@ChrisMayLA6

"what would such a collapse look like?" - hopefully like USSR collapsed, with russian state ceasing to exits in its current borders. the rest depends on specifics, I'd prefer Japan-like demilitarization & denuclearisation.

"How would the Russian population react" - please define "Russians". Ethnic Russians? Chechens? Tatars? Kalmyks? Circassians? Yakuts?

"what would be the impact on both regional & global politics?" - depends on answer to Q1.

@ChrisMayLA6 Highlighting how small and fragile Russia actually is, despite its century of taking up more headspace than it deserves.

How it turns out depends on what suits China, I’d think. As long as Xi can prop up and hollow out Russia, eventually bloodlessly taking over the Russian far east / Arctic access in exchange for economic help, that’s much better than having to fight about it.

@ChrisMayLA6 Based on what I hear from non-mainstream news sources, russia is doing fine. As long as there is no starvation on the streets, the regular russian couldn't care less about Putin, but is entirely focused on putting food on the table, and not getting caught dicussing politics.

Only if the regular russian starts to starve, might we see some dramatic changes. If not, as long as china continues to support russia, Ukraine will continue to be a kind of vietnam, or afghanistan sucking resources away for as long as Putin wants it.

On the other hand, people never thought the soviet union was going to collapse, until it did. So once things happen, they can happen surprisingly fast.

@ChrisMayLA6 once Putin has been defeated on the battlefield the Russian economy will be a basket case. The rest of the world will have to throw them a life belt. I wonder if that life belt could be membership of the European Union?

@ChrisMayLA6 “the Russian population” is kind of a myth, there’s the core ethnic Russian population in the west, and then a bunch of different ethnicities that are to greater or lesser degrees controlled/subdued by Moscow.

The FSB and military will fight (openly or otherwise) for control of the Kremlin - the FSB has the upper hand there at the moment seemingly, due to arresting much of the military’s top brass recently.

China will likely try to pinch much of the far east, they’ve recently renamed that area to the traditional Chinese names on state maps, which is a sign of intent.

Siberia and the east have been making independence-type noises recently, after generations of all their resources, profit, and manpower flowing toward Moscow. This is probably true of other areas, but we don’t get to hear it, though with all the manpower that usually goes into policing being diverted to Ukraine, the control may slip to the point that these noises can be heard outside Russia.

@ChrisMayLA6

The last time this happened was the winter of 1916-17. It precipitated revolution.

@ChrisMayLA6

It is clear that Putins war has damaged Russias economy. But there seem to have been continual predictions of an economic collapse, but somehow Russia keeps afloat. On many indicators, its war economy is doing OK. War is notoriously profitable.

On the other hand, it is plausible that an end to the war might be a problem for Russia. An end to the war might pull the plug on the Russian economy. Is this perverse incentive prolonging the war?

@ChrisMayLA6 Was thinking the other day that if Putin wasn’t such a pillock, #Russia and #Europe would do quite well together economically and socially. Might even help overcome Russian paranoia.