Russian-Ukrainian War (2022- )

[nightstreak]

The mood of Russian milbloggers has shifted notably this year. Thinking back to the exact moment, I can say that January 11, 2026 was the psychological inflection point for them.

Why that date? It marked day 1,418 of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And that day count is significant because it took the Red Army 1,418 days to defeat Nazi Germany from the beginning of Nazi invasion of USSR to the fall of Berlin.

There was a mass wave of posts from Russian milbloggers on Jan 11 lamenting this fact.

Now, Russian milbloggets are not your typical armchair quarterbacks and twitter warriors. Majority of them have connections in the frontline units, they travel to the occupied territories, they're involved in fundraising and delivery logistics, etc. They are embedded in the Russian war machine, they are the biggest war hawks, and their mood is a proxy for the overall morale of the Russian Armed Forces.

Since January, their morale has been getting lower and lower. They are openly calling the continuation of the war pointless. They are even starting to hint at blaming Putin himself for the failures in Ukraine (which was almost unheard of prior to 2026). They are up in arms about Russian government's efforts to block Telegram and restrict internet access at home.

One state TV propagandist even came out of the closet to publicly and openly denounce Putin. He was promptly incarcerated at a mental asylum:

Pro-Kremlin blogger turns on Putin, sent to psychiatric care

After seemingly switching sides, a pro-government blogger in Russia who criticized President Vladimir Putin has been admitted to psychiatric care in St. Petersburg. Did he go rogue?

www.dw.com

The time is finally starting to run out for Putin. Sending countless hoards of Russians to their slaughter is a sacrifice that Putin will always be willing to make. But the tides are turning and the soldiers are beginning to ask questions.

The increasingly likely outcome will be a repeat of the Afghanistan quagmire where the Soviet loss cascaded into the end of the USSR. A further ratchet along this path would be the disintegration of the Russian Federation. Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg would align with Europe, Siberia with China, the Caucasus into an Islamic bloc, the interior into a series of independent nations.

I'm not ready to call this inevitable just yet but I believe the fragile glue that keeps the Russian Federation together is becoming brittle and it could snap unexpectedly in a violent and rapid series of events. The no-win scenario for Putin is that either remaining in Ukraine indefinitely or leaving Ukraine a loser would be that inflection point that triggers this.

Putin's only way out is to win the war — and soon — and he missed his chance last year. Trump is growing weaker, Orbán is defeated, Europe is stronger and more united, and Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran are no longer reliable partners. I believe the war will end this year, one way or another.

 

[81-717]

Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg would align with Europe, Siberia with China, the Caucasus into an Islamic bloc, the interior into a series of independent nations.

hbout Moscow?

 

[nightstreak]

Muscovy, that's Russia and likely to remain so, though profoundly changed if the Russian Federation were to collapse, just as the collapse of the USSR left Russia and former Soviet republics changed forever.

 

[Towered]

The increasingly likely outcome will be a repeat of the Afghanistan quagmire where the Soviet loss cascaded into the end of the USSR. A further ratchet along this path would be the disintegration of the Russian Federation. Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg would align with Europe, Siberia with China, the Caucasus into an Islamic bloc, the interior into a series of independent nations.

I'm not ready to call this inevitable just yet but I believe the fragile glue that keeps the Russian Federation together is becoming brittle and it could snap unexpectedly in a violent and rapid series of events. The no-win scenario for Putin is that either remaining in Ukraine indefinitely or leaving Ukraine a loser would be that inflection point that triggers this.

Putin's only way out is to win the war — and soon — and he missed his chance last year. Trump is growing weaker, Orbán is defeated, Europe is stronger and more united, and Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran are no longer reliable partners. I believe the war will end this year, one way or another.

Putin’s only slightly positive way out is to freeze the conflict along the current lines. That way he could sell it as a victory (though obviously pyrrhic given the enormous costs), by permanently annexing the territory Russia now occupies, which is nearly 20% of Ukraine. He’d be able to say they captured the majority of Donbas, and carved out that critical land bridge to Crimea. That’s the absolute best case scenario for Russia, and would be a loss for Ukraine and the West, but it seems he’s delusional enough to believe that they can actually conquer more. That works in Ukraine’s favour since the way things are going, it’s not really in their interest to agree to a ceasefire. They can keep blanketing the orcs with drones until they can’t take it anymore.

 

[nightstreak]

Putin’s only slightly positive way out is to freeze the conflict along the current lines. That way he could sell it as a victory (though obviously pyrrhic given the enormous costs), by permanently annexing the territory Russia now occupies, which is nearly 20% of Ukraine. He’d be able to say they captured the majority of Donbas, and carved out that critical land bridge to Crimea. That’s the absolute best case scenario for Russia, and would be a loss for Ukraine and the West, but it seems he’s delusional enough to believe that they can actually conquer more. That works in Ukraine’s favour since the way things are going, it’s not really in their interest to agree to a ceasefire. They can keep blanketing the orcs with drones until they can’t take it anymore.

Last month, Ukraine took more territory back than Russia gained. They also killed more Russians than were replenished. 6 months of this and the Russians holding positions will be sitting ducks to Ukranian drones.

Meanwhile...

https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/18/europe/russian-influencers-putin-internet-restrictions-intl-cmd

“There’s a feeling that we’re no longer living in a free country,” “How much money do you need to steal so that it’s enough?” she asked, citing “the average MP who owns property worth billions, millions of dollars and holds multiple (foreign) passports.”

The public pushback on the Kremlin come as several recent polls show sagging support for Putin – who has instituted internet crackdowns as he continues his yearslong push against Ukraine at a time of increased economic hardship at home for most Russians, including his supporters.

“It seems that something is shifting,”

Putin is losing the information war back home. Killing Telegram was a counterintuitive move — he thought cutting the information pipeline would save him but instead, he's now he's losing the influencers who sustained his messaging.

Russia got a short reprieve with increased oil prices and pausing sanctions adding to his coffers but that'll snap back as this only accelerates the world's urgency to wean off oil dependence permanently. Russia's economy is teetering and soon Moscow won't be able to pay off the regional Heads and their populations will grow restless. Once this happens, the breaks will start to form slowly then all at once — as soon as one breaks, the dams will break across all of Russia.

In the past, I knew not to bet against a KGB agent; they always have an exit strategy and their patience is their virtue. But the evidence is starting to pile up: Putin failed to take over Ukraine and instead got himself into a years-long quagmire. As a result, he was unable to intervene in Syria and now in Iran and he's watched helplessly as Venezuela, Cuba and now Hungary were taken off his map. With several wrong moves, the chess master is starting to find the board turning against him.

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

I knew not to bet against a KGB agent

the chess master is starting to find the board turning against him.

People should really stop repeating the pro-Russian narrative that Putin is some sort of creme-of-the-crop KGB agent, a masterful spy, and a brilliant strategist.

KGB didn't want him when he first applied. They begrudgingly took him in years later and stuck him behind a desk in an archive. He was a glorified paper-pusher until the end of the Soviet Union. In the 90's he promptly made a career switch into organized crime. And even there, he only climbed the career ladder as high as being the mob boss's bottom bitch (i.e. he was the fixer for Sobchak).

Sobchak's connections with Yeltsin is what led to Putin being appointed as the director of FSB (formerly KGB). Yeltsin wanted the FSB fixed because they were getting a bit too powerful and were posing a coup threat. So Yeltsin put Sobchak's fixer - an incompetent, weak, pushover Putin - at the head of KGB, to take some wind out of their sails. The fact that Putin was incompetent, weak, and a complete pushover is what lead to him being chosen as Yeltsin replacement. Yeltsin and the elites wanted a "yes-man" to play the role of the president while they continued to pull strings from behind the scenes.

It was years into his presidency that Putin actually grew some balls and showed that he was in charge. The man failed upwards all his life until he landed in the Kremlin's top chair.

Throughout his career he has shown zero evidence for being a strategic mastermind. He inherited Russia just as the free market economic restructuring of the 90s started to bear fruit and just in time for global oil prices to double, flooding Russia with money. His foreign policy "successes", however few there were, are based on inaction and waiting for the adversaries to fail rather than manufacturing Russian wins. And in that, he's just as incompetent and weak as ever. But also just as lucky as ever: the man just keeps stumbling and falling face-first into success.

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

In the past, I knew not to bet against a KGB agent; they always have an exit strategy and their patience is their virtue.

Oh, and as far as patience, with Putin it's not patience. It's his usual approach: "If I close my eyes and pretend the problem is not there, it will go away". Again, it's less of a virtue of patience and more of an ostrich-sticking-head-in-sand situation.

Just like with the war in Ukraine. He is incapable of stopping this war because it would require an action on his part and he's paralyzed by the fear of what that change would bring. He's a lot more comfortable not doing anything and hoping things will resolve themselves. People at the bottom of the food chain in Russia are carrying the entire burden of war: from establishing parallel supply chains to completely broken Russian logistics, to crowdfunding uniform and equipment purchases for the soldiers, to inventing and implemented garage-built drone defenses because Russian MoD couldn't.

I guess one reason why Putin is justified in his belief that if he doesn't do anything the problems will just go away, is because there are other competent people in Russia that make the problems go away. And Putin gets all the credit.

 

[urbanclient]

The increasingly likely outcome will be a repeat of the Afghanistan quagmire where the Soviet loss cascaded into the end of the USSR. A further ratchet along this path would be the disintegration of the Russian Federation. Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg would align with Europe, Siberia with China, the Caucasus into an Islamic bloc, the interior into a series of independent nations.

I'm not ready to call this inevitable just yet but I believe the fragile glue that keeps the Russian Federation together is becoming brittle and it could snap unexpectedly in a violent and rapid series of events. The no-win scenario for Putin is that either remaining in Ukraine indefinitely or leaving Ukraine a loser would be that inflection point that triggers this.

Putin's only way out is to win the war — and soon — and he missed his chance last year. Trump is growing weaker, Orbán is defeated, Europe is stronger and more united, and Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran are no longer reliable partners. I believe the war will end this year, one way or another.

I appreciate your detailed and well thought out posts. However, I don't agree that Russia is one ratchet away from disintegration USSR style. Reason being China.

China is unlikely to tolerate neighbouring fractured and unstable nuclear state(s), especially one that partially aligns with Europe. If the risk were imminent, China would probably do whatever they could to prop up the Russian state.

Some theorize that the Americans felt similarly, as they didn't send armaments as fast as they could when Russia was on the backfoot in 2022-2023.

 

[nightstreak]

People should really stop repeating the pro-Russian narrative that Putin is some sort of creme-of-the-crop KGB agent, a masterful spy, and a brilliant strategist.

Acknowledging the danger an individual represents based on their tactical strategies isn't the same as celebrating them for what they accomplished.

Whatever your thoughts on Putin, we're all living in his world right at this moment. He fulfilled Kruschev's "we will take America without firing a shot" threat. Destroying the US from within, flooding western society and culture with disinformation and strategizing to get Trump elected was a decades long project and it paid off for Putin. Orchestrating Brexit in an attempt at breaking the EU and now doing the same with NATO aren't a coincidence.

But even successful chess players make a mistake that breaks their game. I do think he miscalculated Ukraine's resistance and Europe's endurance of economic and energy pain to stick with opposing Russia. He also miscalculated what giving a narcissist power could lead to. Eventually Trump no longer needed Putin and Frankenstein's Monster went rogue.

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

I think we fundamentally disagree on how much of world event we attribute to Putin's active involvement:

He fulfilled Kruschev's "we will take America without firing a shot" threat.

Putin sat back and waited for America to implode. Didn't do anything, just got lucky.

flooding western society and culture with disinformation and strategizing to get Trump elected

You overestimate the influence of Russian propaganda on the American society. It was shown that the extent of the so-called "Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections" consisted of $100K spent of facebook ads and a hadful of youtube and twitter accounts with very few views/engagement. Meanwhile, how much did Hillary and Donnie spent on ads that cycle? Close to a billion each? Plus all of the free publicity they got from legacy media worth billions?

If you think that the $100K of Russian ad money is what swayed the 2016 election, that must have been the best $100K ever spent on political ads in the history of humanity.

Trump still got elected. The problem is with the American society, their culture and their education system. They fell for it. Russia didn't elect Trump, Americans did. And then they re-elected him (admittedly with a much greater Russian financial involvement come 2024).

Americans did it to themselves.

Orchestrating Brexit and destroying the EU and now NATO aren't a coincidence

In a similar vein: Brits did it to themselves, Europeans did it to themselves, Americans did it to NATO.

I'm not saying that the Russian propaganda machine was not involved, but it didn't manufacture any of those crises. Russian propaganda just feeds the chaos once the underlying conditions already exist. They make the situation slightly worse, but the situation is bad enough even without the Russian propaganda.

Regardless, even if you attribute all of the Western fails over the last 20 years to Russian propaganda, again, it's not Putin that is pulling the strings. He just sits atop his throne and does nothing. The propaganda machine was the brainchild of other people. Competent people with the strategic vision. There is no evidence that Putin himself possesses any of those qualities.