Defeating Russian aggression in Ukraine

 ISW:

Russia cannot defeat Ukraine or the West - and will likely lose - if the West mobilizes its resources to resist the Kremlin. The West’s existing and latent capability dwarfs that of Russia. The combined gross domestic product (GDP) of NATO countries, non-NATO European Union states, and our Asian allies is over $63 trillion.[1] The Russian GDP is on the close order of $1.9 trillion.[2] Iran and North Korea add little in terms of materiel support. China is enabling Russia, but it is not mobilized on behalf of Russia and is unlikely to do so.[3] If we lean in and surge, Russia loses.

The notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia’s dominance is a Russian information operation, which gives us a glimpse of the Kremlin’s real strategy and only real hope of success. The Kremlin must get the United States to the sidelines, allowing Russia to fight Ukraine in isolation and then proceed to Moscow’s next targets, which Russia will also seek to isolate. The Kremlin needs the United States to choose inaction and embrace the false inevitability that Russia will prevail in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s center of gravity is his ability to shape the will and decisions of the West, Ukraine, and Russia itself. The Russian strategy that matters most, therefore, is not Moscow’s warfighting strategy, but rather the Kremlin’s strategy to cause us to see the world as it wishes us to see it and make decisions in that Kremlin-generated alternative reality that will allow Russia to win in the real world.
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The war in Ukraine has actually exposed the military weakness of Russia as a conventional power.   It has seen a resistance within Russia to the war as well as the failure of the Russian military to achieve its stated objectives. The initial response in the West to the Russian aggression in Ukraine was an expectation that Russia would complete a conquest in a matter of days if not weeks.  That has clearly not happened as Ukraine's resistance has been much more effective than anticipated.

See also:

Just three weapons will turn the Ukraine war back around. And the USA is back in the fight

And:

 Exclusive-Russia struggles to collect oil payments as China, UAE, Turkey raise bank scrutiny

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