Comments by "Tim Trewyn" (@timtrewyn453) on "Ben Hodges - After the Wagner Coup what is the Likely Future for Vladimir Putin and the Russian Army" video.

Makes me wonder if China chats up Taiwan while it builds up its military to recover Chinese lands taken by the Soviets. How much weaker does Russia need to get before China starts undermining stability in eastern Russia and offers to step in and help manage the situation?
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Is there any Russian armed group besides Wagner that could present a genuine threat to the FSB and associated special services? If not, then Putin has diluted the threat he faced from them, but at the cost of some of their function that was for him. The core power of the FSB has been exposed as not being willing to suffer what it would take to forcefully subjugate Wagner. That might give a little hope to oligarchs forming small armies, but if they cannot reach Wagner scale, then they probably do face forceful subjugation by the FSB as have Putin's political opponents all along. This is a regime of survival and they know a great deal about how to do that. The strategy of Ukraine chipping away at the Russian occupation is the right one because it always leaves Putin thinking that time is on his side and eventually he will get some of what he took. The problem with the strategy is that as long as Putin is alive, Ukraine is going to be in conflict with Russia. This is headed for something like a North Korea/South Korea standoff, with the unknown being how much land and people can Ukraine recover from Putin's theft. There is no guarantee his successor will not have the same posture toward Ukraine.
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@capitalistdingo I don't frame the re-assimilation of former Chinese lands as an invasion. I frame it as an expanded Chinese military providing security services in Russian areas while Russia attempts to assimilate more of Ukraine.
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@thomasherrin6798 How could Russia afford not to export oil, gas, and minerals to China for revenue? The discount on all of those resources China receives indicates that China has the upper hand in the relationship. It will strengthen that hand as it increases its nuclear arsenal and improves its conventional forces. The two parties do not have to go to war for China to recover its former lands illegally seized by the Soviets. The change in jurisdiction will be negotiated, with both parties receiving benefits. Russian behavior is fixated on Ukraine, and it makes sense for it to trade very lightly settled land adjacent to China for weaponry and other considerations. Russia has sold land before, e.g., Alaska. There are Google Earth pictures showing suburban Chinese development right next to the border of Russia, while on the Russian side there is little development. It's quite rational from a real estate perspective for Chinese development to extend into that land formerly of China but taken by the Soviets. It would be a genuine recovery from humiliation inflicted upon China, a righting of a wrong, something friends should do.
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@shooster5884 I suspect very few Russian soldiers are willing to die to take Ukraine. They are essentially prisoners, literally or not, with Putin's loyalists pointing guns at them from behind, forcing them to defend the front line. The front line soldiers are from outside Moscow. The elite in Moscow are forcing everybody else but themselves to fight this war. They are carefully preserving themselves in a gamble to increase their power by seizing as much of Ukraine as they can. Does that system ever collapse? Yes, it can simply run out of enough helpless Russians who cannot escape conscription, but can Ukraine endure that without setting up its own demographic catastrophe? If we want Ukraine to survive, then we need to help them achieve several forms of tactical superiority to maintain steady and timely progress with minimum losses. And can we devise tactical methods of striking the Russians pointing guns at the backs of Russian soldiers who do not want to be in Ukraine. If we could do that, the Russian front line may surrender, and rear areas steadily collapse.
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