despite what i just said, i have made several update posts since this started acknowledging that my understanding of the situation did evolve. i initially couldn't understand why they wouldn't blow the bridges up and cut off the supply lines. it seemed so obvious to me. over time, i began to understand that the russians were trying to hold the conflict in place - they didn't want to win, and they didn't want to lose, they just wanted to shift the fighting. they were carrying out a byzantine barbarian management strategy. yes, they were being arrogant, and yes they wanted to take the country whole, but not yet. right now, they just wanted to fight the war in ukraine instead of in russia, and ending it, winning it, would be untactical.

there was a certain amount of logic to it. but constantinople fell in the end. it's a strategy to prolong an eventual loss that the byzantines failed to transcend. it's a strategy that would end in an eventual russian defeat.

two things have changed that have forced them to adjust, and it's not too late, and they can still recover.

1. the ukrainians started to shoot missiles and drones into russia. the point is that you bog them down in ukraine. you fight a trench war against the barbarians on their own territory to keep the war out of russia. it's what the byzantines did to stop the barbarians from plundering greece. but if the barbarians have projectiles (and that is what happened. they brought giant catapults to greece from china, and made the forgotten archimedes howl from the depths of the ether.) that doesn't work - the war comes to russia, and the parminedean stasis must break. the russians must stop preventing themselves from winning, and deal with the consequences of triumph.

2. basic math says that if you play the same game over and over again, you eventually lose. the probability of losing may be 3, 5, 7%; if you run the simulation 1000 times, you will lose a few times. you have to eventually decide to win. you can't just aimlessly fight without winning forever; an eventual loss is certain, if you do. that was the downfall of the byzantines, in the end.

the decision by the ukrainians to break the "stalemate" (which wasn't a true stalemate, it was what the russians wanted to maintain) with drones and missiles may have given the ukrainians a boost of adrenaline, but will ultimately be their own demise, as the russians shift directions and rapidly advance to the first river.

nato should back off and pull back to poland.

let the borderland return to it's previous state of overgrown weeds and uninhabited wastelands.