It really depends on their political situation after the war. Russia will still be a resource-rich super power even if their O&G fields are capped from low demand. India is also making a killing from Russian oil, with them refining and exporting their "processed goods" across embargo states. No one wants to break the West's authority, but no one wants to wreck the existing supply chain either. I think with any good cornering, the West should leave a semi-respectable out for Putin assuming dementia hasn't set in entirely, and he's not totally deranged and bought into his ethno-pure Slavic nation. Yeah, he'll likely do it again, but many major unknowns if we try to replace him while our economy and civil institutions are starting to crumble.
I'm afraid dementia is the only explanation for the leader of the greatest chess playing nation on earth to make such an boneheaded opening move. Obviously Zelinsky's anal beads are being operated by Xi
You assume Russia will be a unified state when this is all over. Russia is still an imperial empire and it’s not like the U.S. and it wiped out the indigenous cultures and ideas.
I admittedly don't follow Russia as closely as some Euro or Asian nations. Them breaking up seems a bit scary with their nukes all over the place. Plus, Russia's slash and burn culture doesn't sound like there will be any happy endings if it happened.
Which is why there’s overlap between the GOP/Christian Nationalism, and Russia/Eastern European strongman.
I think China would rather have weak Russia on their border to the north, under the principle of "better the devil you know..." - the same reason they won't do anything about DPRK. China could end up with a better situation, but they couldn't guarantee that, and they could also end up with a US client state on their border. Much more opportunity for loss than gain from a complete shuffling of the deck. A weak, dependent Russian "younger brother" on their northern flank isn't so bad for China.
The PRC definitely doesn’t want to see Russia fall. They need Russia to be able to stand to help the counterbalance the US and Europe. They also wouldn’t want Russia to be a failed state with a long land border along their northern front. They would become a real problem for smuggling and also for ethnic unrest from groups like Uighars and Kazakhs.
For all of Russia’s problems it still has a lot going for it. Besides all it’s natural resources it has an educated population that has made some great achievements in engineering and science. It still has a large industrial base. If it can get past authoritarianism and corruption it could still be a super power.
Yeah no I'm going to go with the "Russia is and has always been a shitty colonial muscovite empire that is on its last legs" that Kamil Galeev and others have proposed.
I’m not denying Russia has a lot of problems it it’s a fact that they have a lot of resources and an educated population.
Also a fact that they've never done anything other than to export both of those things and extract rents from its own people for doing so.
