Comments by "Olga P." (@olgap.) on "Can Putin accept defeat? — Russia's way out of the war. 04MAY2022" video.

  1. Gosh, it would take at least 10 times watching this video to count how many times I agreed and disagreed with you. Agree with you on the nuclear war perspective but would change results of accept defeat and mobilization for priorities nr. 1 and 2. Regarding material and financial effort of the USA I struggle to believe it is not jet a proxy war. As you said, Putin wants to keep the war in Ukraine. As the conflict will not end with acceptance of defeat, it will have to move somewhere else. Does not sound like keeping war out of Russia. If Putin accepts defeat under the narrative of war Russia against the West it will be seen as weakness, and that does not help to keep power in Russia. Turning the special operation into the war officialy as an answer to unfriendly actions of the West who is eager for escalation is the only way to keep power in Russia and the war out of Russia at least for some time. Unfortunately only escalation makes sense on both sides. As you said before, Russia did not start it to achieve nothing. One could add, the West did not participate to achieve nothing either.
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  2. Or 5 days to start the war officially.
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  3.  @JMAssainatorz  Majority of Russian population is old enough to remember how devastating it was. It is not so much about the fact itself, but the way how it happened and its outcome. Russians call the end of Soviet Union "razval" - breakdown, collapse, demolition from inside. Another often used wording is "prosrali sojuz" - those in charge screwed it, waisted potential, made things worse etc. At first under Putin things started to turn better. Any other Russian president could afford ending up worse than he started, but not Putin. Any outcome of the conflict that reminds 1991 will be impossible to sell as a victory. Hmm, can Russians really think "hooray, we became the 2. Iran, but we got Donbas!"?
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  4.  @wot-a-noob7257  Sounds like typical black Russian humor.
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  5.  @Asptuber  Please don't take thoughts of a bored, not even interested in politics, housewife too serious. ""As the conflict will not end with acceptance of defeat, it will have to move somewhere else. " Hmm, are you thinking Georgia? Some other non-NATO ex-soviet state?" To answer that we need to know why Ukraine is being under attack now. If we look at it as part of a larger disharmony gone conflict NATO-Russia going on since 1991, any non-NATO country where USA starts peeing on Russia's leg can be next. No, I don't think Putin will try to swallow one country after another without any threat to be expected. But who am I to judge what is threat in Putin's opinion? ""If Putin accepts defeat under the narrative of war Russia against the West it will be seen as weakness, and that does not help to keep power in Russia. " Putin needs something that can be dressed up as a victory. The smarter way for him to get this would be to concentrate not on "the West", but on the Ukronazis. " Well, the narrative The West is against us and we have to stand our ground is already there. He can not shake it off while the West is increasing its involvement on a daily basis. ""Turning the special operation into the war officialy as an answer to unfriendly actions of the West who is eager for escalation is the only way to keep power in Russia" But this would be stupid*, because there is less possibilities of victory, and more problems from unrest at home. *Stupid as things stand now. But if the West, or a neighbour (Moldova would be the prime candidate, maybe Georgia, or Azerbadjan?), somehow let itself be baited into the conflict, the calculation changes dramatically. If someone gave him a clear casus-belli that he could "win" this scenario works much better." Exactly, "*Stupid as things stand now." and only if you look at this military operation on its own. I think this special military operation was not even planned to happen. Concidered as one of options, but not a firm plan from the start. What triggert the invasion? Now he is in Ukraine and it would be fatal ambarrassing to loose the operation against Ukraine. But being in a war with the West trying with all means to prevent Russia protecting its interests is something different. Loose the battle to win the war later could be a plausible explanation for Russian population. Winning the war would be here to weaken the West till is gives up and starts cooperating again. "The problem for Putin is that he can't turn this into an actual big war (aka world war 3), because he can't win that. He can only escalate for the home audience, not in reality (at least not too much). Great escalation in reality leads to a really humiliating defeat, and loss of power for him, and in the worst case destruction of Russia as it is now. " There is nothing Putin can do, Russia will not be as it was before 24th of February. Do you believe, that if the invasion stops today, Russian army leaves all Ukrainian territories including Donbas and Crimea, USA and EU will pretend nothing happened and set back the framework to the conditions of the middle of 2021? Putin does not only need a victory he can sell at home. That helps short term, but in the long run he needs something that either brings Russia and EU at least trading with each other again or to build up new partnerships that are able to compensate the EU. Russia can not win WW3 on its own, can not afford loosing this spesial military operation either. NATO can not stop after massive participation and harm dome to own economies as well. I don't think Putin will escalate proactive, he will react to what he defines to be an attack. Both sides, NATO and Russia, can not just stop, both sides can not endless escalate. Economies of all participants suffer, the money will decide over win or loose.
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  6. That would be to good to be true. You can only do this stunt ones. It is a spent idea after dissolution of the Soviet Union.
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