Putin seems to be going for the whole country, not just Donbass. While they can probably defeat the army, after the “mission accomplished”, can they build Ukraine to be better and gain support of the people even in the west? If they can’t gain the support of the people in the west they’ll have to deal with nationalist guerrilla warfare and NATO sponsored terrorist attacks. Generally I see this as a shitty situation and not really in Russia’s favor. China seems to be the one that benefits though, and resources devoted to fighting Russia are resources not going towards fighting China.
the aftermath is almost certainly going to be a big pain for Russia, which is probably part of why the government waited for so long to enter Ukraine (in case the West decided to follow the Minsk agreements, since that would’ve been a far less messy outcome)
NATO countries do be depleting their weapons tho
Putin seems to be going for the whole country, not just Donbass. While they can probably defeat the army, after the “mission accomplished”, can they build Ukraine to be better and gain support of the people even in the west? If they can’t gain the support of the people in the west they’ll have to deal with nationalist guerrilla warfare and NATO sponsored terrorist attacks. Generally I see this as a shitty situation and not really in Russia’s favor. China seems to be the one that benefits though, and resources devoted to fighting Russia are resources not going towards fighting China.
the aftermath is almost certainly going to be a big pain for Russia, which is probably part of why the government waited for so long to enter Ukraine (in case the West decided to follow the Minsk agreements, since that would’ve been a far less messy outcome)