The Eiffel tower during the Nazi occupation (1941). “Germany wins on all fronts.” Was it winning on all the fronts in 1941? Possibly, but it wouldn’t be for much longer.
Russian hardware destroyed or damaged in Ukraine (2022). Russia is obviously not winning “on all fronts,” although it’s likely to advance on the Kharkiv-Donbas front. It could still destroy Ukraine’s cities and civilian infrastructure if NATO keeps withholding key weapons from Ukraine.
But the more Russia advances on the battlefield, the more certain its ultimate defeat on the front that matters the most in the medium to long run: the economic front. What’s ahead is not merely a contraction but a disaster. As Russia is no longer able to import a wide range of components, inputs and technologies, its producers will soon find themselves crippled. Bypassing the missing links would only be possible by reverting to outdated, possibly Soviet technologies, so Russia’s key industries would be set back a few decades.
The standard Russian name for the Latin letter V sounds somewhat like the German Weh, “woe.”