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[Thanos]

The Bahkmut disaster might have destroyed an entire Russian army, with at least 20000 dead and up to 100000 wounded so far. This could be a Ukrainian Summer with more and more American and European AFVs arriving on the battlefield every day, as the predicted Russian reinforcements that were supposed to arrive in May and June might not appear at all thanks to corruption and incompetence among Putin's immediate cronies.....



For a country that's promoted it's attack on Ukraine as absolutely necessary for its existential survival, Russia seems to have succeeded only in accelerating its own approaching demise simply by killing off up to 300000 of its own male population in the 20 to 35 years age bracket over the last sixteen months. They were already collapsing demographically before the invasion, with the numbers of aged now wildly larger than the numbers of young. With every Russian male of breeding age who gets killed or crippled in this war the fate of Russia really only gets sealed that much more. By the end of the 21st century "Russians" might barely exist anymore as an ethnic or national identity, and it's a safe bet that brtual & utterly inhumane rattletrap joke of a state they've always lived under won't exist at all. For what was supposed to be their saving throw, the Russian attack on Ukraine might have served only to be a national suicide.

Then again, should any people who have done absolutely NOTHING at all over the last five hundred years to live halfway decent lives or even care about each other in the slightest even be allowed to continue? Nature would indicate otherwise, given the reliability of dead-ended species to outright disappear when they prove themselves to be stagnant. Not our problem with what happens to Russia in due course.....



PS: when the Russian release their own casualty statistics the wise thing to do is to double the numbers they provided because they're entirely lying about how badly they're getting outright slaughtered in Ukraine.

[DrCaleb]

Thanos Thanos:

Russia seems to have succeeded only in accelerating its own approaching demise simply by killing off up to 300000 of its own male population in the 20 to 35 years age bracket over the last sixteen months. They were already collapsing demographically before the invasion, with the numbers of aged now wildly larger than the numbers of young. With every Russian male of breeding age who gets killed or crippled in this war the fate of Russia really only gets sealed that much more.

The original invasion force was 300k. They are all gone. The callup was 300k. They are mostly gone. Wagner recruited approximately 60,000 prisoners.

The Kiev Independent keeps a running tally of the daily numbers, and the number of total dead is approaching 200,000 young men (199,460 as of today). That would be 600,000 if you included dead, wounded, and never going to return to battle. Plus the number that fled after the start of the war, and after the call up. Call it a million young men and a few women.

They are out of men, equipment, and ammo. They will not only collapse, but because of Putin, they will remain an international pariah state for generations.

Like Ukrainians say to Russia, "We are afraid of nothing other than your 'friendship'."

[Thanos]

If the current demographic pattern continues then Russia will be in an increasingly rapid downwards spiral that can't be halted or reversed. And their point of no return is predicted by some to occur by the end of the 2030's. If that point is reached and they lose their ability to maintain a cohesive state by the 2060's then they'll disappear into the mists of time the same way dozens of other large & powerful peoples who could only maintain their rule through oppression & terror have faded away. When they're gone and their former territory divided up among those they spent centuries tormenting the Russians will be about as fondly remembered by history as the Assyrians.

Can't speak for anyone else but if I was around at the end of this century and Russia no longer existed then I wouldn't miss them in the slightest. From their horrible early czars through to the communist mass murderers and now onto Putin's gangster regime their impact on the world has been almost entirely negative IMO.

[DrCaleb]

I think that Russia will break down into Moscow <-> St. Petersburg, and then the rest of the ethnic based regions. The distant regions, like the far east Kamkatchca, are the ones to bear the worst of the losses of young men. When they once again realize that they have been the cannon fodder for Muskovites to deflect from sending their children to war, they will realize control of their own autonomy is the only way.

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200K dead

[Thanos]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I think that Russia will break down into Moscow <-> St. Petersburg, and then the rest of the ethnic based regions. The distant regions, like the far east Kamkatchca, are the ones to bear the worst of the losses of young men. When they once again realize that they have been the cannon fodder for Muskovites to deflect from sending their children to war, they will realize control of their own autonomy is the only way.

Unfortunately the peoples who got swallowed up by Russia from the 12th to 18th centuries were all too small and too prone to infighting among themselves to be able to put up lasting resistance. Muscovy's victories weren't easy but they were basically inevitable, especially after the end of the Mongol period and the effective disappearance altogether of any competing powers that could have conceivably thwarted Russia's eastwards expansion. Even the somewhat more powerful groups like Novgorod and Ukraine with their relatively large populations could only hold out for so long against repeated attacks occurring over multiple generations as the Russian empire was forming. Wide plains and rivers that are far too easy to traverse are the worst imaginable natural defenses to have, as the Germans proved back at the Russians in 1941 when the only things that held them back from reaching Moscow in five months was an overstretched supply line and Hitler's idiotic decision to concentrate on the southern front instead of hauling ass all the way to the Soviet capital in one massive decisive assault and burning the goddamn place to the ground.

When the inevitable shattering of the Russian territorial state happens the only concern of the outside world should be the securing and removal of any remaining nuclear weapons. Other than that? Don't help them at all and don't do anything that would either slow down or possible prevent the collapse. They've done practically nothing over the last eight centuries to create any sort of life worth living for their own peoples and what happens to them at their end will be something they've entirely earned. Let them be consumed entirely by the harshness, deviousness, cruelty, and brutality they've permanently ensconced as the major hallmarks of their national character.

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Russia will be a gas station for China. A larger version of North Korea. It will be sliced up and the eastern portion may be invaded by China or at least become a vassal to China. The south will break up into smaller blocs and become like Afghanistan is now. Moscow and St Petersburg will lash out trying to hold on to what they can but the more they exert the weaker they will be. Civil war seems inevitable.

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[Thanos]

Russia's time as a commodity exporter of oil could be over.

- crumbling Soviet-era oil transport infrastructure (berms, pipelines, etc) either on its last legs or now permanently off-line until it can be fully replaced; climate change affecting the tundra is playing havok even with the newer berms as the permafrost enters into a condition of near-perpetual thaw
- massive damage done to Russian well-heads by freeze/thaw cycles after the wells were shut down due to inability to export because of sanctions; the wells are basically fucked, clogged up with goo and frozen hydro condensates, and need to be entirely replaced
- full withdrawal of all Western technical staff that kept the system running and none of these workers will ever go back for as long as international relations with Russia are at such a low point
- it could well over a decade, and up to thirty years, to restore Russian ability to bring it back to the point it reached in 2020, because even getting it to that level took thirty years to accomplish after the collapse of the Soviet system





And China will have more than enough of their own problems to deal with over the upcoming years and they won't be in a position to flood Russia with money in order to get the oil flowing. China is literally bankrupt from their insanity of building mega-cities that are empty of human inhabitants and from their various other cockamamie economic schemes that they've indulged in over the last 20 years. And they're also facing the same demographic issues due to their aging population being massively larger than their younger contingent. In other words, economic growth simply can't be continued when the replacement population is incredibly smaller than that of the upcoming retirees.

Toss in that the wealthy baby boomer investment class in the United States is also beginning to transfer their money into savings and no longer financing as many tech enterprises as they did in the 00's and 10's. Without new tech investments China no longer gets the manufacturing portion for whatever new gadgets get invented. And the ones that do get invented are far more like to be sent to friendly places ("friendshored" is the new term now in use) like Mexico, Vietnam, and Taiwan for the grunt work because China is just far too belligerent & annoying to deal with anymore.

It's a brand new world in it's infancy right now as the new economic and security order begins to coalesce. The system of the 90's, 00's, & 10's is over. Those who benefited the most from it, like China, are about to have a massive reckoning to face as their failures during that time period are beginning to come home to roost.

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Russia does not have the pipelines in place to service China/India. They need shipping which will not be insured. There is no way for them to meet the demand. They will need to cap the production they have and they have no means to resume production for decades once capped. Add to this the exports that do reach market must be sold at half the price because of sanctions or they will just buy from the world market.

They are on the express route to a hermit kingdom.

[DrCaleb]

And nothing of value was lost.