The media won’t give me great answers to this question and I think this I trust this community more, thus I want to know from you. Also, I have heard reports that Russia was winning the war, if that’s true, did the west miscalculate the situation by allowing diplomacy to take a backseat and allowing Ukraine to a large plethora of military resources?
PS: I realize there are many casualties on both sides and I am not trying to downplay the suffering, but I am curious as to how it is going for Ukraine. Right now I am hearing ever louder calls of Russia winning, those have existed forever, but they seem to have grown louder now, so I was wondering what you thought about it. Also, I am somewhat concerned of allowing a dictatorship to just erase at it’s convenience a free and democratic country.
arms manufacturers
Came here to say this.
winners: arms manufacturers and dealers, “defense” industry, military-industrial complex
losers: soldiers, civilians
The goal posts for both sides are very, very different.
The invading Russian forces have basically failed their first goal; to fully take over Ukraine. They can now claim a minor victory by stealing more territory from Ukraine than just Crimea.
Ukraine’s goal was to stop Russia from wiping them off of the map. Things appear to have changed. Their new goal is to retake all land that Russia has stolen (including Crimea).
The war has largely been at a standstill for a while, and the only times that Ukraine has been able to make progress is when the word has given its attention and resources. Since “Israel vs Hamas” is the guerre-du-jour, Ukraine seems to be getting less of both.
So I may sound like a doomer, but it’s not looking good for the good guys. They have a much harder victory condition, and the resources that they have relied so far may be drying up.
The invading Russian forces have basically failed their first goal; to fully take over Ukraine.
Has Russia ever stated that this was their goal?
Yes.
Can you provide proof for this?
Oh my god, we get it, you’re exhausting.
No, I’m not providing proof of this exhaustion. Do your own research.
I did try. I just didn’t find anything that remotely comes close to supporting what you claimed.
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That time they tried to fully take over Ukraine. That’s a pretty good indicator.
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Considering Russia denied their intent to invade as they were conducting it, I don’t know that their statements should be considered truth regarding their plans and goals. But here’s Westpoint’s take on the matter:
Initially, the Russian regime may have regarded its invasion of Ukraine as a “regional conflict” with “important” military-political goals, and its classification as a “special military operation” may have been genuine. Indeed, it seems that the Kremlin’s ambitious political objective was to install a new, pro-Russian government in Kyiv by lightning action.
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/what-is-russias-theory-of-victory-in-ukraine.
You are unironically sharing a quote riddled with "may"s and "seem"s from United States Military Academy
And you are making a statement that seems to suggest absolute knowledge of a country’s intentions are possible with a leader with a lack of credibility and long history of lying on the world stage.
Gee, this is fun. Or were you making some point? Were you expecting some report about their magic mind-reading device?
Were you expecting some report about their magic mind-reading device?
But this is what you have been doing all along. Nothing in reality suggests that total annexation of Ukraine was the goal. Not the words of anyone nor the manner in which Russia has executed the invasion yet here you are somehow reading minds to conjure grand motives and subjecting me to smug Reddittor-speak for the crime of asking you to back your frivolous claims. “Gee, this is fun.” Jesus Christ.
to fully take over Ukraine
This was never Russia’s goal, you can’t quote a single Russian official stating that this was the objective of the SMO.
Ukraine’s goal was to stop Russia from wiping them off of the map
No, Ukraine’s goal was to “liberate” Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea and return to their 1991 borders.
https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/ukraine-will-liberate-crimea-by-military-means-danilov/
https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-fight-until-last-liberated-005810749.html
https://tvpworld.com/74421963/ukraine-is-fighting-to-restore-its-1991-borders-fm
They’ve failed and will never reach this goal.
So I may sound like a doomer, but it’s not looking good for the good guys
It is, you’re just not on the side of the good guys : )
Of course the Lemmygrad user wants to tongue punch Putin’s chocolate starfish.
Pretty funny how you can provide an explanation backed by references and then get mass downvotes because libs still have problems engaging with reality after a year and a half of being wrong about absolutely everything.
I wish I didn’t have to individually block lemmygrad accounts- it’s my only issue with kbin.social. Still love you, Ernest.
Could you whine less? I like the positive energy of this place and you are ruining my vibes.
I’m positive that this comment will help me find more users who stray from your echo chamber. Keep ‘em coming.
Are you upset?
You don’t understand blocks do you? Here’s another shot.
The people straying from the “echo chamber” aren’t the ones blocking others for dissent. Sounds like you’re projecting.
I’m open to new political opinions, just not regressing through yours.
I completely understand blocking or ignoring those who engage you in bad faith, but when someone disagrees with you and also engages in a discussion in good faith, you are merely silencing voices of dissent by blocking them.
How is that approach not creating an echo chamber? It seems hypocritical to label spaces that welcome good faith discourse “echo chambers” while creating your own.
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I love how libs can’t even block others without doing virtue signalling 😂
the us military industrial complex’s investors seems to be winning real good
Let me guess, can’t bring yourself to say Russia is winning?
I mean, I don’t want Russia to win, but I have no problem with accepting facts where I see them. I think almost everyone here would agree that both the countries involved have lost much more than they can ever gain out of this war.
Russia is totally burning through crazy amounts of men and material, at an unsustainable level, without any advancements. So there is absolutely no “Russia wins” on the horizon.
I also think that Ukrainian freedom is what Ukraine thinks is worth more than anything.
There has been some good answers, but I’m not entirely satisfied with the details, so I will add my own response.
Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.
Russia sees the former Soviet Union countries as property of the Rus people, and NATO involvement as outsider influence in affairs that do not concern them.
Globally, the world values stability more than they value justice or peace. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, it came after several other invasions of other former Soviet countries. There was little global response on any occasion.
Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.
This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability. Gas, oil and grain were traded openly with Russia and Ukraine and a war upset the market right when the world was trying to stabilise markets rocked by inflation, pandemic recovery and suppy chain problems.
The result was many countries around the world pledging military support. This was always older generation materiel which essentially costs those countries to maintain. It was the global equivalent of giving a homeless man the doggy bag you didn’t want anyway.
Why did they do this? They wanted Russia to pull back, return to its 2014 lines and go back to stability so that global markets could resume. So they gave Ukraine just enough to defend itself, but not enough to win.
Why did they do this? Because the world wants stability more than peace. Of the pledges of materiel, almost none has actually come to fruition. About 1/4 of the armor promised has arrived that was promised. Ukraine continues to beg for alms (or in this case arms), and they do amazing things with the little they are given.
Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win. They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence. It does not in this case as the World is only just coming to terms that Russia will not stop just for stability.
Putin will cease to be leader if he pulls back. The Russian leader would be seen as weak, and the Russian culture loves a Tsar. Putin believes in luck and will continue the sunk cost in the hope that some outside factor or random event will go in his favor.
The West is already getting bored and tired of a war they aren’t even fighting. There is a possibility that pro-Russian Republicans could regain office or power in the US. All Putin has to do is hold and eventually the West will even start telling Ukraine to capitulate to them.
Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn’t really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.
This current grinding stalemate is a direct result of world policy. The world supplies Ukraine with just enough so they don’t lose, but not enough that they can win. In the meantime, the arms dealers are circling like sharks. India and China are cashing in on filling global supply gaps and taking advantage of Russias need for materiel frozen by sanctions. The hope would be that world leaders realise before it’s too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.
This seems mostly right, but I want to add a few points.
The first is that the Ukrainians won’t stop fighting if the west stops supporting them. They may suffer some severe defeats and the nature of the war may shift to being more of a guerrilla insurgency, but they won’t stop fighting.
The second is that even if the US withdraws support, it’s not likely that European nations will necessarily follow, and between Germany and the UK and France, the Europeans can easily continue to support Ukraine at or above current levels.
My final point is that Ukraine actually is making slow progress in pushing back the Russians, it’s just not going anywhere near as fast as anyone would like.
I also really dislike the term “stalemate” because it implies a static state of affairs as in a chess game where there are only so many pieces and moves, when in fact war is much different in the sense that additional pieces and moves can and probably will be added to the equation.
But the EU countries also dont want Ukraine to decisively push the Russians out. The longer the war goes, the more Russia will weaken itself, being less of a threat in the long run.
Also Germany is a puppet of the US, when it comes to military decisions. They will do what the US tells them to do and if Trump tells them to kiss Putins ass they will do that. They already did that before without the US telling them.
examples of Russia weakening itself
- https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-factory-activity-grows-fastest-pace-over-six-years-sept-pmi-2023-10-02/
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-15/russia-s-war-economy-sees-key-sectors-shrugging-off-sanctions
perhaps you were thinking of the US?
This post is pure and unadulterated bullshit.
Germany didn’t go to Iraq with the US.
Germany will never stop supporting Ukraine.You are full of shit.
Then why did Germany hesitate to promise equipment and unserselivered on its promises?
Also Germany did nit put boots on the ground in Iraq, which would be unconstitutional anyways, but it did provide extensive support to the US. US army bases in Germany were integral to the ligistics and control of the US invasion. Germany did everything it could to support the Iraq invasion within its own legal limits.
Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.
I was wondering if you could provide something to back this up since these are rather sweeping claims.
The only thing I can think of that comes close is Dugin’s writings but I have never seen anything that could suggest that his ideas are widely accepted or adopted as the state’s doctrines.
Timothy Snyder makes a pretty convincing case for it in “The Road to Unfreedom.” It was published in 2018 so probably written in 2016 and 2017 at the latest, and it looks ridiculously prescient now.
Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.
Except that now we have Ukrainian chief negotiator having come out and openly admitted that Russia and Ukraine were on a verge of making a deal back in last March before Boris Johnson sabotaged it. The only reason this was is still going on is because the west couldn’t accept peace and decided to cynically push Ukraine into further conflict.
The result was many countries around the world pledging military support.
What actually happened was that NATO countries wanted to break and balkanize Russia, which was openly said by lots of western officials. The west made a mistake thinking that they could easily break Russian economy using sanctions while using Ukraine as a proxy without having to put NATO boots on the ground. Now we’re seeing this massively backfire with western economies going into a recession while Russian economy is now growing.
Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win.
They literally can’t, and even NATO officials now admit that the west lacks industrial capacity to keep up with Russia even in basic things such as shell production.
They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence.
This is not a problem that can be fixed by throwing money at it. This requires building factories, training workers, creating supply chains and so on. These things simply can’t be done overnight. All throwing money at the problem does is raise prices as anybody with even a modicum of economic knowledge could’ve predicted
Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn’t really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.
How to say you’re a racist without saying you’re a racist.
The hope would be that world leaders realise before it’s too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.
There was never any scenario in which Ukraine could win and it’s absolutely incredible that western propaganda machine managed to convince so many people of this insane fantasy. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians lost their lives in a NATO proxy war with Russia, and Ukraine will likely cease to exist as a functioning state at the end of all this. All for the insatiable need for NATO expansion. Stoltenberg finally let the cat out of the bag and told us that this was the real reason for the war:
This is quite the work of fiction you’ve written here. I wouldn’t even know where to start with all of your lies.
Literally provided sources, but you keep on living in your fantasy wonderland buddy.
You probably shouldn’t be getting your news from randos on the internet. Literally anyone can post here.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=iHrZRJR4igQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I mean, this isn’t a very important piece of news for me, so, I am just looking at the consensus here.
As others have said, it’s a war of attrition. There’s no end in sight. As it stands, we can only speculate on who is winning. Russia have so far failed to make any significant gains, and Ukraine have so far failed to push the Russians out.
It’s a bit like the stalemates of trench warfare in WW1. Something will have to give eventually.
It’s a war of attrition that Ukraine is losing because they have a much smaller population to draw on and rely on weapons from the west. Ukraine is already conscripting children, women, and the elderly now. It’s absurd to think that such conscripts are going to be able to hold off a seasoned professional army for long.
If Russia actually had a “seasoned professional army”, this war would already be over. Russia is putting inexperienced youths from underdeveloped regions at the front line because their elite doesnt want to fight.
I recommend reading what people who actually have a clue have to say on the subject https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukraine
Or, the fighting will eventually stop and the current status quo will remain permanent. It’s hard to tell.
That’s probably the only outcome that will never happen. Russia will re-attack again (as seen 2008, 2014, etc etc).
It’s like the trenches of WWI combined with the forever wars the US fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congratulations Russia, you’ve saddled yourself with a decades long conflict potentially and lost the geopolitical purpose of invading Ukraine within months since Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership.
Ukraine eventually would have invaded Russian lands under a pretense that Russia had attacked first.
Western media would have covered for this. How exactly could Russia have avoided this war of Western aggression?
It’s a stalemate, largely. While Russia was massively on the backfoot earlier in the year, they mined massive swaths of eastern Ukraine before partially retreating.
Which makes it unlikely for Russia to actually have any future forward progress, but it also stymies Ukraine from doing the same except extremely slowly. There’s still been several victories for Ukraine over the past few months, but they haven’t changed the fighting area much.
It’s largely a war of attrition to wear down Russia now, who has been having more and more internal issues as time goes on.
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You should be worried about US/NATO-backed Israel terrorist state that is genociding and erasing the country of Palestine.
I don’t think you know the meaning of the word genocide. I have my own issues with Israel’s support for the settler occupation of West Bank, but in no may is Israel committing a genocide. The population nearly multiplied multiple folds since 1948. Israeli government fortunately has no will for a genocide of any people though they have the capability to commit one, while on the other hand you have the Nazis 2.0 who want to repeat the Holocaust but are incapable of repeating it for Israel is way too stronger than all their allies and themselves put together. If the shoe was on the other foot, there would be no jews in the middle east as the supposed peace partners of Israel themselves openly say they want to push the jews to the sea.
What Israel is doing absolutely fits the definition of a genocide https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/un-official-resigns-israel-hamas-war-palestine-new-york
UN is a fucking joke, they could not bring themselves to even condemn the massacre on Oct 7th. It’s stupid to take that organization even remotely seriously.
And, if your population multiplies every few decades, it’s stupid to suggest that there is a genocide going on. Israel doesn’t want a genocide and those who want one fortunately don’t have a nuclear weapon yet (I am not sure what Pakistan thinks abt this topic, but I am leaving them out of this)
Here’s a Jewish historian with a PhD explaining what’s going on if you don’t trust the UN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJkgzcRae3w
Russia. It’s a war of attrition and Russia has the manpower and industrial capacity
the west didn’t misread the situatiom because the west doesn’t care about Ukraine they just wanted to kill people
Define “winning”.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.
Really? I was hearing the opposite all this while. PS: Slowly and very painfully, fuck, I wish there was an end to this war and we could return to status quo!
You might be stuck in an alt right algorithm.
Or possibly a tankie one
Tankie is to liberals as woke is to conservatives but y’all aren’t ready for that conversation
I was hearing the opposite all this while.
From where? There are multiple, reasonably reputable maps available that show the lines, and regardless of who the map makers support, they have to be accurate because of how easily they can be proven wrong if they make false claims.
Besides, much like Vietnam, or the many wars in Afghanistan, victory won’t happen on the battlefield, it will happen when the invader finally gets tired of paying the price of war.
From where?
Indian media mainly, I haven’t explored out of the Indian media bubble though.
Interesting. I know they’ve historically been close to Russia, I didn’t realise they still had so much support.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground
That doesn’t seem right. In 2023 they actually lost more ground than they gained. At least that was the situation until this september, but i don’t think there where significant developments in the last 2 months.
Could you point to where Ukraine is actually gaining ground. Last I checked, Russia gained more ground than Ukraine in the past six months.
South of Orikhiv: https://deepstatemap.live/en#9/47.5023/35.8704
South of the Dneipro River https://deepstatemap.live/en#9/46.6589/32.7036
South of Bakhmut https://deepstatemap.live/en#10/48.4939/37.9399
There’s not a lot of recent movement from either side. The Russians are dug in, and the conditions are awful. Still, Russia are losing men at horrific rates, higher than at any point upto now.
If you look at liveuamap which is a pro western source, it’s pretty clearly that Russia is on the offensive all across the front https://liveuamap.com/
Meanwhile, NYT has a helpful chart showing territorial changes over the summer https://archive.ph/U3BzJ
Russian army is currently routing Ukrainians in Avdiivka as we speak, and this a large city that had population over 30 thousand before the war. This also happens to be the part of Ukraine’s only fortified line.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/whats-stake-russias-assault-avdiivka-2023-12-01/
The Russians are dug in, and the conditions are awful. Still, Russia are losing men at horrific rates, higher than at any point upto now.
That’s weird, because the only actual western source that shows any methodology puts total Russian casualties at 38 thousand, meanwhile even western sources now admit that Ukrainian casualties are now at well over a 100 thousand
https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng
Oh and here’s how things are going south of Dnieper https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67565508
"The entire river crossing is under constant fire. I’ve seen boats with my comrades on board just disappear into the water after being hit, lost forever to the Dnipro river.
"We must carry everything with us - generators, fuel and food. When you’re setting up a bridgehead you need a lot of everything, but supplies weren’t planned for this area.
"We thought after we made it there the enemy would flee and then we could calmly transport everything we needed, but it didn’t turn out that way.
“When we arrived on the [eastern] bank, the enemy were waiting. Russians we managed to capture said their forces were tipped off about our landing so when we got there, they knew exactly where to find us. They threw everything at us - artillery, mortars and flame thrower systems. I thought I’d never get out.”
Seems like things along the other parts of the front are going about the same https://archive.ph/2023.12.04-165309/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/04/ukraine-counteroffensive-stalled-russia-war-defenses/
- Seventy percent of troops in one of the brigades leading the counteroffensive, and equipped with the newest Western weapons, entered battle with no combat experience.
- Ukraine’s setbacks on the battlefield led to rifts with the United States over how best to cut through deep Russian defenses.
- The commander of U.S. forces in Europe couldn’t get in touch with Ukraine’s top commander for weeks in the early part of the campaign amid tension over the American’s second-guessing of battlefield decisions.
- Each side blamed the other for mistakes or miscalculations. U.S. military officials concluded that Ukraine had fallen short in basic military tactics, including the use of ground reconnaissance to understand the density of minefields. Ukrainian officials said the Americans didn’t seem to comprehend how attack drones and other technology had transformed the battlefield.
- In all, Ukraine has retaken only about 200 square miles of territory, at a cost of thousands of dead and wounded and billions in Western military aid in 2023 alone.
Sounds like Ukraine is doing pretty great there.
Russian army is currently routing Ukrainians in Avdiivka as we speak
Not hardly. Russian sources keep misreporting this battle. The coke plant is a great example: How many times has it been “taken”? Was capturing it once not enough? That kind of location doesn’t switch hands on a whim, btw.
The troop movements by Russia into that city are horrendous. The sheer numbers of soldiers that get turned into paste while charging into useless locations already zeroed by artillery is just weird.
A proven fact of war is that attackers are always at a disadvantage. Troop losses will be generally be much higher for any side that goes on the offense. The number 38k is just mind boggling low for the length of time it takes for Russia to take a city, especially against western weapons.
If 38k losses for Russia were actually a thing, there would be no need to increase their army size. Medvedev stated that Russia was able to recruit an additional 420k soldiers. That number is probably only about 100k, because Russia has their own numbering system for a lot of things.
Wagner alone lost ~10k prisoner conscripts in Bakhmut. Depending on the weather, or whatever, Wagner existed, or they never existed. Those numbers don’t count as Russians, I guess.
If you want a much better source of evil western fake data and propaganda, use the ISW. They also confirmed a NATO statement about Russia being at the 300k loss mark. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates
Normally, I would say that 300k is likely over-inflated as well. However, just looking at how attacks are conducted by Russia makes that number believable.
Not hardly. Russian sources keep misreporting this battle. The coke plant is a great example: How many times has it been “taken”? Was capturing it once not enough? That kind of location doesn’t switch hands on a whim, btw.
Even Ukrainian sources admit this now. Given that Ukraine spent six month trying to take a place called Piatykhatky which literally translates into five huts, the fact that Russia is now close to taking a city that used to have 30k people before the war, and has been heavily fortified shows which side is making actual progress.
The troop movements by Russia into that city are horrendous. The sheer numbers of soldiers that get turned into paste while charging into useless locations already zeroed by artillery is just weird.
Ah yes, bazillion Russians killed, asiatic hordes, and orc meat wave tactics. We’ve heard all that. By this point Russia must’ve lost like a 100 million people already.
A proven fact of war is that attackers are always at a disadvantage.
People keep regurgitating this, but that only applies to equal armies where the defender actually has weapons and troops to match. Russia massively outguns Ukraine, and vast majority of losses in this war are to artillery fire. If you actually wanted to understand what’s going on, you could read this explanation from Mearsheimer that’s well sourced.
The reality is that Russia enjoys roughly 10x artillery advantage over Ukraine, and that results in far greater casualties on the Ukrainian side. Ukraine has gone through three whole armies already, and they’re now literally mobilizing children, women, and the elderly. Meanwhile, Russia has only done a single mobilization in this whole time.
The number 38k is just mind boggling low for the length of time it takes for Russia to take a city, especially against western weapons.
38k number is total Russian losses since the start of the war.
If you want a much better source of evil western fake data and propaganda, use the ISW.
ISW is not a reliable source by any stretch of imagination. It’s Nuland’s personal propaganda outlet. There is literally zero evidence for Russian losses being anywhere near 300k. BBC and Mediazona are the only western outlets that have a methodology they can show.
Assuming that everything we both are saying is false, the fact remains that Russia hasn’t hardly been able to move the lines at all. You can flash that chart you want with land gains from 2023, but it doesn’t really apply.
Russia is still an attacking force, they are still the invaders and they are locked in a slow stalemate with a much smaller force. Russia does have many more resources, so it must be their choice to have stretched this conflict out for as long as it has been going, for whatever reason. (Without a doubt, you have a long list of counter arguments and media links to the contrary. Even your boy Rybar doesn’t align with what you are saying.)
I respect the work of Mediazona to a degree, but they are open about their inaccuracies. They appear to define “casualties” as only deaths. Of those deaths, they are only counting verified ones from social media, local news and from government sources that aren’t named. If they aren’t counting a casualty in the true definition of a “war casualty”, the numbers are going to be different. (Their own estimates put true numbers of deaths around 55k in July which would put allow for a wider casualty estimate of around 165k casualties. You use the napkin math of 1:3, killed:removed from battle permanently)
“The figures we provide are sourced from publicly available information, including social media posts from family members, local media coverage, and official statements from local authorities. However, these figures represent only a partial account and do not reflect the full extent of the casualties.”
And yeah, it’s the Russian M.O. to use mass instead of quality. It’s their thing. Little value is placed on a single soldier or even an artillery shell. That concept is baked into all of their military hardware designs and strategy.
Russia’s goal hasn’t been to move the lines. Their goal is to grind down Ukrainian army until it collapses. You don’t have to take my word for it, this was the assessment of U.S. Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin retired after 20 years of service, including eight years as an armor officer with four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and 12 years working as a modeling and simulations officer in NATO and U.S. Army concept development and experimentation. This assessment is shared by vast majority of military experts:
https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukraine
Russia is still an attacking force, they are still the invaders and they are locked in a slow stalemate with a much smaller force.
That’s a simplistic characterization. The reality is that both sides do their share of attacks. For example, if Russia takes a bit of territory then Ukraine is forced to try and take it back. Ukraine has also conducted a huge offensive over the past six months on a far bigger scale than anything Russia’s done so far, and if attacking is what nets you a lot of losses then this would be the biggest source of casualties over the course of the war.
I don’t really follow Rybar, I haven’t found them to be all that reliable. People like Vershinin, Macgregor, Berletic, and Mearsheimer have been consistently decent at explaining what’s happening, and what they’ve been predicting would happen actually aligns with what we’re seeing. Telegram channels are simply not comparable to actual experts.
55k deaths with 165k wounded is certainly a plausible number in my opinion. However, even with these numbers, Russia clearly has no problems growing the size of the army. Meanwhile, Ukraine has a much smaller population to draw on, and many people fled the country at the start of the war making the situation worse. The fact that Ukraine keeps expanding the mobilization efforts is a strong indicator of serious losses.
Ukraine has three major problems. First is that it’s entirely reliant on the west economically, and support is now dwindling. Second is that Ukraine is also reliant on the west for weapons and ammunition which are running out. Especially problematic given that the west is refocusing it’s support to backing Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Finally, Ukraine is running out of a trained and motivated soldiers needed to hold the army together. Once the professional core is gone, it can’t simply be replaced by people kidnapped off the street and given a few weeks of training.
And yeah, it’s the Russian M.O. to use mass instead of quality.
It’s absolutely not their thing, and it’s just another piece of western mythology. You should read a bit of actual history of WW2 to see this has no basis in reality.
Considering this is a war of attrition, “winning” such as it is doesn’t look like conscripting every man, woman and child that can hold a gun to get blown up in trenches. They should have just negotiated a year ago.
And they were very close to doing just that until the west stepped in and told Ukraine to stop negotiating https://www.aaronmate.net/p/ukraines-top-negotiator-confirms
I wish it wasn’t paywalled, I remember being hopeful something might happen but then Boris showed up- people still talk about it, just not always in english.
Bojo sabotaging the negotiations was a heinous crime against humanity. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result and millions more had their lives ruined.
Well Ukraine itself is definitely losing. They will probably lose territory to Poland as well if this keeps up and they have sold their country out to capitalists, mostly Americans. Loans, land, industries, etc all to pay for “their” war effort. The common Ukrainian is who suffers the most under this. They will be more exploited (paid less for the value of their labor), see more social programs dismantled, and go into a serious recession/depression that may not lift for decades.
Russia is doing okay. The US is pulling Europe more into its orbit (making them pay more for less from the US while losing a lot of their industry), which is a loss for Russia, but that was the remand endgame of the US anyways. What was surprising, at least to some, was the extent to which Russia could survive and even thrive when subjected to the most significant financial weapons the West has. Overall their economy is certainly in a better place now and a chunk of Ukraine will be theirs and the other chunk will be weak. This is a victory for the ruling class of Russia and its overall geopolitical self-interest.
The US ruling class is making out like bandits as usual, funding its weapons industry, basically a cash injection for the owner class and the only thing the US ever reliably does (threaten its chosen enemies with destruction).
They will probably lose territory to Poland as well if this keeps up
Sigh
No they won’t. It was a fringe position in the Polish far-right before the election and now that the libs have won it’s even less likely to happen.
Sorry, but we really weren’t interested in hearing about the warped worldview of tankies in this thread.
Usa has been diverting its weapons supplies to its holocaust in palestine. Most of ukrainian weapons production is in the east, which is no longer under their control. I’d assume they will run out of weapons sooner or later.
the Capitalism
Ohh, cmon now! Seriously? You blame this on Capitalism?
Not me, the story will
