A few thoughts on the subject backing up what my compatriot write here:
https://skinflintgames.wordpress.com/2022/03/04/on-the-historical-unity-of-russian-and-ukrainian-people/
It's the WRONG
WAR. If Putin's aim is to resurrect the geographic barriers of the old Soviet Union, this is pointless. The Russian nuclear arsenal renders geographic borders moot - any invading army would be vaporised. Plus, the examples of Hitler & Napoleons invasions both seem to forget that both of these ended in catastrophic failure. You CAN'T invade and conquer Russia from the West. There's flat out too much of it.
Plus, in order to secure the other geographic barriers (and if you don't secure all of them, then what's the point of securing any of them?) you would have to engage NATO in the Baltics and Poland - based on the Russian performance so far, I don't see them having the ability to do that for a generation.
It's the WRONG TIME. The Rasputitsa (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasputitsa) season is in full flood, which means huge swathes of terrain off road are basically impassable to wheeled vehicles, which are the logistical prime movers. Plus we're moving out of winter into spring, so less leverage via gas, PLUS they didn't wait for NordStream 2 to come online which would have got Europe fatally hooked on Russian gas and unable to get themselves off it in time.
It's being fought the WRONG WAY. They might have tried a lightning decapitation strike but that clearly failed and now they're trying to use Soviet-era tactics WITHOUT the numbers to make that work. From what I've seen, they have more or less numerical parity with the Ukrainians - more firepower, true, but my guess is we're feeding the Ukrainians every drop of intelligence we have, enabling them to concentrate what they do have in the right places. I've also heard from various different sources that the Russians don't have night vision gear for most troops, which if true is a MASSIVE Achilles' Heel, and we should be pumping NVGs into Ukraine as fast as we can. A 40km long convoy that can't get off road because of the mud and has no night vision capability is just so much scrap metal waiting to be collected by a light infantry force that knows the terrain, fights at night, has motivation (and balls of steel) and these NLAWS which seem to be remarkably effective.
Then we come to the demographics. Since the fall of the Soviet Union Russian deaths have been outstripping birth rates by a million a year. The average age is around about 39, and the average male life expectancy now around 65. Now check this out:
See that "pinch"? That's males born 1999 - 2005, prime draft recruits. The SMALLEST group. I reckon that comes up with about a 5m manpower pool assuming all of them were willing and able and fit. That's tiny, and their most precious demographic asset. Every Russian boy sent to murder and bleed and die in Ukraine who doesn't come home is another one who can't start a family of their own and ensure Russia's future. In sending this group into the firestorm of Ukrainian resistance he is slitting Russia's throat, slowly but surely. Don't forget that the sheer size of Russia means that underpopulation is a real problem for them - if they can't man an appropriately sized military they can't protect their borders.. and there are other predators out there
I think it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that in 20 years time there won't be a Russian state, just a province of a Greater Chinese Empire.
On a side note, imagine what Russia could be if they had a leader like Zelensky, at least roughly aligned with Western values - they could have been an economically dominant
EU power, maybe even a NATO member... now they'll be lucky to end up like North Korea