Every war that Russia has fought in the last few centuries has been an utter disaster for them in the first year. After that, they adapt. That, plus numbers, and sometimes General Winter, usually end up winning the war for them. Not because they’re better on a qualitative basis, just because they stubbornly outlast the enemy.
The problem that the Russians face now is that they no longer have the seemingly unlimited pools of manpower that they used to have. Between two world wars, famine, purposeful mass murder by Stalin and losing half of their population when the USSR broke up, they have completely given up their biggest advantage, and they now face a demographic disaster in the next 30 to 50 years. This is really their last chance to fight a war and regain certain strategic chokepoints that will guarantee their territorial integrity. What they are going to do several decades from now, when they don’t have very much manpower, even if they retake those choke points, is anyone’s guess. The Russians have made many enemies over the centuries, and now they are increasingly vulnerable to all of those ethnic minorities in neighboring nations taking back what they think is rightfully theirs. It may well be that the ethnic Russian state is doomed within the lifetimes of many now alive. Time will tell.
People make the assumption Russia is re-fighting WW2 or Afghanistan, or Chechnya. Or That they are still Stalin’s Red Army.
If countries always refight their last war, Actually the last war Russia fought was/ is in Syria, also a proxy war, and no one talks much about how they learned and adapted. Maybe because they did and are doing well.
The last 4 US presidencies tried regime change in Syria…whose leader, with Russian support, is still standing? And heading to a final diplomatic solution with Turkey brokered by Russia?
Compare current Syria to the aftermath of NATO’s war on current Libya.
“Every war that Russia has fought in the last few centuries has been an utter disaster for them in the first year. After that, they adapt. That, plus numbers, and sometimes General Winter, usually end up winning the war for them.”
I think you have to make a distinction between the types of wars that Russia fights and the results they achieve. Most of the really major conflicts that they fought and won where either fought defensively, or against a smaller nation with no significant allies, or, when fighting a strong country or alliance, Russia had the support of one or more great powers on its side as well. Those are the kinds of situations that resulted in Russian victories.
Russia has fought a few conflicts that didn’t fit those conditions, such as the Russo-Japanese war, which resulted in an embarrassing defeat, and the Crimean war, which also resulted in a defeat. I’d say the current war fits those second set of conditions better than the first.
They lost WWI, decisively.
They lost in Afghanistan, decisively.
They lost the Cold war, decisively (you may claim it wasn't a real war, but Korea, Vietnam, Nicaraugua, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and Poland show otherwise) They were proxy wars, much as Ukraine is a proxy war, only the USA is playing the role of Russia in Korea...