Interesting - but I'm more interested in what the demographic changes (primarily losses in the young-adult range) does to the Russian economy. They lost their best and brightest (first wave of out-migration). Then many of the rest to both the second wave prompted by mobilization and to ongoing battlefield losses. Their heavy industry has been in collapse since the end of the USSR so it's primarily an extractive-resource economy, excepting possibly wood and grain. The Siberian oil/gas wells and pipelines are in a particularly demanding environment (permafrost), now the 'majors' and oilfield contractors from the West have departed and there doesn't seem to be a 'home team' capability to keep things flowing. So, those wells are about to be 'shut in' within the next year or so. Places in Siberia (e.g. Yakutsk) are dependent on the gas supply for winter survival. What happens when that stops? On top of that, the Eastern oblasts are aware that there are more of their young men being taken than ethnic Russians. There is resistance rising in places like Dagestan. Does that spread? If it does, where does Russia find the men to keep these populations down? If the RF does fracture, what natural resources are in the ethnic Russian areas? Is there any industry (or economy) left? Can they grow enough food? Yes, the RF is a food exporter, but other than Krasnodar kray (other side of the Kerch straits from Ukraine) there isn't much in the way of highly productive agricultural land. And that's assuming that Stalin's Russification of that area means they won't break away.
Agreed that the ethnic Russian areas will still be important, in that they're nuclear armed and right on Europe's doorstep - and losing the East would mean all sorts of political upheaval echoing what happened in 1990. And we're back to a similar situation with nuclear armed separated states. Ukraine gave up its nukes in exchange for promises of territorial integrity. We've seen what those promises were worth - and so have the eastern oblasts. They're quite aware that any Russian promise isn't worth a bucket of warm spit and almost certainly will keep their arms — and demagogues are even more likely in those areas. I have to wonder if they’ll go to war.
I have all sorts of questions, but the one thing that seems sure is that we're in for 'interesting' times... Oh, and I’m adding a map I found of the RF. It’s worth remembering that this is an empire of occupation and subjugation of non-Russian peoples.
