Comments by "Tim Trewyn" (@timtrewyn453) on "Owen Matthews - Has Putin Turned into a Reckless Gambler - Risking Everything in his War on Ukraine?" video.

  1. Christopher Hitchens described the Russian government as a "psychopathic dictatorship." A study of psychopathy expands one's perspective on that regime. We can empathize with most of the Russian people, but the Russian regime generally has no empathy for anyone. It is psychopathic. For them, winning isn't everything. Winning is the only thing. And the regime is very hard to topple as long as its gunmen and their handlers are paid something and are essentially the only ones armed. A real fear for the regime now is not the loss of common soldiers, but the less frequent loss of those upper ranks tasked with managing and sometimes executing common soldiers, and the far less frequent loss of skilled FSB operatives tasked with reforming occupied territories. A long-term attrition of such key personnel, and the need to backfill losses of these key personnel, will weaken the regime. The regime indeed may have entered Ukraine because its oil and gas prosperity had funded an expansion of the cadre of gunmen and handlers. Perhaps from an FSB perspective, the regime was ready to expand its control over more land and people, and it is likely for the moment that its attrition is not a significant consideration. While crass in many respects, over the decades Russian internal security organizations have refined the business of controlling the population to a high degree, and they have access to the internal security laboratories of the likes of China, North Korea, and Cuba from which to draw additional techniques. The regime's concern with Ukraine being able to threaten Russian territory has to do with the ability to strike command and control, and I mean control not just of military operations but internal security operations. This function is well secured in most of Russian territory, but in Ukraine or near it, internal security force protection is less assured. Weaken regime control of its forces in and near Ukraine and large numbers of Russian troops in Ukraine may very well surrender for the sake of their lives and families.
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