Larch Defines Moral Point, Larry's Friend Defines Strategy.

Our very own Larchmonter445 captured the moral essence of SMO for Russians in his excellent post which I bring here. Speaking of Medvedev he notes:

He knows the existential threat is real. This isn't transitory. It's for all the marbles. This is why he classifies the 'soft' as 'traitors'. You can't have a middle position when the enemy is coming to exterminate you and your nation. When guys like DM and Naryshkin sound strident, then you know all of Moscow, all of Mother Russia is aware of the dire threat. The people swiftly understood when the videos of the shooting and throat-cutting of captured Russian boys went viral. The red line had been crossed. Ukraine and NATO have to be defeated. Victory has been defined.

In the same time, Larry's friend Helmholtz Smith delivers an excellent strategic argument:

A 2019 RAND study (Overextending and Unbalancing Russia), like most Western plans erected on the whim that Russia’s economy “is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports”, saw Ukraine as “[Russia’s] greatest point of external vulnerability”. That assumption is now being tested and it doesn’t look as if it’s Russia that has been sucked into the Ukrainian quagmire. After 100 days of war Russia controls, to quote Ukrainian President Zelensky, about 20% of Ukraine’s territory and is inflicting 500-600 casualties per day. The Russians are methodically grinding the Ukraine Armed Forces out of existence. And it’s unlikely that they are suffering many casualties – for them the shells are going out, for the Ukrainians the shells are coming in.

Read the whole thing (superb, I may add) at Larry's blog. I will try to make a video tomorrow on the issue of both losses and operations of 4 SU-57 which have confirmed by Ria as fully netcentric (in Russian), and effective against Ukie Air Defense.