nothing. If he broke ground today, how many months would it before before said ground terminal is ready to operate. And how much longer after that would Ukraine destroy it? What state will the Russian air defense, fuel network, army and economy be in by then? Better or worse than today?

Isn’t the seabed there super silty and unstable? There’s been claims that the bridge is very vulnerable to an earthquake because of geologic activty + russian safety disregard.

Have a hard time believing he’s got some magic air defense system that hasn’t been deployed yet. Agree I don’t think he’s even trying to make that claim.

I think he’s talking shit to buy time.

All the way to every gas station in Crimea. That would certainly be quite a project.

hink that if it was simply a question of military resources being applied to the problem, you’d be right. But this entire war is essentially the pet project of one man: Vladimir Putin. If he’s ever ousted from power, or dies (of natural causes or falling out of a window), the war will simply end, with Russia returning Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk back to Ukraine. Whoever takes on a leadership role afterwards will have one hell of a mess on their hands, and wrapping it all up neatly by placing the blame on Putin will be the best way forward. “You lost your brothers, sons, fathers, husbands? It was all Putin’s fault. We tanked our entire economy and global standing and gained absolutely nothing for it? Putin did it.”

I tend to agree with you. Just like with post Nicholas II, Stalin, Kruschev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin - every time there is a leadership change in this brittle clown show of a society Russia has created, there is chaos following the transition and the last guy gets blamed for everything. And I agree that the occupied territories will end up returning to Ukrainian control, but not all at once and not all in the same way. Ukraine has options - they don’t have to roll their limited supply of hardware and men into Kherson, Zaporhizia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. They just need to make the Russians leave, and offer a more secure option for those territories than remaining part of a collapsing Russian mafia state. Over time, the most damage Russia will do is to itself. Ukraine will have pushed the snowball down the mountainside that causes the avalanche but they probably will observe it from a distance while they focus on rebuilding their new, permanently altered and European aligned society. They’ll probably have a similar experience to Czech, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria’s post-Soviet one - relative prosperity, genrally stable democracy, institutional strengthening, but low birth rates adjusting to a new, but hopeful, baseline.

But i have next to zero faith that any organized opposition will emerge in Russia. It doesn’t exist and isn’t likely to form spontaneously. What seems more likely is a pure collapse - something more like 1991 than 1917. No more money, empty shelves, spiraling hyperinflation, serfs in bread lines standing around waiting for political change, but not doing anything in particular to make it happen. That means more of a warlord faction type power struggle post-Putin. Ethno-corporate warlords that offer any kind of local stability. Inevitably, they will fight each other, and that process will take years or decades, and god knows what sort of configuration the RF will go through before it’s done. Frankly, I see the Russian Empire in a long term phases of collapse, but in terms of centuries, not years. Kind of like how the Ottoman empire collapsed over 300 years, after degrading quality of leadership, losses in war, losing it’s best colonies on it’s western borders, before ultimately collapsing into a secular rump state of ethnic nationalists like you have in Turkey today. Picture a Russian heartland from St. Petersburg to Rostov north to south, and from Belgorod to maybe Perm in the east. Everything else might fall away into new balkanized countries that will immediately go at each other’s throats like Armenia & Azerbaijan over unreconciled territorial claims and feuding for resource control.

Sure, and that’s okay. I don’t expect russians to “act”, let’s be clear. But the heartless ghouls of 2026 filiming boo-hoo videos about drones and gas shortages are not the same category of WW2 obedient peasant willing to relocate all industry to the urals on a diet of cabbage and rotten potato soup to work 24 hour shifts in weapons factories with the political commissar’s pistol in their backs. They can’t even grasp or tolerate fuel shortages. A tank of gas lasts a week or so. What if Russia hasn’t solved their fuel distribution crisis by the time today’s gas in their cars runs out? If things get worse, or even if this the new normal, think about what that means. People can’t get to work reliably. Wages will have to rise, leading to inflation and higher costs for everything. Industry doesn’t have the capability to move goods around anyways. Farmers aren’t able to harvest their crops. Maybe they will at gunpoint, but - even then - that presumes that the diesel to run the farm machinery exists where it needs to be.

Totally agree that the russian citizens aren’t going to Act. There is no opposition. The Kremlin has done an excellent job of preventing even the slightest chance of an organized political resistance. The generation that suffered was typically able to grow it’s own food. Today’s Russians have 80% living in urban areas in the western edge of country and have never planted a potato, nor do they have a garden to even try. It’s not necessary or likely, as you point out, that the average russian is going to act. But that’s not the only way a collapse happens. If anything, the modern russian urban dweller’s lack of self sufficiency doesn’t need them to act at all to be a major problem for the Russian government. No fuel, no food. No Food, no war.

Very good points. Lukashenko has been an obedient pup for Putin over the years, yet he has been meek and more conciliatory of late. Not out of benevolence, of course - he’s had a knack for survival, must know he’s bet on the wrong horse and has found himself isolated.

That’s another chapter in the future Wikipedia page. But - the problem with having ships, as any boat owner knows, is that they’re bloody expensive to build and operate, but kind of fragile. Surface gunboats were the ultimate expression of power projection in the 19th century, then once planes got invented, people figured out that it was way more cost effective to sink ships with massed planes than with other ships. Submarines were a stealthy superweapon under sonar and depth charges could be outfitted on just about any ocean going vessel.

Ships are so expensive and time consuming to build, that they’re nearly obsolete between the time they’re ordered to the time they launch. Ukraine has found several ways to destroy surface ships cost-effectively with missiles, air and sea drones. China, who have been on a ship building binge for years, might be re-thinking their entire doctrine. Taiwan has certainly been paying attention to Ukrainian Naval activities. And you think tank and air crews are expensive and time-intensive to train? Think about the operating & training costs of a friggin’ ship with hundreds of specialist technicians, engineers, sailors, logistics etc.

Historically, 2nd tier navies who’ve tried to compete with big dogs, like the Italians, Germans, Austro-Hungarians spend all this time and money on fleets, then the have one big engagement, lose a few ships, and decide it’s safer to stay in port. Or worse, like Taranto for the Italians, Bismarck for the Germans, Yamato for the Japanese, your uber weapon ships get destroyed by last generation bi-plane swarms dropping torpedos. Navies are a funny thing that way.

No kidding. You’re right, Ukraine might well have accepted a ceasefire along the current frozen lines, including Crimea in early 2025. A year and 400,000 casualties later, they have been able to make ukraine retreat from Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. But - the viability of Crimea is teetering, the country is in outright energy crisis and Moscow itself is capable of being droned regularly with air defence growing weaker every day, every where.

It’s hard to view this conflict in historic terms - but you have to go back to the Persian Empire deciding to show Alexander who was boss before having their ass rolled back to Bactria for a comparison of a totally unnecssary imperial self-own of this scale.

There’s no reward to the Belarussian people for dying for Putin’s vanity. Do you thnk the average Belarussian gives a sparrow’s fart about the prestige of hosting Russian tactical nukes? Any reward Putin gave for their service would of course be for the corrupt gangster class. It’s a non-starter, AND Belarus’ army is useless for the challenges Ukraine poses.

Without any kind of formula, Belarus has no way to actually actuate on entering the war in a way that won’t immediately become politically untenable domestically and internationally. The answer russia has pointed to for concentrated armored maneuver in the drone age are Turtle “Tanks” but the problem is they don’t work perfectly against drones and for that meager benefit the trade off is they are horrifyingly less effective at protecting against every other anti-tank weapon and doctrine NATO has spent decades perfecting the use of…

I would go as far a

To be fairer to them than they deserve - it wasn’t supposed to go this way. Ukraine was supposed to roll over, Zelensky was supposed to flee. It’s been said by people more clever to me that Putin wants to be seen as a 4D Chess player, but what he really is, is a Poker player with a fat stack who always bluffs.

But hubris is a prison and he can’t only get what he holds now for all that they’ve spent. He’s on tilt, to continue the poker analogy.

I think the total lack of a Purpose of this plan other than the glory of making gangsters a little bit richer leads to the extreme brutality we see. Indiscriminate terror bombing, beheading, executing POW’s, Bucha, Irpin etc. When you don’t have a bloody purpose for being there, then soldiers go to us-vs-them genocide pretty easily. Chaos is never more than a couple paycheques away they say - or something like that. In short - they don’t know what the hell they’re doing, therefore they don’t how to stop or when they’re “Done”. The Idiot Tsar has set a ludicrous condition of triumphant tank columns rolling through Kyiv as the only condition for success. Since that is not going to happen - now what? Keep the industrial murder rolling until something changes.

As for Belarus - well, I can’t see that they’d be a needle-mover. Their security forces are intentionally kept small to be affordable and be useful only for internal repression. They aren’t even a 5th class assault force that could save the day where the entire Russian army has bashed it’s brains in to the bristling hardened hedgehog that Ukraine has turned itself into. If Lukashenko sentences his citizens to death for Putin’s glory, AND he pisses away his relatively tiny army in a month or two dying in the boggy lands of northern Ukraine, his head will be on a pike, either by Putin for failure or by his own citizens giving him the Ceaucescu treatment.

They don’t have a plan, really. They never had a plan other than “Ukraine surrenders, we incinerate a million or so to make the rest docile and we all get slightly richer”.

EX-FUCKING-ZACTLY. Thank you.

Airpower has hard limits, as the U.S. just recently found…again…in Iran. You need effective boots on the ground to move the needle. Even the massive, sustained, years-long Strategic Bombing campaign in WW2 required sending in massed ground forces right into the center of Berlin to end the European portion of the war. No air campaign has ever by itself achieved strategic political objectives in history.

And the air war that Russia is using for stand off terror attacks is INCREDIBLY resource intensive. It’s costing Russia billions to kill a handful of innocent people every day. Those assets, including the crews, are expesnive and the aircraft are essentially irreplaceable, with finite lifespans before you consider losses.

Russia essentially has a three part strategy at this point:

1. Push small infiltration teams into soft areas. Hope they live long enough to encourage organized resistance to fall back to the next line of defense.

2. Stand off terror bombing.

3. Keep doing 1 & 2 until they give you something to make it stop.

The problem with #1 is that your policy is Infestation. But - like bugs, mice or rats, you can kill them now, soon or later. But eventually, you can get them all with enough Repellent & Traps. In this case, drone saturation.

The problem with #2 is like you said - it does not achieve a political objective

#3 only works if #1 does, and #1 only works if Ukraine agrees to stop killing your forward forces. Just ask the U.S. how vietnam went. They could engage enemy forces and eventually win battles - but then your occupying forces get sniped, bombed, shelled, droned, counter attacked. Eventually you realize that the cost of holding land is untenable - you can’t pacify the ground, so you eventually choose to leave. What “works” for infiltration is not the same strategy that works for occupation. If the Ukrainians never stop bleeding the Russians, then the entire point of occypying and exploiting economic activity on the stolen ground never materializes. And they have to leave.

This is the recurring argument I have with people online who say “UKRAINE CAN’T RETAKE CRIMEA”. They don’t have to. They just have to make the Russians leave. If Crimea has no food, no fuel, no water, it is a barren rock outcrop that is bloody well uninhabitable. A tragedy, but - in the interim, it is also a buffer zone between Ukraine and Russia. When Russia either grows up or collapses, then maybe a peaceful existence becomes possible. Seems insane, but - time is a funny thing. The Germans and Japanese were certainly rehabilitated as global community members, but only after their malignant political class was deconstructed.

This war is existential for Ukraine, and no serious minded person expects the russians to honor any peace agreement long term. Russia gave Ukraine no choice - Death, Enslavement or Fight. If Russia stops fighting, there is still a Russia. Probably. If Ukraine stops fighting, there is no Ukraine. Not as a country, not as a culture, not as a people. Bleeding the Russian army until there is fundamental change in the political leadership or structure of the Russian Federation is probably the ONLY way for Ukraine to secure a lasting peace.