Originally Posted by
Summit
Oh Russia knows how. PUTIN knows how. He literally made his name on it.
See Grozny 1995 vs Grozny 1999. In 95 the Red Army had the defenders outnumbered 10 to 1 and it was a year long bloody and destructive fight that caused 30k civilian casualties and crushed a city <10% the size of Kyiv.
When Russia came back for the Second Chechen War in 1999 with Putin in charge, they took Grozny in a month with 1/2 the troop strength advantage and 1/4 the civilian casualties. He then prevailed against the insurgency over the next 9 years. It gained Putin a lot of political credit at home.
But Putin cannot pull a Grozny '99. I don't think the world is going to stand for a similar performance at scale. Even 50K civilian casualties in a first world metro is not gonna be a good look, much less 500K, with the power of modern media and livestream video. He won't be able to keep it out of his population's heads.
Also, Ukraine is 40 Chechnyas.