quote:
If that were to happen, I don’t think Ukraine could sustain the war for long. They’d be forced to sue for peace pretty quickly. Ukraine has the will, they have the bodies, what they lack is the hardware and the logistics to support the hardware.

There has been a noticeable shift in Russian propaganda efforts, at least from what I have seen in recent months, with them taking aim at AFU morale through various surrender campaigns on a far greater scale.

This has coincided with a ramping up in the dissemination of footage claimed as strikes on AFU personnel doing evacs or clearing trenches, and deeper strikes on logistic networks.

This may be because Russia believes they have sufficiently muddied the water along with the current slow roll counter offensive that Ukraine has maintained so that Western support is slowing and they can now focus on Ukraine's will.

At the moment however I am looking at it from the opposite angle. With a worsening economy, Russia is struggling to keep things afloat in an increasing number of areas and they are facing a protracted conflict.

It is likely they will not have the capacity to maintain the levels of combat they have sustained thus far in the near future without significant internal pressures increasing so they are shifting to targeting Ukrainian will as it is the surest way to end the conflict sooner rather than later if successful which would go a long way to abating these pressures.

Edit:
Having just caught up on the ousting on McCarthy as speaker, what are your opinions on the effect this will have on the war in terms of U.S. commitment and its ability to send further aid in the short term?

Given that one of the main narratives for Russia is that a Biden led U.S. is using Ukraine to fight a proxy war it seems at odds that McCarthy who seemed relatively committed to helping Ukraine was ousted by the Democratic party plus some intransigent Republicans. - Not looking to make this political just interested in getting insight.

This post was edited on 10/4/23 at 4:22 pm