Russia can throw 10,000 more men at the current problem and advance a yardstick or two in Bakhmut or whatever ass-crack of the Donbas they’re shelling to bits at the moment, but there’s no “winning” this war, not in a traditional sense, that ship sailed a long time ago with the blyatskrieg’s retreat from Kiev.
As a means for implementing crackdowns and pushing hardline policies within Russia, however, it’s been a brilliant play. Putinist elites picking over the corpses of exited Western companies and defenestrated ex-oligarchs are just fine with a grinding war that lasts forever. As George Orwell wrote: “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.”
For turning Russia into a giant North Korea, Putin wins statesman of the year in your book I suppose. For the rest of us it crystallizes exactly what’s wrong with despotism.
