What Is Russia's Endgame?

[Daniel Balan]

What are they trying to accomplish? I mean, it is clear that they want to wipe Ukraine off the map, but if they supposedly defeat Ukraine, what is Russia's endgame? Do they settle just for Ukraine? I don't think so! My personal opinion is that if they could, they would conquer Moldova, then they will challenge Nato by trying a blitzkrieg on Romania! They will try to anchor their border with the west on the Charpatian mountain range in Romania and Slovakia, while at the same time trying to conquer the Baltics! Betting that Nato wouldn't risk ww3 over half of Romania and the baltics! I contemplated on the conflict in the last year and this is my hypothesis on what Russia's endgame plan. Basically they want their soviet era vassal states back! They would leave Poland alone, because Poland, in my opinion is as battle ready as Ukraine is right now, too tough to defeat and probably isn't worth the hassle. But via heavy propaganda interference in elections, they would take control over much of the former Warsaw pact, and in the countries they didn't succeed to place a trojan horse government, they would certainly attack militarily! Bluffing that Nato is not as united as Nato claims. Also Trump would probably give Putin all of Eastern Europe if that means that all the wars in Europe end.

So guys, what do you think?

Edited July 11 by Daniel Balan

[Hojo]

End game is global domination for any country except Canada.

[trenton]

@Daniel Balan Putin, like Hitler is engaged in restorative authoritarianism, meaning he is trying to compensate for the national humiliation such as the fall of the Soviet union like Hitler tried to compensate for the humiliation of the first world war. It is being done by projecting military might which is often a method of disguising deep internal dysfunction and contradiction which will ultimately be the downfall of Putin. Throughout history such empires are demonstrated to be paper tigers just like this disaster in Ukraine even if he somehow anexes the entire country.

Furthermore, Russia like the Soviet union, China, and America are deeply corrupt due to the excessive influence of wealthy elites which makes governance inflexible. The leadership often loses sight of national interests when it is clouded by corporate interests, which ultimately drives empires into the mud. This is critical because it shows that Putin didn't actually learn how the wealthy interests ultimately undermined the apparent communist state, contributing to its defeat at the hands of America. Putin therefore represents a likely failed attempt at restorative authoritarianism as he only serves to strengthen NATO and make him even more hated on the global scale.

[Leo Gura]

What they want is to keep Western influence out of their region.

[Porphyry Fedotov]

I don't think Putin will be able to defeat Ukraine at this point. He doesn't have much of an endgame to speak of. Just a desire to project power across the former USSR.
Also, the Ukrainian question didn't appear out of thin air in 2022 or even in 2014. If you look at the history of the Russian Empire, for example, you can already see that domestic policy was heavily anti-Ukrainian, like there were the Valuev Circulars, secret decrees issued in the Russian Empire in the 19th century to restrict the publication of religious and educational texts in the Ukrainian language. Then, Stalin in 30s ordered the mass starvation of Ukrainians in 30s aka the Holodomor. From a historical perspective, Putin's invasion wasn't a surprise. If you look at what is going on in the occupied territories, you would see heavy suppression of anything Ukrainian, Russification is everywhere, strict martial law with detentions, tortures and murders of anyone who opposes the regime. It's the wild west over there, brutal and unforgiving. I think at this point his endgame is to keep new territories and make them Russian through the displacement of the native Ukrainian population and forced Russification.

He also tried to bolster his populist support through the invasion, echoing the logic of a "small victorious war" reminiscent of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

Edited July 11 by Porphyry Fedotov

[Daniel Balan]

32 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What they want is to keep Western influence out of their region.

By their region the Russians mean the former USSR countries or the former USSR countries including the former vassal states of Eastern Europe that formed the Warsaw pact?

[Ajay0]

Russian focus is on getting NATO from their borders as they consider it a security threat and violation of the promises western leaders made to Gorbachev and Yeltsin in 1990 not to extend Nato to east Germany and beyond.

It is part of their military doctrine to use tactical nukes and pre-emptive strikes, and russian nuclear submarines are patrolling the american and europeans coasts ready to deliver their deadly cargo any moment.

They enjoy the support of China, the global south and other groups opposed to the west.

The two world wars originated in europe killing over a hundred million people, and the third one can easily arise by sheer momentum. Hence it is important for UN and NAM to intervene and establish a buffer zone between Nato and Russia before it flares up into a nuclear war and holocaust wiping out the belligerents.

Edited July 11 by Ajay0

[zazen]

43 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What they want is to keep Western influence out of their region.

Spot on. It’s insightful to see what happened just two months prior to the invasion:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2021_Russian_ultimatum_to_NATO

December 2021 treaties offered, core demands rejected in January 2022, invasion begins February 2022.

Core demands still not acknowledged or taken into account - hence the war continues.

These core concerns simply don’t exist in the minds of Russophobes, just like the Epstein files don’t exist.

 

Edited July 11 by zazen

[zazen]

Pre-emptive rebuttal to “bUt RuSsIA bRoKE iNtErNAtiOnAl LaW” obviously brother! No one should just invade another sovereign nation. But:

The abstractness of laws don’t negate the realities of survival.

If the worlds imperial (belligerent) superpower literally has think tank pieces on how to “overextend” you through encirclement, including a naughty track record up to the present day - are you to just sit there thinking their creeping up to your border because they want to deliver cookies in person?

Maybe Nuland doing so in Ukraine was a gesture of peace towards Russia lol

Or maybe you don’t think the Western-US led order has been belligerent but instead has been benevolent. Wonder why we have chants of “Death to America” and an entire parallel financial structure being built by the Global South.

Edited July 11 by zazen

[Breakingthewall]

Putin's war is not expansionist, it's defensive, and absolutely all the world's governments know this perfectly well, but it's useful to scare the population with this threat and do good business.

[Daniel Balan]

4 hours ago, zazen said:

Spot on. It’s insightful to see what happened just two months prior to the invasion:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2021_Russian_ultimatum_to_NATO

December 2021 treaties offered, core demands rejected in January 2022, invasion begins February 2022.

Core demands still not acknowledged or taken into account - hence the war continues.

These core concerns simply don’t exist in the minds of Russophobes, just like the Epstein files don’t exist.

 

Would you be so eager to give in to Putin if your country would become once again the vassal state of Russia? We were the vassal state of Russia for 45 years and the amount of corruption, theft, backwardness, stupidity and devilry that evil empire has brought to us is unparalleled. After the cold war ended we were left 50 years behind in development in regards to the west. No one is Russophobe, we just don't want to be their slaves. Since the EU and Nato came into Eastern Europe the infrastructural development that occurred was astronomical, we don't want to be their vassal state once again. A behemoth that spans 11 time zones needs even more land that it controls via proxy? How about they go fuck themselves? 

Edited July 11 by Daniel Balan

[Daniel Balan]

25 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Putin's war is not expansionist, it's defensive, and absolutely all the world's governments know this perfectly well, but it's useful to scare the population with this threat and do good business.

By this amazing logic of yours Hitler's invasion of the USSR was also a defensive war! Bro, I just love you skeptics, you debunk all the mainstream takes, but when it comes to your alternative takes, you swallow them without ever questioning them! 

[Daniel Balan]

3 hours ago, zazen said:

Pre-emptive rebuttal

Bro, you are on a different level of cringe 😂 

[PurpleTree]

What Russia wants?

I don’t know. Maybe more Vodka, more Sputnik, more Blini with Caviar and more of that funny dance where go down.

Also did you know Tetris is Russian?

 

 

but also maybe they want to stop US hegemony and having more influence themselves.

[Breakingthewall]

16 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

By this amazing logic of yours Hitler's invasion of the USSR was also a defensive war! Bro, I just love you skeptics, you debunk all the mainstream takes, but when it comes to your alternative takes, you swallow them without ever questioning them! 

Then as Hitler was expansionist, Putin also is. Well, I don't see the logic in that, just my opinion. There were different circumstances. Putin invaded Ukraine because the NATO expansion, nukes, etc. Hitler invaded Russia to kill the Russians and expanding Germany, vital space, Arian race, those ideas. 

[Daniel Balan]

4 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

but also maybe they want to stop US hegemony and having more influence themselves.

Ok I agree with you. Russia wants to undermine the west as a whole, not just the US, and it wants to take back its sphere of influence that it gained after WW2 and lost back to the west after the cold war. 

But the undeniable truth, is that the west is by far more developed that Putin's Russia! There is a reason why once the USSR fell, all the countries that were under its sphere of influence, rushed to join the west before Russia got its shit back together and contest this. Eastern Europe choose the west because in the west there was development and prosperity, a normal life for every day citizens, as opposed to the dictatorships, the poverty, the oppression that come along with being under Russia's sphere of influence

[PurpleTree]

2 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Ok I agree with you. Russia wants to undermine the west as a whole, not just the US, and it wants to take back its sphere of influence that it gained after WW2 and lost back to the west after the cold war. 

But the undeniable truth, is that the west is by far more developed that Putin's Russia! There is a reason why once the USSR fell, all the countries that were under its sphere of influence, rushed to join the west before Russia got its shit back together and contest this. Eastern Europe choose the west because in the west there was development and prosperity, a normal life for every day citizens, as opposed to the dictatorships, the poverty, the oppression that come along with being under Russia's sphere of influence

Sure but now with the rise of China, Russia has a new shot with BricS the global south and stuff. Also Russia has perfected propaganda and is undermining western countries with supporting far right parties anti EU parties, brexit and so on. They thrive in confusion i feel.

[Daniel Balan]

16 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Then as Hitler was expansionist, Putin also is. Well, I don't see the logic in that, just my opinion. There were different circumstances. Putin invaded Ukraine because the NATO expansion, nukes, etc. Hitler invaded Russia to kill the Russians and expanding Germany, vital space, Arian race, those ideas. 

If Putin isn't an expansionist why is he doing Russification in the conquered territories, why did he annex almost a third of Ukraine? Why does he want NATO and EU out of all the former Warsaw pact members? Why is he interfering in Europes election with massive anti EU propaganda? Why does he threaten Poland, The Baltics with war? You call this defensive? Has the west since the fall of the USSR leaked plans to invade Russia? Did the west pay massive propaganda to inteferee in Russian elections? Tell me, which threat are the Russians defending themselves from?

Edited July 11 by Daniel Balan

[Daniel Balan]

@Breakingthewall The West will never invade Russia because, the truth is, even if more technological advanced, all the people in the west are pussies that cry even if they scrached their knee a little! We are pussies compared to the battle hardened Russians, we value our western conforts way too much to ever invade another country, let alone a behemoth like Russia! I'm talking about Europeans, the US sure, they will forever wage wars in the middle east, but Europeans are far too pussies to ever go to war again.

[PurpleTree]

4 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

If Putin isn't an expansionist why is he doing Russification in the conquered territories, why did he annex almost a third of Ukraine? Why does he want NATO and EU out of all the former Warsaw pact members? Why is he interfering in Europes election with massive anti EU propaganda? Why does he threaten Poland, The Baltics with war? You call this defensive? Has the west since the fall of the USSR leaked plans to invade Russia? Did the west pay massive propaganda to inteferee in Russian elections? Tell me, which threat are the Russians defending themselves from?

I mean Russia in a way is fighting for its existence. Remembering glory days. Fighting against becoming irrelevant. A bit like Maga. But in a way the fight seems hopeless because of demographics etc. And now a war with a lot of casualties. Russia has to be autocratic to keep the Chechens etc. in line but there could always be a rebellion.