Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Bofferbrauer2]

As long as Russia doesn't actually declare war to Ukraine, I think Ukraine will be safe, and will even push the Russians back from where they came. This is because Russia needs to be at war to legally send conscripts to the front. Ukraine did mobilize it's population and has now two to three times as many soldiers at the front as Russia does, and while they're not that well trained, they're still a strong obstacle and just will win more experience the longer the conflict goes on.

And this is the dilemma of Putin. Not declaring war will result in losing the war in Ukraine, while declaring war would mean that his entire propaganda house of cards will fall apart, as it would negate most of the stuff they were saying since the beginning of the conflict.

Worse, the longer he waits to declare war, the more time Ukraine has to dig themselves in and fortify their positions, making it increasingly difficult for Russia to advance without heavy losses, and the higher the losses, the more difficult it will become to hide them under the rug. This will spike dissent, no matter how well-oiled their propaganda machine works, especially among the elderly, who are Putin's biggest supporters, if they get news that their sons died in the conflict.

If you add to this all the Russians who left the country and those who died already and consider that the country has a very aging population already, you can see that the conflict is bleeding Russia dry. Ukrainian refugees will return to Ukraine after the conflict (unless Russia occupies the entire country or tries to create a puppet state under his command), but Russians who fled his regime, which are mostly young and well educated, will not. Their population was already shrinking, and without enough young people to bear children, this will only accelerate further, plus the conflict will discourage any immigration to make up for those losses. By trying to assert his imperial ambitions in Russia, Putin is actually killing his own country.