Collapse of the Russian Federation?

[Mik]

One general seems to think so.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/retired-us-general-ben-hodges-warns-of-russia-s-collapse-and-potential-nuclear-chaos/ar-AA1xAHQL

[Renauda]

I don’t see it collapsing anytime soon. In fact, quite the opposite.

[Mik]

They seem to be much more resilient than anyone expected.

[Renauda]

The threshold for daily living with hardship is noticeably higher there than among Western nations. Their coping mechanism for dealing with it is their ingrained social passivity.

So long as there remains plenty of food at manageable prices the country will stagger and plod along contining to bewilder Western foreigners like you and I and the retired General.

[Mik]

Interesting approach.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/skeptical-of-russia-s-data-some-western-officials-judge-its-economy-by-looking-at-moscow-from-space/ar-AA1xEySt

[Jolly]

Trump made a salient point last night when asked about the Ukraine War. He felt that Russian casualty figures were much migher than reported.

That could certainly lead to Russian destabilization.

[Renauda]

Could. Right now though it does not appear so. In fact, not at all.

[Rich]

Interesting how hundreds of thousands dead (and how many more maimed?!) , doesn't translate into some sort of significant social unrest. Does Russia get its conscripts from parts of the country or society that aren't....mainstream?

[Renauda]

@Rich

It gets its conscripts from all over. However the conscripts that end up as cannon fodder are, for the most part, from predominantly non Russian regions and rural areas. The ethnic Russians from large urban areas who end up at the front are either reservists or sign up voluntarily because it allegedly pays well.

Earlier on in the war there were also convicts seeking pardons or reduced sentences, but my understanding now is that it is less common as their presence undermined discipline and the already sagging morale of paid volunteers.

[taiwan_girl]

(The following is based on my VERY limited knowing about Russia and USSR). It seems to me that the whole Russian history is living life while under difficult situations.

My guess is that the Russian people, this is just one more burden they must have to bear and overcome. I think that "stoic" is my word to describe them. So they will probably just continue to plod along, figuring this is the way life was for their ancestors and will be the life for their descendants.

[Renauda]

@taiwan_girl

To me it’s more like an incorrigible fatalism coupled with an insufferably romanticist sense of victimhood almost entirely of their own making.

[George K]

@Renauda said in Collapse of the Russian Federation?:

insufferably romanticist sense of victimhood

And inferiority,

[Renauda]

@George-K

Yes, how could I forget? The perennial inferiority complex complete with chip (more like a deck plank) on the shoulder.