(08-21-2024, 05:38 PM)TrumpCard Wrote: The area ukraine has captured is pretty big, like the area of Los Angeles, but the population that has to move is << 1/10th the population of Los Angeles. I don’t think it moves the needle that much.
Agree. Also, it won't get the news coverage that it arguably deserves. The kind of coverage it does get will be oriented to demonizing the Ukrainians and justifying the "Special Military Operation" on the grounds it was necessary to avoid this kind of activity. The drone strikes on Moscow however will be noticed by many more people.
The psychology of all this in Russia is interesting and hard to read. The milbloggers are excoriating the Russian military for letting it happen. Nobody has the courage to question why Putin has such an incompetent military, at least in public. Privately however many people have to be at least wondering if Putin is still "the answer". As I have stated before however, Putin has ensured there is no obvious alternate. That fact alone will make it almost impossible for a popular insurgency to take root. IMO the only thing that can defenestrate Putin in the near term would be a military coup, like the one Prigozhin almost executed. The problem is nobody in the Russian military today has the combination of military skill, leadership ability and courage to pull it off. Putin made sure of that too. Unfortunately for Putin, that necessity makes his military much less effective than by all rights it should be.