Says Kyivpost.
Lines on the map seem to very slowly move in Russia’s favor and Russia’s “leadership” doesn’t care about human cost as long as it allows further operation of their state.
It’s their job to study strengths and weaknesses, so the quote is kinda stupid. Whether they are aware of anything can be said only retrospectively.
I just don’t see where Russia is losing, I live in Russia and every year since 2022 people (sometimes not the dumbest kind, but with age comes naivete, and everyone is naive outside of their immediate profession) around me would say how Russian economy and\or defenses are going to crumble soon because of this war.
And before that since 2020 how they are going to crumble because of inability to adapt.
And before that because of sanctions, yes, what was called sanctions then was seriously talked about.
And before that because stealing elections is unpopular and generally immoral.
And before that because Putin will certainly lose an election, right?
It just doesn’t work like that.
In Russia there’s an expression “глубинный народ” (something like “depths’ people” or “deep people”, hard to translate), meaning some consistent deep popular feeling about something, it’s usually ascribed barbaric feelings, like only caring how the rest of the world fears your nukes or hating everyone intelligent.
But it’s also sometimes ascribed wisdom. For example, about prophets predicting the death of Russia’s regime all by itself one day. Some of those prophets being children of the previous generation of that regime, supposedly separated from the current generation, but after becoming irrelevant coming back to their herd, like Sobchak.
Things are achieved when people work to achieve them, and with the amount of work they take, not the honest amount, not the amount those people can possibly do. Life is not honest.
Russia is not losing this war. It might reformat it into some kind of frozen conflict.
USA’s Mr. 47 will seriously take $5m from Mr. Putin to invite him to live in ‘the land of the free’. And spend all of his ruble there.
As if would want to live in the US banana republic?
And god I hope they keep going and keep winning.
Especially without American Support
Removed by mod
Then go fight there. They’re hiring.
Fair point.
I have a friend in Kiev and they’re kidnapping people to send them to the frontline. Maybe you can take his place if you like Ukraine that much. It’s funny how jingoists who cheers for war are never the ones actually fighting it.
Oh wait, this is an astroturf post.
Since when is mandatory conscription “kidnapping”?
A friend’s father got kidnapped by the state here in sweden due to not showing up for draft… It does sound way worse with those words though
It’s what the troll center boss told them to say.
What should they have said, then? That they want Ukraine to lose and surrender? That they want the stalemate to continue indefinitely?
I hope they win is probably good. I hope they continue to fight might be out of touch. OP sounds fake though, who has a friend in
Kyiv“Kiev” that repeats Russian propaganda narratives to them?if you go on reddit to certain pro-russian combat footage subs dedicated to the war, you’ll see one or two new videos a week of Ukrainian men being kidnapped off of the streets and stuffed into a van
they really are taking people off the streets there. they’re low on manpower and the men remaining are all those that don’t want to die so they’ve been ignoring any draft summons. so the Ukrainian gov has been resorting to increasingly brutal measures.
i’m honestly just so glad i wasn’t born in post-soviet slavic country , lol. i swear the value of life there is not nearly what it is here. on the Russian side they’ll force thousands of men forwards into a meat grinder trying to win with pure brute force. if a soldier tries to go backwards, the Russians themselves will shoot you as a motivation for the others to go forwards. hundreds of thousands of men dead or maimed for what? a couple miles of land a day?
then on the Ukrainian side they’ll keep you defending some worthless piece of land forever as all the supply lines slowly close around you. once you’re cut off, you know you and the wounded with you are all gonna die. command promised reinforcements when they had no intention of sending reinforcements. to them , the political benefit of holding onto that land for just a little longer is worth more than the lives of real human beings. you are a soldier and you are expendable. (this also coincidentally makes it harder to get fresh recruitment because ukrainian men aren’t stupid and propaganda can only hide so many deaths)
i’ve seen confirmed cases of both sides killing POWs. men walking out of a trench with their hands up surrendering just to get mowed down anyways. men trying to surrender to drones only to get blown up anyways.
war is hell. it’s barbaric and highlights the absolute worst nature of humanity.
having said all that, yeah the commenter does seem like an astroturfer or at least a biased pro-russian poster if organic. but the statement with ukrainians being kidnapped, at least from what I’ve seen, is true. it has been happening at increasing frequencies
you’ll see one or two new videos a week of Ukrainian men being kidnapped off of the streets and stuffed into a van
When it’s the police, we just call it “detained”, even though it’s the same thing. Saying “kidnapping” and “brutal measures” is a little saucy when this is exactly how the police where I live operate, too. We don’t have conscription or a war on right now, but we have in the past, and we might in the future.
the political benefit of holding onto that land for just a little longer is worth more than the lives of real human beings. you are a soldier and you are expendable
That’s pretty much the job description of a soldier. For example, this describes the recent American wars. They had lower tolerance for casualties, but that’s just because it was an optional war rather than an existential one.
It was less that OP pointed out this stuff, and more that their “friend in Kiev” apparently phones them up about this and doesn’t mention anything about the Russians who are perpetuating all this and could leave at any time.
Right they should have peacefully be annexed to Soviet Union 2.0
I guess you would have gone with that
I seriously considered it, but they specifically said they don’t need buffoons.
You kidding? Last time latinoamericana tried to show support some crazy Ukrainian girls answered with monkey emojis. Bunch of racist neanderthals.
I heard of a bunch of Brazilians fighting in the international legion.
Serving sopa de macaco to the troops?
Uma delicia ;) But they were serving 7.62s to the russians for sure, there was a lot of combat footage coming from the Kreminna Forest where they were holding the line.
Best soup ever xd sadly, they don’t seem to serve them at the Brasilian restaurant in my city :(
Which is probably why they’re trying to bid up Ukraine with the US using their own minerals.
Edit: Although some are suggesting this article is just propaganda, Russia’s main challenge is that their economy is on the brink of failing and domestic support becomes a question if that happens. From a skim that appears to be the main thrust of it.
The economy, while struggling, is far from collapsing and popular support is almost a non issue. Russia is not drafting. Without a draft, most soldiers joining do so voluntarily, so there is not as much resistance. They have to pay a lot of money to make people sign up to go fight a war and the extra competition for labor (army vs factories) is increasing wages in many categories. The ones most unhappy about the situation are the oligarchs who have to pay for all of it. So unfortunately, betting on Russia somehow collapsing anytime soon is probably a loosing bet.
The more likely bottleneck for Russia is equipment and volunteers for the Army. Their Soviets stockpiles are starting to run low. And, if Russia runs out of people willing to sign up for money, they may be forced to either end the war or start drafting with all the issues that brings.
I base this mostly on Perun YT channel, that has many videos doing in depth analysis of various aspects of the war.
Yeah, that’s one of my main sources too.
This is what I mean - they need money to pay for their military industry, ever-scarcer volunteers and a bunch of feel-good handouts like cheap mortgages on top of it. They’ve basically just been burning the economic furniture to make that happen (including the old Soviet stockpiles), and at some point raising the interest rate will get diminishing returns. Eventually, their spending is going to come up against what they actually physically have and lose, and then they’ll get hyperinflation.
It’s been suggested they could just muscle through that, and I can’t rule it out, but Russia is not Nazi Germany or even Venezuela. Putin’s regime has pretty much discouraged ideology of any kind in favour of cynical patronage, so once all the rubles they have to slosh around are worthless they’re kind of in uncharted territory.
I fully agree, it’s just that the operative keyword is eventually, and I don’t expect it to mean soon. Of course they can’t keep this up forever.
Once their mothballed armour runs out it seems pretty guaranteed, and there were reports of a surge in bankruptcies a bit ago.
I’d be surprised if it’s a full year. Some kind of treaty might come soon anyway, though.
Some kind of treaty might come soon anyway, though.
Maybe the collapse is closer than we think and that’s where this sudden push to resolve the war is coming from.
It’s pretty much certain Putin has more idea about how long than we do, and is on a clock of however long that is, yeah.
That being said, the big factor at the moment is Trump. Ukraine can no longer rely on US assistance, and Putin thinks he might give him a more favourable deal somehow, so that’s incentive for both sides to wrap it up.
Their economy has allegedly been on the brink of failing for the past three years according to US state department talking points. Surely any day now the Ruskies will surrender…
I actually doubt the US state department ever said that, exactly. They’re diplomats, are very careful about their wording, and are unlikely to promise something they aren’t totally sure about.
I’m going by the trajectory of the now >20% interest rate, the fact they’re politically covering for massive military spending with massive handouts, the amount of assets still in Russia and the recent reports of a surge in bankruptcies. I don’t know if it will be two weeks or a year, but they can’t keep this up the same way forever.
Russia’s economy is better than before the SMO started. All media in the US and those of US-controled/couped countries are controlled by the CIA.
What is SMO?
Isn’t that the lie Putin told the world about the Russian war of aggression and invasion of Ukraine?
3 days, right?
At a minimum we can say that Russia has transitioned pretty well into a war economy. It is an economic transition that is going very nice for the working class. For a long time OSINT has shown nearly depleted reserves of equipment, but they have gone very light infantry. I think it is concerning they might eek out a pyrrhic victory. It is hard to say how much longer they can stretch what is left.
It is an economic transition that is going very nice for the working class
Yeah, must be real nice just lying in a field in ukraine pushing up sunflowers
I know what you mean, but the soldiers they recruit are so poor they are seeing real economic benefit for themselves and their families; more over, working class wages have grown past inflation giving them a real wage increase. Ironically the biggest losers are the oligarchs.
Yes, that’s actually pretty typical of warfare under the original feudalism, too. The rich hoard their wealth, until they’re gone and their palaces can be looted, or they need to bribe a mass of peasants to save their ass. Then you get redistribution.
I’m not really sure I’d call a short-term, unsustainable cash injection at the cost of actual infrastructure and development “good for the working class”, though. If Russia becomes the next Venezuela or even Somalia they might end up with bigger problems than no Lada.
It is good for the working class in Russia and by Russian standards. These economic analysis tell us that all else equal we cannot expect Russian civil disobedience at this stage. Ironically it does mean a palace coup is more likely due to the brunt being held by Oligarchs. As for long term benefits? Hard to say, but people live today not tomorrow. Today the Russian working class is going to eat better than yesterday.
GDP can increase during a war, but that’s not as beneficial as growth during peace. After all the military equipment produced doesn’t last long or provides much long term value to the economy. A civilian truck, excavator, or train locomotive can create more value for an economy for decades. A trank or artillery piece will only last for a few months during war and only causes destruction, no creation. So yeah, nominally the economy might increase, but all that labor might be for nothing in the end.
It has been very impressive how Russia transformed its economy and circumvented sanctions. Production of military equipment is high and still increasing in parts. Goods for domestic consumption are also doing okay and standard of living hasn’t fallen much.
Of course none of this is sustainable and has only been achievable by all kinds of tricks, but for now it works.
The CIA wishes they were even a tenth as competent as you think they are.
Go read any of the declassified reports of CIA activity, starting with the Church commission.
Or the actual events of Benghazi.
The truth is, the CIA is full of bumbling chucklefucks who have no clue if the actions they take will have the effect they want.
They can do a lot of damage, but like you, they also tend to believe the Hollywood myth making.
This belief doesn’t make them any more competent, but it does make them more reckless and dangerous.
This is not a special military operation. It involves the citizens of both nations directly involved.
The War in Afghanistan. The War in Iraq. The War in Gaza.
The War in Ukraine. Started by Russia after their puppet government was ousted in Ukraine.
Whaaaat? you don’t believe they fight with shovels?
Smartest ml user
You should see a therapist
Lol, no.
I’ve found that Colonel Maruks Reisner provides some of the best information available on the war.
He doesn’t update frequently but all his analysis are sober, detailed, and realistic. He states his pro-Western, pro-NATO, pro-Ukrainian bias clearly.
If I could sum up the general trend of his presentation it’s, “The status quo favors Russia. If we don’t get our heads out of our asses and step up Russia will win.”
He is okay and mostly factual. The tactical and operational analysis is good. However he has been wrong in the past, especially with his strategic interpretations and long term predictions.
The status quo favors Russia. If we don’t get our heads out of our asses and step up Russia will win
That has been his refrain from the beginning. Yet Ukraine is still very much in the fight.
The we is also kind of ironic since Austria doesn’t send any arms to Ukraine. The Austrian government and intelligence services as notoriously influenced by Russia. So take that in mind as well.
I’m not aware of any major predictions he’s gotten wrong. As near as I can tell, he’s very focused on ex-post analysis.
Ukraine is still in the fight but it’s clearly loosing. Ukraine is still rich in subjective resources like “spirit” and “determination”. When it comes to hard metrics the picture is pretty bleak; casualties, ground gained, artillery production, depth of reserves…
The “we” wasn’t a quote by Colonel Reisener. I did put it in quotation marks but I thought it would be clear from the vocabulary that I was paraphrasing him. I’m sure you already know that Austria is constitutionally obligated to remain neutral. While Austria is barred from providing military assistance it has participated in sanctions and provided humanitarian assistance. That’s earned Austria a spot on Russia’s official Unfriendly Countries List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfriendly_countries_list
I try to keep a more complete set of facts in mind when assessing the reliability of sources.
In casualties as in military losses Ukraine is doing quite badly: Ukraine has lost some 300 000 as dead and wounded, while the Russia has lost around 800 000 as dead and wounded. The population difference is 1:3½, and the difference in total military losses is 1:2½. That means, Ukraine is losing a slightly larger share of its population as military casualties than the Russia is.
However… Neither side is going to run out of population anytime soon. Ukrainian soldiers go to the front, eventually maybe get wounded and return home one leg poorer. Their children will not have to live with their father, only without an organic right leg of the father. And for the Russian side, the deaths are a much bigger proportion of the population. There the ratio is around 1:4½, and that one favours Ukraine.
If a person is measuring ground gained in this war, he does not understand the war very much at all. Neither side is trying to gain ground. Both sides are trying to incur as much losses to the enemy as possible. The Russia because they need to keep the gore to the maximum in order to convince the west to stop supporting Ukraine, and Ukraine, because if the Russia’s losses drop under 1000 per month, they will be able to start training their soldiers, which will make a huge difference in their dangerousness. The Russia knows very well that it will never take over Ukraine with the current speed of advancing. Remember, in year 2024 the Russia was gaining ground faster than expected. And in year 2024 they managed to gain 0.7 % of Ukraine’s total territory. Less, if you take the Kursk province’s happenings into account. 0.7 % is strategically meaninglessly little.
Artillery shell production is currently about twice as high in the Russia as it’s in the west. But when you take into account that to hit a specific target, the very inaccurate Russian artillery needs to shoot about ten times as many rounds as western artillery, the numbers start looking different: For military use, you either should divide the Russia’s artillery shell numbers by ten, or alternatively multiply ours by ten. Depth of reserves… Well, here we come back to casualties and motivations.
- As said, the population ratio is 1:3½.
- The total military casualty ratio is 1:2½, favouring the Russia.
- The military death ratio is 1:4½, favouring Ukraine.
Russian soldiers are in it for the money. The Russia will have useful amounts of money to give to the soldiers for another six to fifteen months, about. After that the motive is gone. Typically, it is easier for the defending party to find soldiers for a war than it is for the aggressor. This is the case in this war as well. This means, when interpreting the casualty ratios, you need to add a multiplier for taking into account that the defender can tap into a larger share of the population than the aggressor can.
Remember, Ukrainians are sending to the front less than a fifth of what they could, if we compare with Finland. Finland has a population of 5,6 million and we have about one million soldiers ready to serve within some months of the begin of a hypothetical war. Each one of them has received a top-class military training and each one has a specific place in a specific unit in the army should a war break. Ukraine has about the same size army as that, even though they have over 40 million people. The unwillingness to join the front is a surprising feature, at least from a Finnish perspective, but also a result of a lack of motivation. If the scales were to tip in the favour of the Russia, Ukrainians would get scared and more would be ready to help their country. When looking at the very large difficulties Ukraine has with conscription, you need to take this into account. The problem is of a type that solves itself. It’s extremely unfair towards the soldiers at the front that they never get relieved. And idiotic that people don’t want to join the army because soldiers never get relieved from the front … because there are not enough people ready to go to the front. And, from my experience living in Ukraine, I would say that this won’t change. They will remain understaffed as long as the war will go on, but always precisely at the limit where they can still keep scraping on.
Ukraine’s army won’t be disappearing anytime soon, the west is effortlessly able to pay all of Ukraine’s budget indefinitely if it so wishes and the Russia is not able to gain any ground. The Russia’s goals are to cause Ukraine to collapse economically or its army to collapse from lack of manpower, and neither of those can happen. At the same time, the Russian economy, and therefore military, have at max one year time left. After that they will have nothing to use for stopping Ukraine from reclaiming its territories.
EDIT: I want to add: While the Ukrainians’ readiness to defend their country is lower than Finns’, that’s mostly because Finland has an exceptionally high readiness for that. If you compare with Germany or France, the Ukrainians look extremely willing to go to the front. What I wanted to say is that although their willingness is very high, there is still a lot of place for improvement!
Second this. I expected just more crazy ukrainian claims but it was actually a very grounded analysis of the situation.
He has a lot of videos like that. One of them is him in a room full of cadets. He goes through all the drone innovations that the Russian and Ukrainians have made in the past year and passes around a (disarmed) working €321 drone.
Then he points out that Austria still has the same expensive drone they had years ago and tells the cadets they should be a bit stressed about that.
I’ve heard this one before. As much as I’d like to believe it…
It’s propaganda.
Your mom is propaganda.
I really hope Europe is going to give them the support they need to see this through.
I hope trump is not going to start sending support to Putin
Honestly if he did it would rip the Republican Party apart lol
Doubtful. They’ve shown beyond a reasonable doubt that nothing matters to them except blind loyalty to T. Nothing. Their own lives are meaningless before him, and his whims define their every breath. If he started shipping troops and guns to Russia, Republicans would be right there, fervently cheering him on.
I have some hope from the fact that when they showed just how absurdly subservient they are, some people showed up at town hall meetings to yell at them. Not all of these representatives are totally insulated in a maga-encrusted bubble, and at some point the fear of being too pro-Trump might start to compete with the fear of not being pro-Trump enough.
The true believers REALLY don’t want American intervention and the “old guard” have already pushed back against supporting Russia multiple times.
They’re feckless but they’re not of the same mind on this.
But they’ll also toe the party line, no matter what that line is or who’s drawing it. I’ve known enough “I’m a Republican. I vote for the nominee” conservatives in my life to know that.
You can actually look at how Russia/Ukraine has been handled and see that that is factually incorrect. Look at the votes. Senate Republicans in particular have had no problem voting to send aid
Except the old guard is literally being purged out of agencies right now and is almost completely gone from the national political scene. McCain is dead with trump dancing on his grave, Romney is out after voting to convict trump during the 2021 impeachment. McConnell is retired, but literally spent the last decade trying to get trump elected and give him complete control over the courts (and tried to hand the courts to partisan unqualified judges for 30 years) All of the other “old guard” have bent the knee or left.
While I agree, their margins are too thin the house and the senate hasn’t totally gone MAGA yet. They need more buffer seats and upcoming midterms are very favorable to democrats
If they all weren’t a bunch of cowards, they would have stood up to him already.
It won’t. Spoiler alert.
Firstly, that’s not certain at all, yet. Secondly “spoiler alert” goes first, you don’t write the spoiler then the alert, your inability to understand that says no one should trust anything you say.
Now who’s being childish
Ukraine is their neignbor. Being that most of Europe are also NATO members, It makes more sense to me that they be the ones to spearhead this proxy war if anyone should.
Russia is all of our problem. Being that the US is part of the world and Russia is a rogue state with a nuclear arsenal and the flagrant aggressor, it makes plenty of sense for us to invest in reducing their ability to cause these kinds of shockwaves every 7-10 years on the world stage.
Have you forgotten the social and political unrest Russia has caused in our country? Are you unaware of the money and personnel they invest into destabilizing our country? Should that just go completely unanswered?
Do you seriously think we should only concern ourselves with Mexico and Canada or something?
“Have you forgotten the social and political unrest Russia has caused in our country? Are you unaware of the money and personnel they invest into destabilizing our country? Should that just go completely unanswered?”
you overestimate the influence russia previously had in our country while simultaneously underestimate the impact of americas history on my own fellow Americans as well as the rest of the world.
Do you seriously think we don’t invest money and personnel in destabilizing russia?
I also didn’t say to eliminate support, but we shouldn’t be leading this charge
“Do you seriously think we should only concern ourselves with Mexico and Canada or something?”
I seriously think we should do what our fellow NATO countries have been doing the past 8 decades and start focusing our attention on improving living conditions at home instead of constantly spending absurd amounts of money to perpetuate this infinitely growing war machine that claims to hold other countries to standards that it can’t even hold itself to.
With all due respect, you’re doing their job for free right now.
With all due respect. I couldn’t care less.
You cared enough to start shit and defend Russia. If you didn’t care you would’ve read and moved on. Don’t play at that bullshit.
I never defended russia. quit makin’ shit up. also, unlike you bots, I have to sleep sometimes.
Ah, yes. You clearly don’t care so much you typed out a response.
hands-down one of the most effortless things I can do.
The EU has given far more support to Ukraine than the US.
“The EU has given far more support to Ukraine than the US.”
Cite your sources.
The “EU” is not a singular country. The US is.
The US has about twice the landmass, far more natural resources and about 80% of the population of the EU.
As for sources:
The US fucking around geopolitically is what got us this mess. The US was eager to walk over Russian security interests, despite warnings this could escalate to a war. And now Trump has spoken the quiet part out loud, that for the US this war is mainly a business opportunity, no matter who wins it in the end.
The US dropping out of supporting Ukraine should be met with sanctions and a ban of any US investment into Ukraine for thr next 100 years. Also all US owned assets needs to be seized like the Russian ones.
Neither country should be allowed to make a single Penny from rebuilding in Ukraine.
The US was eager to walk over Russian security
Why do you think Russian security interests override the security interests of the countries neighboring Russia?
proxy war
So you think Russia waged this war just to stick it to the West? To me it looks like a war of conquest - Russia invaded so they could take land.
Why are you even guessing? Every single representative of Russia including Putin gives long ass speeches about why this is happening. Also the US is hardcore plotting and funding terrorism against Russia. They have incidents every two weeks or so.
Every single representative of Russia including Putin gives long ass speeches about why this is happening
The same government that has lied about so many things that I have lost count
Also the US is hardcore plotting and funding terrorism against Russia
Evidence? Do you think the US plotted and funded the Crocus City Hall attack for instance?
If it was only about conquest, there is countries like Kazachstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tschadjikistan that Russia could conquer easily and w.o. consequences from the West.
The key strategic goal for Russia is to prevent NATO standing on their homeland doorsteps.
For a good explanatiom see this talk by Prof. John Mearsheimer, who foresaw this war coming ten years ago already.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4&pp=ygULbWVhcnNoZWltZXI%3D
NATO has already been on Russia’s borders - the Baltics and Poland were already NATO members that bordered Russia.
I think the invasion of Ukraine was indeed a conquest for land. John McCain over 10 years ago predicted that Putin wanted to grab a “land bridge” between mainland Russia and Crimea:
Now this is just a dim take. We are fighting a war via a proxy (Ukraine) by offering the financial, logistical, and weapon support. Hence, a Proxy War.
What’s dim is refusing to recognise that this war was started by Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, then increased their invasion in 2022. Ukraine asked the West for military help so the West provided military help.
Maybe Ukraine should have been allowed to join NATO years ago when they asked, and then they might not have been invaded.
We Europeans should have never hesitated to supply Ukraine. Let’s make up for the fuck-up and give them everything we have and the AmeriKan Nazis can piss and moan on the sidelines.
What if the US stepping back is exactly what Europe needs to become a true superpower?"
It hit me recently that Europe has largely relied on the US to take the lead on global issues, often playing it safe and deferring to American influence. But what if the US pulling back its support is actually a blessing in disguise?
Without the US as the default leader, NATO and the EU could finally step up, stand on their own, and evolve into a unified superpower. This shift could bring much-needed stability to the region—and potentially the world—especially as the US faces its own internal challenges.
Sure, it’s not guaranteed to play out this way, but isn’t this a more appealing vision than the current status quo or the rise of authoritarian powers dominating the global stage?
USA has also quite sternly asked Europe to not become a superpower. And this is something that was openly spoken aloud in 1980’s and 1990’s. Their offer has been “we’ll handle this superpower stuff on your behalf, you guys keep to yourself.” That has kept USA the clear leading superpower, which has been extremely useful for the American economy, and we have been able to concentrate on other stuff, which has been good for our economy.
It’s been an agreement between USA and Europe that Europe will not start competing of power with USA. We have more population and a bigger economy than USA, so I’d guess that now that the agreement has ended, we’ll have to become what we would already have been for decades if we hadn’t been asked not to.
In the 1990s, the US would have been glad if the Europeans would have managed the Yugoslav disintegration and ensuing wars with ethnic cleansing themselves. They were unable and had to rely on the US in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Absolutely!
But of course the US leadership understood that this is a consequence of asking EU to refrain from doing that kind of stuff. Would still have been better for USA if Europe would have done much more, so the demands make sense. And I agree that more should have been done!
No wonder Krasnov Trump and Nazi Elon Musk are panicking and begging for a deal.
LOL Almost no cannon fodder to send, the massive amount of arms and equipment they started with but now they’re starting to win?
You are talking about Russia right?
I’m talking about reality, better get used to it
Half a million Russian families had to get used to it already.
Depends if you believe the ghost of Kiev and ‘fighting with shovels side’.
Both sides are a tragedy.
Unfortunately for Russia it’s a matter of survival.
The ukros could’ve just been OK with staying what they had after the coup and not terrorise and take the east that didn’t want anything to do with them.Who were they “taking the east” from?
What is the threat to Russia’s existence?
You have this backwards. The war is existential for Ukrainians. Russians decided to annex Crimea, and then luhansk and Donesk. When Kiev caught for it’s own territory, the Russians went for the capitol and attempted to overthrow the whole country.
The east is mostly ethnic Russians Donbass and Luhansk.
And the South too.
Unfortunately they couldn’t resist and after horrible crimes by fascist thugs (such as burning 47 civilians alive) theyhad to give up.The threat to Russia’s existence?
Have you looked at a map?
Ukraine in nato would make defense impossible from nukes.
That is too close to Moscow to react.
That is a red line and that was known for decades by the west.https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
Russia did not ‘annex’ Crimea.
They are also ethnic Russians, only have been ukro oficially for some decades.
They have always voted to go back to Russia in referendums loooong before this war.
Especially after when they were discriminated against.All these are verifiable facts, you could know all this with some effort and not only consume US garbage news.
Edit: I just read your comment “Lefties supported Kamala.” so it’s clear you don’t even know the basics of your own sorry country.
And these people want to have an opinion on geopolitics.What does the ethnicity of the inhabitants of the eastern provinces have to do with national borders? Does Mexico have claims to Texas and California? Should the US conquer Canada because of the 10’s of thousands of US natives living there?
If Ukraine was abusing it’s population it should be censored, sanctioned, it’s leaders prosecuted for crimes against international law, but invasion is worse than anything short of genocide. The people of Donesk and Luhansk have had their many of their communities completely destroyed. They are not better off because of the war.
Step up, EU. It’s on you now that the US are traitors.
As an American I’d like to apologize for the shit show my country currently is.
I’ve never felt shame like this.
Start doing something about it, please.
You’ve had many opportunities to feel shame like this, starting with the unconditional support & complicity of the U.S. government in the genocide in Gaza…
I actually really don’t care about Gaza.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support what they’re doing over there… But… It’s a bunch of religious people fighting over what they think is holy land… When holy Land is in contention they’re always killing each other over it…
Do better. It’s a very powerful country backed by the US who is invading many countries while committing numerous war crimes including genocide and ethnic cleansing. If you don’t care about Gaza don’t pretend to care about human rights and the rule of law.
To be fair that’s a proxy war between the US and the Arab world.
It was always going to end one way. People are mostly desensitized and the Oct events pushed the majority off the fence. Which was kinda the point. It’s a rats nest and anyone trapped there is unfortunately walking dead trapped between the gears of globalism.
American voters had zero say in it really. I’m not sure anyone can do anything really. It’s like trying to hold back the sea.
It is only this bad because the US has provided nearly unconditional military, diplomatic and financial support to Israel for 75+ years despite them committing numerous war crimes, invading all of their neighbors and hindering countless peaceful processes. Israel can’t even defend itself without the assistance of foreign countries as we have seen last year when they needed the US, France, Jordan and others to step in when Iran sent a few missiles.
Supporting the genocide in Gaza was my first deep shame for my country, and I’m not a spring chicken.
Y’all must have not been around for the Iraq invasion. I stopped being a Republican when my party lied its way into an unnecessary conflict. Iraq only had what Cheney and Reagan sold them in the 80’s. To fight Iran. It’s insane to me for people to forget this important point. We almost brought back the draft for that war. I heard from many leadership individuals that were from my home town. That it was coming any day. Thank god it didn’t. But they abused the troops by forcing them to do extra terms in the conflict zone. No one remembers that either it seems. The GOP was fine forcing service members back into contracts for another 3 years.
I didn’t forget about the Iraq war, I was in the streets protesting against it. It was painfully obvious the US administration was lying about WMDs.
But whattabout Vietnam?
What about it?
His point, I think, is the line of whataboutist thinking that got the conversation to this point, from the OP.
Defense Minister Ruslan Umerov said 96% of all drones fielded by the Ukrainian military are domestically manufactured. Syrsky said during 2024, Ukrainian drone producers delivered more than 1.3 million robot aircraft to the armed forces. About 85% of all Russian casualties and vehicle kills on the battlefield are scored by Ukrainian drones, Malyuk said.
Very interesting to see the statistics. I always assumed drones were doing the most damage but it’s nice to have a number confirm this.
This war is a sample of what all major conflicts between industrialized nations are going to look like from now on. Even more utterly horrific for the average soldier. Death from above at any moment without warning, fuzzy front lines, the whole thing.
Equipment, too. The US DoD was looking at a new tank, but axed it. They don’t exactly give out their reasons why, but a good guess is they saw what drones were doing in Ukraine and decided the design would have been obsolete before the first one came off the assembly line.
They are coffins on tracks now. The tank, the warship, the aircraft carrier. All exceptionally vulnerable to $10k drones and thus: all obsolete. Until some sort of anti-drone minigun on AI enters service, the tank sits, the warship barely floats, and the aircraft carrier is 500km away.
But: attaching some sort of infrared and visible spectrum 360 camera to a processing unit isn’t beyond the pale already. It won’t be long until these units are all back in action. Stealth drones already? Hypersonic missiles? Good old fashioned AT launchers? Reactive armour? Spaced hulls? Laser interception? Gauss canons?
We’re in an accelerated arms race right now indeed
Don’t agree with the aircraft carrier bit. The point of aircraft carriers has always been that they can sit way the hell back, because the aircraft are projecting all the firepower. The F-35 and Super Hornet for example have a combat radius of well over 1000km.
They have always been vulnerable in the sense that it doesn’t take much to destroy them, a few torpedoes or ASMs suffice. The hard part is getting those weapons on target. That means either getting close enough in a very hostile electronic warfare and anti-air environment, or acquiring a weapons grade lock on a moving target from hundreds of kilometers away.
Both are very hard problems to solve, and $10k drones do nothing towards solving that. The threat to worry about here is not drones, but hard to intercept hypersonic missiles that are self guiding through passive electro-optical sensors that allow them to intelligently pick out an aircraft carrier to home in on.
We’ve had these for decades now. They’re called CIWS, and they’re capable of taking missiles out of the sky and turning inflatable dinghies into flotsam. They’re mounted on every aircraft carrier in the world - both US and otherwise - and we’ve fielded trailer mounted variants for at least 20 years. They were using them in Iraq to blow mortar rounds out of the air.
We have automated systems on vehicles capable of identifying a tank round traveling 1,700 meters per second via radar, figure out whether it’s going to hit or miss the vehicle, and fire an explosive at it to neutralize it if it is, all within a span of about 300 milliseconds.
The biggest issues with drones are largely man portable solutions and things that don’t send thousands of rounds of lead into the sky to rain down on a population center. Drones are small enough to fly indoors and cheap enough to be deployed in swarms. Figuring out how to counter those aspects is probably where the most energy is going to be spent.
Did not save the Moskva. Then again, it helps if you keep things in working order…
They need to give it all they’ve got and go all out. Leave it all on the battlefield and give 100%. Don’t hold back and go the extra kilometer.
You should write them a letter and tell them that
I’ll write a strongly worded letter to Pete Hegseth on their behalf.
I honestly don’t know how to read the situation. Ukraine’s fought terrifically, but their status seems far less sustainable even if you discount the Trump stuff. I don’t put a lot of stock in these claims that Russia is on the verge of imploding due to the stress of the war, any day now. It is possible, but mostly seems like wishful thinking.
External aid changes the situation a bit, but not ultimately that much because no Western power seems willing to directly intervene with troops. Barring that, the overall situation between the two countries feels a bit like what Shelby Foote said about the US Civil War: “the North fought that war with one hand behind its back… If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back.”
Thing is there is a hand behind the back on both sides. Russia has nukes. So do France and UK, one shouldn’t forget… Tho USA dropping support does change the conventional war, the USA dropping support doesn’t fundamentally change this hand behind the back part.
This is hopium, they kind of have to say this otherwise why would European countries keep supporting them?
Remember when Putin was sick and dying? Or when the Russians would revolt and oust the government? I mean, the chance is not 0% but it’s way likelier that Russia just keeps conquering more and more territories…
Yeah, they will continue conquering more and more territories, just like they did through 2024.
During 2024 they advanced faster than expected. And managed to conquer a whopping 0.7 % of Ukraine’s total territory. Less than kne percent. Or even less, if you take into account what they lost in the Kursk province.
(Also, what is weird about a person having cancer and surviving?)
Faster than expected by whom? If you were listening to the Western media, Ukraine was about to launch a counter-offensive and regain the lost territories; not only did that not happen, they lost even more territories.
Nothing weird about someone having cancer and surviving. The weirdness is claiming Putin’s had several different cancers, Parkinson disease, leprosy and would soon die, repeatedly over the years, notably in 2014, 2020 and 2022.
They were indeed about to launch a counter offensive and indeed did. In 2023. They did not get almost any of the equipment the west had promised to supply for bringing the offence plans to reality, so the counter offensive got botched. In 2024 there was no talk of a counter offensive. Remember that the last two quarters of 2024 Ukraine got zero military help from USA.
You’re mixing up the years.
Also, the several different claims about different cancers were guessed by different people.
Ukraine got tremendous military help from the USA throughout last year. It’s not because more funds had not been appropriated that the already appropriated funds and military assistance wasn’t provided.
I am not mixing the years, there were also a counter-offensives in 2024.
Which counter offensives?
Kharkiv and Kursk come to mind.
May they prevail. Slava Ukraini.
Heroiam slava
