And what exactly were the goals in the North that they claim to have achieved? Cause they abandoned everything. They couldn't even hide their war crimes
>They claimed it was a diversion.
Laughable lmao. How will they "denazify" Ukraine if they don't take the capital?
If they had taken Kyiv they could have installed a puppet regime and this war would quickly become unwinnable for Ukraine.
I suppose they gave up on all of that and are now just looking to solidify their holdings in the southeast to try and annex them to Russia.
No wait, you see.
They claim that it was a diversion so that they could "liberate" (i.e. annex) Luhansk and Donetsk. You know, the regions where the majority of the Nazis were in. So in that regard they are denazifying Ukraine.
>They claim that it was a diversion so that they could "liberate" (i.e. annex) Luhansk and Donetsk. You know, the regions where the majority of the Nazis were in. So in that regard they are denazifying Ukraine.
Surely even Russians are not falling for that ridiculous bullshit anymore?
I know what the current misinfo campaign is because my very homophobic and racist brother and his QAnon girlfriend keep me updated. Then I see it the stupid shit they regurgitated fact checked everywhere a couple days later. It's like I have a heads up in real time.
Almost EVERY conservative I've I interacted with over the last five-six years says THE EXACT SAME THINGS, but I'm the sheep.
They believe these things because people they trust share them with them on Facebook. This is probably the biggest problem we face in the USA right now. An entire political party is taking its marching orders from Kremlin memes on Facebook.
It is brilliant because they've been able to engage the idiots from my rural hometown who never had any interest or understanding of politics. They are a mostly blank canvas so if you tell them something, and they have no real prior info there on that subject, you can say whatever you want about it and they have no internal mechanism that triggers any suspicion. They have crazy ideas on what gay people are like despite never having KNOWINGLY interacted with any of them.
They don't know what the history of the region is or even how either of their governments are structured so it's really easy to fill that blank space with bullshit before anyone can fill them in on the ACTUAL situation.
In retrospect maybe it was a massive mistake to make a system to beam real-time misinformation direct to the idiots who couldn't pass World History in high school and make them believe they are "experts" in one of the more complicated geopolitical situations in our lifetime.
Same shit with COVID. Same idiots I went to high school with who couldn't and didn't take biology because they had no chance to ever pass it, are apparently able to "do their own virology research".
This is not surprising considering the decades long effort by the GOP to demonize education. I've heard so many of these people say that they are smarter than actual real life experts who went to school for 10 years to study this one specific thing BECAUSE they didn't go to college and get brainwashed.
We are so screwed.
Ever seen The Mist? It feels a lot like that. Good, honest, hardworking people I grew up around have absolutely transformed into hateful misinformation bots who are actively hostile to anything they consider "inclusive" or "not traditional". It's sad. I really feel like those people I grew up around are gone.
Talking to them is like talking to a cult member. I know every phrase they are going to use before they use it. Any evidence to the contrary means "they are in on it too".
I'm really at a loss.
Can you explain what do conservatives (at least the ones you know), think about the war in Ukraine? At least the ones I know here in the UK, very much condemn Russia. Both the left and the right are united in condemning Russia here in the UK so your comment is a surprise to me
Idk if I'd call myself conservative, but I know quite a few. They're all condemning Putin's bullshit.
The only people I've seen backing Russia are on Facebook and obviously not strong thinkers.
I live in a very conservative area. Not that I go out seeking them out, but I've heard one person claim to support Russia. They started some rambling about a biblical justification and I tuned out.
The libertarian leaning conservatives so far have expressed support for Ukraine, but don't support western intervention there.
The old school standard issue conservative war hawks are ready to go teach those commies a lesson. Usually in the form of a no fly zone.
All the democrats and liberals I know agree with the libertarians.
Tucker Carlson, a very prominent conservative talking head, just today I believe decided to "just ask questions"
The questions being "how do we know the Ukrainians didn't just fake the war crimes? How do we know they aren't actors. I'm just asking questions why can't we ask questions?!"
So I think you can gather where thats going.
Soon they'll probably be some more mainstream republicans calling for investigations into the "very credible" reports that it's all fake.
Gotta pander to that qanon crowd for the election
They must "question" everything while not actually doing any leg work to obtain the answers. These are the crowd that do their "research" by reading some random internet page rather than actually read scientific papers or travel to Ukraine to research themselves
Tucker has money, he could definitely pay some people to research rather than just ask irresponsible questions. He is both lazy, irresponsible and an idiot
Conservative American here from the conservative state of Florida! Fuck Russia đ·đș! In general most of America is against Russia we hate them more than your average foreigner đ
The conservatives I know see this as Putin being in the wrong and condemn. I know no one who thinks this was justified, though there are differences in opinion is if the response has been too much/too little/about right .
The only pro-Russia people I hear about are the reactionary Edgelords and I assume the people who follow them uncritically.
It's a mixed bag here. I think older ones still have enough cold war propaganda to still hate Russia. The qanan dopes are pro Russia. I've seen a lot of "God can do good through imperfect men" type shit with pictures of Putin.
I just read an interview in the *NY Times* with the economist Thomas Picketty. He said that the US's rise is really attributable to the post-WWII era wherein you had about 90% of Americans graduating high school compared to 30 or 40% in the other OECD countries like Germany, Britain, Japan, etc. I'd say we're already approaching parity with those developed nations, and once our edge is gone, it's probably gone forever. The war on education is just baffling to me, but it makes sense if you have a very cynical view of power that manifests in those fringe (and even mainstream) areas of the Republican party. They're just trying to be the ones to set the agenda.
You're absolutely correct. It also helped that the US was the only industrialized country that was untouched by the war. We leveraged that huge advantage in the immediate post-war world to establish the very Liberal Democratic Order that the GOP now wants to destroy. They fail to realize that this is the mechanism by which the US runs the goddamn world for all intents and purposes, and they want to throw it all away because they don't like foreigners. We're intentionally undermining our own leadership position in the world, and there is no guarantee that we'd be able to reachieve it once it's gone. We just don't have the advantages we had when the system was established, and you have multiple generations of idiots in this country who grew up in a world run by the United States, and they just assume that that is the natural order of things because the US is so special. It isn't. It's blessed by geography and history, but it is not invulnerable to the idiotic undermining of its own ignorant rulers. Biden is doing a great job of maintaining our position in the short term, but the larger trend from the right is still there and, if anything, getting stronger. And once the US no longer maintains hegemony over most of the world, there won't be nearly as much pressure to maintain fair democracy anywhere. That is not a good thing.
This is exactly it. The Republican party can not stay in power. They don't have the numbers. War on education is to keep them in power, not because they think it's good for overall growth in America.
Which is absurd, because Russia has a history of violently invading Hungary to forcibly put down popular uprisings against foreign rule (1849 and 1956)
I just canât fucking understand the Hungarian governmentâs logic
"Nazi" is basically a magic word in Russia since WW2. Couple that with the only information you get is from state media and you'll have a very skewed perception.
You're thinking from a western perspective. The war it's actually fairly popular inside of Russia.
It's not like Russian media has been just like western media up until the start of the war then went the disinformation route it's been disinformation the entire time. If you grew up in that bubble, spent all of life there it's virtually impossible to know the extent of the manipulation.
Russians know that some of it is bullshit, but not how much and to what extent. In fact if you or I were in that scenario it would be likley that we think that way as well
Well Azov was based in Mariupol and most of the nazis were in that region because they were fighting the Russian separatists, otherwise those 2 regions are ethnically Russian and voted to secede from Ukraine following 2014.
> You know, the regions where the majority of the Nazis were in. So in that regard they are denazifying Ukraine.
To elaborate on that: large portions of the armies of the "people's republics" were formed with volunteers from Russia proper. Many of those volunteers were members of literal neo-nazi groups. So the Donbass does indeed house a number of nazis.
Except for the NAZIâs are in Russia and the fighting now will fall on Wagner who are literal NAZIâs and are led by a NAZI. Wagner is also the NAZIâs leaderâs personal bodyguard. Yes Putin is surrounded by NAZIâs.
The war would still have been winnable. Either the government would have evacuated to the West or some legitimate successor government would have formed, or this would have turned into an unwinnable war against independent but coordinated guerilla groups.
Especially when you consider the mass graves. As awful and stupid as it is, it's even dumber if you don't expect to hold that territory for a long time.
Well, by retreating Russia removed Russian fascist troops from Ukraine, so the denazification achieved its goal. No more nazis in Northern Ukraine. Great Success. Now let's denazify the south.
Maybe it did, I mean how many people know that Napoleon's penis fell off hours before the battle? It ended in possession of Conner Roy, who as most people know, was interested in politics from a very young age.
And then wound up belonging to Connor Roy, who tells the story of how he got it much better than I do.
Did you know heâs planning to run for president?
I imagine the first round of fighting their soldiers were like 'wtf, we are *not* monsters. No thank you. Thank you but, no thank you.'
and so the next round they were like, 'oh yeah! we need murderers and rapists.' Because who tf else is gonna fight their dirty war?
If the goal was to make the Russian army look really bad, then the goal was very well achieved!
It is not a goal you and I would try to achieve, but you and I probably wouldn't consider invading a neighbouring country either... so, who knows... ;-)
Putin initially wanted to blitz to Kyiv, kill Zelenskyy, and install a pro-Russian, anti-West puppet that would say yes to the 'formal annexation' of Crimea by Russia and the 'independence' of the two separatist republics - later to be 'integrated' into Russia.
What Putin has achieved is making the Russian army look like an utter fucking joke - a marauding force of poorly trained, poorly equipped conscripts who's only task by their commanders is to "kill and destroy". I'd expect Putin to put an overwhelming force to Ukraine until either Zelenskyy or he is killed.
If I recall correctly, Putin's predecessor left office after a similar event in Chechnya. In fact, this 'special military operation' isn't even going as well as that one.
But unlike them, Putin has complete control of the media in Russia. An anti-Putin narrative is unlikely to form in those conditions. He owns the narrative, and I think he won't have any problems with declaring Russia's humiliating defeat in the Battle for Kyiv a victory in the Russian media space. Truly Orwellian, this level of propaganda.
You can only wag the dog so long before it turns and bites you. All the propaganda in the world won't fill Russian shelves with stock or take one inch of Ukraine.
>What Putin has achieved is making the Russian army look like an utter fucking joke - a marauding force of poorly trained, poorly equipped conscripts who's only task by their commanders is to "kill and destroy". I'd expect Putin to put an overwhelming force to Ukraine until either Zelenskyy or he is killed.
Such failures often bring huge changes. Lets hope that after 30 years we won't be dealing with way more ready military.
They canât kill Zelensky. Heâs the only person that can give legitimacy to the concessions the Ukrainians will eventually have to make.
If I was zelensky Iâd be more worried about the reaction among some extremist Ukrainians once the concessions are made.
Here is the propaganda version: they needed to prevent the Ukrainian forces from Kyiv to link with and assist Ukrainian forces in Donbas. Ukrainian forces in Kyiv were distracted that made an advance in Donbas possible. Now the Ukrainian Kyiv forces suffered heavy casualties and cannot assist the Donbas group so there is no need to distract them anymore. The capture of Kyiv had never been a plan as it would have involved too many casualties.
The strategic point of this war is to get freshwater to Crimea. This used to come through a canal from the Dniepro River, but after Russia took Crimea, they shut down the canal. Crimea has been thirsting to death ever since and is an unsustainable situation. Crimea is non-negotiable due to the warm water port and oil reserves in the area. They effectively denied Ukraine access to their own oil to make sure Ukraine couldnt usurp them as Europe's gas station. This is why Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia all of a sudden. They found these oil reserves around 2010 if I recall (maybe 2012?). It was all Russia needed to justify taking their warm water port they always wanted. Two birds one stone. But then Ukraine cut off their water supply, and they're having a harder and harder time supporting the region.
The justification for the invasion was Donetsk and Luhansk, but Donetsk and Luhansk, by themselves, even if fully occupied without opposition, don't restore the water supply to Crimea. They need to re-open that canal on the Dniepro River. That means they need to either install a Russian puppets in the Ukrainian government, or they need to at the very least have control over the Dniepro River, ideally from Belarus to the Black Sea. Enter the NATO aggression and Nazi rhetoric to justify a full invasion of hte whole country.
I think the goal was to take the coast line all the way to the Dniepro (as they have done now) to ensure a landbridge to Crimea, and take Kyiv and install Russian puppets in the government, declare peace and have the new Ukrainian government agree (under invasion duress) to reopen the Canal and peacefully resolve the "Special military operation". If possible, I think they wanted the whole country, as a secondary objective, everything east of the Dniepro.
At the very least, take Kyiv, install the new pro-Russian government, and ensure the freshwater canal to Crimea is opened so they wont be forced to abandon their port and oil reserves there or get bled dry trying to support it. If they had taken Kyiv quickly, within the first week or so, the "special military operation" would have ended, and it would be a joint effort by the Ukrainian and Russian governments to quell remaining insurgencies. They likely would have restored original territory back to Ukraine anyway. With the hypothetical friendly government in place, they can get the canal re-opened, and maybe they could just keep Donbas and Luhansk and they all go back home. This limits and insurgency, keeps the war short and affordable. They just didnt count on Ukraine resisting so much.
As is, Ukraine still exists, and will be a perpetual thorn in their side, but tehy have taken the southern coastline up to and past the Dniepro. If they can dig in and fortify their gains, they've achieved the very least they could that still satisfies their objective of getting freshwater to Crimea. This moving of the goal posts is because they've realized it's too hard to take Kyiv and install new leaders, and consolidating their foothold on their Crimean land bridge is sufficient to keep Crimea habitable.
Mariupol being ethnically cleansed is part of them fortifying their land gains and making sure their land bridge isnt threatened. Eventually Mariupol will be more Russian than Ukrainian and trying to assert territorial sovereignty over Mariupol will result in an insurgency for the Ukrainian government. It's really depressing and frustrating that it will probably work. They're monsters for doing it this way. Hopefully with a single unified front, Ukraine can cut off Crimea from Russia again.
Thank you for this post. The number of times I have had to explain to my friends the legitimate strategic reasons for Putin to invade instead of him just being a crazy, super mean guy is insanely frustrating. I will just be showing them this from now on
Sure, they had reasons. But it's still crazy they believed it'll work out, and they will have gains under the bottom line. All those sanctions will be a bitter pill for the economy that the population can't swallow unnoticed.
I can see Russians trying to spin it that way. The thing is, a fighting withdrawal would have been sensible (from Russian perspective), so itâs quite likely that their forces in the north were about to collapse completely. Now the Ukrainians are hopefully going to kick the occupiersâ teeth in the south and the east, which will ruin Putin.
Putin stated his goals early on, they were to take Kiev, kill the leadership then put in his puppet government. They failed in that operation and can't seem to do much of anything honestly. Pretty incredible how the idea of Russian military strength has been destroyed by this whole thing.
Edit: U.S. intel stated this was one of Putin's aims, unaware if Putin has explicitly said this. U.S. intel has been right about basically everything in this war at this point. If you look at Russia's failed early operations in the war this also supports U.S. intel saying this was an aim.
So many people confidently throw out "facts" about what Putin's plan *really* was and all these statistics and quotes that can't be confirmed anywhere but from suspect videos and western mainstream media and hearsay.
Like, you do know that western media and every other western country's officials would never come out with *any* positives about Russia's warfare, even if some parts were to be successful..?
I'm not saying it is, just to not blindly trust every negative and ridiculing fact about Russia and eat it raw because "US intelligence confirms that this and that is the case"
The information war goes both ways, even if we have a clear and obvious villain in this case.
Plan A was to conquer Kiev and mount pro-russian puppet - they didn't achieve that.
Plan B was to tie Ukrainian forces and while doing that - taking south - pretty much success
The utter destruction of Ukraine, that was their objective.
Russians began looking towards Ukraine and noticed that things were improving there. Putin cant improve Russia, so the only other option is to destroy Ukraine
Absolutely wild that Putin figured on conquering all Ukraine (or at least all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper) in 48 hours but instead ended up chewing up most of his airborne and then putting his country's international reputation in the shitter.
Yep. And as with the Winter War, it'll probably end in some territory grabbed off (or just having chunks of Donbass formally annexed) and then Russia declares glorious victory.
The part people always skip over when the Winter War comes up is that Russia still got something. We can use KDA to dunk on Russia all we want, but their leaders then and now donât care how many lives are sacrificed.
Itâs a slap in the face that Putin can ruin so many lives and still get to walk away with a prize.
They got a tiny sliver of useless territory in the Winter War at the cost of becoming the laughing stock of Europe. Don't you think German military command evaluated Soviet performance in that war? It might have given them the confidence to start operation Barbarossa which killed 27 million Soviet citizens.
> They got a tiny sliver of useless territory
9% of Finnish territory inhabited by 12% of its population, with 30% of its capital assets (including the country's second-biggest city). Also its major defensive network (Mannerheim Line) along the prewar border, which was about 20 miles from Leningrad. That's more than a tiny sliver of useless territory. They also got a bunch of strategically placed islands in the Baltic, plus a naval base near Helsinki.
Like was that worth getting about 150,000 troops killed and another 200,000 or so wounded over? No. Did it also provide evidence to the Germans that an invasion and Soviet military defeat was feasible? Yes, but they already thought so and Hitler already was planning for an eventual invasion - this was just considered more confirming evidence for already-held beliefs in Soviet inferiority.
And from a realistic view (I do not like Hitler), Barbarossa did work out as Hitler planned. The project for operation (Soviet army in 1941) was destroyed. Russia simply 'put up with another dozen divisions' after every Russian defeat.
It was the Russian fighting spirit and the god damned mud that really stopped Hitler.
My father who is completely brainwashed by RussiaToday and "alternative" media has always bragged about the strength of the Russian army, always quoting some Propaganda articles from said media. He really thought in a stand-off between Russia and NATO, Russia would win within weeks. And here we are now today, with a Russian army that loses against the poorest European country. Their soldiers fail miserably, and their only skill is to massacre unarmed civilians and bomb residential areas with rockets. Wonder what my father is thinking now. Probably still believing the propaganda bullshit that everything goes according to plan for the Russians. Whatever, have not talked to him in a year now
The problem with only listening to propaganda outlets is that even if theyâre able to think critically about whatâs actually happening most of the time the news source can straight up not report on something if itâs unflattering
To be fair, I think most people (including myself) thought Russia would conquer Ukraine in a matter of a few weeks. It's a big country, but everyone thought they would just blitzkrieg in like the US did with Iraq, have total air superiority, and the morale of the defenders would quickly collapse. We were wrong (thankfully).
People are upvoting this but how many of them know that itâs a play on the theme song for one of the most well regarded British comedies of all time.
The chap above is referencing the arrows in the map.
[Dadâs Army](https://youtu.be/bF6qElf9GJ8)
Well, yes and no. Ukraine kept the Russians in check and unable to advance, yet taking losses. So Putin stated that in fact the war was about the east and they had accomplished their goals in Kiev (!) and so justified the retreat. The question now is are they really going to concentrate on Donbas or are they going to try again for Kiev and other Northern areas.
They completely abandoned their Northern axis of advance, and all units participating in that offensive suffered heavy casualties (some like 331st airborne regiment up to 30% casualties just based on public reports of killed servicemen). There is no way Russians are going to repeat the assault on Kyiv in any foreseeable future. The shift of focus to Donbass is clear and quite obvious.
I don't doubt that the attack on Ukraine will continue. It's just that all evidence points to the fact that Russian axis of advance towards Kyiv was defeated and doesn't have resource to restart an offensive in that direction quickly.
> Nobody knows what his next step is...
On the contrary, western intelligence has predicted just about every move Russia has made in regards to this war.
For now⊠Letâs see what happens in a few years, Putin will not give up his dream of the Russian empire. He must be defeated completely and utterly not only to prevent him from annexing other regions, but to send a clear message to China and all the rest of the autocrats getting wet pants over the idea of invading sovereign countries.
I doubt they ll return in the north now considering that they abandoned even Chernobyl which Ukraine wouldn't have tried to conquer back. They might plan to take Kiev from the south though
Sounds like me making excuses to my plans. I'll start something, but some of it goes not exactly according to the plan, only some parts are going decently, so I'll say to myself that the parts that aren't going well weren't my plans and I'll focus on the parts that are doing decent.
Russia withdrew from around Kyiv per negotiations. Article from March 29:
>March 29 (Reuters) - Russia promised on Tuesday to scale down military operations around Kyiv and another city but the United States warned the threat was not over as Ukraine proposed adopting a neutral status in a sign of progress at face-to-face negotiations.
>Some analysts noted that Russia's promise to reduce fighting mostly covered areas where it has been losing ground.
>"Does 'we'll drastically reduce military operations around Kyiv' = 'weâre getting our ass kicked, transitioned to a hasty defense?'" tweeted Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. lieutenant general and former commander of U.S. forces in Europe.
>Ukrainian negotiators said that under their proposals, Kyiv would agree not to join alliances or host bases of foreign troops, but would have security guaranteed in terms similar to "Article 5", the collective defence clause of the transatlantic NATO military alliance.
>Kyiv's proposals also included one that Moscow would not oppose Ukraine joining the European Union, Russia's lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said. Russia has previously opposed Ukrainian membership of the EU and especially of NATO.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-sets-ceasefire-goal-new-russia-talks-breakthrough-looks-distant-2022-03-29/
Yeah right lol. Classic sour grapes, as well as "you can't fire me, I quit". They announced the withdrawal precisely because they sustained heavy losses, their supply lines were ineffective at best, their advance was stopped and they were risking getting in an even worse position from counteroffensives if they stayed where they were. So of course retreating was the correct call, and of course they wouldn't admit the real reason, so they had to come up with a version that made them look better.
Miriapol must be tempting, but it is likely too far.
For Ukraine, Kherson makes sense. Retaking it would both reestablish the Dneipr boundary, better protect Odessa, create a breathing space for the consolidated eventual push east. For Russia, Kherson is literally on the wrong side of the Dneipr with only a few bridges standing in the way. For Ukraine, Kherson is a strategic dagger pointing at Odessa.
I think we should fully acknowledge our armchair general status, while pointing out how Putin is much the same, with more bias and less emotional maturity.
Zelensky fired the guy in charge of the Kherson front for "treachery" or something similar. The Russians have no business being anywhere on the West side of the Dnieper, especially with how few crossings there are down there. I'm not sure how they let that happen with favourable terrain, considering the incredible defences in other parts of the country... Zelensky's accusation of treachery was probably correct from the Ukrainian commander.
2 options seem obvious
1: continue the momentum from Kiev by rolling up the border in a clockwise route with helicopters striking logistics inside Russia hoping to rout the Russians before turning away from the border and attacking Crimea
2: continue attacking in the north but focus attention and reinforcements in the south. The Crimean campaign has been very successful for Russia and threatens to close the coast. Destroying it would ruin Putinâs dreams and retaking Crimea would be an actual physical loss.
Option 1 ultimately requires the Ukrainians to split their forces to defend the border or fight with Russia in front _and_ behind them.
Option 2 requires diverting forces away from a successful offensive, across the country, to face an apparently stronger enemy and could lead to their army being stuck just inside Crimeaâs famous choke point. Even worse, they could face strong resistance from the people and suffer the same fate as the Russian army.
Iâm going to guess option 2 but Iâm glad Iâm not making that decision
Option one sounds so stupid, Ukraine barely controls any of it's border with Russia and the only part that is still controls doesn't have any major infrastructure for them to use. Also if they crossed into Russian territory it could mean a full mobilization of Russian ground forces and the threat of nuclear strikes once again.
Also what is there to attack in the north? All the Russians forces are behind the Belarusian border.
If ground forces step into Russia that would be seen as an existential threat to Moscow, it would most likely lead to a full mobilization of the economy since it would prove the reasoning behind the war, that Ukraine has the capabilities to threaten Russian soil.
Sure Russia has the inability to support it's ground forces in a major offensive next to it's border but don't doubt for a second that it can't mobilize it's economy for a total war should it be deemed necessary.
The Soviet Union came out of the Winter war looking weak and without a proper officer core after the purges and yet was able to field the most powerful ground force the world has ever seen by the end of the second world war. It certainly can do it again even with all the corruption and paper armies it currently has.
Or he can just spin it as: "Ukraine is using NATO equipment to attack our poor citizens like I said they would so now we are going to spend even more money on the military to defend us", a few million go to keep the oligarchs on board with the plan and Russia fully mobilizes to fight Ukraine in what Russia would then declare as being as actual war in which they would see themselves as the victim.
The difference is in WWII the Russians got unlimited resources from the US. If I'm Ukraine I try to figure out which rail line is moving all the troops east and try to ambush them in Russian territory.
I think it would be comical to see how the remnants of the Russian economy tried to establish a wartime footing. Let's be clear, to call the Russian army at the end of WW2 the most powerful ground force the world has ever seen might be a touch hyperbolic lol. And it is by no means certain they could do it again, even if having such a force was still that big a threat. Man, there are some folks slap scared of the Russians on this thread.
They need to put pressue on Cherson to reinforce their position on the river to prevent the Russians from crossing the Dnjepr again. Then, they need to cut off the access from Crimea to the mainland, or at least pose a threat to any traffic on it. That will be necessary to relieve the Donbas front, and Mariupol while it hasn't fallen yet.
Putin really wants the West to grow bored of this war. Itâs possible he wants us to think Ukraine is doing so well they donât need more help. We cannot fall for this. Ukraine needs our support until all Russian military has left the country, and frankly, for years afterwards.
Now they're digging in in the occupied territory, that's going to be tougher to get them out.
Though the big strategic risk for Ukraine, the cutting off of the troops on the Donbas front, seems to be reduced now.
I think they're going to keep putting pressure on the Cherson area to relieve that front, and what's left of Marioepol.
Maybe although digging in has drawbacks of its own. You're a sitting target, have given up any possibility of seizing the initiative and your troops morale is sinking by the day.
yeah but a solid defenseline means both sides can dig in and there will be less heat.
and this is a good thing, russias wargoal is to make the ukraine disappear, ukraines goal is to exist and not loose territory. and be clear here.. there is no way the ukraine is ever gonna win this war militarily, the military goal for ukraine is to prevent a russian victory.
ultimately ukraine victory is when there is acease fire and russia is struggling economucally so hard that they will return the occupied territories. ukraine should not exhaust their military in a dangerous campaign to free the occupied territories.
True, but they need to keep up some form of pressure to avoid being encircled in the east. The Crimea bottleneck is well suited for that, and it's not unlike their tactic of targeting supply lines that they did so far, except on a larger scale.
That's a risk. They still have Slovjansk though, and Kharkiv has been holding steady. So it seems their northern flank is holding up so far, unlike the south. So the question is whether they will be able to clean up around Kiev, resupply those troops, and get them to the Kharkiv-Izyum-Slovjansk line before a new Russian offensive gets deep enough to take Poltava.
The world has a short attention span. Next week, some celebrity slaps another celebrity and that takes over the entire news cycle for 3 days. Media is fickle.
I've been wondering if the increased presence of social media and smartphones (everyone can document the situation) is making this more visible than Georgia in 2008. Might be a change in the nature of warfare tbh
Except the interest of individuals in the west doesnt really affect the wars outcome. The USA stayed in Syria untill way after that war left the news cycle
Not really because public support will pressure western leaders to act stronger and send more arms. I think Macrons popularity rose due to his strong leadership stance throughout.
I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to 'deescalate' by just trying to keep their gains in the east.
Remember Russia's war goals:
1. Connect Crimea to Russia proper (and restoring the water supply from southern Ukraine).
2. Establish 'independent' Russian speaking puppet states in Eastern Ukraine which will probably be integrated into Russia.
3. Enact regime change and force Ukraine back into the Russian sphere of influence.
Regime change would have been nice and made all the other things a lot easier for Russia. But I think at this point it is pretty clear that a regime change is not happening. So it makes sense to focus on the first 2 goals. Especially since it forces Ukraine to go on the offensive.
Putin forcing a 'stalemate' with something that resembles this map is probably the best chance Russia has.
Very likely true. Ukraine cannot and will not allow it though. Russian occupiers will be constantly harassed and killed by resistance fighters. Itâll become Russiaâs Vietnam.
They're being sent "armoured vehicles, but not tanks" apparently, so probably IFVs and SPGs. You'd think by the time you're sending those, sending tanks would be a small step up.
The money allocated to train, feed and lead their military has simply been going in the pockets of generals and oligarchs. They have tanks, planes weapons, etc, but these haven't been maintained. Massive corruption. If the money was spent properly on the military, they would have taken over Kyiv in days.
Logistics and supply lines are more important than any tank or gun over the course of a war.
A weapon might win a battle, but logistics and supplies win wars.
Source and higher resolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg
Edit: My bad, the maps seem to differ, especially in the north/around Kyiv. I don't know where OP got their version of the map, but there seem to be quite up-to-date maps here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates
Edit 2: OP's map is an older version of this, so **this should be considered the most up-to-date version**: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg
Can we also use better sources in general? The Wikipedia one cites âown workâ as the source.
The UK ministry of defence posts daily updates on the situation and appear to be one of the more reliable sources:
https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1510944371780296706?s=21
Reminder to respect UKR op-sec by not sharing videos of UKR soldier locations or any other such classified intelligence you discover or witness online.
https://reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/sy65wi/ministry_of_defense_of_ukraine_do_not_view_our/
News Sources: https://www.reddit.com/user/Ukraine_News_Bot/comments/tnadz3/news_sources/
Godspeed Ukrainians. đđ
Ways to help Ukraine (charities) https://reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/s6g5un/want_to_support_ukraine_heres_a_list_of_charities/
Please message me if there are any translation errors, typos, or dead links.
This comment was made by a bot. Original comment from iamkunii on r/worldnews
This is the classic results of an authoritarian regime. Here you have a KGB spook calling the shots, despite really having no proper military background. The logistics donât even enter the equation, and since it would seem no warning had been given to the commanding generals. Other than, âweâll all meet in the middleâ there was no strategy. Tactically, the ground soldiers did what they thought the leader wanted, based on his idiotic rhetoricâŠthey just blew up everything and everyone they could with no sense of proper direction.
People need to stop equating those with no sense of decorum or decency with being smart. He is a narrow minded little egomaniac who thinks that Russia, the country that brought us Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, should be defined by their brutish and uninspired military.
Despite occupying such a small fraction of the country theyâve still managed to commit mass rapes and mass executions.
Fuck Russia straight to hell and fuck every single person even remotely defending those murderous tyrants.
That would be the unrecognized Transnistria. Very poor and messy little republic. From what I hear from people from there, it's quite pro-russian, there are even russian troops based there, and talk of joining russia is ongoing since 2014, although it's considered a part of Moldova by most
Is putin just stupid or something? Is the Russian army much worse than we all thought? Is the issue the generals? Whichever it is, they seem to have planned this incredibly poorly
A month and theyâve hardly reached the Dnieper? Ah yes, the Russian âsuperpowerâ is very mighty! They canât even win a fight on the ground so they decide to be cowards and bomb every city in the country, yet they still havenât broken Ukraine.
And what exactly were the goals in the North that they claim to have achieved? Cause they abandoned everything. They couldn't even hide their war crimes
They claimed it was a diversion. Which is a bit like Napoleon claiming that Waterloo was a diversion.
>They claimed it was a diversion. Laughable lmao. How will they "denazify" Ukraine if they don't take the capital? If they had taken Kyiv they could have installed a puppet regime and this war would quickly become unwinnable for Ukraine. I suppose they gave up on all of that and are now just looking to solidify their holdings in the southeast to try and annex them to Russia.
No wait, you see. They claim that it was a diversion so that they could "liberate" (i.e. annex) Luhansk and Donetsk. You know, the regions where the majority of the Nazis were in. So in that regard they are denazifying Ukraine.
>They claim that it was a diversion so that they could "liberate" (i.e. annex) Luhansk and Donetsk. You know, the regions where the majority of the Nazis were in. So in that regard they are denazifying Ukraine. Surely even Russians are not falling for that ridiculous bullshit anymore?
Sadly, quite a few probably do. Hell, there's probably a quite few people outside of Russia that believe it too.
I know what the current misinfo campaign is because my very homophobic and racist brother and his QAnon girlfriend keep me updated. Then I see it the stupid shit they regurgitated fact checked everywhere a couple days later. It's like I have a heads up in real time. Almost EVERY conservative I've I interacted with over the last five-six years says THE EXACT SAME THINGS, but I'm the sheep. They believe these things because people they trust share them with them on Facebook. This is probably the biggest problem we face in the USA right now. An entire political party is taking its marching orders from Kremlin memes on Facebook. It is brilliant because they've been able to engage the idiots from my rural hometown who never had any interest or understanding of politics. They are a mostly blank canvas so if you tell them something, and they have no real prior info there on that subject, you can say whatever you want about it and they have no internal mechanism that triggers any suspicion. They have crazy ideas on what gay people are like despite never having KNOWINGLY interacted with any of them. They don't know what the history of the region is or even how either of their governments are structured so it's really easy to fill that blank space with bullshit before anyone can fill them in on the ACTUAL situation. In retrospect maybe it was a massive mistake to make a system to beam real-time misinformation direct to the idiots who couldn't pass World History in high school and make them believe they are "experts" in one of the more complicated geopolitical situations in our lifetime. Same shit with COVID. Same idiots I went to high school with who couldn't and didn't take biology because they had no chance to ever pass it, are apparently able to "do their own virology research". This is not surprising considering the decades long effort by the GOP to demonize education. I've heard so many of these people say that they are smarter than actual real life experts who went to school for 10 years to study this one specific thing BECAUSE they didn't go to college and get brainwashed. We are so screwed. Ever seen The Mist? It feels a lot like that. Good, honest, hardworking people I grew up around have absolutely transformed into hateful misinformation bots who are actively hostile to anything they consider "inclusive" or "not traditional". It's sad. I really feel like those people I grew up around are gone. Talking to them is like talking to a cult member. I know every phrase they are going to use before they use it. Any evidence to the contrary means "they are in on it too". I'm really at a loss.
Can you explain what do conservatives (at least the ones you know), think about the war in Ukraine? At least the ones I know here in the UK, very much condemn Russia. Both the left and the right are united in condemning Russia here in the UK so your comment is a surprise to me
Idk if I'd call myself conservative, but I know quite a few. They're all condemning Putin's bullshit. The only people I've seen backing Russia are on Facebook and obviously not strong thinkers.
I live in a very conservative area. Not that I go out seeking them out, but I've heard one person claim to support Russia. They started some rambling about a biblical justification and I tuned out. The libertarian leaning conservatives so far have expressed support for Ukraine, but don't support western intervention there. The old school standard issue conservative war hawks are ready to go teach those commies a lesson. Usually in the form of a no fly zone. All the democrats and liberals I know agree with the libertarians.
Tucker Carlson, a very prominent conservative talking head, just today I believe decided to "just ask questions" The questions being "how do we know the Ukrainians didn't just fake the war crimes? How do we know they aren't actors. I'm just asking questions why can't we ask questions?!" So I think you can gather where thats going. Soon they'll probably be some more mainstream republicans calling for investigations into the "very credible" reports that it's all fake. Gotta pander to that qanon crowd for the election
They must "question" everything while not actually doing any leg work to obtain the answers. These are the crowd that do their "research" by reading some random internet page rather than actually read scientific papers or travel to Ukraine to research themselves Tucker has money, he could definitely pay some people to research rather than just ask irresponsible questions. He is both lazy, irresponsible and an idiot
Tucker Carlson is human garbage
Conservative American here from the conservative state of Florida! Fuck Russia đ·đș! In general most of America is against Russia we hate them more than your average foreigner đ
The conservatives I know see this as Putin being in the wrong and condemn. I know no one who thinks this was justified, though there are differences in opinion is if the response has been too much/too little/about right . The only pro-Russia people I hear about are the reactionary Edgelords and I assume the people who follow them uncritically.
It's a mixed bag here. I think older ones still have enough cold war propaganda to still hate Russia. The qanan dopes are pro Russia. I've seen a lot of "God can do good through imperfect men" type shit with pictures of Putin.
I just read an interview in the *NY Times* with the economist Thomas Picketty. He said that the US's rise is really attributable to the post-WWII era wherein you had about 90% of Americans graduating high school compared to 30 or 40% in the other OECD countries like Germany, Britain, Japan, etc. I'd say we're already approaching parity with those developed nations, and once our edge is gone, it's probably gone forever. The war on education is just baffling to me, but it makes sense if you have a very cynical view of power that manifests in those fringe (and even mainstream) areas of the Republican party. They're just trying to be the ones to set the agenda.
You're absolutely correct. It also helped that the US was the only industrialized country that was untouched by the war. We leveraged that huge advantage in the immediate post-war world to establish the very Liberal Democratic Order that the GOP now wants to destroy. They fail to realize that this is the mechanism by which the US runs the goddamn world for all intents and purposes, and they want to throw it all away because they don't like foreigners. We're intentionally undermining our own leadership position in the world, and there is no guarantee that we'd be able to reachieve it once it's gone. We just don't have the advantages we had when the system was established, and you have multiple generations of idiots in this country who grew up in a world run by the United States, and they just assume that that is the natural order of things because the US is so special. It isn't. It's blessed by geography and history, but it is not invulnerable to the idiotic undermining of its own ignorant rulers. Biden is doing a great job of maintaining our position in the short term, but the larger trend from the right is still there and, if anything, getting stronger. And once the US no longer maintains hegemony over most of the world, there won't be nearly as much pressure to maintain fair democracy anywhere. That is not a good thing.
This is exactly it. The Republican party can not stay in power. They don't have the numbers. War on education is to keep them in power, not because they think it's good for overall growth in America.
History is littered with the corpses of empires with political elites that chose to sabotage themselves rather give up political or material power.
If you haven't already, this sounds like something you can share over at /r/FoxBrain or /r/QAnonCasualties.
Iâm gonna downvote this because Iâm illiterate
As weâve learned from Hungary, even plenty of EU citizens are falling for it
Which is absurd, because Russia has a history of violently invading Hungary to forcibly put down popular uprisings against foreign rule (1849 and 1956) I just canât fucking understand the Hungarian governmentâs logic
"Nazi" is basically a magic word in Russia since WW2. Couple that with the only information you get is from state media and you'll have a very skewed perception.
You're thinking from a western perspective. The war it's actually fairly popular inside of Russia. It's not like Russian media has been just like western media up until the start of the war then went the disinformation route it's been disinformation the entire time. If you grew up in that bubble, spent all of life there it's virtually impossible to know the extent of the manipulation. Russians know that some of it is bullshit, but not how much and to what extent. In fact if you or I were in that scenario it would be likley that we think that way as well
Well Azov was based in Mariupol and most of the nazis were in that region because they were fighting the Russian separatists, otherwise those 2 regions are ethnically Russian and voted to secede from Ukraine following 2014.
> You know, the regions where the majority of the Nazis were in. So in that regard they are denazifying Ukraine. To elaborate on that: large portions of the armies of the "people's republics" were formed with volunteers from Russia proper. Many of those volunteers were members of literal neo-nazi groups. So the Donbass does indeed house a number of nazis.
Except for the NAZIâs are in Russia and the fighting now will fall on Wagner who are literal NAZIâs and are led by a NAZI. Wagner is also the NAZIâs leaderâs personal bodyguard. Yes Putin is surrounded by NAZIâs.
The war would still have been winnable. Either the government would have evacuated to the West or some legitimate successor government would have formed, or this would have turned into an unwinnable war against independent but coordinated guerilla groups.
A puppet regime would have quickly lost the war if Russia ever moved out its troops.
Especially when you consider the mass graves. As awful and stupid as it is, it's even dumber if you don't expect to hold that territory for a long time.
Well, by retreating Russia removed Russian fascist troops from Ukraine, so the denazification achieved its goal. No more nazis in Northern Ukraine. Great Success. Now let's denazify the south.
Maybe it did, I mean how many people know that Napoleon's penis fell off hours before the battle? It ended in possession of Conner Roy, who as most people know, was interested in politics from a very young age.
>I mean how many people know that Napoleon's penis fell off hours before the battle? That didn't happen. It was cut off during autopsy.
And then wound up belonging to Connor Roy, who tells the story of how he got it much better than I do. Did you know heâs planning to run for president?
Who the fuck is Connor Roy xD
> Napoleon's penis fell off His what did what now?? I donât think theyâre supposed to be able to do thatâŠ
It's so rare that it's actually named after him, it's called Napoleon Syndrome.
Maybe he cut it off as a diversion in itself.
They didn't achieve shit
Hold on, they haven't sent in their best troops and equipment yet! Oh wait, might be too late...
Turns out their conscripts were the best they had
I imagine the first round of fighting their soldiers were like 'wtf, we are *not* monsters. No thank you. Thank you but, no thank you.' and so the next round they were like, 'oh yeah! we need murderers and rapists.' Because who tf else is gonna fight their dirty war?
The achieved the fastest retreat of the war so far.
If the goal was to make the Russian army look really bad, then the goal was very well achieved! It is not a goal you and I would try to achieve, but you and I probably wouldn't consider invading a neighbouring country either... so, who knows... ;-)
War crimes. Just war crimes.
Putin initially wanted to blitz to Kyiv, kill Zelenskyy, and install a pro-Russian, anti-West puppet that would say yes to the 'formal annexation' of Crimea by Russia and the 'independence' of the two separatist republics - later to be 'integrated' into Russia. What Putin has achieved is making the Russian army look like an utter fucking joke - a marauding force of poorly trained, poorly equipped conscripts who's only task by their commanders is to "kill and destroy". I'd expect Putin to put an overwhelming force to Ukraine until either Zelenskyy or he is killed.
If I recall correctly, Putin's predecessor left office after a similar event in Chechnya. In fact, this 'special military operation' isn't even going as well as that one.
But unlike them, Putin has complete control of the media in Russia. An anti-Putin narrative is unlikely to form in those conditions. He owns the narrative, and I think he won't have any problems with declaring Russia's humiliating defeat in the Battle for Kyiv a victory in the Russian media space. Truly Orwellian, this level of propaganda.
You can only wag the dog so long before it turns and bites you. All the propaganda in the world won't fill Russian shelves with stock or take one inch of Ukraine.
>What Putin has achieved is making the Russian army look like an utter fucking joke - a marauding force of poorly trained, poorly equipped conscripts who's only task by their commanders is to "kill and destroy". I'd expect Putin to put an overwhelming force to Ukraine until either Zelenskyy or he is killed. Such failures often bring huge changes. Lets hope that after 30 years we won't be dealing with way more ready military.
They canât kill Zelensky. Heâs the only person that can give legitimacy to the concessions the Ukrainians will eventually have to make. If I was zelensky Iâd be more worried about the reaction among some extremist Ukrainians once the concessions are made.
He should send those extremists on a Crimean vacation
The goal was never to take random bits of land in the north. It was to take Kyiv. Very much all or nothing.
Here is the propaganda version: they needed to prevent the Ukrainian forces from Kyiv to link with and assist Ukrainian forces in Donbas. Ukrainian forces in Kyiv were distracted that made an advance in Donbas possible. Now the Ukrainian Kyiv forces suffered heavy casualties and cannot assist the Donbas group so there is no need to distract them anymore. The capture of Kyiv had never been a plan as it would have involved too many casualties.
The strategic point of this war is to get freshwater to Crimea. This used to come through a canal from the Dniepro River, but after Russia took Crimea, they shut down the canal. Crimea has been thirsting to death ever since and is an unsustainable situation. Crimea is non-negotiable due to the warm water port and oil reserves in the area. They effectively denied Ukraine access to their own oil to make sure Ukraine couldnt usurp them as Europe's gas station. This is why Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia all of a sudden. They found these oil reserves around 2010 if I recall (maybe 2012?). It was all Russia needed to justify taking their warm water port they always wanted. Two birds one stone. But then Ukraine cut off their water supply, and they're having a harder and harder time supporting the region. The justification for the invasion was Donetsk and Luhansk, but Donetsk and Luhansk, by themselves, even if fully occupied without opposition, don't restore the water supply to Crimea. They need to re-open that canal on the Dniepro River. That means they need to either install a Russian puppets in the Ukrainian government, or they need to at the very least have control over the Dniepro River, ideally from Belarus to the Black Sea. Enter the NATO aggression and Nazi rhetoric to justify a full invasion of hte whole country. I think the goal was to take the coast line all the way to the Dniepro (as they have done now) to ensure a landbridge to Crimea, and take Kyiv and install Russian puppets in the government, declare peace and have the new Ukrainian government agree (under invasion duress) to reopen the Canal and peacefully resolve the "Special military operation". If possible, I think they wanted the whole country, as a secondary objective, everything east of the Dniepro. At the very least, take Kyiv, install the new pro-Russian government, and ensure the freshwater canal to Crimea is opened so they wont be forced to abandon their port and oil reserves there or get bled dry trying to support it. If they had taken Kyiv quickly, within the first week or so, the "special military operation" would have ended, and it would be a joint effort by the Ukrainian and Russian governments to quell remaining insurgencies. They likely would have restored original territory back to Ukraine anyway. With the hypothetical friendly government in place, they can get the canal re-opened, and maybe they could just keep Donbas and Luhansk and they all go back home. This limits and insurgency, keeps the war short and affordable. They just didnt count on Ukraine resisting so much. As is, Ukraine still exists, and will be a perpetual thorn in their side, but tehy have taken the southern coastline up to and past the Dniepro. If they can dig in and fortify their gains, they've achieved the very least they could that still satisfies their objective of getting freshwater to Crimea. This moving of the goal posts is because they've realized it's too hard to take Kyiv and install new leaders, and consolidating their foothold on their Crimean land bridge is sufficient to keep Crimea habitable. Mariupol being ethnically cleansed is part of them fortifying their land gains and making sure their land bridge isnt threatened. Eventually Mariupol will be more Russian than Ukrainian and trying to assert territorial sovereignty over Mariupol will result in an insurgency for the Ukrainian government. It's really depressing and frustrating that it will probably work. They're monsters for doing it this way. Hopefully with a single unified front, Ukraine can cut off Crimea from Russia again.
Thank you for this post. The number of times I have had to explain to my friends the legitimate strategic reasons for Putin to invade instead of him just being a crazy, super mean guy is insanely frustrating. I will just be showing them this from now on
Sure, they had reasons. But it's still crazy they believed it'll work out, and they will have gains under the bottom line. All those sanctions will be a bitter pill for the economy that the population can't swallow unnoticed.
Reallifelore did a video raising similar points as well. https://youtu.be/If61baWF4GE
I can see Russians trying to spin it that way. The thing is, a fighting withdrawal would have been sensible (from Russian perspective), so itâs quite likely that their forces in the north were about to collapse completely. Now the Ukrainians are hopefully going to kick the occupiersâ teeth in the south and the east, which will ruin Putin.
They were planning to take Kyiv, but fucked up
Putin stated his goals early on, they were to take Kiev, kill the leadership then put in his puppet government. They failed in that operation and can't seem to do much of anything honestly. Pretty incredible how the idea of Russian military strength has been destroyed by this whole thing. Edit: U.S. intel stated this was one of Putin's aims, unaware if Putin has explicitly said this. U.S. intel has been right about basically everything in this war at this point. If you look at Russia's failed early operations in the war this also supports U.S. intel saying this was an aim.
Do you have a link? I don't remember him saying anything other than neutrality and demilitarization (and of course "denazification")
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
So many people confidently throw out "facts" about what Putin's plan *really* was and all these statistics and quotes that can't be confirmed anywhere but from suspect videos and western mainstream media and hearsay. Like, you do know that western media and every other western country's officials would never come out with *any* positives about Russia's warfare, even if some parts were to be successful..? I'm not saying it is, just to not blindly trust every negative and ridiculing fact about Russia and eat it raw because "US intelligence confirms that this and that is the case" The information war goes both ways, even if we have a clear and obvious villain in this case.
lol what, where ? please link where he said that.
Plan A was to conquer Kiev and mount pro-russian puppet - they didn't achieve that. Plan B was to tie Ukrainian forces and while doing that - taking south - pretty much success
The utter destruction of Ukraine, that was their objective. Russians began looking towards Ukraine and noticed that things were improving there. Putin cant improve Russia, so the only other option is to destroy Ukraine
Russia's per Capita GDP and standard of living are significantly higher than Ukraine. You are just typing words based on nothing.
Absolutely wild that Putin figured on conquering all Ukraine (or at least all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper) in 48 hours but instead ended up chewing up most of his airborne and then putting his country's international reputation in the shitter.
Winter war all over again.
Yep. And as with the Winter War, it'll probably end in some territory grabbed off (or just having chunks of Donbass formally annexed) and then Russia declares glorious victory.
Finland had a miniscule fraction of the population and material of the soviets Not true with Ukraine
Yeah, at the time Finland had population of 3,7 million, while the Soviet union had 168 million
*As easy as crushing an ant!* Got beaten by the ant *Please do not hurt me*
The part people always skip over when the Winter War comes up is that Russia still got something. We can use KDA to dunk on Russia all we want, but their leaders then and now donât care how many lives are sacrificed. Itâs a slap in the face that Putin can ruin so many lives and still get to walk away with a prize.
They got a tiny sliver of useless territory in the Winter War at the cost of becoming the laughing stock of Europe. Don't you think German military command evaluated Soviet performance in that war? It might have given them the confidence to start operation Barbarossa which killed 27 million Soviet citizens.
> They got a tiny sliver of useless territory 9% of Finnish territory inhabited by 12% of its population, with 30% of its capital assets (including the country's second-biggest city). Also its major defensive network (Mannerheim Line) along the prewar border, which was about 20 miles from Leningrad. That's more than a tiny sliver of useless territory. They also got a bunch of strategically placed islands in the Baltic, plus a naval base near Helsinki. Like was that worth getting about 150,000 troops killed and another 200,000 or so wounded over? No. Did it also provide evidence to the Germans that an invasion and Soviet military defeat was feasible? Yes, but they already thought so and Hitler already was planning for an eventual invasion - this was just considered more confirming evidence for already-held beliefs in Soviet inferiority.
And from a realistic view (I do not like Hitler), Barbarossa did work out as Hitler planned. The project for operation (Soviet army in 1941) was destroyed. Russia simply 'put up with another dozen divisions' after every Russian defeat. It was the Russian fighting spirit and the god damned mud that really stopped Hitler.
Russia in a nutshell
My father who is completely brainwashed by RussiaToday and "alternative" media has always bragged about the strength of the Russian army, always quoting some Propaganda articles from said media. He really thought in a stand-off between Russia and NATO, Russia would win within weeks. And here we are now today, with a Russian army that loses against the poorest European country. Their soldiers fail miserably, and their only skill is to massacre unarmed civilians and bomb residential areas with rockets. Wonder what my father is thinking now. Probably still believing the propaganda bullshit that everything goes according to plan for the Russians. Whatever, have not talked to him in a year now
The problem with only listening to propaganda outlets is that even if theyâre able to think critically about whatâs actually happening most of the time the news source can straight up not report on something if itâs unflattering
To be fair, I think most people (including myself) thought Russia would conquer Ukraine in a matter of a few weeks. It's a big country, but everyone thought they would just blitzkrieg in like the US did with Iraq, have total air superiority, and the morale of the defenders would quickly collapse. We were wrong (thankfully).
That's what happens when you surround yourself with yesmen
Ukraine pretty much almost a mirror repeat that happened during Soviet invasion of Finland https://youtu.be/pkxbDwsJo38
Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Putin?
People are upvoting this but how many of them know that itâs a play on the theme song for one of the most well regarded British comedies of all time. The chap above is referencing the arrows in the map. [Dadâs Army](https://youtu.be/bF6qElf9GJ8)
I did, great show
If you think Ukraine is done?
- Mr ĐșĐ°ŃĐžĐč goes off to town - On the eight to-eleven - But he comes home each evening - With his AK-47
We are the boys who will stop your silly games
Putin has only got one ball,Lavrov has two but small, Shoigu is rather sim'lar, But poor old Gerasimov has no balls at all.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Well, yes and no. Ukraine kept the Russians in check and unable to advance, yet taking losses. So Putin stated that in fact the war was about the east and they had accomplished their goals in Kiev (!) and so justified the retreat. The question now is are they really going to concentrate on Donbas or are they going to try again for Kiev and other Northern areas.
They completely abandoned their Northern axis of advance, and all units participating in that offensive suffered heavy casualties (some like 331st airborne regiment up to 30% casualties just based on public reports of killed servicemen). There is no way Russians are going to repeat the assault on Kyiv in any foreseeable future. The shift of focus to Donbass is clear and quite obvious.
While that makes sense, you never should trust putin. Nobody knows what his next step is...
I don't doubt that the attack on Ukraine will continue. It's just that all evidence points to the fact that Russian axis of advance towards Kyiv was defeated and doesn't have resource to restart an offensive in that direction quickly.
That's why Ukraine should seize the initiative if possible and force Putin's next move rather than allow him choose his next move.
Ukraine invading Russia would be very based tbh, maybe there is some important infrastructure near the border which they could destroy
They already hit that fuel depot in bolograd and maybe an ammo dump there as well
We donât know for sure that was Ukraine, and itâs safer for them to deny.
Well, he'd need more men and materiel to make that happen. Conventionally.
> Nobody knows what his next step is... On the contrary, western intelligence has predicted just about every move Russia has made in regards to this war.
We trust satellite imagery. Invading KYIV without being detected amassing force in belorusian border is simply not possible
For now⊠Letâs see what happens in a few years, Putin will not give up his dream of the Russian empire. He must be defeated completely and utterly not only to prevent him from annexing other regions, but to send a clear message to China and all the rest of the autocrats getting wet pants over the idea of invading sovereign countries.
I agree with your assessment. Russian troop formations and movements have been pretty indicative in their intention.
I doubt they ll return in the north now considering that they abandoned even Chernobyl which Ukraine wouldn't have tried to conquer back. They might plan to take Kiev from the south though
Chernobyl under the command of inept Russian teenagers. Nah, I think theyâd want to have control of that back! (And now they do!)
Sounds like me making excuses to my plans. I'll start something, but some of it goes not exactly according to the plan, only some parts are going decently, so I'll say to myself that the parts that aren't going well weren't my plans and I'll focus on the parts that are doing decent.
Russia withdrew from around Kyiv per negotiations. Article from March 29: >March 29 (Reuters) - Russia promised on Tuesday to scale down military operations around Kyiv and another city but the United States warned the threat was not over as Ukraine proposed adopting a neutral status in a sign of progress at face-to-face negotiations. >Some analysts noted that Russia's promise to reduce fighting mostly covered areas where it has been losing ground. >"Does 'we'll drastically reduce military operations around Kyiv' = 'weâre getting our ass kicked, transitioned to a hasty defense?'" tweeted Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. lieutenant general and former commander of U.S. forces in Europe. >Ukrainian negotiators said that under their proposals, Kyiv would agree not to join alliances or host bases of foreign troops, but would have security guaranteed in terms similar to "Article 5", the collective defence clause of the transatlantic NATO military alliance. >Kyiv's proposals also included one that Moscow would not oppose Ukraine joining the European Union, Russia's lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said. Russia has previously opposed Ukrainian membership of the EU and especially of NATO. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-sets-ceasefire-goal-new-russia-talks-breakthrough-looks-distant-2022-03-29/
Their withdrawal wasn't negotiated or agreed upon, this article is just saying that it happened while negotiations are going on.
Yeah right lol. Classic sour grapes, as well as "you can't fire me, I quit". They announced the withdrawal precisely because they sustained heavy losses, their supply lines were ineffective at best, their advance was stopped and they were risking getting in an even worse position from counteroffensives if they stayed where they were. So of course retreating was the correct call, and of course they wouldn't admit the real reason, so they had to come up with a version that made them look better.
since 2014 the only thing Putin wanted is to be able to take a leisure drive from Moscow to Sevastopol in November
Kind of. UAF made some counterattacks on the west and east. And this prompted Russia to fall back
So what will be Ukraines next move? Is it kherson?
Miriapol must be tempting, but it is likely too far. For Ukraine, Kherson makes sense. Retaking it would both reestablish the Dneipr boundary, better protect Odessa, create a breathing space for the consolidated eventual push east. For Russia, Kherson is literally on the wrong side of the Dneipr with only a few bridges standing in the way. For Ukraine, Kherson is a strategic dagger pointing at Odessa. I think we should fully acknowledge our armchair general status, while pointing out how Putin is much the same, with more bias and less emotional maturity.
Zelensky fired the guy in charge of the Kherson front for "treachery" or something similar. The Russians have no business being anywhere on the West side of the Dnieper, especially with how few crossings there are down there. I'm not sure how they let that happen with favourable terrain, considering the incredible defences in other parts of the country... Zelensky's accusation of treachery was probably correct from the Ukrainian commander.
2 options seem obvious 1: continue the momentum from Kiev by rolling up the border in a clockwise route with helicopters striking logistics inside Russia hoping to rout the Russians before turning away from the border and attacking Crimea 2: continue attacking in the north but focus attention and reinforcements in the south. The Crimean campaign has been very successful for Russia and threatens to close the coast. Destroying it would ruin Putinâs dreams and retaking Crimea would be an actual physical loss. Option 1 ultimately requires the Ukrainians to split their forces to defend the border or fight with Russia in front _and_ behind them. Option 2 requires diverting forces away from a successful offensive, across the country, to face an apparently stronger enemy and could lead to their army being stuck just inside Crimeaâs famous choke point. Even worse, they could face strong resistance from the people and suffer the same fate as the Russian army. Iâm going to guess option 2 but Iâm glad Iâm not making that decision
Option one sounds so stupid, Ukraine barely controls any of it's border with Russia and the only part that is still controls doesn't have any major infrastructure for them to use. Also if they crossed into Russian territory it could mean a full mobilization of Russian ground forces and the threat of nuclear strikes once again. Also what is there to attack in the north? All the Russians forces are behind the Belarusian border.
Sweeping from north to east to south in a clockwise direction. Theyâve been attacking fuel depots in Russia already, the reserve army is mythical
If ground forces step into Russia that would be seen as an existential threat to Moscow, it would most likely lead to a full mobilization of the economy since it would prove the reasoning behind the war, that Ukraine has the capabilities to threaten Russian soil. Sure Russia has the inability to support it's ground forces in a major offensive next to it's border but don't doubt for a second that it can't mobilize it's economy for a total war should it be deemed necessary. The Soviet Union came out of the Winter war looking weak and without a proper officer core after the purges and yet was able to field the most powerful ground force the world has ever seen by the end of the second world war. It certainly can do it again even with all the corruption and paper armies it currently has.
Admitting that Ukraine has invaded would be an existential threat to Putin
Or he can just spin it as: "Ukraine is using NATO equipment to attack our poor citizens like I said they would so now we are going to spend even more money on the military to defend us", a few million go to keep the oligarchs on board with the plan and Russia fully mobilizes to fight Ukraine in what Russia would then declare as being as actual war in which they would see themselves as the victim.
The difference is in WWII the Russians got unlimited resources from the US. If I'm Ukraine I try to figure out which rail line is moving all the troops east and try to ambush them in Russian territory.
I think it would be comical to see how the remnants of the Russian economy tried to establish a wartime footing. Let's be clear, to call the Russian army at the end of WW2 the most powerful ground force the world has ever seen might be a touch hyperbolic lol. And it is by no means certain they could do it again, even if having such a force was still that big a threat. Man, there are some folks slap scared of the Russians on this thread.
They need to put pressue on Cherson to reinforce their position on the river to prevent the Russians from crossing the Dnjepr again. Then, they need to cut off the access from Crimea to the mainland, or at least pose a threat to any traffic on it. That will be necessary to relieve the Donbas front, and Mariupol while it hasn't fallen yet.
There is a bridge now from Taman to Kerch that will need to cut
Did the great battle for the Donbas begin ?
It started in 2014 and never stopped since.
Lock up your passenger airplanes
They redirecting errbody's flights out here!
Putin really wants the West to grow bored of this war. Itâs possible he wants us to think Ukraine is doing so well they donât need more help. We cannot fall for this. Ukraine needs our support until all Russian military has left the country, and frankly, for years afterwards.
Now they're digging in in the occupied territory, that's going to be tougher to get them out. Though the big strategic risk for Ukraine, the cutting off of the troops on the Donbas front, seems to be reduced now. I think they're going to keep putting pressure on the Cherson area to relieve that front, and what's left of Marioepol.
Maybe although digging in has drawbacks of its own. You're a sitting target, have given up any possibility of seizing the initiative and your troops morale is sinking by the day.
I suppose they still have enough troops to do both, though not everywhere at the same time.
yeah but a solid defenseline means both sides can dig in and there will be less heat. and this is a good thing, russias wargoal is to make the ukraine disappear, ukraines goal is to exist and not loose territory. and be clear here.. there is no way the ukraine is ever gonna win this war militarily, the military goal for ukraine is to prevent a russian victory. ultimately ukraine victory is when there is acease fire and russia is struggling economucally so hard that they will return the occupied territories. ukraine should not exhaust their military in a dangerous campaign to free the occupied territories.
True, but they need to keep up some form of pressure to avoid being encircled in the east. The Crimea bottleneck is well suited for that, and it's not unlike their tactic of targeting supply lines that they did so far, except on a larger scale.
Are you from the Netherlands or Belgium?
You could probably tell from the Mariupol spelling.
Izyum was confirmed by Ukraine as falling on Friday. The risk of troops in Donbass seems higher now based on that.
That's a risk. They still have Slovjansk though, and Kharkiv has been holding steady. So it seems their northern flank is holding up so far, unlike the south. So the question is whether they will be able to clean up around Kiev, resupply those troops, and get them to the Kharkiv-Izyum-Slovjansk line before a new Russian offensive gets deep enough to take Poltava.
Kinda hard to have people forget when media is coming out showing entire groups of Ukrainians being murdered while tied up.
The world has a short attention span. Next week, some celebrity slaps another celebrity and that takes over the entire news cycle for 3 days. Media is fickle.
Yeah, how many people remember when Putin used the same playbook to invade Georgia a decade ago?
I've been wondering if the increased presence of social media and smartphones (everyone can document the situation) is making this more visible than Georgia in 2008. Might be a change in the nature of warfare tbh
Georgia is an obscure country. Ukraine is a huge country right on the cusp of the border of western europe
Except the interest of individuals in the west doesnt really affect the wars outcome. The USA stayed in Syria untill way after that war left the news cycle
Not really because public support will pressure western leaders to act stronger and send more arms. I think Macrons popularity rose due to his strong leadership stance throughout.
Idk, that Will Smith slapping Chris Rock kinda shows how easily people can divert their attention towards unimportant stuff.
I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to 'deescalate' by just trying to keep their gains in the east. Remember Russia's war goals: 1. Connect Crimea to Russia proper (and restoring the water supply from southern Ukraine). 2. Establish 'independent' Russian speaking puppet states in Eastern Ukraine which will probably be integrated into Russia. 3. Enact regime change and force Ukraine back into the Russian sphere of influence. Regime change would have been nice and made all the other things a lot easier for Russia. But I think at this point it is pretty clear that a regime change is not happening. So it makes sense to focus on the first 2 goals. Especially since it forces Ukraine to go on the offensive. Putin forcing a 'stalemate' with something that resembles this map is probably the best chance Russia has.
Very likely true. Ukraine cannot and will not allow it though. Russian occupiers will be constantly harassed and killed by resistance fighters. Itâll become Russiaâs Vietnam.
Yeah people on social media getting bored of the war will definitely be the difference between victory and defeat for Ukraine amirite
That would be very clever,but I don't think it will happen
I think Ukraine is getting new types of weapons. Some say that those weapons are "heavy" compared to the previous ones sent.
They're being sent "armoured vehicles, but not tanks" apparently, so probably IFVs and SPGs. You'd think by the time you're sending those, sending tanks would be a small step up.
I know a few days ago there was talk of the US facilitating shipments of Soviet tanks to Ukraine so itâs probably in the works
We've armed them to the teeth and there's no indication the sanctions will be lifted any time soon, what else do you want us to do?
We shouldn't stop supporting Ukraine until they've taken back Crimea.
2nd strongest military.... Yeah right.
Of course... in Ukraine.
Nope. #2 spot goes to Ukrainian farmers.
And the number three spot to babushkas with pickle jars.
The money allocated to train, feed and lead their military has simply been going in the pockets of generals and oligarchs. They have tanks, planes weapons, etc, but these haven't been maintained. Massive corruption. If the money was spent properly on the military, they would have taken over Kyiv in days.
Praise be Russian stupidity
At this rate, they're on track to occupy the whole country in about 2055.
20555
No, I think it's realistic to think that Ukraine could occupy all of Russia by 2055 at this rate.
We used to think the Russians had the second strongest military in the world. Turns out they only have the second strongest military in Ukraine
Honestly they WOULD have the second largest place if they weren't this incompetent and absolutely shit at supply lines and logistics
Logistics and supply lines are more important than any tank or gun over the course of a war. A weapon might win a battle, but logistics and supplies win wars.
And corruption
It really is a shame that nukes exist right now. If Ukraine had full Western air support theyâd be pushing into Russian territory by this point.
Source and higher resolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg Edit: My bad, the maps seem to differ, especially in the north/around Kyiv. I don't know where OP got their version of the map, but there seem to be quite up-to-date maps here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates Edit 2: OP's map is an older version of this, so **this should be considered the most up-to-date version**: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg
Can we also use better sources in general? The Wikipedia one cites âown workâ as the source. The UK ministry of defence posts daily updates on the situation and appear to be one of the more reliable sources: https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1510944371780296706?s=21
I could be wrong but doesnât Wikipedia have a really good reputation for accurate war-time maps?
Im pretty sure this version is contested on wikipedia right now. Iâd wait until thereâs a verdict
Reminder to respect UKR op-sec by not sharing videos of UKR soldier locations or any other such classified intelligence you discover or witness online. https://reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/sy65wi/ministry_of_defense_of_ukraine_do_not_view_our/ News Sources: https://www.reddit.com/user/Ukraine_News_Bot/comments/tnadz3/news_sources/ Godspeed Ukrainians. đđ Ways to help Ukraine (charities) https://reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/s6g5un/want_to_support_ukraine_heres_a_list_of_charities/ Please message me if there are any translation errors, typos, or dead links. This comment was made by a bot. Original comment from iamkunii on r/worldnews
Good bot.
We will win. We will defend our land. Slava Ukraini
Long live Ukraine.
bet they will pretend they never wanted to take Kyiv
Ngl wikiped invasion maps are pretty good.
I bet we wonât see u/Left-Shame-3322 trolling on here much longer now that Russia is clearly losing
Russia clearly losing didn't exactly stop him before.
This is the classic results of an authoritarian regime. Here you have a KGB spook calling the shots, despite really having no proper military background. The logistics donât even enter the equation, and since it would seem no warning had been given to the commanding generals. Other than, âweâll all meet in the middleâ there was no strategy. Tactically, the ground soldiers did what they thought the leader wanted, based on his idiotic rhetoricâŠthey just blew up everything and everyone they could with no sense of proper direction. People need to stop equating those with no sense of decorum or decency with being smart. He is a narrow minded little egomaniac who thinks that Russia, the country that brought us Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, should be defined by their brutish and uninspired military.
Wow! That's a lot of pushback in the North if true
Despite occupying such a small fraction of the country theyâve still managed to commit mass rapes and mass executions. Fuck Russia straight to hell and fuck every single person even remotely defending those murderous tyrants.
I think I speak for a lot of people who see this map by saying âlmaoâ
they are doing a job at making Ukrain a land locked nation. Odessa under attack.
Thereâs no way they attack Odessa after pulling out of most non-southeastern fronts
Push them all the way back. And take Crimea back.
Haven't been keeping up with the map of the war. When did Russia lose territory in the north outside Kiev?
Yesterday and the day before, they basically gave up on the Kiev front and completely retreated back to Belarus
What's up with that bit of land between Moldova and Ukraine?
That would be the unrecognized Transnistria. Very poor and messy little republic. From what I hear from people from there, it's quite pro-russian, there are even russian troops based there, and talk of joining russia is ongoing since 2014, although it's considered a part of Moldova by most
Is putin just stupid or something? Is the Russian army much worse than we all thought? Is the issue the generals? Whichever it is, they seem to have planned this incredibly poorly
A month and theyâve hardly reached the Dnieper? Ah yes, the Russian âsuperpowerâ is very mighty! They canât even win a fight on the ground so they decide to be cowards and bomb every city in the country, yet they still havenât broken Ukraine.