“I cannot imagine that the Russian people will go along with mobilization over Ukraine. The country is not being invaded.”
Technically not, but Americans cannot really understand the connection of Russians to Russian-speakers in Ukraine. It would be like some fluke of nature left Texas in the hands of a Fascist-run, American-hating, Mexico. While the Leftists, no doubt, would celebrate, most Americans would be appalled and would demand that the US do something to get them back.
Russia did have the equivalent of our Leftists, the ones who hated Putin’s government and wanted to join Europe, but now most of them realize that the hatred from the West is directed at ALL Russian people, not just the leadership - and with that, I suspect they figure that they might as well finish the job in Ukraine, and they’ll stay out of the way of that.
Anyway, time will.
I imagine when the Russian Army starts drafting the 30 year old professionals from the Western Regions, they will start to get some push back.
Up to now the state has been relying on Siberians and Central Asian Russians. Those guys are happy to be fed and fairly warm. Not so much with the intelligent folks from Moscow and St Petersburg.
How many body bags coming back to those cities will it take before people start getting angry.
I don’t know a lot of Russians, but the half dozen or so immigrants I have spoken to don’t care too much for Ukrainians..but to a person they said the war was not a good thing for Russia. They were more inclined to let the Russians in the East move into Russia proper, and then build a wall and have nothing more to do with Ukraine.
The problem comes with all of those pipelines flowing through Ukraine to southern Europe. When this is over, the Russians will want access to those markets.
Putin should simply end the war, resign and move to Switzerland with his wife and girlfriends, and let his facists underlings fight over control. We will witness Russia devolve into a bunch of religious states, constantly fighting with each other. But they won’t bother us.
You are so close to actually understanding this and yet you resist.
One of the a priori condition precedent for Putin's prior invasion of Crimea and the Ukrainian War of 2022 is to continue the Soviet tradition of rewarding Russia's kleptocracy -- particularly those 'Old Communist' families -- who over many decades of the USSR and right until the present day, were 'awarded', along with staffers and hangers-on, prime Crimean and east Ukrainian Communist outposts -- accompanied by their beautiful dachas: Odessa, Yalta, Mriya.
Gorbachev's Zarya dacha in Foros -- a billion-ruble 'investment' -- the more recent example.
This Soviet policy was and is specifically meant to displace the local Ukrainian populace.
Putin's illegal invasion of the Ukraine, therefore, is the exact equivalent of Mexico's Labrador declaring war on the US in order to preserve the Mexican mojado illegal invasion of TEXAS and California and the American Southwest!
"¡Aztlán es nuestro! ¡Los Estadounidenses son Nazis!" ("Aztlan is ours! Americans are Nazis!")
This Mexican policy was and is specifically meant to displace the local American populace.