People in Russia can swallow poverty, injustice, corruption no problem. But they cannot swallow war defeat. This tsar is weak, need a better tsar who wins.

Judging by weak arms supplies by Europeans who don’t want to anger their gas supplier - Putin is far from defeat.

Theirs nothing weak about HIMARS and 500 T72 tanks, this myth of weak arm supplies is nothing more then that, a myth.

Ukraine is getting heaps of weapons and decimating Russian logistics and command and control with it. Enough that even the Russian propaganda is complaining about it.

> Judging by weak arms supplies by Europeans who don’t want to anger their gas supplier - Putin is far from defeat.

The subthread was discussing what would happen in the event Russia was forced to abandon the invasion, if you want to object to discussing that possibility as reasonable, the place is several posts upthread.

(Also, Western aid delivered since the major escalation by Russia this year has been several multiples of Ukraine’s annual defense spending and a sizable fraction of Russia’s annual defense spending. It is not “weak” arms supplies by any reasonable standard.)

Alot of people simply can't imagine other countries might have a fundamentally different way of thinking.

Same hubris that lead to defeat in Afghanistan

> Why should Putin’s regime collapse?

Historically—not universally, of course, but frequently enough to be noteworthy—people have been observed to be displeased with leadership that unproductively transforms large numbers of their youth into corpses.

Listen to recordings of calls to Russian soldiers’s mothers. The families fully support invasion. They are glued to TV and Telegram which explain that Ukrainians bomb themselves and Russian soldiers are brave liberators fighting against gay Nazi Americans.

Besides that soldiers send a lot of stolen goods back home. There was an infamous video from the office of a transport company with dozens of soldiers sending loot like washing machines.

Alcohol consumption increased from an already elevated baseline caused by covid. It does not seem like life is better than before.

Most of the country was miserable, malnourished and in poverty for years anyway. It’s not like Putin’s elites care. It’s basically a serfdom. As long as people obey, and Putin’s clique can build palaces, it can go on for decades.

Russian gdp forecasted to fall 8-10%.

11.2% according to the world bank: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/fr/infographics/impact-sanct...

8 is their internal forecast. The world bank figure is likely more reliable.