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While we can agree Russia has been failing as their initial unsuccessful strategy was to take Kiev in one fell swoop, it's fairly widely agreed upon among Western intelligence agencies that their current strategy is a grinding war of attrition. So we shouldnt perceive them going slow as a sign of weakness. It's their strategy. Whether it's a viable strategy time will tell but it's clear they don't care if they have to put hundreds of thousands in the meat grinder or if it takes a decade, as long as they eventually achieve their goal. Part of their calculus is that democracies are inherently not as good at long term planning as autocracies.

Putin is an intelligence operative, it does not seems unlikely that a country headed by one for decades would do well clandestine operations and falter in war.

American oligarchs are also greedy, base and overall pretty stupid so I think you overestimate the challenge of manipulating them.

I wouldn't go as far as to call Putin an idiot. Unlike Trump, he's an effective head of state (note I didn't say leader), and while he seems incompetent when it comes to Ukraine or to managing Russia, don't forget that neither are his end goal - he's ready to sacrifice most of Russia just to cleave a bit more off of Europe for himself, and the invasion of Ukraine is actually helping him: while he may be losing soldiers and equipment at an alarming rate, he's got his buddies Xi and Kim providing him more and more for the war efforts, which in turn is creating division in Europe and NATO, while also depleting their resources.

Besides, it's been proven time and again how effective Russian troll farms are at disseminating disinformation and stoking internal tensions of any one grouping, let it be the US, or any European country. Even if Putin was an idiot in other areas, this part is undeniably true.

The great conspiracy plot: real Putin died more than a decade ago. Now his duplicates are acting as symbol puppets in hands of the Russian government. So, it is not just 1 idiot but rather a lot of them.

Dugin even wrote a book in the 90s about their strategy,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

https://www.maieutiek.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Foundations-of-Geopolitics.pdf

The American mind simply can't comprehend a plan which extends beyond the next weekend, nevermind a 70+ year vision

Wow i knew they were propaganda but that's just an easily disprovable headline

All of the smart people on his team are in bed with Russia.

The thing is that Trump himself was apparently in bed with russia ... sort of. At least i remember reading him sleeping with 14yo russian girls (via epstein). they literally did empire marriage.

Wow that's interesting!

The book emphasizes that Russia must spread geopolitical anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."

Wait a moment ... blaming the US ... that's what a lot of people here on Lemmy do, does that mean we're influenced by russian propaganda?

To be fair, Russia is not doing better

Who cares if it's Russia, China or India. This is not about any single country, but a much more fundamental conflict now emerging. Which rule of law will prevail?

China haven't had a war since the 70s, so until they decide to go for Taiwan I'm cool with them at this point.

An alignment of multiple interests, I think.

Russia wants to see a weaker NATO, US, and EU. Trump's pedophile technofascist backers want Greenland as a completely unregulated, fresh space for their fascist agenda. Trump pleases all of his handlers by squeezing the EU for Greenland.

I doubt Trump himself cares even a little bit about Greenland. The fucker just wants to loaf around playing golf while eating burgers served on golden platters by people who fawn over him.

The plot thickens, there have always been rumors that Trump is a Kremlin asset: https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/is-donald-trump-a-russian-asset-05a954

I just assumed this was the situation as soon as Dementia Don started talking about Greenland. I'd bet dollars to donuts he didn't know where Greenland was before Putin put the idea into his addled little brain.

What’re the chances that Russia is the one pushing Trump into this?

100%. Guaranteed.

I'm pretty sure Trump as a Putin-asset has always been tasked with dismantling NATO. He even took steps in that regard during his first term, but lacked the confidence which he has now.

Everything he has done as ruler has been aligned with Russian interests, which incidentally and unsurprisingly also aligns with the interests of the billionaire oligarchs.

Bigly