Quote:
Originally Posted by unipus
It also seems likely that even if/when the conventional phase of this war is over, many Ukrainians are now fully invested in defending their country, and a long insurgency could most definitely follow. It's a big country, it's well armed (and only getting more so), and you need morale to police an insurgency as well.
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This. Anyway you slice it, this looks like the most enduring outcome. The Russians have bought themselves a long term occupation in a radicalized and hostile country the size of France with an aggrieved neighbor in Poland that is more than willing to throw gas on the fire. The only strategic outcome that makes sense (keep in mind, btw, that none of this makes sense) is that the two client states are enlarged at Ukraine's expense, and a puppet regime is emplaced to govern a rump Ukraine according to orders from Moscow; there's no way to achieve those goals that doesn't entail suppressing an insurgency/civil war. Good luck, Ivan.