For all the time I've been reading your DU posts, you've been insistent that your sources are superior to those of any other DUer's, but for someone who boasts a knowledge of strategy and whose sig line boldly reads "GOOD Du'ers don't propagandize other DU'ers" when you've been caught many a time spreading Putinite views and for some reason feeling driven to making sweeping predictions that almost never pan out, you seem pretty blinkered.
The state of the areas Russia claims as its own is very precarious, and morale is plunging even in Moscow. Crimea is largely without electricity and starved of fuel, and water supplies will grow increasingly scarce along with the other necessities of survival. That pattern is likely to spread to other areas and worsen where Russia's planted its flags, often in kamikazi runs which amount to just that - planting a flag, then either running away or being rapidly obliterated.
The status quo is simply unsustainable for Russia, and more and more of them are realizing that, even the Z-bloggers.
What use is pleasing the armchair-bound map addicts watching popcorn in hand as the lines move east and west when survival in contested areas is increasingly tenuous, let alone defence and warfighting?
One interesting development in the ever-growing fuel queues around Russia is that when they're not squabbling among themselves, Russians are having an unusual opportunity, in a country where large ungovernable gatherings are not encouraged, to spend their waiting time discussing the state of the country, and many are putting two and two together and not liking what their sums amount to. That's a front Putin is no doubt increasingly uneasy about, and won't show up on any map, though the only obvious state countermeasure so far has been issuing parking tickets to those stuck in queues.
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