I believe that many people are approaching Russia's methodology of the war in Ukraine in a manner that is quite wrong. In regards to the casualties for starters, for Russia and the amount of people sent, the number of casualties not exceeding 3k so far is quite the achievement with a much higher amount of Ukrainian soldiers dead being over 10k or more so far. While people consider that Russia's withdrawal from the surrounding of Kiev may seem to be a sign of weakness, I believe that it only means that the Russian's are concentrating their forces else where as Kiev may only really be a long term prize while Mariupol and the rest of the Dombass and the east of Ukraine is the places that the Russians really want the most given that no only those is create an even greater buffer but also much of Ukraine's industrial and coastal cities are located in those place. Russians battle plans are not to be seen in the same lens as a westerner might like to see it because right now given the focus of Putin is the denazification of Ukraine, it is obvious that it is not only going to be a big task, but slip ups will happen along the way but provided that tangible progress is made, well really, can we really rely on any news from the west that says the words, that Russia is losing?
Also keep in mind the reason that the Russian's use such a limited forces to go into Ukraine in the first place is because the Russian military have other forces that are deployed around the world in a manner that keeps it's true enemy guessing. Given that the USA is willing to use any measure to win, including nukes, is the Russian's do use a blitzkrieg maneuver to quickly take the capital with over half of the Russian military deployed, don't you think that the USA will be willing to use that chance to nuke that force in order to greatly reduce the Russian military, I mean the moment that the USA uses sanction against Russia in a manner that will harm the Russian people and the complete lack of humanity used to basically bomb innocent civilians to death in the middle east, don't you think that Putin has every right to be a little careful weigh things a little more carefully and do things in a manner that doesn't encourage the western world to think of Putin as a Hitler and thus play into the USA war narrative that could possibility unite the western world into unite front and allow the USA to use nukes with the support of the western world backing them. In that case and with the news coming out that the Ukrainians are basically abusing war prisoners and the civilians in the Dombass being common news areas of the world such as India and China among many others and even worse, have these people being labeled as Nazi's which for much of the world, is very difficult to get people to support given the stigma of that very name, this is working quite nicely to ensure that Ukraine is not going to get the kind of support that Zelenski is desperately seeking from the world and by extension Biden with the general population of the US not giving a crap and the Europeans being more worried about whether they will have any gas at home to use then what happens in Ukraine. In a sense, that alone takes a lot of skill given that the US military is still very strong but also stretched quite thin and also that Russia is fighting on regardless of what strengths the west has spent right now to counter Russia. Each time the USA plays a card (sanctions and wealth confiscation) and fails to have the desired affect, that is another card that cannot be used again and that is also another card that Russia can use at a later date, so in a sense, Russia is doing impressively in that front.
This is a war fought on many fronts, one a military front which has the focus on destroying as much of the Ukrainian forces as possible while focusing on the wiping out of the Azov battalion as a major focus while Putin has to manage the economic and media war being fought against Russia to which given the advantage that the USA has, the fact that much of the non western world is either neutral or supporting Russia, that in effect is a major victory in itself and this serves to make the west look pretty stupid given that all the sanctions and shock and awe has done is turn the Russians eastward to China and India and thus demand that the west either pay in Rubles for their gas and oil or go home cold. This in effect will quicken the death of the dollar since other nations will be considering similar actions could easily be used on them and thus would want to get rid of all there dollars as soon as possible, something that Biden doesn't want happening at all cost. One last thing to note is that with Russia threatening to cut of the gas a critical juncture and with few alternatives for Europe in the middle east and the USA not having remote enough resources to replace Russia and with the amount of refugees flooding into Europe (those humanitarian corridors are a stroke of genius in that it allows the civilians to flood to Poland to get away from the fighting), thus causing yet another migrant crisis at a time that the EU is already suffering from gas shortages, food insecurities and all other issues that the EU wouldn't be having right now if they didn't follow the US and the UK blindly into this predicament, Europe is not in a good place at all. This has the potential to cause some real damages to many economies in Europe, something that many leaders in Europe do not want happening at a time when many of these nations are going to be questioning there leaders on how they managed to do this to them because they wanted to please Biden which I can guarantee is not going to be a very good excuse at all
At the end of the day, I am of the impression that rather then Russia being in a losing position, I believe that over time that provided that Putin is able to weather the storm, he does have the potential to win very big or at the very least, claim on important territory while commencing the diminishing the value of the dollar which will kick start the fall of the USA as a super power. Keep in mind that the USA desperately wants to focus on China with its full force along with all of there allies in order to ensure a real win and also to embolden the USA and its allies that its glory days are just beginning but given that Putin chose this moment to wage this war, Biden is now in a situation that no nation that is a super power wants to be in ever. Either the EU is forced pay for the gas in Rubles, thus diminishing the value of the dollar to the point where its value as a world's reserve is truly called into question or the EU doesn't do so and lets a large portion of its population to freeze which will weaken Europe as a whole to the point where the US will not have the European support that they need to confront China. Also, should the Azov battalion and by extension the Ukrainian military be beaten badly enough that the whole world can see it despite all the CNN coverage, this will be another black mark that Biden will have along with the Afghan withdrawal which is not going to be very encouraging for the allies of the USA if they want to confront China over Taiwan and since China stood by Russia firmly without fail, they can count on Russian support in regards to Taiwan which quite frankly is going to decrease the enthusiasm that the likes of Japan, Sth Korea or Taiwan into having a go with China. I mean Russia has control over the gas and with the good will that China has with the middle east, these three nations wouldn't have any where near the level of courage to try anything given the proven level of unreliability that the US currently has right now. Hence this shows right now that if Biden has any pretense to believe that he is going to get what he wants in regards to China and Russia, he should have checked into a retirement home immediately since he has made far too many mistakes in regards to this crisis that it is not funny. Thus, the USA in the long term, is not going to be in a very good place in the coming years and that along with all of the issues they have right now in regards to food shortage, goods shortage, failing infrastructure not being managed in favor of external crisis's that the USA shouldn't be focusing on could result in a situation where the next big crisis that will happen, is going to be on American soil and they have only themselves to blame
I apologies, this post is quite long
