The real lessons have been learned by China. The Chinese now know that Russia’s conventional forces are paper tigers. Absent the use of nuclear weapons, Russia would have great difficulty defending and holding its rich ,underpopulated Asian Pacific territories and the treasure house of Siberia. Ironic if the US, Japan and Russia would have to form an alliance to thwart a Chinese invasion that would change the world.
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And it has also been learned by Iran and the 'Stans on their border.
Sure, they will back Russia as long as Russia is giving them what they want. The moment they show weakness it will be hungry wolves time.
A short sharp war that ended with taking a bite out of Ukraine would have been a major win but that is not what it turned out to be.
The real lessons have been learned by China. The Chinese now know that Russia’s conventional forces are paper tigers.
My first thought is why would we care if China annexed Eastern Russia. All of the raw material available in Sakha has not made Russia a wealthy nation. Why not let Russia and China fight it out of the territory.
A little bit of research on Eastern Russia below. I am surprised there even 24 million people there.
There are two federal districts in he eastern part of Russia encompassing about 1/2 of the country. The population is 24,768,461 or about 17.24% of the total population of Russia,
The Far Eastern Federal District
Altai Republic 210,924
Altai Krai 2,163,693
Irkutsk Oblast 2,370,102
Kemerovo Oblast 2,600,923
Krasnoyarsk Krai 2,856,971
Novosibirsk Oblast 2,797,176
Omsk Oblast 1,858,798
Tomsk Oblast 1,062,666
Tuva Republic 336,651
Republic of Khakassia 534,795
Total 16,792,699
Siberian Federal District
Amur Oblast 766,912
Republic of Buryatia 978,588
Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Zabaykalsky Krai 1,004,125
Kamchatka Krai 291,705
Magadan Oblast 136,085
Primorsky Krai 1,845,165
Sakha Republic* 995,686
Sakhalin Oblast 466,609
Khabarovsk Krai 1,292,944
Chukotka Autonomous Okrug 47,490
Total 7,975,762
Total 16,792,699
Total of both 24,768,461
Sakha is 3,083,523 km2 (1,190,555 sq mi), so less than 1 person per square mile (granted a lot of it is in or near the Artic Circle). Sakha is well endowed with raw materials. The soil contains large reserves of oil, gas, coal, diamonds, gold, silver, tin, tungsten and many others. Sakha produces 99% of all Russian diamonds and over 25% of the diamonds mined in the world.
I assume that by “rich” you mean resource rich. Back during Trump’s 1st term I used to watch a lot of “travel vids” by Russians about traveling around in Russia. Much of far Eastern Russia looked like Appalachia... during the US Depression...