Just hope for humanity’s sake that Putin isn’t succeeded by Dmitri Medvedev.
As always there is the “devil we know…” issue.
As to
Medved he is like Greene, he says what he wants because it really has no impact, if he became “president” again then his talk has consequences and would have to be backed up
Despite all this of putin still going light, and Russian gdp…their “gains” have all the hallmarks of the battle of the bulge.
Vast amounts of men and material lost for little gain.
The battle field has substantially changed with drones and precision weapons.
Imagine a WW2 style Kursk battle of massed armor and infantry butting heads. Half or more would never even make it to contact the contact line. Logistics would be hit like it wasn’t able to be back then and the ability to sustain such operations would be doubtful.
This applies to both sides. If Ukraine stages an offensive they would run into the same problems russianis facing trying to advance
Constant harassment by drones, mine fields, supply lines attacked
IMO, any substantial gains by Ukraine will come only if there is some kind of collapse by Russian military brought on by changes in the Russian political winds.
I do have a belief that this could happen, as putin likes to quote “history”, events like this are not unknown within Russia. The greatest threat to his “support” came during the kherson and Kharkiv operations.
If you ain’t first your last, and for all the Russians seem to be able to endure, battlefield loses in the form of lost territory is not one of them.