>>515044999
a collapsed russia can be mined for resources, that is what europe is counting on to save them
>>515045124
russia is in demographic collapse, the border they have with europe is currently 3500km, if they can take ukraine, poland, the baltics (and now scandiland), then they can shrink that border down to just 500km, which is much easier to defend with a lower population. The math is that they can expend the older men (current average age for a russia soldier is 46) and the money they make selling gas to europe (europe still buys russian gas and are literally funding the war) then they can play the nuke card to keep MAD from happening, taking the land they want conventionally at great cost is lives. If they can signal to the USA that they are willing to lose 2m men taking ukriane and wont use nukes, then when it comes to the baltics and the rest, the gamble is saying "look america, we need this for existential threat reasons, we are going to take it, we are happen to expend 10m lives if thats whats needed, you are happy to try to stop us but you will also lose millions and if we lose then we will nuke the world because this is an existential threat anyway. Is defending poland really worth that to you?". So it is important for the ukraine war to be both bloodly and long lasting, that is what russia thinks will make america balk at protecting the nato countries they need