Reply To: Russian Tensions
While Russia’s army is much greater than Ukraine’s in total, they can’t commit everything, since they need to hold the whole of their vast territory.
Yes, I think by the end of the year Russia might well have occupied all Donbas.
NATO’s cupboard isn’t entirely bare, just strained relative to what the member states think they can spare versus maintaining their own battle readiness: and relative to non-total war arms manufacture: they can keep supplying long enough to maintain a viable Ukrainian army in the field.
Yes, they may have to keep falling back on new defences, but it doesn’t look like they are headed for open rout.
As Alan says, we don’t really know, so maybe everything will change, but the fact the most likely thing is that some sort of frozen conflict will emerge.
From a Kremlin POV that would still be a win: they’d have proven they were willing to commit blood and treasure to defending their turf, and turn Ukraine into a ko position for the foreseeable.
