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I read a lot about this Ukraine war. From both sides, I think nothing is blocked on the internet in this country, so my opinion is very varied. So I have seen a lot of triumphalism from people who support Ukraine because of some territory they were able to take back from Russia, and which, sadly was not really much. The highest number I could get was 8,000 square kilometers, which is about 7% of what was occupied up to that moment. Since then the momentum has stopped and I hear of no more territorial gains except for the occasional village.
Of course, you can take this as a great victory, but the problem is, does it cause any major problem to the Russians? As far as I have read casualties were minimal, in fact by the time Ukrainian military forces got to towns there were no Russian forces, if you look at casualty numbers they were no higher than on any other ordinary war day. I would have thought Russian fallen would have been much higher.
Now, what is the direct consequence of this? Yes I know a lot of newspaper articles and Tweets about the great Ukrainian win, about the shoddy Russian army, about how victory is around the corner. I am more circumspect (I think that is the word), I believe that this could be planned, and not by Putin. As far as I have read high ranking elements in the Russian army have from the beginning wanted whole out war, but Putin just sent a SMO, Special Military Operation, which was not liked, in fact I saw a video of a General saying all they were doing in Ukraine was masturbating, they should go all in.
I fear this Ukrainian recovery of land was the pretext for mobilization of the Russian army, it means complete war, this time to exterminate the Ukrainian army. I know, people say Russia is the second best army in Ukraine. But I have also read the Finns beat Russia in 1939 I think, the truth is the Finns withstood the first Soviet onslaught, the second one devastated them, if you think this is not so, just ask yourself why Finland would give up 11% of their territory to appease Russia and then join Nazi Germany to see if they could get it back.
I am afraid this war will now change, and we will find that after all the West did under estimate the Russian Bear.