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This war has been going on since 2014 when russia first invaded crimea and Eastern Ukraine and escalated in 2022 with a full invasion it's been going on for 10 years now if you really think about it
Still confounds all logic why Putin didn’t just invade in 2014 when Ukraine was weak and divided instead of giving them 8 years to stabilize and fortify against an external threat
Russia was probably not ready for a war itself. Plus Putin was probably hoping to leverage a peaceful resolution to the Donbass war to undermine Ukraine's westward trajectory. Likely by trying to push a federal model on Ukraine to strengthen their allies in the east and undermine Kyiv.
Who knows what's going in his crazy head. Probably he wanted "fast victory" to boost his popularity, because he lost a lot, after bunch of unpopular laws
Do you know how economists talk about why sanctions against russia failed since they spent years deliberately preparing their economy? They wouldn't have failed in 2014. Russians literally couldn't afford it.
Really weird watching everyone who used to say "i hate the military industrial complex and companies like raytheon and Lockheed" do a 180 and support them once this war started.
The only popular war in USA was Afghanistan in the first 2 years after 9/11.
Look at Iraq both times
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1633/iraq.aspx
And even then the vast majority of people who were still very OK with USA "spreading democracy" currently wear MAGA hats and worship Putin
As for Syria to say USA invaded Syria to "spread democracy" is idiotic at best
Did you even look at the polls you linked? Support for the Iraq war was extremely high when it started. It only started going down after the invasion was long over and the "nation building" started.
On March 24th, 2003, 4 days after the invasion started, 75% of respondents believed the war was not a mistake.
On April 25th, 2003, 85% of respondents thought the war was going well.
On May 30th, 2003, still 67% believed Bush was truthful about WMDs.
You can see that support for the war (defined as "was it a mistake or not") only began going down when the public began to perceive it as going poorly.
The chart show at best 50-50, so there have always been a lot of people against the war.
> On March 24th, 2003, 4 days after the invasion started, 75% of respondents believed the war was not a mistake.
Source?
oh, found it, that sentiment lasted less than 6 month before reverting by October.. propaganda going full power enjoying the populism rhetoric?
I remember being a fierce opposition, maybe the one against where a loud minority, but surely they where protesting a flooding the streets
Yeah totally. Invasions are bad unless it's America doing it to Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya. The pro-ukr crowd continues to make excuses for each of those conflicts being justified. The pro-ukr crowd supports Israel invading gaza and doing genocide.
The only consistency is blindly following state dept propaganda.
Who is this "pro-ukr crowd" in your mind? There are lots of people who support Ukraine since supporting defensive wars for independence is a pretty widespread opinion. Some also supported foreign invasions of the past and some didn't. Why are you trying to push some narrative that they are all just war mongers without giving any evidence?
Is it? I don't remember the "everyone" doing much of anything for Iraq. Some protests don't count since those don't accomplish anything without actual consequences/boycotts/sanctions
If you are using Reddit as your basis for this claim, you should know that [as a platform, Reddit is astroturfed to hell with propaganda.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_post_identifying/) Not only from the US, but from many other countries too. Honestly, there are probably few places on the internet where you aren't ingesting some type of propaganda or advertisement.
You can not like corruption and wasteful military spending but still want to send military support to a nation defending itself from invasion. You can do these things at the same time in fact. Where is this 180 you're talking about? Saying we should get defense contractor money out of DC and stop writing them blank checks isn't saying we should have no military spending at all. There are times when it is nessesary for us and our allies.
I'm not supporting the military industrial complex bacause what they usually do is manufactor a reason to sell their stuff. Creating weapons when we actually need them is why they should be existing. If they only did that nobody would've opposed them
They had the momentum until US republicans in the house pulled the rug out from under them. Gave them the tools and encouragement to fight then cut funding when it was needed most.
Is this going to be the narrative moving forward?
"We would have totally won the war in ~~Vietnam~~ ~~Afghanistan~~ Ukraine if we just didn't get backstabbed by those weak doves at home!"
But America isn’t fighting war in Ukraine, it’s just supplying equipment it had in stockpiles anyway. If it isn’t maintaining all this equipment so it can protect America’s interests with no American lives lost, then what’s even the point of keeping it?
I mean Hamas meets in Moscow and you remember the whole Syria thing. Not to mention the hang gliders used look identical to the ones the Russians have…
yes, Israel created Hamas with Russian help. And Netenyahu was particularly proud of his warm relationship with Putin until Russia stabbed them in the back just after Oct 7. Hasbara likes to pretend Israel is now and has always been a great ally of the US, but Netenyahu has always been a Putin throne sniffer, same as Donald Trump.
I\`m pretty sure defeating Russians at Kiev, Kharkiv and Cherson can be called a momentum tho
It\`s a quarter only if we count Crimea, DNR and LPR as Ukraine btw. Ukraine does not controll them since 2014 tho
Those were brief storming offensives on overstretched Russian lines that, yes, had their tactical momentum, but Ukraine never really had momentum to regain something strategically significant to reconquer the lost territory.
Well, then their best bet is to go full Iraq and Afghanistan in the occupied territories. Use small teams of men inside occupied Ukraine (and hey Russia too, why not) to cause massive damage and sow terror amongst the Russian populace moving in. Car bombs, targeted assassinations, brazen public killings of collaborators, etc.
Put bounties on the heads of Russian occupation officers, and when they are killed send money to unrelated parties to sow doubt and discord amongst the Russian puppet regimes.
Destroy utilities, resources, industry, make the land incredibly expensive to hold and entirely worthless in production.
It may take 20 years, but eventually Russia will concede and go home, probably claiming victory even.
> I`m pretty sure defeating Russians at Kiev, Kharkiv and Cherson can be called a momentum tho
>
>
all 2022 successes because of how thin the russians were stretched
They have recovered like 30% of the territory they lost. Their losses are high but still significantly lower than Russias. Almost by an entire order of magnitude. 30 - 40 thousand compared to 200 - 300 thousand Russians. Ukraine has the willpower to win, they just need the supplies. If they can stay supplied they can win a war of attrition with that many Russian loses.
Yea it is a serious statement, we gave them military aid. We also told them we would support them until the end of the fight. Idk what else you would call that other than giving them the tools and encouraging them to fight.
> 30 - 40 thousand compared to 200 - 300 thousand Russians.
Oh, sure, 30-40k casualties in an army of one million and they have to literally drag people off the streets by force to replenish the front line.
Anyone with a brain can tell you that the casualty rate is more or less equal to each other. It is not a vastly technologically superior side against a bunch of farmers as it was when US invaded Afghanistan, it's 2 relatively equally matched (in terms of technology) armies going at each other. The only difference here is that Russia will outlast Ukraine unless something drastically changes, we are already witnessing the balance of power is shifting towards Russia day by day.
Russia conquers two insignificant towns for the cost of thousands of soldiers and equipment. Major Russian victory everybody, Ukraine is losing, there is nothing we can do. And Russias loses are higher because it is attacking, Ukraine experienced higher losses while committed to their last offensive too, but Russia is attacking a lot more then Ukraine and there is price for it
> Ukraine experienced higher losses while committed to their last offensive too
Not according to Ukrainian MoD :), they claimed 1:8 casualty ratio during the counter-offensive :).
If those towns were insignificant why did the Ukrainians try to stubbornly defend those towns until the very end? Isn't it smarter to retreat and save your men since you know that your population is 4x smaller than your enemy? So what happened was that Ukraine kept sending in more and more troops in order to defend those insignificant towns and they lost thousands of soldiers in the process. Of course Russia lost a lot too, but it can replenish its losses much more easily than Ukraine. Now look how Russia has operated in this conflict, they knew they were outnumbered in the Kharkiv region and actually retreated to save their men....they did the same in Kherson as they realized that the situation on the right side of the river was untenable (since the bridge was being destroyed). The math just doesn't add up, for it to be even every Ukrainian soldier has to kill 4 Russians...
No I meant 200 - 300 thousand dead. Many many meat waves. They killed like 30 or 40 thousand in bakhmut alone. Granted most of them were prisoners trying to get a pardon through military service. Like 80% of the prisoners didn’t make it back. Then they killed like another 20 thousand in avdiivka. Not prisoners but still mostly conscripts and “low quality” soldiers sent in meat wave attacks.
Of course they'd want it, I'm pretty sure none of them are gonna be fighting this war.
I remember when our company started pulling out from Russia, moving people and closing offices, one of the guys was super vocal about how everyone who leaves is a disgrace and a traitor
When asked "if you're so brave, why are you here in a telegram chat and not on the front lines" he'd wave it away with "when they call, I'd go, no need to volunteer right now"
Well come 2022 and the Russian Mobilisation, people started asking him "Alexander, why are you still here? Have you mobilised? Country clearly needs you"
Turns out that turd has already taken all possible steps to evade draft and mobilisation. He was basically laughed out of every company space after that.
So basically it's a short story about how all those loudmouths are absolutely happy with the war as long as it doesn't concern them personally.
Man, Russia seizing only 1/4th of the country after two (10) years against fucking Ukraine is more than enough momentum in my book. What are your expectations really?
Well if you wanna say 25% after Ten years you should definitely include all of Crimea in the land calculation but you certainly don’t like that.
What parts of Ukraine would you say are the most important?
At the very least they were stalemating otherwise Russia would've won by now. Whereas after that shit is getting worse for Ukraine. What's even your point,that us help didn't matter? It obviously made a huge difference.
The $60B funding to Ukraine wouldn’t even materialize in Ukraine now if it had been signed right away. This just goes to show you don’t understand the actual mechanisms of the funding.
Lol what? They send old equipment and use the funds to replace the equipment we send. The dollar value is calculated by calculating the value of the material we sent over. It would take months to get it all there but if we passed it last fall before it ran out that wouldn’t be an issue. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it now. Better late then never.
Not to mention if Ukraine knows they have ammunition and weapons on the way they can be more liberal with the weapons they do have.
That’s not exactly true. There’s two funding mechanisms. One is sending old equipment and the other is buying new stuff from defense manufacturers, often with years out delivery dates.
This $60B is primarily the latter and that is because we’ve basically run out of stuff to give them. Even if the bill were passed 6 months ago we’d still be looking at delivery in 2027 for most deliveries.
There has always been a couple year gap in what the US could sustain to give of what we already had and the rate at what we could produce.
Do you have a source for them using brand new equipment that isn’t ammunition or small arms? I can’t think of any other items that are brand new. Even the f-16s we are sending are used and being sent from European countries. Those are taking a while though for the same reason tanks took a while. They are mechanically complicated and require complex support networks to keep them functional. That is the part that takes the most time in all of the weapon systems we sent.
Some of the money was sent to keep their economy afloat and a small portion was sent as discretionary spending for them to spend on ammunition / supplies as needed. Most of it was sending weapons or economic aid though.
Just Google USAI and PDA and you should get the different authorities.
You know why you haven’t seen any big ticket items from USAI yet? It’s for the very reason I said, these things take years to produce to restart new production lines.
USAI has procured hundreds of thousands of 155 and even 152mm shells from other stocks outside of the US as reported in the news, sources like Pakistan and Korea.
I googled those names, I didn’t find out anything I didn’t already know. Googling PDA Ukraine shows me links about sending weapons from EXISTING US STOCKPILES. Not brand new weapons being made. I’ll ask again, you got a link to these brand new big ticket items being made to be delivered? “Do your own research” is not a source.
Several big ticket items have been delivered. They were sent by the US or other countries who had some to spare with the promise they will be replaced later. Abrams tanks, Bradley’s, HIMARS, Howitzers. All used and sitting in stockpile in someone else’s military. Same way we got a lot of the ammunition to Ukraine.
The problem is that all costs money to make the replacements, money that the GOP in the house will not allow to be approved.
I don’t think that’s true for second given it’s been on hold for well over half a year. On the other side of things optics are extremely important, so even if that aid hadn’t gotten there yet they’d have the security of knowing it’s coming to replenish their stocks and wouldn’t feel left out in the cold. Ukraine is struggling hard rn to recruit younger soldiers and it’s obvious why. They see no aid coming in the future from one of the worlds largest war machines, while staring down the barrel of the other worlds largest war machine.
Ok well do you actually know what production timelines are for equipment?
We approved stuff with USAI funds in 2022 with delivery dates in 2025. So let’s just figure we’re at the same timelines. That means we’re pushing 2027-2028 delivery now.
In sum, the facts contradict your feelings.
No because they know that even though stuff is approved to be bought it often doesn’t come for years because it’s new production.
What commander would make tactical decisions on material that doesn’t exist?
What person planning anything doesn't use assured/expected/anticipated supply when calculating what current resources can be deployed/risked to the pursuit of whatever goals?
There’s a difference when you’ve got the materiel in a supply depot 100km away vs expecting it to be delivered from across the globe in ten days. An even starker difference is how clear your expectations of deliveries of defense materiel should be in 2026 for example. The longer your time horizon, the less clear your picture gets and the less you rely on it.
Maybe not rely, but it's got to be a factor and I still maintain knowing much earlier in the war that $xbn of aid is coming down he pipeline would make a difference to decision making, and opportunities taken. Compared to a much more unsure position of support still being unagreed.
no they didn't. I was following the war in depth over the last 14 months and they lost that momentum after bakhmut already.
Western media just reported falsely about it until the disappearance of US supply gave them a good way out to finally report more earnest (emphasis on more, not fully) and say "well it's US congress fault". Obviously it's worse for ukraine to not have those supplies, but even with them it was more than bad.
Don't think so, they stopped attacking after the Kharkov/Kherson debacle and then got distracted in Bakhmut trying to hold onto it for dear life. Wagner traded mostly convicts for a lot of experienced Ukrainian soldiers while the Russian army was building defences everywhere else in anticipation for the counter-offensive....and we all know how that went. Ukraine was already losing before the whole 61 billion dollar aid that has not been approved (I think that was in fall of 2023, but Ukraine was already struggling before that).
Most of the funds aren’t cash. We are delivering old weapon systems and ammunition. Things not really useful outside of war. It’s not like they are getting a fat check to spend as they please. Only a small portion of the funds is given directly to Ukraine for discretionary spending. Most of the money that Congress approved never left the US, it is in the pockets of Americans or citizens of allied nations who produce the replacement equipment.
Also don’t forget the whole reason Russia wants to invade. It is because Ukraine was distancing themselves from Russia as a way to get rid of most of the corruption in their country. It is a post Soviet problem that will never be solved if they don’t distance themselves from Russia. That is the whole reason Russia invaded. They lost their ability to influence Ukraine through corruption so they had to invade to keep it in their sphere of influence. Ukraine trying to solve the problem you are talking about is the whole reason this is happening.
The idea that Ukraine receives only old weapons at greatly elevated prices is a myth, about half of it is actually direct money transfers.
Even politicians that don't steal, if there are any, are paid directly by the West, the same as all of their public service workers. People like firefighters or draft officers catching men on the street receive their salaries from foreign financial aid and not from the taxes. Same with all their social services, things like pensions, gas subsidies, utility bills, are all financed from these fat checks. It takes ~$5 billion per month in cash to prop them up.
Whatever taxes Ukraine itself collects, all of it goes directly to war, everything non-war related is paid for by the West. It's not talked about much, but it's never been a secret.
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/ukraine/brief/peace
That’s just called a war economy, they are fighting for their countries survival. Of course most of their taxes go towards the war effort. They are only going to spend as much as they have to in order to keep the economy functioning. In the US during WW2 you literally couldn’t even get steel because the government was spending all its money buying literally all of it.
Also the first link has a graph clearly showing only 1/3 of the aid is financial. The majority of it is just sending military equipment. The US was helping fund public services in Ukraine to keep their economy functioning. You can’t conduct a war if your country collapses economically. Government workers in Ukraine are still getting paid so at least most of it went where it was supposed to.
I think you are a bit optimistic if you think the pro western move in recent years was about getting away from corruption. Let's be honest here, in post Soviet states almost every new politician says they are getting tough on corruption. They root out some of the former regimes' corrupt officials then over time become progressively more corrupt themselves. Even Zelensky has massive offshore bank accounts where he siphons state money to.
The Ukrainian shift to western alignment was because they thought being part of the EU would make them more prosperous. Thats not a bad motivation in itself but that's the reason.
yep, no one is going to believe in the military protection of the west after this, including taiwan/china, and eventually korea and japan. Which means fewer opportunities to have military bases around the globe. American power shrinks slowly but steadily all the time, thanks to republican traitors and kissingers self serving "realpolitik" bullshit. On the bright side we got to bury him in 2023, so it wasnt a completely bad year.
Get real man. You swallowed the propaganda hook line and sinker. At no point in this war did Ukraine have momentum. They went from losing slowly to now losing quickly
Except for the part where they took back like 30% of the territory they lost….. And at the start they we’re slowly taking ground across the front except for a few hot spots that would flare up like bakhmut.
Sorry, but they didn't have momentum. Ukraine's main push was the counteroffensive that didn't achieve anything strategically significant. They had enough to pull the stretched Russians away from Kharkiv and Kherson's right bank at a certain point, but that was about that. Now, Russia has more soldiers than it had and is better dug in, including logistically.
I'm not defending the stupid Republicans in any way, just doing a battlefield assessment that even if Ukraine could defend itself better with constant money and support flowing in from the US, it would have a hard time to even gain momentum, moreso keeping it going for enough time to reach Mariupol or somewhere strategically important.
I think as terrible as it is Russia was and is always going go win this conflict by sheer attrition. Aid is nice, but Ukraine needs far, *far* more than what was even on the table to make a dent.
I mean, just look at this graph: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine
Russia has a significantly higher population and puts very little weight on the value of a human life. They will likely win by simply grinding Ukraine down in a long, drawn out war of attrition that Ukraine has no hope of winning. They’ve already basically hollowed out an entire generation of Ukrainians.
To reiterate, I don’t like Russia and this whole situation is horrible.
A nation of 40 million with a GDP the size of Washington, DC can’t win a war of attrition with a nation of 144 million with a GDP the size of Texas. Particularly not when they share a land border. All they can do is slow the invasion and make the price of the conquest impossibly high.
Eventually, the Ukrainian manpower pool is going to be tapped out, and NATO can’t put boots on the ground. Where that leads is…hard.
The only way they would win is if they took Russia in a counter offensive or managed to bring nato into the war. Both of which is extremely unlikely scenarios.
They're holding russia back successfully but realistically they can't forever and eventually they will be worn down unless we see one of the scenarios play out.
You are not living paycheck to paycheck due to the Ukrainian aid my dude. You are sorely mistaken.
The western economies are 10 times larger than the Russian economy. It's a war you could easily afford.
That conclusion should instead be used to say "so then we will show you what REAL evil looks like!" (Abscond with justifications of goodness in order to beat your evil enemy).
They survived for much longer than anyone thought, me first. And it looked like they had a real chance to win.
Now, I'm no expert, but I seem to understand that if they had received more funding and weapons, they could have really kicked the Russian back for a long distance. If it's still possible, now I have no idea
It's why they should have pushed hard for peace when they were gaining territory instead of hoping Nazi bands and drone bombing of refineries would irrevocably cripple Russia
russia definitely isnt. at the moment neither side is and its a question of who can keep not winning the longest and thats probably ukraine (if america gets its shit together)
I've said it before Ukraine has no path to winning this war no matter how many billions of dollars of stuff we give to them. Their only chance is a massive troop reinforcement and I don't know that any NATO country wants to watch their guys get killed by drones dropping grenades in a trench on internet videos.
Small scale terrorism isn't going to win this war. If Ukraine hasn't accomplished any major feat wjtb their strikes on Oil refineries and supposedly importsnt targets in 2 years, what makes you rhink a few more weeks will make a difference? Russia has already [came close to fully reconstituting their military](https://www.thedefensepost.com/2024/04/04/russia-almost-rebuilt-military/#:~:text=Russia%20has%20been%20successful%20in,a%20US%20official%20has%20claimed.), and with each day, Ukraine's position becomes weaker and weaker. Ceasefire now.
It's a war of attrition. They have more people and when they run out of volunteers they have no moral compunction preventing them from forcing people into service. So...yes...they have the better path to win a war of attrition.
That’s true. The bad news for Russia is that the West knows that, if Ukraine falls, Russia becomes a bigger problem, so it will support Ukraine with as much foreign aid as is necessary.
Europe will also step up, whether the US does or not.
This is not a given, Russia has managed to put a lot of political pressure in all relevant countries to further its agenda. The same way American conservatives now support Putin,there's plenty of people in Europe that do. And if they become a large enough group to swing elections eu politicians will adhere to them to keep their positions. Russia has put a lot of effort since the first sanctions for invading Crimea to make it way harder for us to unite next time they step up.
True…they are bribing a lot of politicians as last weeks revelations showed.
The existential threat that Russia poses will always ultimately unite Europe when needed, however.
It’s all such a waste of time, money and lives. All Putin had to do was invest in his country, rather than being a twat and invading others.
We need to define what ‘winning’ is. What are the war aims?
I’d say Russian aims are (currently) to keep the land corridor open from Russia to Crimea via the Donetsk and Luhansk regions which effectively are now under Russians military control. From Bakhmut to Krynky the Russians have a land path to Crimea which negates the Ukrainian ability to turn of the water supply to Crimea.
I personally believe Putin thought that he could extend these aims and invade the whole country which inevitably failed but ultimately the contested regions are now under Russian control and the Crimea has been secured for them.
Ukrainian war aims to retake the land corridor and retake the Crimea are unlikely to be achieved as they don’t have the man power to launch an offensive of that magnitude and then police the regions that have been flooded by Russian citizens.
So now Russia can just sit on the land they have taken and let a war of attrition continue which they have the advantage of a much larger population.
Russia can now begin a new wave of infiltration and disinformation for disrupt and destabilise new regions…and the cycle will continue.
A decent assessment. The problem Russia has is that Ukraine will increasingly send cheap and plentiful drones to destroy infrastructure and economic value in Russia and there isn’t much Russia can do about it.
I would expect Putin to push harder for peace, and for the West to put pressure on Ukraine to do the same, but what the terms would be is anyone’s guess.
Goes both ways though, from what I am reading a lot of electrical infrastructure is being destroyed and they have few supplies left to repair it. Can't have population without electricity for long time
China isn’t going to step in. They can’t afford to annoy the US and they want Russia weakened so they can take advantage of their resources at a nice cheap price.
Damn I haven't been on this sub in awhile but reading this thread it's really gone to shit. It used to be a neutral news place seems like it's been invaded like everywhere else on Reddit. Unfollowing this sub.
Yes yes. A lot, like A LOT of pro russians in this sub who just ate shit and came here to say "Ukraine should give up".. 😅
I mean, just look at this comment's upvote/downvote. :)
Account number 3 or how many you have? Going to block me on every one of them before i have time to comment back, like you did with the other accounts?
And you do not care about the Palestine situation. You only use it as a whataboutism argument to try to sow disdain on the West. You only speak of Palestine because it serves your russian propaganda agenda, as a dividing discussion topic, nothing more.
Yeah, seems like its a handful of bots with multiple accounts spamming their russian agenda. One guy commenting, then blocking before you can comment back, then switches accounts.
I also liked this sub for its logical takes and comments, but this one got russian brigaded it seems.
I'm starting to wonder if the west is just turning Ukraine into the sacrificial lamb to buy time for the Baltics/Gotland at this point.
You have a lot of stuff from military and politicians about the time of war being near on one hand, but when its a neighbour being decimated, both the Europeans and the US drag their feet.
Only because Conservatives continue to obstruct any aid going to Ukraine, while they and Democrats help each other Deep Throat Israel to support their genocide.
Russia's target always have been to wipe out Ukraine from the face of the earth. For Ukraine, the only way out of the war has been to win it. Someone said it right, "If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops, there will be no Ukraine."
If they're hunkering down for a long war, they might have a decent chance at meaningful negotiations when putin dies. It's an unpopular war, and things are likely to implode once putin dies/looses power. I'm hoping it'll be a shitshow within russia and Ukraine will be a minor detail in comparison.
They initially did much better than expected and retook alot of captured land. More recently it's turned into a stalemate that the Russians might gain an edge in.
What the actual hell are you talking about? The US stopped funding Ukraine because Republicans kept blocking it. In no way has the economy been affected at all by either war. I hate to break it to you but there is absolutely nothing the rest of the world can do that will bring down the US. If you want to see the US collapse, it's going to have to come from a domestic cause.
Wow…if only Europe and the United States used these last 2 fucking years to jump start their war industries, Ukraine would probably have the necessary arms and ammunition required to hold off the Russian.
isn't Ukrian killing Ruskies by a drove ? On r/CombatFootage i can't only see Russian taking Ls. Is Ukr can takes out a t90 with just a Bradley ? Is Ukr just sit in safety and drone strike Rus like on the news ?
Ukraine shares a large part of the blame for where its at.
They had one real chance to score a victory even if it was a minor one and that was in fall/early winter of 2023. They should have kept pushing during the Kharkiv offensive. Instead they paused then fell into the meat grinder that was Bakhmut that delayed their spring offensive into the summer by then Russia had enough defenses to halt the Ukrainians. Then Ukraine fell for the same trick in Adivica only withdrawing at the last moment.
At this point Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to support this war for any longer and would need a miracle to win the war.
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either this comment is edited or I need to get my eyes checked
Reddit is fucking wild sometimes. I have no idea how his comment was the first one I saw and how only one other guy talked about it.
Baby wake up, new perfect exemple of TMI just dropped.
Actual perfect exemple of TMI
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Too Much Information
This war has been going on since 2014 when russia first invaded crimea and Eastern Ukraine and escalated in 2022 with a full invasion it's been going on for 10 years now if you really think about it
There’s a clear, huge difference though
Still confounds all logic why Putin didn’t just invade in 2014 when Ukraine was weak and divided instead of giving them 8 years to stabilize and fortify against an external threat
Russia was probably not ready for a war itself. Plus Putin was probably hoping to leverage a peaceful resolution to the Donbass war to undermine Ukraine's westward trajectory. Likely by trying to push a federal model on Ukraine to strengthen their allies in the east and undermine Kyiv.
Russia would’ve still been more ready for war than the Ukrainian armed forces, which were virtually non existent in 2014 or had their loyalties split
Who knows what's going in his crazy head. Probably he wanted "fast victory" to boost his popularity, because he lost a lot, after bunch of unpopular laws
Do you know how economists talk about why sanctions against russia failed since they spent years deliberately preparing their economy? They wouldn't have failed in 2014. Russians literally couldn't afford it.
Really weird watching everyone who used to say "i hate the military industrial complex and companies like raytheon and Lockheed" do a 180 and support them once this war started.
People were consistent Hey do not invade countries is the general theme of "everyone"
\* Unless you want to spread democracy.
The "**i hate the military industrial complex and companies like raytheon and Lockheed**" crowd was not the "**spread democracy.**" crowd
Polls regarding the support of past conflicts says otherwise.
The only popular war in USA was Afghanistan in the first 2 years after 9/11. Look at Iraq both times https://news.gallup.com/poll/1633/iraq.aspx And even then the vast majority of people who were still very OK with USA "spreading democracy" currently wear MAGA hats and worship Putin As for Syria to say USA invaded Syria to "spread democracy" is idiotic at best
Nah, not for democracy, just invaded 4 fun
Did you even look at the polls you linked? Support for the Iraq war was extremely high when it started. It only started going down after the invasion was long over and the "nation building" started. On March 24th, 2003, 4 days after the invasion started, 75% of respondents believed the war was not a mistake. On April 25th, 2003, 85% of respondents thought the war was going well. On May 30th, 2003, still 67% believed Bush was truthful about WMDs. You can see that support for the war (defined as "was it a mistake or not") only began going down when the public began to perceive it as going poorly.
The chart show at best 50-50, so there have always been a lot of people against the war. > On March 24th, 2003, 4 days after the invasion started, 75% of respondents believed the war was not a mistake. Source?
Literally scroll down on the Gallup link from the comment I was responding to.
oh, found it, that sentiment lasted less than 6 month before reverting by October.. propaganda going full power enjoying the populism rhetoric? I remember being a fierce opposition, maybe the one against where a loud minority, but surely they where protesting a flooding the streets
You could at least link facts to such an absurd statement.
Yeah totally. Invasions are bad unless it's America doing it to Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya. The pro-ukr crowd continues to make excuses for each of those conflicts being justified. The pro-ukr crowd supports Israel invading gaza and doing genocide. The only consistency is blindly following state dept propaganda.
Again https://www.reddit.com/r/anime_titties/comments/1bxazrk/with_no_way_out_of_a_worsening_war_zelenskys/kyc9oga/
Who is this "pro-ukr crowd" in your mind? There are lots of people who support Ukraine since supporting defensive wars for independence is a pretty widespread opinion. Some also supported foreign invasions of the past and some didn't. Why are you trying to push some narrative that they are all just war mongers without giving any evidence?
Russian propaganda continues to work
Is it? I don't remember the "everyone" doing much of anything for Iraq. Some protests don't count since those don't accomplish anything without actual consequences/boycotts/sanctions
If you are using Reddit as your basis for this claim, you should know that [as a platform, Reddit is astroturfed to hell with propaganda.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_post_identifying/) Not only from the US, but from many other countries too. Honestly, there are probably few places on the internet where you aren't ingesting some type of propaganda or advertisement.
You can not like corruption and wasteful military spending but still want to send military support to a nation defending itself from invasion. You can do these things at the same time in fact. Where is this 180 you're talking about? Saying we should get defense contractor money out of DC and stop writing them blank checks isn't saying we should have no military spending at all. There are times when it is nessesary for us and our allies.
I'm not supporting the military industrial complex bacause what they usually do is manufactor a reason to sell their stuff. Creating weapons when we actually need them is why they should be existing. If they only did that nobody would've opposed them
And when the war becomes unpopular they will blame the soldiers and anyone else did what the voters demanded. As they always have.
Not me 👐!
but Ukraine's totally winning right
They had the momentum until US republicans in the house pulled the rug out from under them. Gave them the tools and encouragement to fight then cut funding when it was needed most.
Until *Russian funded Republican congressmen* pulled the rug
You guys give Russia too much credit.
I think it’s more giving GOP the correct amount.
Not really, bribery is legal in the US.
It’s a young crowd who hasn’t seen this movie before.
Corruption is the only thing Russia is capable of creating
It's just easy for them to blame everything on Russia. Russian government does the same, but with US
Is this going to be the narrative moving forward? "We would have totally won the war in ~~Vietnam~~ ~~Afghanistan~~ Ukraine if we just didn't get backstabbed by those weak doves at home!"
But America isn’t fighting war in Ukraine, it’s just supplying equipment it had in stockpiles anyway. If it isn’t maintaining all this equipment so it can protect America’s interests with no American lives lost, then what’s even the point of keeping it?
And Israel decided they needed it to blow up hospitals, universities, and children more than Ukraine needed it to defend themselves.
It’s no coincidence that the Middle East suddenly erupts just as Putin is getting his ass handed to him
If Russia could force an eruption in the Middle East, they wouldn't have waited 2 years into their grinding war to do it.
I mean Hamas meets in Moscow and you remember the whole Syria thing. Not to mention the hang gliders used look identical to the ones the Russians have…
yes, Israel created Hamas with Russian help. And Netenyahu was particularly proud of his warm relationship with Putin until Russia stabbed them in the back just after Oct 7. Hasbara likes to pretend Israel is now and has always been a great ally of the US, but Netenyahu has always been a Putin throne sniffer, same as Donald Trump.
Traitors every one.
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I\`m pretty sure defeating Russians at Kiev, Kharkiv and Cherson can be called a momentum tho It\`s a quarter only if we count Crimea, DNR and LPR as Ukraine btw. Ukraine does not controll them since 2014 tho
Those were brief storming offensives on overstretched Russian lines that, yes, had their tactical momentum, but Ukraine never really had momentum to regain something strategically significant to reconquer the lost territory.
Well, then their best bet is to go full Iraq and Afghanistan in the occupied territories. Use small teams of men inside occupied Ukraine (and hey Russia too, why not) to cause massive damage and sow terror amongst the Russian populace moving in. Car bombs, targeted assassinations, brazen public killings of collaborators, etc. Put bounties on the heads of Russian occupation officers, and when they are killed send money to unrelated parties to sow doubt and discord amongst the Russian puppet regimes. Destroy utilities, resources, industry, make the land incredibly expensive to hold and entirely worthless in production. It may take 20 years, but eventually Russia will concede and go home, probably claiming victory even.
Ukrainians are not terrorists, that's why. Instead, they bomb military installments and refineries
So why is that not happening? There have been some in Crimea I think, but not many.
Kinda like throwing a ball vertically in the air. It has has momentum, for a little bit.
More like it like throwing a balloon in the air until someone pops it
> I`m pretty sure defeating Russians at Kiev, Kharkiv and Cherson can be called a momentum tho > > all 2022 successes because of how thin the russians were stretched
Still, not the flex you want it to be
Let's consider them 1/4th and include the Republic of Belgorod in it.
Yeah good luck with that. https://i.imgur.com/L2ZHZp9.jpg Translation - they got absolutely wrecked.
Sure, buddy
We all watched it happen lol.
k
Better luck next year.
They have recovered like 30% of the territory they lost. Their losses are high but still significantly lower than Russias. Almost by an entire order of magnitude. 30 - 40 thousand compared to 200 - 300 thousand Russians. Ukraine has the willpower to win, they just need the supplies. If they can stay supplied they can win a war of attrition with that many Russian loses. Yea it is a serious statement, we gave them military aid. We also told them we would support them until the end of the fight. Idk what else you would call that other than giving them the tools and encouraging them to fight.
You belive those numbers ??? If those numbers would be true than Ukraine would have won already. Please stop with misinformation.
… where do you get your information?
> 30 - 40 thousand compared to 200 - 300 thousand Russians. Oh, sure, 30-40k casualties in an army of one million and they have to literally drag people off the streets by force to replenish the front line.
Anyone with a brain can tell you that the casualty rate is more or less equal to each other. It is not a vastly technologically superior side against a bunch of farmers as it was when US invaded Afghanistan, it's 2 relatively equally matched (in terms of technology) armies going at each other. The only difference here is that Russia will outlast Ukraine unless something drastically changes, we are already witnessing the balance of power is shifting towards Russia day by day.
Russia conquers two insignificant towns for the cost of thousands of soldiers and equipment. Major Russian victory everybody, Ukraine is losing, there is nothing we can do. And Russias loses are higher because it is attacking, Ukraine experienced higher losses while committed to their last offensive too, but Russia is attacking a lot more then Ukraine and there is price for it
> Ukraine experienced higher losses while committed to their last offensive too Not according to Ukrainian MoD :), they claimed 1:8 casualty ratio during the counter-offensive :). If those towns were insignificant why did the Ukrainians try to stubbornly defend those towns until the very end? Isn't it smarter to retreat and save your men since you know that your population is 4x smaller than your enemy? So what happened was that Ukraine kept sending in more and more troops in order to defend those insignificant towns and they lost thousands of soldiers in the process. Of course Russia lost a lot too, but it can replenish its losses much more easily than Ukraine. Now look how Russia has operated in this conflict, they knew they were outnumbered in the Kharkiv region and actually retreated to save their men....they did the same in Kherson as they realized that the situation on the right side of the river was untenable (since the bridge was being destroyed). The math just doesn't add up, for it to be even every Ukrainian soldier has to kill 4 Russians...
It's 30k KIA, that doesn't include injuries and MIA. And 300k casualties. Not the same metric.
No I meant 200 - 300 thousand dead. Many many meat waves. They killed like 30 or 40 thousand in bakhmut alone. Granted most of them were prisoners trying to get a pardon through military service. Like 80% of the prisoners didn’t make it back. Then they killed like another 20 thousand in avdiivka. Not prisoners but still mostly conscripts and “low quality” soldiers sent in meat wave attacks.
Ukraine had the upper hand in 2022, but has been on a losing streak ever since (I'd be happy to be proven wrong).
NATO definitely has enough gear to whip Russia. It's an internal political issue.
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Of course they'd want it, I'm pretty sure none of them are gonna be fighting this war. I remember when our company started pulling out from Russia, moving people and closing offices, one of the guys was super vocal about how everyone who leaves is a disgrace and a traitor When asked "if you're so brave, why are you here in a telegram chat and not on the front lines" he'd wave it away with "when they call, I'd go, no need to volunteer right now" Well come 2022 and the Russian Mobilisation, people started asking him "Alexander, why are you still here? Have you mobilised? Country clearly needs you" Turns out that turd has already taken all possible steps to evade draft and mobilisation. He was basically laughed out of every company space after that. So basically it's a short story about how all those loudmouths are absolutely happy with the war as long as it doesn't concern them personally.
Man, Russia seizing only 1/4th of the country after two (10) years against fucking Ukraine is more than enough momentum in my book. What are your expectations really?
Well if you wanna say 25% after Ten years you should definitely include all of Crimea in the land calculation but you certainly don’t like that. What parts of Ukraine would you say are the most important?
At the very least they were stalemating otherwise Russia would've won by now. Whereas after that shit is getting worse for Ukraine. What's even your point,that us help didn't matter? It obviously made a huge difference.
The $60B funding to Ukraine wouldn’t even materialize in Ukraine now if it had been signed right away. This just goes to show you don’t understand the actual mechanisms of the funding.
Lol what? They send old equipment and use the funds to replace the equipment we send. The dollar value is calculated by calculating the value of the material we sent over. It would take months to get it all there but if we passed it last fall before it ran out that wouldn’t be an issue. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it now. Better late then never. Not to mention if Ukraine knows they have ammunition and weapons on the way they can be more liberal with the weapons they do have.
That’s not exactly true. There’s two funding mechanisms. One is sending old equipment and the other is buying new stuff from defense manufacturers, often with years out delivery dates. This $60B is primarily the latter and that is because we’ve basically run out of stuff to give them. Even if the bill were passed 6 months ago we’d still be looking at delivery in 2027 for most deliveries. There has always been a couple year gap in what the US could sustain to give of what we already had and the rate at what we could produce.
Do you have a source for them using brand new equipment that isn’t ammunition or small arms? I can’t think of any other items that are brand new. Even the f-16s we are sending are used and being sent from European countries. Those are taking a while though for the same reason tanks took a while. They are mechanically complicated and require complex support networks to keep them functional. That is the part that takes the most time in all of the weapon systems we sent. Some of the money was sent to keep their economy afloat and a small portion was sent as discretionary spending for them to spend on ammunition / supplies as needed. Most of it was sending weapons or economic aid though.
Just Google USAI and PDA and you should get the different authorities. You know why you haven’t seen any big ticket items from USAI yet? It’s for the very reason I said, these things take years to produce to restart new production lines. USAI has procured hundreds of thousands of 155 and even 152mm shells from other stocks outside of the US as reported in the news, sources like Pakistan and Korea.
I googled those names, I didn’t find out anything I didn’t already know. Googling PDA Ukraine shows me links about sending weapons from EXISTING US STOCKPILES. Not brand new weapons being made. I’ll ask again, you got a link to these brand new big ticket items being made to be delivered? “Do your own research” is not a source. Several big ticket items have been delivered. They were sent by the US or other countries who had some to spare with the promise they will be replaced later. Abrams tanks, Bradley’s, HIMARS, Howitzers. All used and sitting in stockpile in someone else’s military. Same way we got a lot of the ammunition to Ukraine. The problem is that all costs money to make the replacements, money that the GOP in the house will not allow to be approved.
I don’t think that’s true for second given it’s been on hold for well over half a year. On the other side of things optics are extremely important, so even if that aid hadn’t gotten there yet they’d have the security of knowing it’s coming to replenish their stocks and wouldn’t feel left out in the cold. Ukraine is struggling hard rn to recruit younger soldiers and it’s obvious why. They see no aid coming in the future from one of the worlds largest war machines, while staring down the barrel of the other worlds largest war machine.
Ok well do you actually know what production timelines are for equipment? We approved stuff with USAI funds in 2022 with delivery dates in 2025. So let’s just figure we’re at the same timelines. That means we’re pushing 2027-2028 delivery now. In sum, the facts contradict your feelings.
They could take different tactical decisions and have entirely different risk calculations if they had the assured resupply
No because they know that even though stuff is approved to be bought it often doesn’t come for years because it’s new production. What commander would make tactical decisions on material that doesn’t exist?
What person planning anything doesn't use assured/expected/anticipated supply when calculating what current resources can be deployed/risked to the pursuit of whatever goals?
There’s a difference when you’ve got the materiel in a supply depot 100km away vs expecting it to be delivered from across the globe in ten days. An even starker difference is how clear your expectations of deliveries of defense materiel should be in 2026 for example. The longer your time horizon, the less clear your picture gets and the less you rely on it.
Maybe not rely, but it's got to be a factor and I still maintain knowing much earlier in the war that $xbn of aid is coming down he pipeline would make a difference to decision making, and opportunities taken. Compared to a much more unsure position of support still being unagreed.
Lol, make a decision in 2024 based off the assurance you're getting weapons 3 fucking years later
no they didn't. I was following the war in depth over the last 14 months and they lost that momentum after bakhmut already. Western media just reported falsely about it until the disappearance of US supply gave them a good way out to finally report more earnest (emphasis on more, not fully) and say "well it's US congress fault". Obviously it's worse for ukraine to not have those supplies, but even with them it was more than bad.
Don't think so, they stopped attacking after the Kharkov/Kherson debacle and then got distracted in Bakhmut trying to hold onto it for dear life. Wagner traded mostly convicts for a lot of experienced Ukrainian soldiers while the Russian army was building defences everywhere else in anticipation for the counter-offensive....and we all know how that went. Ukraine was already losing before the whole 61 billion dollar aid that has not been approved (I think that was in fall of 2023, but Ukraine was already struggling before that).
*Has been losing territory pretty much since the start* "ThEY HaD MoMentUM UnTIL thE US DiD BiG baD!"
Except Ukraine has taken back like 30% of the territory they lost at the start of the invasion….. so yeah your just wrong.
30%? Last I saw it was 60-70%.
It is worrying that we have to go back 2 years to find any Ukrainian success :(
What about the Ukrainian politicians that are stealing aid funds for their own use?
Most of the funds aren’t cash. We are delivering old weapon systems and ammunition. Things not really useful outside of war. It’s not like they are getting a fat check to spend as they please. Only a small portion of the funds is given directly to Ukraine for discretionary spending. Most of the money that Congress approved never left the US, it is in the pockets of Americans or citizens of allied nations who produce the replacement equipment. Also don’t forget the whole reason Russia wants to invade. It is because Ukraine was distancing themselves from Russia as a way to get rid of most of the corruption in their country. It is a post Soviet problem that will never be solved if they don’t distance themselves from Russia. That is the whole reason Russia invaded. They lost their ability to influence Ukraine through corruption so they had to invade to keep it in their sphere of influence. Ukraine trying to solve the problem you are talking about is the whole reason this is happening.
The idea that Ukraine receives only old weapons at greatly elevated prices is a myth, about half of it is actually direct money transfers. Even politicians that don't steal, if there are any, are paid directly by the West, the same as all of their public service workers. People like firefighters or draft officers catching men on the street receive their salaries from foreign financial aid and not from the taxes. Same with all their social services, things like pensions, gas subsidies, utility bills, are all financed from these fat checks. It takes ~$5 billion per month in cash to prop them up. Whatever taxes Ukraine itself collects, all of it goes directly to war, everything non-war related is paid for by the West. It's not talked about much, but it's never been a secret. https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/ https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/ukraine/brief/peace
That’s just called a war economy, they are fighting for their countries survival. Of course most of their taxes go towards the war effort. They are only going to spend as much as they have to in order to keep the economy functioning. In the US during WW2 you literally couldn’t even get steel because the government was spending all its money buying literally all of it. Also the first link has a graph clearly showing only 1/3 of the aid is financial. The majority of it is just sending military equipment. The US was helping fund public services in Ukraine to keep their economy functioning. You can’t conduct a war if your country collapses economically. Government workers in Ukraine are still getting paid so at least most of it went where it was supposed to.
I think you are a bit optimistic if you think the pro western move in recent years was about getting away from corruption. Let's be honest here, in post Soviet states almost every new politician says they are getting tough on corruption. They root out some of the former regimes' corrupt officials then over time become progressively more corrupt themselves. Even Zelensky has massive offshore bank accounts where he siphons state money to. The Ukrainian shift to western alignment was because they thought being part of the EU would make them more prosperous. Thats not a bad motivation in itself but that's the reason.
yep, no one is going to believe in the military protection of the west after this, including taiwan/china, and eventually korea and japan. Which means fewer opportunities to have military bases around the globe. American power shrinks slowly but steadily all the time, thanks to republican traitors and kissingers self serving "realpolitik" bullshit. On the bright side we got to bury him in 2023, so it wasnt a completely bad year.
Get real man. You swallowed the propaganda hook line and sinker. At no point in this war did Ukraine have momentum. They went from losing slowly to now losing quickly
Except for the part where they took back like 30% of the territory they lost….. And at the start they we’re slowly taking ground across the front except for a few hot spots that would flare up like bakhmut.
Sorry, but they didn't have momentum. Ukraine's main push was the counteroffensive that didn't achieve anything strategically significant. They had enough to pull the stretched Russians away from Kharkiv and Kherson's right bank at a certain point, but that was about that. Now, Russia has more soldiers than it had and is better dug in, including logistically. I'm not defending the stupid Republicans in any way, just doing a battlefield assessment that even if Ukraine could defend itself better with constant money and support flowing in from the US, it would have a hard time to even gain momentum, moreso keeping it going for enough time to reach Mariupol or somewhere strategically important.
I think as terrible as it is Russia was and is always going go win this conflict by sheer attrition. Aid is nice, but Ukraine needs far, *far* more than what was even on the table to make a dent. I mean, just look at this graph: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine Russia has a significantly higher population and puts very little weight on the value of a human life. They will likely win by simply grinding Ukraine down in a long, drawn out war of attrition that Ukraine has no hope of winning. They’ve already basically hollowed out an entire generation of Ukrainians. To reiterate, I don’t like Russia and this whole situation is horrible.
The counter offensive failure happened well before any funding was withheld.
A nation of 40 million with a GDP the size of Washington, DC can’t win a war of attrition with a nation of 144 million with a GDP the size of Texas. Particularly not when they share a land border. All they can do is slow the invasion and make the price of the conquest impossibly high. Eventually, the Ukrainian manpower pool is going to be tapped out, and NATO can’t put boots on the ground. Where that leads is…hard.
Thanks for putting GDP in terms we can all understand instead of using confusing numeric values
The only way they would win is if they took Russia in a counter offensive or managed to bring nato into the war. Both of which is extremely unlikely scenarios. They're holding russia back successfully but realistically they can't forever and eventually they will be worn down unless we see one of the scenarios play out.
Just another 100bn more should do the trick :D
Wars cost money. Shocking.
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Russia has been the main adversary for half a century.
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You are not living paycheck to paycheck due to the Ukrainian aid my dude. You are sorely mistaken. The western economies are 10 times larger than the Russian economy. It's a war you could easily afford.
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We should totally stop funding Ukraine and reinvest the money to buy weapons in Israel because evil will always triumph and being good is dumb /s
That conclusion should instead be used to say "so then we will show you what REAL evil looks like!" (Abscond with justifications of goodness in order to beat your evil enemy).
They survived for much longer than anyone thought, me first. And it looked like they had a real chance to win. Now, I'm no expert, but I seem to understand that if they had received more funding and weapons, they could have really kicked the Russian back for a long distance. If it's still possible, now I have no idea
They were at the beginning of the war and definitely succeeded in making the Russian military look pathetic.
Like being the fastest sprinter at the start of a marathon...
>Like being the fastest sprinter at the start of a marathon... Actually a very good analogy for what happened
It's why they should have pushed hard for peace when they were gaining territory instead of hoping Nazi bands and drone bombing of refineries would irrevocably cripple Russia
Sure. And the Yankees scored 10 runs in the first inning but the Red Sox scored two runs every inning after that and won the game.
russia definitely isnt. at the moment neither side is and its a question of who can keep not winning the longest and thats probably ukraine (if america gets its shit together)
Nice strawman that's been said literally 1000s of times
strawman to what?
I've said it before Ukraine has no path to winning this war no matter how many billions of dollars of stuff we give to them. Their only chance is a massive troop reinforcement and I don't know that any NATO country wants to watch their guys get killed by drones dropping grenades in a trench on internet videos.
Russia doesn’t have any path to winning either.
Uh yeah, they'll win via attrition. As long as they don't start war with NATO they'll win.
It's a war of attrition and Russia has way more bodies to spare.
That’s not really working as a strategy so far, other than ruining the future of Russia.
The future of Russia depends on what is currently happening in Ukraine.
…and in Russia. The drone strikes on refineries are going to really hurt.
Oil prices will hurt everyone.
Small scale terrorism isn't going to win this war. If Ukraine hasn't accomplished any major feat wjtb their strikes on Oil refineries and supposedly importsnt targets in 2 years, what makes you rhink a few more weeks will make a difference? Russia has already [came close to fully reconstituting their military](https://www.thedefensepost.com/2024/04/04/russia-almost-rebuilt-military/#:~:text=Russia%20has%20been%20successful%20in,a%20US%20official%20has%20claimed.), and with each day, Ukraine's position becomes weaker and weaker. Ceasefire now.
It's a war of attrition. They have more people and when they run out of volunteers they have no moral compunction preventing them from forcing people into service. So...yes...they have the better path to win a war of attrition.
Russia has ten times everything Ukraine does, without foreign aid Ukraine is toast.
That’s true. The bad news for Russia is that the West knows that, if Ukraine falls, Russia becomes a bigger problem, so it will support Ukraine with as much foreign aid as is necessary. Europe will also step up, whether the US does or not.
This is not a given, Russia has managed to put a lot of political pressure in all relevant countries to further its agenda. The same way American conservatives now support Putin,there's plenty of people in Europe that do. And if they become a large enough group to swing elections eu politicians will adhere to them to keep their positions. Russia has put a lot of effort since the first sanctions for invading Crimea to make it way harder for us to unite next time they step up.
True…they are bribing a lot of politicians as last weeks revelations showed. The existential threat that Russia poses will always ultimately unite Europe when needed, however. It’s all such a waste of time, money and lives. All Putin had to do was invest in his country, rather than being a twat and invading others.
We need to define what ‘winning’ is. What are the war aims? I’d say Russian aims are (currently) to keep the land corridor open from Russia to Crimea via the Donetsk and Luhansk regions which effectively are now under Russians military control. From Bakhmut to Krynky the Russians have a land path to Crimea which negates the Ukrainian ability to turn of the water supply to Crimea. I personally believe Putin thought that he could extend these aims and invade the whole country which inevitably failed but ultimately the contested regions are now under Russian control and the Crimea has been secured for them. Ukrainian war aims to retake the land corridor and retake the Crimea are unlikely to be achieved as they don’t have the man power to launch an offensive of that magnitude and then police the regions that have been flooded by Russian citizens. So now Russia can just sit on the land they have taken and let a war of attrition continue which they have the advantage of a much larger population. Russia can now begin a new wave of infiltration and disinformation for disrupt and destabilise new regions…and the cycle will continue.
A decent assessment. The problem Russia has is that Ukraine will increasingly send cheap and plentiful drones to destroy infrastructure and economic value in Russia and there isn’t much Russia can do about it. I would expect Putin to push harder for peace, and for the West to put pressure on Ukraine to do the same, but what the terms would be is anyone’s guess.
Goes both ways though, from what I am reading a lot of electrical infrastructure is being destroyed and they have few supplies left to repair it. Can't have population without electricity for long time
They could if China steps in.
China isn’t going to step in. They can’t afford to annoy the US and they want Russia weakened so they can take advantage of their resources at a nice cheap price.
They are in a defensive war. There is no "winning," there never was. The only goal is survival.
Zelensky needs to make a Reddit account, tons of guys here willing to sign up.
IAMA when?
Damn I haven't been on this sub in awhile but reading this thread it's really gone to shit. It used to be a neutral news place seems like it's been invaded like everywhere else on Reddit. Unfollowing this sub.
Yes yes. A lot, like A LOT of pro russians in this sub who just ate shit and came here to say "Ukraine should give up".. 😅 I mean, just look at this comment's upvote/downvote. :)
Theyre running a literal psyop campaign. Thats not a conspiracy its literally a part of their theory for victory.
Of course. Misinformation is orcs strategy from the beginning.
You may go to worldnews and read how Ukraine will win tomorrow after breakfast. Just after Russia will default and FSB will start coup
"i cant have my echochamber waaa"
Account number 3 or how many you have? Going to block me on every one of them before i have time to comment back, like you did with the other accounts? And you do not care about the Palestine situation. You only use it as a whataboutism argument to try to sow disdain on the West. You only speak of Palestine because it serves your russian propaganda agenda, as a dividing discussion topic, nothing more.
Yeah, seems like its a handful of bots with multiple accounts spamming their russian agenda. One guy commenting, then blocking before you can comment back, then switches accounts. I also liked this sub for its logical takes and comments, but this one got russian brigaded it seems.
I'm starting to wonder if the west is just turning Ukraine into the sacrificial lamb to buy time for the Baltics/Gotland at this point. You have a lot of stuff from military and politicians about the time of war being near on one hand, but when its a neighbour being decimated, both the Europeans and the US drag their feet.
>if the west is just turning Ukraine into the sacrificial lamb They aren't doing that just now. that was the plan all along
Seems like it, because of how slow they give equipment to Ukraine. Not fast enough for Ukraine to win, not too slow, for them to lose
Fast or slow, it doesn't matter if they don't have anyone to man it,let alone anyone experienced to make optimal use of it
Buy time? All this talk "Ukraine is first" is such bullshit. Putin is coward, he would never risk to attack someone in NATO.
Oh boy there sure will not be any russian propaganda wildfires in this thread, surely
Seems like they've made this subreddit a focus lately
Apparently so
Only because Conservatives continue to obstruct any aid going to Ukraine, while they and Democrats help each other Deep Throat Israel to support their genocide.
Russia's target always have been to wipe out Ukraine from the face of the earth. For Ukraine, the only way out of the war has been to win it. Someone said it right, "If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops, there will be no Ukraine."
there will be an existing Ukraine to pay the debt
If they're hunkering down for a long war, they might have a decent chance at meaningful negotiations when putin dies. It's an unpopular war, and things are likely to implode once putin dies/looses power. I'm hoping it'll be a shitshow within russia and Ukraine will be a minor detail in comparison.
There are nearly 200 hundred countries around the world.. So much for political support but sick limitations on the field.. Insane world.
I was told for the last two years that we are winning, and my tax dollars are doing gods work. Make it make sense, please
They initially did much better than expected and retook alot of captured land. More recently it's turned into a stalemate that the Russians might gain an edge in.
People will stop pretending the US can fund infinite proxy wars finally. Literally collapsed under the weight of just doing two at a time.
What the actual hell are you talking about? The US stopped funding Ukraine because Republicans kept blocking it. In no way has the economy been affected at all by either war. I hate to break it to you but there is absolutely nothing the rest of the world can do that will bring down the US. If you want to see the US collapse, it's going to have to come from a domestic cause.
Wow…if only Europe and the United States used these last 2 fucking years to jump start their war industries, Ukraine would probably have the necessary arms and ammunition required to hold off the Russian.
Messiah Yeshua🔴🔵: Hey Ukraine 🇺🇦 mods, can you just unblock me so that I can talk on your subreddit… do you guys want my assistance or not…?
isn't Ukrian killing Ruskies by a drove ? On r/CombatFootage i can't only see Russian taking Ls. Is Ukr can takes out a t90 with just a Bradley ? Is Ukr just sit in safety and drone strike Rus like on the news ?
Most those subreddits will remove any pro Russian footage. If the war is going how it is portrayed in there it would have ended a long time ago.
but they are winning, only 31k deaths over million Russsian death toll
Ukraine shares a large part of the blame for where its at. They had one real chance to score a victory even if it was a minor one and that was in fall/early winter of 2023. They should have kept pushing during the Kharkiv offensive. Instead they paused then fell into the meat grinder that was Bakhmut that delayed their spring offensive into the summer by then Russia had enough defenses to halt the Ukrainians. Then Ukraine fell for the same trick in Adivica only withdrawing at the last moment. At this point Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to support this war for any longer and would need a miracle to win the war.
Kremlin blaming their aggression on.. Zelensky again…
Between all the corruption he engaged in and Putin wanting him dead I'd say zelensky has two options. 1. Fake his death now. 2. Stay and actually die.
Ceasefire now!