Putin says he thinks the Ukraine conflict is coming to an end

I think Kazakhstanis closer to China nowadays, I don't think they'd allow Russia invading them.

It's kinda ironic how the orange lummox, supposed to be a Mordor asset, helped to unify Europe. He's going to be remembered as one of the dumbest presidents ever.

Moldova by force is out of the question without taking Odessa, first.

It’s kinda sad that Russia is invading over the resources in the Donbas but if you take into account the cost of the war, the cost of taking those resources out of the ground and putting them to market and the inflation that would take place in the decade it would take to do all that, they’ve already spent more they would ever profit off the Donbas. It’s pure moronic expansionism now. Even the Romans knew to call it quits when the cost of expansion outweighed the profits from resource extraction.

Wait, Russia, a country previously famed for a large land-based army, wanted to attack Japan, a well known.. island? The one who's entire military is named Self-Defence Force? Boy, I think even Ukraine would've been jealous at how quickly that'd have converted the Russian Surface fleet into submarines.

Provide a source. I don’t believe for one second that Russia would attack Japan. Ukraine makes sense, in a stupid, upside down kind of way; but Japan? JAPAN?! Japan would have Putin wearing cat ears and a bushy tail in six weeks. That’s bullshit. I’m not arguing the Reds’ sanity, but that is beyond bonkers. Talk about crippling an entire navy within a matter of weeks.

Got any source at hand? This sounds crazy. I cannot believe that they actually were considering this.

Can I have a source on that please?

Honestly, seems somewhat hard to believe. Ukraine was a feasible target since they’ve been somewhat geopolitically isolated, especially at the time of the invasion of Crimea and despite the fact that they’ve tried to lean towards Western Europe recently and would ultimately go sprinting into NATO/the EU if possible. On top of them sharing a land border and the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Japan, on the other hand, is nowhere near the Russian population centers given how sparsely populated the far east is. They’re an island far away from the main Russian ports. And most critically, while the US (well, under Biden, less so under Trump) clearly wants to maintain a relationship with Ukraine, Japan is one of the US’s most critical allies. And the years you’re talking about are right in the middle of the Biden administration when they really would not have fucked around with that. The US has quite a lot of bases in Japan and projects their Pacific power from there. Russia wanted to attack places like Ukraine and Georgia since they were gambling on the fact that no one would come to their direct aid. If Russia attacked Japan it would be an all-out war against the US as well. I don’t think think even Putin was insane enough to consider that a possibility.

Laughable nonsense

As outlandish as this might seem, Putin might've been banking on China invading Taiwan. That would've definitely muddied the waters and made it so that allies would've needed to split their attention between the two. Very WW2 Axis-style alliance.

It's also a f****** island. No way in hell did anyone in the russian military genuinely think they'd stand a chance trying to conquer Japan? Like wtf.

I don't think they meant that as an insult to Ukraine, that's a pretty typical way to describe a country with less economic, industrial, and military power. What has saved them was their political power and ability to make use of allies.

At the outset of the invasion they did look weaker - their entire military depended on Soviet stockpiles which could not be easily refilled if depleted, as Russia and its allies were often the main or even only producers of some of the ammunition and parts. For example, most western countries don't make Soviet calibre artillery ammunition or barrels, and Ukraine doesn't make Soviet air defence missiles for example. So Ukraine needed to get western supplies to make the shift over to things they *could* keep fed with ammunition and spare parts. Russia was banking on a quick victory before western aid could make a difference, and failed.

tbh that just sounded like a ploy to make Putin feel threatened. Shoigu is not respected by anyone.

March and I believe April both exceeded forty thhousand men killed or injured to a point of not being able to fight from the Russian forces. Ukraine is playing the attrition game to the max. Let them have the land but make them pay with as many lives and bits of equipment as possible.

Official claim is around 35K russian casualties per month. With a goal of 50K. 35k is also what russia is recruiting in a good month for them according to internal documents. Most months it's less

Why can’t he back out?

according to reality in Russia he can do whatever the f*** he wants

imagine how pissed the families of deceased fighters are going to be knowing it was all pointless. They probably knew it was pointless to begin with but, yeah.

They could, but Putin knows his regime would not survive admitting any sort of defeat when the nationalists are already grumbling and the people are angry. I am sure he wishes he had either not done this, or been a lot more prepared for resistance, but he's trapped now.

Ukraine captured more ground in March or April according to different mappers. But it's not necessarily a constant trend - russia keeps trying to push forward, but at a very slow speed with no signs of improvement - if anything it's gotten worse lately. Combine that with russia claiming they will cut defense spending this year (because their budget is fucked), and it's hard to see russia really achieving anything meaningful on the battlefield.