Scenarios

• Russian Victory Scenario: Militarily Russia retains enough hardware, occupies Eastern half of Ukraine. Anything east of Kyiv is unlikely to be retained.
• "Russian gas continues to flow into Europe"
• "In the future the Russians are relying on their arctic ports for their gas/energy"
• "We're seeing the final economic decoupling of Russia from Europe. Will remain a petrostate. Will build pipelines to Chinese markets"
• "China has the resources to bail out Russia if needed".
• In this scenario, China is emboldened, likely takes Taiwan in the next 3 years.
• China supports Russia from economic sanctions
• Putin popularity soars.
• Scenario 2: Stalemate
• Ukraine becomes "Syria of Europe"
• Sanctions cause pain, but not enough to withdraw. Proxy groups end up involved with states affiliated but not taking responsibility.
• Massive refugee crisis. Like Yugoslavia but much worse.
• Russian Loss
• Putin would probably still retain power.
• State would probably also survive. But become closer to China - cut off from west.

SB: My expectation currently is that I don't think Ukraine will militarily stand for 3 weeks, and Putin won't fall from power in that time.

Western media saying "Putin's government falls because of sanctions" - Samo doesn't think so.

Civil war in a nuclear-armed country is something the world really doesn't need.

"Russia & Ukraine are relatively older populations. For the first time we may see a real manpower shortage."

Putin won't be toppled by financial oligarchs.

Putin loses power if he is perceived to have lost the war. In this scenario it could drag on for years.

Germany might literally not be able to hire back the team to reopen the nuclear plants.

Russia has been fighting wars for the last 10 years.

Foreign fighters would make a big difference for either side. "Dying in a war has historically been young men. Ukraine doesn't have many"

"Contrarian argument for why Northern Ireland is more peaceful now - population is older."

Crimea 2014 - no insurgency since then. Probably the majority wanted to be part of Russia.

If you're a Ukrainian nationalist, your best hope is for an Eastern European country to get involved. If Poles come in, for example, Russia has run simulations over going into Poland with nuclear warheads.

Re: Nuclear: What does "honor and justice" mean if hundreds of millions die? Not applicable as an argument.