@RedBox It would not make much difference, because Ukrainian non-professional reserve army is, putting it mildly, is not very good, in terms of equipment and training (sadly, I'm a reserve officer, and the training that I got is completely inadequate)

I'm giving it "low" 5%. For full on invasion and occupation of multiple regions, chances are even lower, and the main factor is the threat of guerilla war. Russian army strengths (high precision missiles etc...) would not help much in this case. For the smaller incursion, trying to expand eastern occupied regions, it would defeat the purpose of not letting Ukraine into NATO. Would rather speed it up. If current threats don't work for stopping Ukraine's move to NATO, then Russia can use mobilised forces to "officially" occupy eastern regions. Would mak...

@fianxu no, nothing like that. there is no mobilisation, sentiment from Ukrainian politicians/experts/media is that economic impact would be destabilising

A possibly similar example is US invasion of Iraq, similar invasion force size (100-200k), and country's population size (40M). The campaign cost US >$2T. How can Russia afford this cost, with its GDP of $1.5T, and especially with impending economic sanctions? It just does not add up.

@Glossy this is the best take that I've seen so far, and well aligned with Russian and Ukrainian media response