You wrote: “...That is about to become apparent very shortly”.
Hey, you promised that a year ago, what happened?
Not sure I promised anything a year ago, unless we are talking late 2022. I was working construction when this kicked off, and didn’t have time to offer an analysis. Besides, the referendum wasn’t passed until September, and that was the game-changer.
In one year, the Russian Army retooled itself. The Russian economy went on a war-footing, unlike NATO or the US. They acted off of bad intelligence or bad assumptions; sometimes bad assumptions from policymakers, really, really screw the intelligence efforts. We do it all the time too. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam all say hello.
But the best of the Ukrainian army has already been shattered. Their new 60K strong force will be ill-equipped, under-supplied; against no less than 350,000 Russians following their doctrine. They will follow their doctrine this time.
Now older comments are showing. Strange. But didn’t see any prediction that Russia will conquer Ukraine. Only a pro-Russian bias in other ways.
Anyway, we’ll see how the war goes. So far, the Russian government has lost at public affairs for the long run along its pariah allies. Our U.S. and allies are building up as a result. Even the majority of Democrats are now in favor of increased defense funding. ;)
On warfare in Ukraine, the Russian government and army have done very poorly so far. If they pull off a win in Ukraine, they will have made a far more serious mistake to do so.
Nuclear war will be far more likely in the near future, if Russia is not routed out of Ukraine—all of it.