Seen objectively, the Winter War was a victory for the USSR.
It depends. While the Soviets "won", it suffered such great losses that its "victory" made it lose face and respect internationally. It also directly caused Hitler to have such contempt for the USSR that he embarked on Barbarossa and made his "we only need to kick the door open" comment.
So was the Winter War truly a victory? It brought about the greatest disaster in the history of the Russian people, one which has scarred their psyche to this day, and warped their demographics forever.
You probably don't remember, but we once discussed this when I told you that the war aims needed to be as limited as possible, if only so that you would come out as a victor regardless of how they turned out. This is also why the US is exaggerating the war aims: if Russia doesn't conquer every last inch, they DID IT, we saved the farms west of Lwow.
The truth is somewhere in between. All Russia has now, is the land it grabbed in the first week when Ukraine got caught sleeping (thanks to Zelensky's incompetence). Ukraine took most of that early grab back. If Ukraine made peace on the current line of control, would Russia declare victory? Certainly, but Ukraine isn't going to do that.
Only times your puppet has gained anything, is when the Russians were woefully undermanned.
Russia overextended and got rightfully punished for it. That's military strategy. I was calling for exactly the attack that happened even from the spring. It was an extremely obvious point of vulnerability. Russia was negligent to leave that line of attack weakly held.
Russia also had a lot of troops in the Kherson sector and was forced to pull them out because it was a losing battle for them.
You're just cheering the prospect of your fellow Orthodox being cut down by artillery. Sad. I guess geopolitical interests run thicker than religion.
Huh? Russians are mostly atheist anyway, and you can't play the religion card when (1) Ukraine is orthodox too, and (2) Russia is the aggressor who launched the invasion.
I condemn Russia for invading Ukraine and then turning its back on the Christian Armenians, allowing them to get bullied by Azerbaijan.
I don't see Russia losing any serious amounts of territory, for reasons I specified earlier. I do support retreating to save manpower when that is necessary though. If you lose your manpower, you will lose the territory, but if you make your opponent bleed, you can use the manpower you saved to take back the terrritory and then some.
Russia has been purposely throwing its men into the meat grinder and exhausting its own manpower in failed attacks. It is opening the door wide open for another Ukrainian counter offensive.
Imagine if the USSR hadn't allowed Germany to encircle millions of Red Army soldiers in the first few months.
They didn't "allow" it, they did everything they could to prevent it. The Germans were just far superior doctrinally and were able to close pockets and resist very fierce Soviet counterattacks aimed at breaking through. Some of the pockets were not helped by Stalin stubbornly refusing to authorize retreats early on, but this quickly changed.
You think Russian elites will put up with Putin dismembering and destroying the country, but not with general mobilization? Then you are grievously wrong about who the elites are. It's not the wealthy oligrachs. It's the security elite.
The "security elite" are a bunch of clowns Putin hand-picked as not being a threat to him, and then on top of that he plays them off each other. Sergei Shoigu was picked because as a non-Russian, he could never challenge Putin for power or betray him. Yevgeny Prigozhin the "caterer" was picked because the Russian military hates him and he is a useful tool for Putin to use to play against the Russian military. Putin knows how to maintain internal control and uses old Soviet tactics pioneered by Stalin to keep his subordinates from ever ganging up on him.
One of the big drawbacks of this approach is that while it makes Putin's personal security situation strong in Russia, it means he has to pick incompetent people who are bad at their jobs. Putin doesn't have a "Georgy Zhukov" and if he did, he'd fire his ass quick. Stalin was only able to tolerate Zhukov because Stalin had reached a point where he felt so safe and secure in his total power that he could afford to allow a few skilled professionals like Zhukov to rise and talk back to him, but even then, Stalin did play Zhukov off of others.
So no, Putin has nothing to fear from his lackeys. They are totally under his thumb. The only people he has a looser control over are the ones who are running his economy. They are far more numerous and he doesn't have as tight of a leash on them, and he NEEDS them a lot since he relies on them to fuel his war machine now. The economic elites - oligarchs - can shut down the Russian war machine quite easily if they balk, and Putin has to way to easily replace them since the oligarchs are smart enough to have made themselves irreplaceable enough as a survival mechanism. So a game is being played where Putin and the oligarchs dance and an equilibrium is reached.
Are you from Georgia or Ukraine? Your anti-Russian hysteria doesn't make sense otherwise.
You already know I'm from LA, California. Born and raised. I'm not ethnically from any "Iron Curtain" countries. And if you think I don't like Russia, LOL, you've never met a Democrat or any other NatSec minded Republican.
It depends. While the Soviets "won", it suffered such great losses that its "victory" made it lose face and respect internationally. It also directly caused Hitler to have such contempt for the USSR that he embarked on Barbarossa and made his "we only need to kick the door open" comment.
So was the Winter War truly a victory? It brought about the greatest disaster in the history of the Russian people, one which has scarred their psyche to this day, and warped their demographics forever.
The truth is somewhere in between. All Russia has now, is the land it grabbed in the first week when Ukraine got caught sleeping (thanks to Zelensky's incompetence). Ukraine took most of that early grab back. If Ukraine made peace on the current line of control, would Russia declare victory? Certainly, but Ukraine isn't going to do that.
Russia overextended and got rightfully punished for it. That's military strategy. I was calling for exactly the attack that happened even from the spring. It was an extremely obvious point of vulnerability. Russia was negligent to leave that line of attack weakly held.
Russia also had a lot of troops in the Kherson sector and was forced to pull them out because it was a losing battle for them.
Huh? Russians are mostly atheist anyway, and you can't play the religion card when (1) Ukraine is orthodox too, and (2) Russia is the aggressor who launched the invasion.
I condemn Russia for invading Ukraine and then turning its back on the Christian Armenians, allowing them to get bullied by Azerbaijan.
Russia has been purposely throwing its men into the meat grinder and exhausting its own manpower in failed attacks. It is opening the door wide open for another Ukrainian counter offensive.
They didn't "allow" it, they did everything they could to prevent it. The Germans were just far superior doctrinally and were able to close pockets and resist very fierce Soviet counterattacks aimed at breaking through. Some of the pockets were not helped by Stalin stubbornly refusing to authorize retreats early on, but this quickly changed.
The "security elite" are a bunch of clowns Putin hand-picked as not being a threat to him, and then on top of that he plays them off each other. Sergei Shoigu was picked because as a non-Russian, he could never challenge Putin for power or betray him. Yevgeny Prigozhin the "caterer" was picked because the Russian military hates him and he is a useful tool for Putin to use to play against the Russian military. Putin knows how to maintain internal control and uses old Soviet tactics pioneered by Stalin to keep his subordinates from ever ganging up on him.
One of the big drawbacks of this approach is that while it makes Putin's personal security situation strong in Russia, it means he has to pick incompetent people who are bad at their jobs. Putin doesn't have a "Georgy Zhukov" and if he did, he'd fire his ass quick. Stalin was only able to tolerate Zhukov because Stalin had reached a point where he felt so safe and secure in his total power that he could afford to allow a few skilled professionals like Zhukov to rise and talk back to him, but even then, Stalin did play Zhukov off of others.
So no, Putin has nothing to fear from his lackeys. They are totally under his thumb. The only people he has a looser control over are the ones who are running his economy. They are far more numerous and he doesn't have as tight of a leash on them, and he NEEDS them a lot since he relies on them to fuel his war machine now. The economic elites - oligarchs - can shut down the Russian war machine quite easily if they balk, and Putin has to way to easily replace them since the oligarchs are smart enough to have made themselves irreplaceable enough as a survival mechanism. So a game is being played where Putin and the oligarchs dance and an equilibrium is reached.
You already know I'm from LA, California. Born and raised. I'm not ethnically from any "Iron Curtain" countries. And if you think I don't like Russia, LOL, you've never met a Democrat or any other NatSec minded Republican.