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tl;dr some quick attempts to get inside the mindset at the Kremlin concerning events in the war, in the run-up to Putin's speech expected in a few hours. Everything below could be immediately and awkwardly falsified if he announces some desperate escalation like general mobilisation or a nuclear strike against a Ukrainian military target.
Ever since the Ukrainian successes in the northeastern campaign, I've been trying to get inside the mindset of the Kremlin to figure out what their likely response is.
One thing that is almost certainly true (and easily underestimated) is that they are in their own psychological bubble, and there is no elite team of intelligence operatives whose primary job is to give Putin objective analysis. Human minds don't work that way: we easily form fenced-off epistemic communities that downplay our shameful fears and play up our pride. You can even see this reading the reports of US decision-making throughout the Cold War, when interservice rivalry ran hot and the USAF nuclear strategy advisors were giving opinions based not on what was in humanity's interests or even the USA's, but instead what would get them the most planes and status compared to the army and navy. And of course, you can see it easily on reddit, even getting a rush of ideological whiplash as you flit from one politically aligned sub to another.
(What about people like Girkin? Well, he's a doomer, and an outsider, and his criticisms are mostly quite careful. As far as I've noticed, he talks about the conduct of the war, not the wisdom in initiating it in the first place; or he says that Russia should be more committed, without once questioning whether the war is winnable even with full commitment.)
Given all the above, I think a useful and necessary starting point for understanding Russia's position is to try to imagine what your view would be if Russia's strategic situation was a lot better than you probably currently think it is (this is one reason why contrarian posters are valuable to any subreddit that takes itself intellectually seriously).
What does this involve? Maybe it means you think that Ukrainian morale is weak. Maybe you think that the EU is less united than it appears, and winter will be harder than Europeans are prepared for. Maybe you think that the United States is being opportunistic and will drop Ukraine without looking back when the conflict starts to swing back Russia's way. Above all, you're probably convinced that there won't be another breakthrough like in Kharkiv oblast: that was a one off, heads have rolled, and now discipline and morale have been restored to the troops. Reinforcements are coming in, Iran is sending useful drones, and the forthcoming referenda will encourage a surge of volunteers from the DPR and LPR.
Let's say that you, like Putin, were in the grip of this relative sunny outlook. What would follow from it for your reflections on the wider strategy of the conflict?
Above all, I think you would be aiming to take the long view of things, because the fundamentals are on your side. Forget today's battles and next week's offensives - focus on longer-term military-industrial capacity, and associated active measures in the Russian and foreign populations. You probably don't want to risk a general mobilisation - that might compromise your longer-term war fighting ability - but you want to get as many new volunteers as possible, ideally from less economically active areas of the country. And finally, nuclear weapons wouldn't be on the table; after all, you're winning this war, albeit more slowly and less gloriously than you'd hoped. Why would you risk alienating friends and allies and giving NATO a chance to intervene?
But you might ask, at what point does this Pollyanna-Putin outlook begin to crumble? When does the filter bubble burst, and Putin has his Downfall-style meltdown? When Ukraine liberates Kherson? Lysychansk? Donetsk? Sevastopol? I think the only answer we can give here is that people in general are very bad at facing up to uncomfortable realities, and can keep themselves from accepting painful truths for their entire lives if necessary. Or think of psychologist's Leon Festinger's now famous work on cognitive dissonance on doomsday cults: when the doomsday prophecy fails, people will go to great lengths to avoid accepting that they've been duped. I expect Putin to go out the same way, with his final thoughts being confidence that Russia can still be victorious, even as he has an unfortunate fall from a window.
("What about you doglatine? Why are you so sure that Putin's the one in the filter bubble rather than you?" Answer: Well, I've been trying to make clear predictions throughout this conflict both online and to my circle of geopolitics friends - this post is in that same vein - and I'd say I'm fairly well calibrated so far in terms of events on the ground. Part of the appeal of making explicit predictions is to try to break yourself out of these epistemic lagoons in the first place. All that said, I recognise that of course I'm in a filter bubble, sometimes through deliberate choice (once the novelty value wears off, it's just not fun to consume propaganda you disagree with). But even if my intentions were pure, filter bubbles are all but inescapable. Usually the best you can hope for is to get good at spotting the early signs of a bubble collapse so you can make a clean exit with your life savings and a modicum of your dignity intact. But that's far easier said than done)
In any case, I am curious what others think.
No matter how much Russia underperforms, screws up, or fails against seeming ridiculously favorable odds...
They can mass mobilize a million+men any time it gets heated, while Ukraine is already maxed out (in terms of new troops per week)
they have the old soviet stockpiles that means even as the average equipment regresses decades, they can feed the war machine, whereas the European and even American stockpiles are getting hazardously low.
The Russian economy is actively profiting from the war and global increased scarcity, whereas the Germans are preparing warming centers because they won't be able to keep the lights or heat on.
The collapse of international supply chains if this continues are going to start Arab spring style regime change and civil war throughout the world, which draws the American empire away from Europe and towards Middle eastern deployments, whereas Russia has already secured Assad and its few major allies.
Ukraine's GDP was 3k per capita before the war, Russia's was 10k. As the Eurozone economy collapses and shortages hit the world, the Average Ukrainian's standard of living is going to collapse even if their government has properly managed their food stores so they won't starve (which who knows?)
Russia has already conquered all the territories it geostrategically needed. It has Donetsk and Luhansk, it has Crimea, it has its land border, it controls Kherson and the mouth of the Dnipro river... Those are its victory territories. Those are its bare minimum victory territories... but that's it. If the borders never move Russia has secured everything it strategically needed from this war.
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Winter is not going to favour the Ukrainians... Russia is already in place and has its supply lines. Russia does not have to pull off big maneuvers to win. And the economies Russia is intimately tied to aren't going to collapse and fall to riot and rebellion this winter.
Ukraine just made a big deal of taking 1000 square kms... Russia has taken hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, and the lines have barely moved in 5 months. Unless the Russians mutiny and break, which is very very unlikely...the lines are likely to stay there til next spring at the earliest... all drawing out the war is doing is killing 10s of thousands of Ukrainians a month, and ensuring that the inevitable global humanitarian crisis is all the worse.
there should have been a negotiated end to this war months ago, and the European countries should be pushing Ukraine to cede and accept their loss... not egg them so their constituents can freeze (probably to death in the case of the elderly), global famines can wrack the world, and more Ukrainians can die under Russian artillery... and all to prop up America's hegemony, not even their own empires.
Can they? I think they can't actually mobilize all those men. And if they could, they'd just be turning them into cannon fodder.
Ancient equipment which hasn't been maintained and quite possibly exists only on paper (long since sold for scrap to feather someone's nest) isn't going to help them
The Germans are of course idiots, but it's hard to see how Russia is benefiting.
International supply chains will not collapse over Russia and Ukraine. Aside from Europe's natural gas. If they'd execute a few Greens for treason they could probably solve that problem, but they won't.
Yes, war does that. But what else can they do, surrender? That's not better.
Russia holds important territory now, but they can't just declare victory and stop as long as the Ukranians can fight.
The trick is finding one which doesn't mean "We take Eastern Ukraine now, and the rest later". At this point I think it's off the table until Russia is exhausted or Ukraine is thoroughly beaten.
Fairly certain I’ve seen data that Russia no longer has a trade surplus since their not selling gas anymore and oil prices fell.
And that’s besides long term issues that Europe won’t trust Russia as an energy supplier or that Russia isn’t getting the imports they need to run their economy.
Also not sure how useful 1940’s tanks are today. Not many cars work from then. And they would be going up against HiMars and Javelins. Could be just canon fodder which I’m not sure how many Russians are willing to be.
Is that kind of analysis super relevant in a world where we're talking about mass mobilization of infantry? Russia feeds itself, if it can do that and produce weapons, the current account and living standards are kind of irrelevant if the government retains control.
That's like saying that the flammability of material is kind of irrelevant if it does not ignite.
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More than you'd think.
The reports I read on sustained warfare recently penned by French generals were surprisingly glowing of that old tech actually, if you can bring in the numbers and the industry to make the parts.
The basic scenario they have for a WW3 would be everyone blowing up all their fancy modern equipment in the first year or so (or not using them out of fear of destruction like the dreadnoughts of WW1 which is functionally the same) and then reverting back to primitive but reliable equipment that's about 40s levels of tech once the satellite communications and fancy gizmoes all run out.
Now this isn't WW3 so the parameters are not exactly the same, but Ukraine is in a situation that still makes large amounts of shit armor useful: for logistical reasons the West mostly gave them light equipment and they are running out of the complex weapon systems and vehicles by their own account.
Another thing to consider is how vulnerable armor has become on the modern battlefield. The people now clamoring that the tank is dead and we should ditch it for light vehicles and artillery may be going too far, but modern ATGMs (which is just what the Ukies have been given) do make the difference between modern and not so modern tanks less relevant. If your modern tank blows up all the same, you'd rather have two not so modern tanks.
I don't share your doubts that throwing a ton of troops with mediocre equipment as target practice to the western wunderwaffen would be acceptable to the Russians. This is what Russia does and has always done, after all. And it worked out for them so many times that it might actually be the right call.
All in all, I think people are overselling the materiel angle here. Manpower is a much more constraining factor in my opinion.
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