Have you considered that many don't want to fight this war?
What could this possibly be based upon (other than NATO's discourse)?
Who cares. The only thing that matters is winning and if they need foreign support for it, then they don't give a damn even if they lose 3:1 casualties. The only thing that matters is winning. Perhaps Russia should have re-considered and taken seriously the fact that NATO would provide this level of support. That's called a blunder. You know what they really need? They need some Iranian UCAVs and they need several hundreds of them and a pipeline/lend-lease of smart munitions from Iran for them.
While the notion that the war is particularly unpopular among Russians amounts to western propaganda, for the Russian government there are domestic and international ramifications associated with committing larger amounts of troops. It's understandable that Moscow has been seeking to conduct this in the least resource-intensive fashion possible. However, it's also true that now the time may have come for Russia to consider stepping up its operations, and domestically at least, the system and public opinion are most likely to support such a move all things considered.
The Russians are not able to advanced in Kherson region with the current situation, they are dealing with lower manpower then before and lower equipment level than before. They are not able to launch rapid offensives. It really calls into question whether or not can Russia hold on to what it has in the next 2-3 years without shifting its economy to a wartime economy, and calling on available men forcibly. The chances of this is very low for Putin to make such a decision. Their are also 5th columns in the country who can use that against him.
Either way, Russia still has lots of hitherto unused resources that are mobilizable at relatively low political cost. The military situation isn't quite as hopeless for them.
Just look at the footage of their air strikes the Russian MOD publishes back during height of counteroffensive of the War. Literally almost every bomb was off target. The target would be the building and the bomb would explode 50 meters away.
Yet it was those same Russian air strikes which helped turn the tide in the Syrian conflict.
Russia started with around 32 BTGs so 320,000. Assuming by now there have been 75K KIA + WIA that leaves them with 245K plus the troops that have to rotate out for rest and reassembly of units that are no longer battle capable.
No more than 6000 or so Russian troops have been killed in action (casualties among local forces of the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics however have been superior).
This was confirmed recently by in-depth ground research conducted by the Russian-language service of the BBC, which can hardly be considered as favorably biased towards Moscow. As for the wounded, the great majority of these return back to service in a short time. A scratch sustained in combat operations is counted as a wound.
On the Ukrainian side however, and by the admission of several Ukrainian sources including official ones, casualties have been staggeringly high and several times the number of Russian losses.
But Putin is stuck playing politics and reality is he cannot call a draft. It would be the end to his rule. He boxed himself in calling this a military operation and not a war.
Russia still has ample maneuvering space, including politically, to increase troop levels in the Ukrainian theater. It did not start out at its full potential. Whether or not they'll go for such an option is of course an open question right now.
It doesn’t have overwhelming support. It has the book 1984 level of support. Which means criticizing the war means your demoted, arrested, or slip out of a window. But with the recent Ukrainian advances we have seen even officials within the Douma begin criticizing Putin along with the outer cities.
The FSB and Military still support him so he should be safe. But his rule is getting long in the tooth and whatever health problems he has is taking its toll.
This is really not the case. Significant popular support for both the Russian government and military operations in Ukraine is corroborated by empirical observation as well as by credible polls. The Russian government enjoys more popular legitimacy than many western regimes.
Also the government in Moscow does not legitimize itself through force. Citizens partaking in opinion polls have no fear of being pushed out of windows, opposition parties run at elections and assorted dissidents including fifth columnists of the west are given wide room to express their views. Russia is a full-fledged democracy, just not a liberal one - which by the way is another trait it shares with Iran.
If anything, it has been the NATO regimes which have gone overboard in controlling and censoring free speech as far as the conflict in Ukraine is concerned. And, this has not simply been done by a propaganda and psy-ops campaign of colossal proportions (as on this forum, where multiple accounts sprung up out of nowhere only to push the NATO line in the Ukraine thread), but by means of coercion as well.
Case in point the German regime, which, not content with freezing the bank account of a young female journalist reporting on Kiev's systematic shelling of civilian areas in Donetsk, proceeded to sanction her parents as well! How very "democratic". Heck, I myself was openly threatened with judicial action by a pro-NATO user on this forum for my contribution, despite the fact that it consisted to a large degree of documents whose scientific value is undeniable for a better understanding of the Russian narrative.
Corruption and Paranoia. That’s what caused Russian military state today.
Much like Assad’s military....commanders were selected based on loyalty not capability.
The Russian military is a professional institution. Assimilating it with random armies of the developing world is something I'd expect from ordinary western propaganda, propaganda which in recent times has stooped to the level of the late Soviet-era Pravda, to be honest.
We do not need US/NATO thinking that Iran and China are also paper tigers.
Another thing we should avoid is lending NATO and the zionists a helping hand in their relentless attempts to completely blacken Russia's image with the Iranian public. That this is a central objective of western (and western vassals') propaganda effort is obvious - suffice to turn on Saudi International, Manoto or BBC Farsi for a second and witness how they keep going out of their way to demonize Russia (and China) around the clock.
As for Russia, once Putin dies...Russia will fall to the West and whatever Yes men they already have planted in the Kremlin to succeed him. I don’t believe for one second that Dmitri who kissed Obama’s *** when he was Russian President or Shoigu Putin’s right hand General are the ultra nationalist they want people to believe.
There is another Gorbachev coming.
Medvedev is unlikely to succeed Putin. The figures most talked about as potential successors are in line with President Putin's policy in terms of safeguarding Russia against destructive western expansionism.
You know why Iran won in Syria? Because of boots on the ground and mobilizing capable forces that followed orders and adapted to the situation. Granted Iran and It’s allies made ALOT of mistakes during that war, some boneheaded ones (Battle of Al-Eis and Battle of Morek) but overall they progressed very well because their high command and commanders were capable. Their officers followed orders and adapted to situation.
Russia does not have capable boots on the ground nor capable officers nor capable commanders.
In Syria, ground efforts of the Iran-led Resistance and Russian air power proved equally decisive in ensuring victory. As a matter of fact, as long as one of the two components was missing, operations had stalled and it was the addition of the Russia which enabled the thrust towards Deir ez-Zour and above all, the liberation of Aleppo, which truly sealed the fate of the insurgency.
Syria is actually an example of a perfect type of interdependence, namely between Iranian-led forces and Russian ones. This is also why despite never ending, regular western propaganda that "Russia is about to ditch Iran soon and expel (pro-)Iranians forces from Syria", no such thing has occurred and western-fed disinformation was exposed for what it is.
Hell Russia doesn’t even have one Tiger Force like Commander to rally the troops and military to give hope. Not one single notable commander that gets results done when others cannot.
Russia and its DPR and LPR allies have had their share of such charismatic commanders. Such as Givi or Motorola.
Today, officers like the Chechen Apti Alaudynov are playing a similar role.
This is an accurate interpretation and the reason why the West will continue to be the dominant force driving the world order.
Strategic Alliances — is what the West excels at. It has NATO & the Quad & Israel/Arabs to counter Russia-China-Iran.
Russia failed at trying to take on the West by itself. Iran has managed to resist while having its economy crushed. China will soon find out this reality with its aging demographics (China’s population expected to fall by 40% by end of century — 25% of population will be over 65 by 2050) add in Chinese growth is slowing to its lowest levels (3%) in decades.
Right now the only tool Russia has left is economic pain vis a vi weaponization of natural gas.
There was a real opportunity to build a strategic alliance to challenge the world order. But Russia and China had leaders who failed to see the bigger picture and build alliances that transcended borders/cultures/and ideology. Iran was always willing to an extent, the other two thought they were powerful enough on their own.
Outside situations of major geostrategic disruption, alliances don't necessarily take shape overnight. However, increasing rapprochement between Iran on the one hand and Russia, China on the other is in the making. There are various signs of this, from the Supreme Leader's statements, to strategic Iranian investments in the Russian Federation as well as Russia's recent launching of an Iranian military surveillance satellite.
Of course the common existential enemy will do everything in its power to undermine the process, and will generously top its efforts off with non-stop propaganda in hopes of turning Iranians against Russia / China and vice versa, but mutual rapprochement will go on regardless.
A second broad tendency that is as palpable, is the tendential comparative decline of the west and the advent of multipolarity. That we may be years if not decades away from the conclusion of this process shouldn't be seen as a reason to assume it's not currently playing out.
that is the official narrative , but how much it aligned with reality on the ground ?
It's not merely an official government narrative (in fact we don't see Russian authorities insisting all too much on this), but something which has been highlighted by various opinion polls as well as research findings from qualified independent analysts.
they are not fighting even against 1/10 of western capabilities. from where you get that entire part from ?
The entire NATO is backing the Ukrainian side, that's a readily publicized fact. And this is making an enormous difference, just like extensive foreign support did for Saddam in the war he imposed on Islamic Iran.
And this goes much further than the political elite of China and Russia not willing to form a true alliance with like-minded countries. Any reluctance of these states to share the burden of confronting the West stems from a lack of shared values, historical consciousness and identity between the populations they represent. The average Chinese is not willing to suffer in the scenario of Russia being attacked by the West. Similarly, the average Russian will not come at Iran's rescue if we would ever be confronted by outside powers.
Compare this to the West. People over here are willing to suffer economically and even physically because they consider Russia's invasion of Ukraine to be a grave injustice and an attack on their own values. Their governments are even at times being accused by their own populations of pussyfooting with their fickle support for Ukraine. Thousands of Westerners travelled thousands of miles to fight on Ukrainian soil against Russia's presumed deadly fighting machine, and more people would do so if their governments would order a complete mobilization.
There may be some support between China, Russia and Iran, but it isn't strategic nor are their long-standing ties that would provide a breeding ground for it.
I would respectfully tend to relativize the above assessment. In geopolitics, shared culture and collective memory do not represent inherent determinisms onto themselves. When present, they do offer a favorable starting point no doubt, an opportunity for the construction of alliances. However, they need to be socially cultivated and/or exploited and built upon in a constantly ongoing process, rather than functioning as indefinite self-sustaining factors.
And that's where political discourse if not social engineering come into play. Hence why the impact cultural commonalities at the geopolitical level can molded, either amplified or entirely neutralized. It's a matter of perspective, and of which perspective is prioritized. In Europe, there was intense resentment, even hatred between nations for centuries prior to WW2. Many of these nations viewed each other as overarching historic enemies, e.g. France and England etc. During WW1, the propaganda issued by warring parties against each other and their peoples was extremely violent. Their shared values didn't prevent them from being at each others' throat back in the day.
Ukrainians are culturally closer to Russians than to the west by practically every measure, yet NATO and its local agents managed to promote anti-Russian sentiments and to institute them as the prevalent norm, after making praise of WW2 Nazi collaborators socially acceptable, in a hugely self-contradicting move. As for western European populations, they've shown some resistance against the aggressive anti-Russian policy of NATO regimes. And this comes despite mind-boggling volumes of propaganda from vastly streamlined, self-censoring mainstream media, and even punitive measures against some of those daring to voice opposite views.
Objectively speaking, it's in the interest of European states to detach themselves at long last from USA overlordship and conduct their own independeny policy vis à vis Russia.
Why is it not happening? One, because of the submission of European elites to Washington. And two, because they are keeping their populations in check through a suffocating mixture of propaganda, social engineering and coercion, which a well inspired analyst described by the term inverted totalitarianism.
Therefore, perhaps it's time for Iranians, Russians and Chinese to start highlighting their commonalities and shared interests, rather than working as auxiliaries to NATO propaganda by bashing one another. And God knows there are grounds for rapprochement between our nations. Speaking of shared values, a long common history of oppression at the hands of western imperialists and resistance against the latter is a good example. So is the fact that all three nations are governed by alternate models not conforming to the liberal dogma which western imperialists are seeking to forcefully impose the world over.
Some of those who keep blasting Russia are not merely lamenting potential shortcomings of Russian policy, nor making constructive suggestions for betterment. They do not actually want Iranian-Russian relations to florish even if the opportunity presents itself, due to an underlying pro-western political bias, which itself is informed by counter-revolutionary positioning as well as longing for a return to the conditions which prevailed under the ousted monarchy, when Iran used to be under the thumb of American and zionist imperialism. It's their resentment towards the Islamic Revolution's driving principles and their desire for a reversal which motivates their input in this regard.
