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Reptard77 t1_ja53y8f wrote

Reply to comment by finnlaand in Putin casts war as a battle for Russias survival by R1ckCrypto

Let’s be clear. Putin would 100% be overthrown by the Russian people if he loses the war in Ukraine. Probably hundreds of thousands of dead men? Global pariah state to the worst point since the Soviet era? Good luck.

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Basas t1_ja568m9 wrote

I think his propaganda team would just have to work extra hours and he would be alright.

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twonius t1_ja57elv wrote

Yeah the Russians dont seem to want a return to the 90s. The aftermath of overthrowing putin would be a fiasco.

He might just find some juicy scapegoats, consolidate more power and move on.

The worry that prompted this war was that a liberalized Ukraine would make Russians ask uncomfortable questions but i think hes sucessfully driven a wedge between them at this point.

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Dreamer812 t1_ja7hkvh wrote

Pretty much this. People just too scared; tired of revolutions; don't care so he can basically rule for as long, as he can. And if/when he will be thrown out of Ukraine, propaganda machine can just say: "To manage peace in the world, we have decided to let those territories go as whole NATO is fighting us and we would never fight a nuclear war with them. We are peacemakers, liberators - not killers of the whole world. *some patriotic speech about ancestors fighting fascism/nazism in WW2 and falling of western civilization under Nazism from Ukraine"

It's 1984 over here. Full-scale shit show

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keragoth t1_ja8j5p9 wrote

I think a whole lot of Russian citizens have been "quiet quitting" since about ten years after the Soviet collapse. They have seen the massive corruption of the Soviet heirarchy, combined with the economic octopus of the black and grey markets merge into a system of looters and absconders and resource-partitioning oligarchs to a point where American corporatist capitalism looks like free market anarchy by comparision. They have checked out, ducked their heads, and "gone along to get along" so long that they have no tools to respond to pressure from above. This affects Putin, because by doing the bare minimum, or doing their jobs only on paper, they have allowed or even actively particiapated in a dissection, hollowing out and selling off of all the things that in Putin's view made the country great. He tried to attack a foreign state with a paper army, and now he knows he must win before it collapses of its oen weight and takes him--and a lot of the Russian system of governement--with it. Riding a tiger is only dangerous when you try to get off. Riding a Paper Tiger is dangerous when the rest of the tigers cease to be fooled.

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URAPNS t1_ja5h8za wrote

That's alot of open windows, but I agree with you.

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SiarX t1_ja8j7r7 wrote

TV propaganda does not work on his cronies, though. Coup is a possible threat.

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sicariobrothers t1_ja5bkms wrote

Not the Russian people he’s afraid of it’s the cabal of oligarchs that have been team Putin this long. If they decide to make a move (and can kill his internal personal thug army) then it’s a wrap.

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Wendigo_lockout t1_ja5dvfw wrote

>If they decide to make a move (and can kill his internal personal thug army) then it’s a wrap.

If ifs were fifths, we'd all be drunk

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sicariobrothers t1_ja5filc wrote

Well losing UKraine war is the context of the “if”

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Expensive-Document41 t1_ja6dl8y wrote

Not quite. Russia has already lost in every meaningful way. At this point all they can really do is take land.

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Russia is still fighting the Ukrainians to secure the "annexed" portions. Right now the war has clear lines between Russian control and Ukrainian control, which is why Russia hasn't gotten to the hard part. If (big if) the Russians manage to hold any of what they currently occupy then they have to occupy it in perpetuity.

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As an analogy, when the U.S. went into Iraq, the war part analogous to what is happening in Ukraine was over in months. Russia just rolled over into 1 year. The part where the U.S. lost the vast majority of it's soldiers was to unsymmetrical warfare. IEDS and partisans hiding in the general populace. If Russia can't win just the invasion then they have no idea how hard the occupation will be.

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Russia has crippled a generation of it's youth, become an international pariah with crippling sanctions, shown to be an untrustworthy source of energy and doesn't have any of it's objectives comfortably secured.

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TL;DR: Russia has already lost. Now it's just sunk-cost fallacy.

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255001434 t1_ja6rigi wrote

You're not wrong, but what matters for Putin is whether or not the Russian public believes they lost. They know it isn't going easily, but they don't know they have no hope of winning and that Ukraine will never be theirs. A difficult war is one thing, but retreating in shame and failure is another.

When they stop recruiting soldiers and instead they come home with nothing gained, Putin will look like a fool and will be overthrown. They will tolerate a brute, but not a failure.

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sicariobrothers t1_ja95297 wrote

I agree overall. My point was specific to perception of winning or losing amongst the power elite in Russia related to turning on Putin.

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SaltyBacon23 t1_ja6qege wrote

Exactly. It's why they are forming their own army's. They are prepping a force to take over. Russia is going to be an uuuuugly place to be by the end of the year.

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ChomiQ84 t1_ja706ra wrote

For now everyone is afraid of open windows in high places.

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diito t1_ja5wajk wrote

I'd put the chances at way less than 100%. I don't even think it's likely. The country is full of brainwashed morons who actually believe they are a superpower, Ukrainians want to be "liberated", and a whole bunch of obviously false bullshit. The smart ones have either left the country or are silent out of fear. People don't work that way. If you present them with evidence that runs counter to their worldview, they will just double down and dismiss it. Putin will just offer up some alternate reality where the whole war isn't his fault, blame the west and/or something else, prepare for round 2, and the brainwashed masses will eat it up. There is also the issue of no alternatives. Everyone who has any slight chance has blood on their hands with the war.

Putin gets overthrown when the war impacts average Russians ability to support their basic needs, when they can't afford to buy food. Nothing even close to that has happened yet. It may not. But that's what it will take.

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indigo0427 t1_ja5gg4z wrote

I dont think he will be overthrown. They will just say they accomplished teaching a lesson to west and move on. Its hard to overthrow dictator aka xi and Kim Jung Un. Also their war propaganda is so powerful. Reminds Trump supporter level…

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o_MrBombastic_o t1_ja5olbm wrote

Dude has cancer and looks like shit one way or another he's not making it to the end of the war

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unpossible_labs t1_ja5ozng wrote

If Russian history shows us anything it's that forecasting what'll happen in the future is never a 100% sure thing.

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raymmm t1_ja6brch wrote

100%? I doubt it. And people that says the oligarchs will betray him probably thinks the oligarchs are some warlords with their own private army or something. Let's be clear, within Russia, Putin has all the power. Oligarchs with money but without power doesn't mean shit else at least a few of them would have tried something significant by now. Our best bet is to hope Putin renovates his office/home and change his window since there seems to be a "people falling out of window" problem in Russia.

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SiarX t1_ja8jmbo wrote

Oligarches are not warlords, true. But Putin buddies like Prigozhin, Shoigu, etc are not just rich people, they have a lot of power and influence.

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Kastrenzo t1_ja63h12 wrote

The Russian "people" wont do shit.

the gangsters, oligarchs and disgruntled military, might.

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Skrewrussia t1_ja6s5qj wrote

Do we still think russia will lose?
I mean if the chinese supply them with weapons, they could still win right?
I really dont know how things really are, theres too much news to sort through.

Plus, I just read that it might be possible the US pull out their support, is this also true?

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BobbyP27 t1_ja6x2bz wrote

What exactly would a Russian “win” look like? They’ve turned Europe away from dependence on Russian energy exports. They have demonstrated that their military is far inferior to the strength it was perceived to have a year ago. They have made every neighboring country terrified of Russian aggression, prompting significant rearmament of European countries. Even if they destroy Ukraine’s military, they will be left with a huge country of people who hate them who they will have the choice of either trying to occupy in the face of a terrible insurgency campaign for decades, or to withdraw, and basically let Ukraine rebuild itself but with a blood soaked hatred of Russia for generations.

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bjarkov t1_ja736cd wrote

The Russian objectives of the war have changed since the invasion began, starting with most of Ukraine under Russian control, then moving on to recognized annexation of the regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zhaporizhzhia. Probably a Russian "win" would be recognized annexation of any of the above regions as well as a recognition of Krim as a Russian territory.

The question is if any of these objectives are compatible with a Western view of a Ukrainian "win", which so far amounts to reverting to pre-2014 borders.

The diplomatic and political price of a Russian win, however, looks like it will be very high and will affect regional safety politics for decades to come, firmly estranging Russian interests from the western world

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BobbyP27 t1_ja759bm wrote

If that's what counts as a "win", then it does not bode well for Russia in the longer term if they do. The best they would get out of that is something like the situation in Northern Ireland, which involved decades of terrorist insurgency type fighting, and was only sort of resolved when the UK agreed to significant concessions of both autonomy and an agreed potential path to a united Ireland. Is Russia prepared to endure that?

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bjarkov t1_ja77ir9 wrote

I don't disagree with you. The conflict and the consequences are far-reaching and infeasible, with no good way back to normality.

But to Russian autocrats, this conflict is becoming a matter of honor. Putin (and probably his successor) will be committed to seeing this through, until the conflict reaches a state where a peace plan involving territorial concessions to Russia is acceptable to Ukraine and the west. I worry that the conflict will continue (and possibly escalate) for years before we've reached that state. At which point your scenario of insurgency kicks in.

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