To Dig in Your Heels…

… you have to have something to dig into.

Conditions on the front right now are a mix of mud and snow, dirt and ice, and none of those surfaces are all that great to dig your heels into.

Conditions in Russia right now are similar in the metaphorical sense. Putin has no choice but to dig in his heels and outlast the elections in March (his, which are fake, but more on that later) and November (US). His options are obvious, but none of them are good.

He can continue his current policy of ‘active defense,’ which is attacking everywhere just a little bit, enough to keep the Ukrainians from mounting their own offensive, and hope that he can continue to repair and recruit faster than the Ukrainians can demolish and kill — which right now is around a thousand troops and thirty vehicles per day. This buys him time, but unless he is going to either start repairing faster or start recruiting faster, it’s a losing game. He can’t maintain it, as the casualties are more than 1 to 5 against, and despite the population advantage, Russia and Ukraine are recruiting from the same size pool. Russia needs men to work in factories and mines and drive trucks to keep logistics going. Ukraine doesn’t need nearly as many.

He can go into ‘passive defense,’ but this is a losing proposition. It gives initiative to the Ukrainians, who can pick where they want to strike, and they can get there faster than Russia can respond. Russia would lose fewer men with this strategy, but it would essentially…