Yeah, it's a bad form citing yourself, but oh well!
[QUOTE=Xpartan;2891928]LOL, as a true 'nostradamus' I'll say this.
While the West seems to be tired and in disarray right now, the last quarter of 2024 will break this pattern. Trump and the Reps (the last Putin's hope) will lose miserably, the military aid to Ukraine will resume in spades, and not only will the Third Rome (or Fourth Reich, as some would call it more accurately) eventually return to the borders of 1991 -- it'll start devouring itself from the inside until it finally shrinks into a much smaller (and hopefully more peaceful) normally-sized country.
Till then, Ukraine must hold on, since you're absolutely right -- they don't have another choice.[/QUOTE]So the first part (resumption of the US military aid) has almost come true, much earlier than I anticipated.
And the last 6 months have proved that Ukraine can stand on its own even with Russia's artillery advantage of 6-10 to 1, denying the aggressor any significant gains and making them pay in tens of thousands of dead and crippled Russian solders for every village and township they've managed to "conquer" so far.
In the meantime, Ukraine keeps destroying the Russian Navy and hitting military targets and fuel refineries deep inside Russia reducing aggressor's economic means needed to finance the war.
The age of empires is gone.