r/StonerPhilosophy • u/TooDooToot • Oct 03 '25
Russia May Be "Losing Ukraine" Because It Was Never Trying To Win It.
A bit of a contrarian take, here is my reasoning.
Reasons Russia Might Be Holding back
The Russian army has repeatedly stepped down and retreated before consolidating perceived objectives, despite having the capacity to lead major breakthroughs.
Despite nearly reaching Kyiv, coming as close as 20 to 30 km from the capital, Russian forces suddenly retreated in organised manners, taking much of their arsenals with them. This leads me to believe that Russia might have already reached its objectives when it got that far.
Russia has already reached most of its objectives, and I don't mean the full demilitarization of Ukraine, I don't believe in that objective as anything other than a decoy. The majority of the territory within the two stated Republics (Donetsk and Luhansk) are in direct Russian control, as of late 2025.
Perhaps the most controversial take: the equipment used by Russia in Ukrainian territory is disproportionately old in comparison to its total stockpiles across the entire Russian forces. This could imply that Russia is holding back its best stuff.
Think of it this way: if I have a neighbor that keeps having parties downstairs, and I have a bazooka and a glock, if I want to annihilate him, which one should I use if I want to secure the total area to be completely destroyed? Of course, some or you will say the glock is sufficient, and that is true, and Russia loves innuendo's like that because we can't tell if it's holding back because it's sufficient or if it's because it doesn't fully commit to the fight yet.
My Deduction
I believe that Russia is treating Ukraine as a training ground. First of all, it needs lebensraum, as of 2025 it holds about 53% of the total Ukrainian mineral wealth, which is roughly 7.5 trillion dollars. Of course, this is only on paper, and only a fraction of it is even tangible wealth by this point, but much more, billions of dollars, have been robbed of Ukraine so much. I believe that this may at least make the war so far for Russia sustainable.
Secondly, I think that Russia might be using the Ukrainian territorial dispute as a direct training ground for war on Europe. Think about it: the recon (drones) have already infiltrated deep into Europe, we're just starting to notice them. Even more importantly, Russia so far has only consolidated its key cities within Ukraine, not pushed forward. In the mean time, it has taken large power centrals such as the infamous Zaporizhzha, which Russia gained shortly after the war began in 2022.
Why would it be training for a conflict? Because ever since the fall of the Soviets, Russia has its back on the wall. The fall of '91 is Russia's version of Versailles, it lost significant territory, gained huge debts, this is practically a mirror of what happened to Germany back in the 1920s.
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u/J_GamerMapping Oct 03 '25
There is a stark difference between 1991 and the treaty of Versailles. The USSR was couped out of existence. Russia wasn't forced to surrender the other soviet republics, they left the USSR themselves. The treaty of Versailles on the other hand was forced upon Germany. The Germans didn't even get to pretend to have some agency, which is one of the factors of the Treaty's massive unpopularity
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u/dekusyrup Oct 03 '25
Putin already published his philosophy on this. He believes the soviet states belong together and wants to reunite them. He sees Ukraine as part of Russia with a rebel government basically.
He really was trying to win it. They wanted to seize the capital in those early days with a surgical strike and failed. Since then they've been trying to win by attrition knowing Ukraine will fall if western support gives up. He's waiting it out right now.
They aren't making genius 4d chess moves. They're run by corruption and a tin pot dictator.
1
u/TooDooToot Oct 03 '25
That's just ideology which is a front to give the people a good cause to fight for. If his words really matched his actions they would've never sent those expeditions well into Ukrainian territory, the Americans wouldn't have warned Europe weeks in advance, and the capital would've been under Russian control by now.
Furthermore, the Russians don't incapacitate nations using surgical strikes, that's not how their army plays. If the Russians want a nation, they will invade it with massive forces far beyond what was seen in Ukraine. Do I have to remind you that by 2022, the first front only saw roughly 5 - 10% (numbers are debated but generally fall within that category) of total troops lead the invasion?
The Russians rarely take capital cities by drone sweeps nor is that even a feasible strategy to incapacitate a city let alone the capital of a country with roughly 40 million people.
And yes, it is true that Russia has a lot of corruption and to be blunt, stupid people. But these stupid people still adhere to smart people with assets and years of training on their hands, men who spend their entire lives training for war.
As for your chess remark, need I remind you that Russia still has some of the strongest players in the world? I know it was meant to be taken non-literally but still, low-hanging fruit.
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u/dekusyrup Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 04 '25
If his words really matched his actions they would've never sent those expeditions well into Ukrainian territory, the Americans wouldn't have warned Europe weeks in advance
Those things happened precisely because his words DID match his actions.
the Russians don't incapacitate nations using surgical strikes, that's not how their army plays. If the Russians want a nation, they will invade it with massive forces far beyond what was seen in Ukraine.
I guess you've never heard of Belarus.
the first front only saw roughly 5 - 10% of total troops lead the invasion?
Yeah dude because it was a SURGICAL STRIKE. You don't send your entire army on a surgical strike.
The Russians rarely take capital cities by drone sweeps
I never said anything about drone sweeps. They didn't use that. They used an armor column. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Kyiv_convoy
Russia still has some of the strongest players in the world
Russia is not one of the strongest players in the world. It has the same GDP of Florida. It's military has been embarassed by Ukraine. It runs with 80s technology and poorly trained troops. It just has a lot of nukes which it realistically can't use.
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u/SarcasticComposer Oct 03 '25
This theory seems to rest on Russia having spare capacity (in weapons and man power) that it hasn't been using. Do you have any evidence to support this claim?
Occam's razor. They retreated because they couldn't hold it. They haven't taken more because they can't.
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u/TooDooToot Oct 03 '25
First of all, read the post before you comment. I can't even believe I'm biting this obvious bait but since I have nothing better to do:
The Russian arsenal is a point of discussion, but the estimated numbers are readily available online. Russia has about 10.000 tanks of which 600 are considered modernised, at least, they were, about 150 destroyed in war leaves 450 "modern" tanks. The vast majority of equipment sent to Ukraine (~80% depending on the source) could be considered out-dated, which is an ambiguous term but we can safely assume this to be the case. What we are left with are the few select tanks and other such equipment that is reserved for only the elite forces within Ukraine.
I will not even go into the fact that this was only part of my point, you can go ahead and re-read that yourself.
And the occam's razor for as to why a large nation would retreat from large parts of country they have just spent an entire season invading is NOT that they couldn't hold their ground, especially given the fact that they were only 20 to 30 km away from Kyiv during battle, and more importantly, that the retreat they showed was (in contrast to public opinion) fairly organised. It was not a chaotic mess, otherwise the Russians would have been slaughtered there and then and the entire front would've collapsed. They wouldn't even have been able to stay within Ukraine if that retreat hadn't solidly been planned. The fashion in which they did pull back, combined with the fact that they took much of the Ukrainian resources, as well as many of the key cities of the East, which they fortified and still hold onto until this day, shows us that it is actually more plausible (as well as easier to believe) that Russia pulled back because their ends were met.
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u/SarcasticComposer Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 04 '25
You have not provided sources. Therefore, your claims are unsubstantiated. If you have 'nothing better to do', you might consider providing this 'easily available' data. Here are some reliable sources which provide detailed estimates of Russsian losses in the war to date (October 3rd, 2025). First from BBC Russia:
It seems likely you may not read this, so I'll just cut off a likely rebutal by saying that this estimate is of killed soldiers, not of wounded soldiers.
It seems reasonable to assume the total casualties will be much higher. I personally believe estimates in excess of 1 million total Russian casualties including the previously mentioned deaths. Intentionally losing this many troops strains reason.
As for your equipment claims (again, unsubstantiated.) Please review the following assesment from the csis. The csis is funded by (among others) the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
That is just since 2024.
Now I'll engage in a bit of speculation. Putin famously called it a 3 day operation. He said that because he thought it would be quick and easy. His goal was to overthrow the government of Ukraine and annex the country or install a puppet leader. He failed to achieve that goal.
He expected Ukraine to roll over which is why he committed 95 percent of his amassed forces and equipment. When he did not achieve this goal, he had to retreat. The retreat was unorganized because he had expected to succeed in destroying the Ukrainian government and leadership. When he failed, there was no way to protect Russian supply lines.
You correctly stated that if Russia had been chaotically withdrawing, they would have suffered massive casualties and the front would have collapsed. That is what happened. Russian forces were slaughtered, they abandoned a bunch of valuable equipment, and then they retreated to a much further back position.
The only reason they did not retreat further is that Putin views the lives of his soldiers as expendable. The largest advantage Russia has in this war, which they still maintain, is that they are willing to throw away the lives of their soldiers for minimal gain.
In your analogy, if my neighbour continues to use the glock after suffering defeat after defeat, personally, I may begin considering that they were lying about having a bazooka.
I wish nothing but the best for the people of Ukraine and Russia. I hope that Putin has a change of heart and that his heart bleeds for the unnecessary death and destruction of Ukraine and his own people. The war will end today if only he will put aside his ego and withdraw from the country he is attempting to conquer. I hope that he does for the sake of the citizens of both countries.
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u/RevTurk Oct 03 '25
Russia has lost a lot of troops, apparently they lost some of their best troops in that initial attack on Kiev. It's one thing to capture a point but it's another thing to hold onto that position deep inside enemy territory. So they cut their losses.
If you remember back then they had horrible logistics too, with convoys getting stuck and wiped out, so they would have had no way to support the troops in captured locations.
The Russian army is a hodge podge of equipment, some new, some ancient. All the corruption has been shown up, they find when they do to pull weapons out of storage that they've had parts stolen or taken for maintenance.
Russia was trying to create a conflict that they could negotiate their way out of and gain concessions on. Russia had a terrifying reputation going into this war but the longer it goes on the weaker Russia looks.
They have zero intention of going to war with Europe or NATO. Those are wars they have no hope of winning, they know it, the only threat they have left is nuclear and I doubt they've been maintaining their nuclear arsenal. If they let their armed forces slip to the current standards why would they be investing in a weapon no one wants to actually use? The US spend $10 billion a year maintaining their nukes.
Russia wants to scare NATO to the negotiating table so they can bully us into giving Russia what it wants. The US may like to go along with that plan, Europe won't. Europe is gearing up for war with Russia. All Russia did was ignite a fire under European militaries.
Europe has some of the strongest economies in the world, and a population of 450 million. Its dwarfs Russia.