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Comment by norwalkbear | Hacker News Reader

People said the same thing of Hitler's Germany prior to WW2.

I don't believe it.

But Hitler was extremely successful initially, which boosted his popular support, and pushed him to open a second front.

Russia hasn't had that kind of momentum, and calling up conscripts is only going to sow suspicion among the public about how things are actually going.

I’m not sure Russia is in any precarious situation. They certainly have more cards to play.

What cards is that? Demanding that China cut off ties to the West and potentially lose trillions? Start a nuclear war and lose everything? Hope and pray every person in the country that has a little cash to their name doesn't flee? Hope that pretty much every technology company on the planet doesn't do business with them?

Russia has already lost the war in Ukraine, they are currently deciding how many men they will lose before they leave.

The battle now is for what will be left of their nation state when they are done.

>What cards is that?

Winter is coming.

Being that Ukraine isn't pushing across half of Russia I really don't see that being a big issue.

EU will get whiney about cold temps for sure, but they have the choice of being cold, or moving back in with a murderous rapist looking to loot and steal everything in sight. The price of Putin's gas is a stick, and the world sees he wields it unkindly.

There's a difference between the integrity of the Russian state and the continuation of Putin's regime. It's not clear to me what the odds of the Russian state breaking up are if Putin were to lose power.

Putin is in the position he is in because we learned at least some of our lessons of WWII. We already let Putin take Georgia, then Crimea, but thank damned goodness this time we stepped up with supplies and sanctions, and Ukraine population has fought back viciously.

If Ukraine had fallen in days, then yes, we would be back in the position of WWII, but that has not happened.

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