>He could be forced to shift to conscription for the frontline, which would jeopardise support for his regime.

blyat, хахахаха.

of all the bullshit I read about Russia these days, the persistent insistence that the regime has any support at all at this point is by far the most infuriating one. the best it can get is tepid "the devil you know" from the 40+ crowd who had lived through the 90's and are justifiably terrified of another violent collapse.

It's obvious that Russia is winning the war in Ukraine - Trump has his military advisers and intelligence, too. It's not that Putin is hypnotizing him to do crazy things! The internal criticism of Putin in Russia is not that he started the war but that he waited so long, that now he's not taking it seriously, and that he's not aggressive enough. There's no one in Russia who's more West-friendly than Putin. People who want him gone don't even realize that he would be replaced by somebody much worse!

And Zelensky is super annoying and has really bad advisors - the entire world is tired of him and his constant begging and rhetoric, and subconsciously people want Putin to smash him like a cockroach so that he just shuts up at last! People have their own problems - Ukraine is last on their mind! Everybody realizes they need to give up territories or this will keep going on until Russia captures most of Ukraine!

Biden started the war, but the Brits want it to continue. And what's worse is that Germany is militarizing and using this as an excuse - nothing good will come out of that! Well, Japan, too - you don't even have to wonder how the sore losers of two world wars want some revenge - Merz is not even hiding it!

If the Soviet Union had survived, Putin would be sitting at a desk in Pinsk compiling statistical summaries of telephone taps. Trump has led such a sheltered life that he cannot even spot that type.