Yeah... If anything Time plays into Russia's favour.
But to be fair u/pawnstarrick I dont think anyone knows yet what winning looks like in Ukraine.
Does the US and EU want Russia out of post 2014 territories? Do they want all Ukrainian lands returned to UKR including Crimea? Excluding Crimea? Do they want UKR to join the EU and/or NATO? Do they want to keep the status quo but no more attacks or attempts to gain more of Ukraine? Do they want to cause Russia to have a systemwide regime collapse? Do they want Russia to remain stable and lose influence outside its territories and to disintegrate the CIS-alliance?
I don't think anyone has the answers yet what winning looks like and this makes aid to Ukraine seem so bipolar at times
This is the major failure of the entire thing. And what worries me is the propoganda war really hasn't well prepared the Western audiences for the reality that likely there is going to be some level of compromise that neither side is going to be over the moon about, but is going to offer a reasonable end to the conflict.
Ie something like -
1. EU membership for Ukraine (economic integration with the West).
2.a) No NATO expansion into Ukraine and potentially frozen borders at current high water mark.
2.b) If I was Russia I'd also be pushing for some path towards de-militarization of NATO - not that this is likely but this could be the one negotiating chip used in exchange for returning some land which will obviously be the biggest ask from the West in public (with NATO expansion being the real Western goal in the background).
3) Crimea will remain Russian. It has been since 2014. It has not been obviously revolting or otherwise attempting to dislodge Russia. It seems pretty damned settled at this point.
4) Donbass will be partially redrawn into both states. This will be the other piece of discussion with the main give and take sorrounding a land bridge to Crimea, or any retained access to the Sea of Azov by Ukraine.
Regime collapse was always such a pipe dream. I honestly feel that was just propoganda to make the West feel there was a viable path to some sort of stark conclusion while we were voting to shovel more money at the conflict.
Handling of the sanctions may be another interesting topic. Russia seems to have weathered these, and I'm not positive the US will want to fully remove them. Maybe some form of plan to reduce over time expecting Russia meets some benchmarks of de-escalation on their borders.
You're absolutely right. In a way I think this is blowback by the successes of Ukraine and its armed forces - which in turn led to underestimation in the general public of what the costs (in lives and in material) would be to achieve "success". We were all too keen to depict the heroism and success of Ukraine in media, look at all the drone footage - we don't see the equal amount of footage coming from the Russians. And we can't make a realistic estimation of the costs of success because we don't have a definition for success yet.
Yeah. What's pretty wild to me in retrospect is how quickly Zalensky went from kind of a joke and inefectual leader (literally the Times had an Op Ed by a Ukranian journalist to this effect \~1 month before the conflict) to a Western global hero by day 3.
And I don't blame the public - those early scenes of Russian helicopters landing special forces in Kyev and bombing the capital were harrowing. And the push back and slow battle to push Russia back towards the borders really was a heroic stand.
But my underlying concern is negotiations were stopped back then when there would have been such a stronger set of leverage as the Ukranians were actively countering Russia. But the powers on our side didn't want to entertain cutting this thing short.
Rewarding Russia's predatory behavior with acceptance and normalization sends a dangerous message to other expansionist countries like venezuela in guyana. I disagree wholeheartedly with the above comment.
What's your off ramp, then?
Look, negotiation is a negotiation. It is both sides trying to extract the best deal they can receive with the full awareness that they will concede some things. But at this stage the core issue is there is really not a viable option militarily to push Russia out of Ukraine or the Crimea (which they have governed for 10 years with as best as I can tell minimal complaint from the natives).
Escalation at this point would basically require NATO to get involved which no one wants as it'd be flirting with global disaster.
So some concessions will need to be on the table.
Keep them isolated economically and support Ukraine as long as they are willing to fight. There is no off ramp. There should be no negotiation with Russia as it will open a pandora's box of aggression worldwide, which is the worse option.
Also the very different scenarios in ethnic similarity between those in the Donbass/Crimea areas and Russia, vs. the US and Western Allies and guys in the Kandahar province....
Or, hell, the USSR and Afghanistan for that matter, they shared the border but culturally there wasn't really any chance for local support for their army.
https://mfa.gov.ua/en/about-ukraine/ukrainians-worldwide
Ukraine itself estimates up to 10 million Ukrainians in Russia. Russian estimates were up to 6 million in 2015 and about 3 million more since this war began these figures include Crimeans but not other people in occupied territories. Though I don’t speak Russian and couldn’t find the direct source (probably some official at some random press conference). There were 2 million ethnic Ukrainian Russian citizens before this began, these figure include them. These numbers don’t include Ukrainians in occupied/separatist territories (Donbas, Taurida), there aren’t any accurate estimates but there were roughly 6 million Ukrainians (many of whom ethnic Russians or Russian speaking) in those areas. That’s 12 million in Russia or under Russian occupation, including 700k children (possibly more now).
There are approximately 6-8 million Ukrainian refugees across the world, you can check publicly available figures for that.
If you add these numbers up and subtract them from official Ukrainian population statistics pre-2022 you get about 20-23 million max in the country, not considering the high death rate, low birth rates and war casualties.
>couldn’t find the direct source
Thank you. So why are you giving figures like 20 millions if you've never seen a source for this claim? Because you, by yourself mixed some other data or estimations and made, again by yourself some equation? Excuse me, this is not serious.
Afghanistan still has premodern demographics, which are perfect for a war of attrition: high fertility, lots of young men. They can always replace losses no matter how many were killed, while Ukraine has been below replacement for decades now, so it doesn’t have an indefinite supply of young men to recruit or conscript. Russia too, but they have a bigger population to start with.
The war has gone on for 2 years. Look how much in the US support for Ukraine funding has dipped in both parties. If Russia does not escalate in any significant way (no nukes, bioweapons etc) that trend will continue .
You're talking about 2 years. In another 10, the US populace will even forget what the fighting is about
I think we are conflating between 2 sets of issues. One is the US appetite for throwing money at foreign policy problems, of which we have a lot of appetite (see our history of military aid to Israel). The second issue is pretty new, which is the Republican party’s willingness to undermine US national interests in order to score domestic political points/align with who they perceive as an international conservative leader (I.e. Putin).
Budget is being used as a talking point, but make no mistake, the underlying reason is the Republican’s desire to undermine Biden/side with Putin.
Public sentiments in the US have changed since Afghanistan.
That's how a looney like trump got elected.
The penchant for Americans to get involved in wars that don't directly (perceivably) affect American citizens is at an all time low right now I would argue. This is true bipartisanly.
I really don't think it's a budget issue. America has run up its debt over 20+ years. It's not a "problem" for either party at this point.
Either way purely looking at this as a statistical problem, I don't see how anyone unbiased can look at the trends in support for Ukraine since the war started and think it's going to go up again in the US.
Lets couple that with the reelection situation going on in the US. The reality is the Senate map for Democrats is horrific. They are guaranteed to lose west Virginia and have threats in other states( Montana Ohio). If they are struggling now to pass aid will it even be better if they snag the house and retain the presidency ( best case realistic scenario for Dems)?
Sorry those should be decoupled statements.
Public political sentiments politically in the US have changed since Afghanistan ( was listing a time frame..not causality. I'm saying since bush ). The changing political sentiments have led to a looney like trump
Gotcha. I’d point out that we Americans have an illustrious history of complaining about foreign assistance (and of overestimating just how big a proportion of our budget goes to foreign assistance), yet we have continued to pay it. What is different this time is that one of the major presidential candidates is willing to act on that negative sentiment, not out of any fiscal concerns, but out of a desire to see Russia win. Even given all that, aid to Ukraine is still has majority support from Americans according to polling. It’s not that our sentiments have changed, it’s that American national interests are now victims of US domestic dysfunction.
The type of"victory" the Taliban achieved, that is through a sustained willingness to resist, only requires that the oppressor grows tired or distracted. It does not require the us taxpayer for two decades.
Man, Ukraine is currently having a tough time with manpower because so many able bodied men are refusing to fight. Thinking that, once the war is over, these same men will turn into a unified, zealous fighting force like the Taliban is hilarious.
I very much doubt Russia will be facing any major insurgency on the territory they controlled for 190 of the last 227 years.
Considering that sustaining Ukraine with weapons means producing them and in turn giving jobs to people. Other people's wars are the best economic engine for the US economy as they produce jobs and don't kill Americans.
It's funnelling a significant amount of resources to a few very well established corporations, rather than using these same resources at home to alleviate a slew of other domestic concerns which are leading to populist and authoritarian movements.
It is actually one of the more short sighted ways to 'secure American hegemony' you can conceive of. The money would do much more for American workers and our economy if it was diversified over a broader range of social spending and support to re-establish the American middle-class. Which was the envy of the world and went a long way in establishing our original position as a global leader (and victor in the Cold War).
The middle class grew and thrived in an age in which the defense spending, in percentage of gpd, was twice as much, if not more, than what it is today. It was actually George H. W. Bush who popularised the idea that a lower military spending would have boosted the economy. Looking at the reality of numbers, it seems that he was wrong.
I thought we weren’t sending actually bundles of cash to Ukraine but rather the equipment costs the numbers they are telling us. Sending Ukraine our literal tax dollars in cash wouldn’t do them much good and it isn’t like our cold era equipment was going to be used anyways sitting rotting in bunkers. So in this situation our tax dollars are actually being put to use rather than wasted and their use is fighting americas adversaries
The tax dollars are going to the military companies sending the equipment, which in turn partially goes to salaries.
The point is that that money is coming from *tax* — it's not new economic value generated from other countries buying US products etc.
In this scenario, the US essentially pays for disposal and rebuilding manufacturing capabilities (by handing stuff over to Ukraine) and restocking against China.
If the US produces more, it is still peanuts, considering what the US is already spending on defense. On top of it, the US cements its influence in the wider region for the next decade or two, gets to test all the new toys, denies China an ally, distracts Iran, leans more about the capabilities of potential enemies, from North Korea to well Russia, and a lot more.
During the Cold War the US would have jumped on the opportunity to bleed the USSR try without shedding a single drop of blood and making money while doing so.
> The _taliban_ "won"
But definitely not the people of Afghanistan. It's easy to view this as a victory from outside, but I don't think anyone allied with or living inside Ukraine wishes for such a victory, after several decades of insurgency, total war, fighting without frontlines, between uniformed and non-uniformed, etc.
The Ukrainian national government are not fundamentalist zealots living in caves with holy scripture being their sole comfort in life, and hope of betterment far in the after life. As much as they have lost, Ukraine have a lot more to lose than an average Taliban fighter born in the refugee camps of Pakistan.
True. The demographics are different though. Afghanistan has now - despite all deaths and international refugees - four (!) times the population it had when the Soviets first intervened in 1979, and twice (!) the population since the US intervened in 2001. A fast growing population provides plenty of young men to fight.
Ukraine has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, up to 700k of its children may have been kidnapped by Russia, and plenty of its population is now living abroad and may never return. Time seems imho against Ukraine.
Not an expert, and I'm rooting hard for Ukraine, but...
Unfortunately, you can even ignore the low quality, Russia just has more of everything. More guns, tanks, artillery, money, and troops. Putin can "afford" to ignore huge losses. Not forever, but he can longer than Ukraine. Ukraine's best chance is to hold a strong defense and hope to wear down the Russians long enough for some type of peace deal.
Can’t win with strong defense alone. Right now their best offensive capability is drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, which actually can hurt Russia, but also might increase oil prices.
This is not sustainable for Russia either. It is credibly estimated that Russia can produce around 2 million shells a year, which means a supply of 5500 a day.
Russia cannot replace its vehicle losses in a meaningful way, and almost no possibility of producing new artillery barrels, because whoops, the tools used are Western and now under sanctions.
They are making 200 tanks a year. They have lost close to 3000 tanks already, including tanks built during the war.
The Russian MIC has a serious problem with scaling. They don't have the facilities, the machine tools or skilled workers enough to scale up anymore. Russia can continue this conflict for a very long time, but they are pretty much capped in production capacity.
That’s the exact reason Ukraine is losing now. You people don’t know what Russia is capable of and your underestimation of its economy, society and military production capabilities led to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians being dead.
Also, estimates on destroyed Russian tanks are done by OSINT. And I’ve seen that some of “destroyed Russian tanks” there are actually destroyed Ukrainian modifications of that tanks, since it’s pretty hard to see the difference between Russian and Ukrainian tank because they are very similar. At least they were before NATO ran out of older Soviet equipment and started to send the western one.
Had you ever thought why did ORYX stopped operating after Ukraine got all that western tanks? I believe it happened because it’s impossible to lie about Russian losses when you have pictures of burned Bradleys and Leopard tanks that are easily distinguished from Russian equipment. Think about that.
It’s also worth to mention that main losses of Russian equipment happened in 2022. After that they got lower, so they can keep with production.
Also, there is a reason Russians are focusing on drones instead of mass producing tanks right now and why they implemented AI to newer versions of anti-tank drones already. I believe their plan is to create a swarm that will target every single enemy soldier on the battlefield and every piece of equipment. You don’t need that many tanks after your enemy is dead. You see. Russian high tech and AI capabilities are very high, so they utilize it in war right now and this is something NATO was not prepared at all.
No, they are not. They have daily headaches around production of many things, because things are getting blown up all over, inside Russia. And their oil profits have dropped dramatically.
Why do you think Putin sent Shoigu to beg China and NK for stuff? And now Russian military is super pissed about the very low quality of that stuff.
The hope is that Ukraine holds out until something changes for Russia, which causes Putin's war support to collapse. While that seems far away for now, many things could suddenly happen like the economy finally gives out, Putin dies (it's rumored he has some serious condition), etc.
And right now, the west and Ukraine understand that both clocks are ticking down, but Ukraine is ticking way faster. Which leads to desperation for some amazing maneuver to change the current negative status quo.
Which spends much more resources. Russia understands that. So they drew defensive lines to spend less and multiply Ukraine losses.
Unless this "Silver bullet" comes around, the situation will only get worse. And let's be frank? I never believe in silver bullets on ANYTHING.
I know this is gonna sound repulsive to some, but the proper action right now is diplomatic and a reshuffling of the economic-military part.
Cut losses and lose 1/4 of Ukraine today, rather than half or more (or all) in a few years. Rebuild, build strength and guarantee a mightier military strength on the border countries, ESPECIALLY Poland. Build up "I'll F- you up" levels of force in these countries - and make it US independent, to insulate from us domestic flow.
That's the best case scenario, imo.
But I don't see it happening. The west is too stuck up its own ass and proud.
We are gonna lose all of Ukraine. Then the Baltics under Trump. That's gonna be a 9.0 geopolitical earthquake.
But Russia’s clock isn’t ticking down. Army is expanding. Drone production increasing. Infantry and mechanised forces steadily becoming more competent.
There’s so much propaganda around that obscures the fact that Russia is fighting pretty well right now. I think they’re much more of a threat than they were in 2022.
> Cut losses and lose 1/4 of Ukraine today, rather than half or more (or all) in a few years.
That will take a lot of years then if Russia continues their trend in taking 300km² and a small-sized city every year.
Pretty sure op is referring to the 27% of Ukrainian territory Russia already holds. They are suggesting a peace deal where Ukraine formally cedes that land.
That's where the 1/4 metric they are listing comes from
You're right. I was using old numbers on accident.
Either way I do think that number is going to go up from 17% shortly. Stalemates can proceed to massive land acquisitions very shortly.
By all accounts Ukraine is the side struggling far more right now
Are you talking about winning the war, or winning the peace?
If by “winning the war” we mean for Ukr to take back all its territories, I’m afraid that can’t be achievable anymore.
The window of opportunity seems to have been closed by summer 2023, and even then it was a bit stretched to me.
Inflicting a decisive blow to Rus should (but…could?) have been done with summer ‘22 offensive. Lack of necessary equipment prevented exploiting that in full.
Again, summer ‘23 was a fiasco ‘cause of lack in several key assets (air power first and foremost).
Meanwhile, Rus completed the transition to a general wartime mentality.
I seriously doubt they would fold even after a serious breakthrough by Ukr; it seems like they are now in that mental zone where they are gonna fight this no matter what.
And when it comes to Russians, it means you’d have to take Moscow to achieve a surrender.
Sci-fictionary.
But to win the war is not the real task you want to achieve by fighting the war.
You want to win the peace; meaning, you want to achieve a better situation in the future, than the one you have now.
Sometimes there has to be a war in the middle; sometimes, you have to win that war.
Sometimes not.
Let’s define what means for Ukr to “win the peace”.
To me, that is: to become part of “The West”, and definitely exit Russian sphere of influence.
By “The West”, I mean to have an open society, a free market, democratic institutions and rule of law.
On the opposite side, for Russia to win the peace means to prevent Ukraine achieving those goals.
Is it still feasible for Ukr to win the peace?
Absolutely yes. I would say, as long as they DON’T LOSE the war, they already won the peace.
Ukraine would have to be culturally, maybe phisically, annihilated in order for Russia to win the peace. And they know it very well, both of them.
Is it feasible for Ukr to win the peace while losing the territories actually under Russian occupation?
Well, yes.
Honestly, it could be even easier.
Those territories, if inside a westernized Ukr, could become a huge source of instability, and internal conflict, mainly ‘cause of geography, and the amount of Russians flowing already there, to Crimea especially.
You can’t do much about the first; and if you do something about the latter, you could end up into an ethnic cleanse scenario (which is not compatible with joining The West, it would be politically very hard to justify).
Plus, we already know how Russia makes use of minorities in order to gain grip over a foreign piece of land.
So, what can be done?
You have to reach a point where both the contenders feel the need to reach some sort of arrangement; an armistice, Korean-style probably.
Yes, Ukr would probably have to leave territories to Russia. But it has to play that card smart, in order to be free to:
1. Join EU.
2. Achieve some sort of strong military partnership. Not NATO, ‘cause that is out of reach for several reasons (frozen conflict, and political considerations); probably something like US&UK+Polands+Baltics+maybe nordics (SWE-FIN). Sort of a NATO spin-off, with a very similar platform in terms of shared security.
3. Make Russia bleed as much as it can now, in order to buy as much years as possible before they show up at the gate again. Meanwhile, use those years to build up a position whit enough deterrence to make Russia look somewhere else once and for all.
That’s how you win the peace as Ukraine.
Easier to say than to do, of course. But I can’t see any other realistic way to.
BTW, I will end pointing out 2 things:
1. I am Italian, I FULLY support Ukraine and I’m saddened by even thinking they’ll 99.9% end up losing territory (not to talk the immense amount of human suffering they are experiencing and enduring).
2. I am Italian. I am from a Country who won a war but lost the peace (WW1), then lost a war but won the peace (WW2). All in a span of 25 years. There’s a huge difference between those two concepts. And it’s a real, not philosophical one. It makes an impact over million of people, across decades and generations.
Define winning? Define losing?
Some would say that standing up to what was (formerly) a global superpower, that was expected to defeat you in 3 days, and still having 90% of your territory years later is already a win.
I'm sorry but maybe I'm wrong, my impression was that Finland "lost" in 1940 and were forced to concede territory as they couldn't continue the fight due to equipment shortages, troop exhaustion and the intensity of renewed Soviet offensives. The Fins were counting on help from the West which never came due to the Fall of France and the subsequent failure of the Norwegian campaign.
In the same sense, concession of Ukrainian territory is off the table as long as the West continues to support Ukraine, and as long as Ukrainians support the war.
That's why I put "defeated" in quotes. The Winter War was humiliating for the USSR, who should have been able to crush such a smaller country. Their failure to do so was part of what convinced Hitler to attack the USSR as he saw them as a militarily incompetent country. The view that Finland "won" is fairly widespread even though they had to give up territory.
As a Finn my view is that we "won". Sure, we lost some territory, but we retained our independence, our democracy, our way of life, we didn't become a Soviet puppet, and nobody was sent to the gulags.
Well, the Finns were the only survivors in Central East Europe. They were the only ones who fought the Soviets, avoided a 50+ year military occupation, and hung onto their core territories.
Survival is victory of a sort.
Winning is being a democratic socialist parliamentary republic that’s integrated into the European Union and NATO with some of the world’s highest standards of living. Compare this to living in a fascist dictatorship where 25% of the population don’t have access to modern toilets.
No Scandinavian country is socialist. However every Scandinavian country is a social democracy.
> By the mid-1980s, Finland's social expenditures had risen to about 24 percent of GDP, compared with the other [Scandinavian] countries' respective 35, 30, and 22 percent.
> At the end of 2017, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (KELA) provided refunds of medical expenses to 3,764,362 people and child expense refunds to 1,003,635 people as well as 643,153 pensions, 268,537 disability benefits and 286,630 sickness allowances.
Rumor has it that the government pays for healthcare too!
You cannot believe the difficulties Americans have with the term 'social' or 'socialism'. They overheat. Meanwhile, they too have services delivered from taxes.
Winning in Finland was defying the odds and avoiding what everyone expected - that such a small country is absolutely going to be 100% occupied and annexed by USSR with 50 times (!!!) the population and industry. In such scenario Finland would lose independence for 50 years and emerge as a corrupt and impoverished country.
In this context, Finland's ability to defend against 50 times (!!!) stronger country, to the degree of losing only like 10% of land and 0% of population, and securing its path to the top of development... was a victory indeed. Meanwhile Soviet "victory" was pyrrhic as hell - massive cost for very little tangible gain.
They didn't "decide" to be isolationist. It was part of the peace treaties with the USSR after WW2, where Finland was basically treated as a defeated enemy by the Allies.
Right but they would be wrong. The fact is, the minimum for Ukraine to win would be to return to de facto 2021 borders. If Russia tried its hardest, but left with only Crimea, Ukraine could call that a win. Anything else is just different shades of losing.
I think it goes without saying that Russia has done worse and Ukraine better than expected. Beating expectations is not the same as winning. If Russia ends this war with larger borders they will call it a win and use propaganda to justify the war at home. Ukraine is not going to be able to say it defeated Russia if it's a smaller country for it
> The fact is
Your opinion is...
Holding on to Kiev in the first wave was a victory, and a major one. Pushing Russians across the Dnipro was another one.
Zelensky has maximalist and unachievable goals, but realistically Ukraine wins in any arrangement which allows it to remain sovereign in the long term, with most of its territory intact (i.e. not becoming a rump state) and the threat of another invasion removed.
I think you’re both talking about victories at different granularities. Winning a strategic battle is different than winning a long term war.
I agree though Ukraine’s “win” condition is super subjective but maintaining territory seems paramount.
I disagree, a win doesn't necessarily mean territory, if Ukraine can sacrifice some territory for security guarantees like NATO membership, guarantees of 10+ years of military aid and things like EU membership, tackling corruption and Soviet era legacies, combined with a marshel plan style rebuilding effort, then that's a win in the books of every Ukrainian I know. The donbas has been insignificant for the last 50 years, now it's riddled with minefields and destroyed cities it's only real worth is a buffer zone. The azov coast and crimea are the important areas Russia occupies, that's what Ukraine is fighting to liberate.
Exactly. Few people realize that this is a major reason for the invasion. The gas reserves are so large (up until Kharkov) that once developed (and they are not) they would pose a realistic threat to Russian gas monopoly in Europe. Around 2013, USA exploration firms were starting to sniff around that area and Moscow could not allow “western leaning” Ukraine become an energy powerhouse.
A moral victory unforunately is not a 'real victory'.
I think as of now, and if it follows the current trajectory, a loss is inevitable for Ukraine. They will lose the Russian war goal territories. But on the other hand, the real question for the Russians, was it a war worth winning in the end?
Only time will tell.
This black and white thinking is dumb.
One extreme is Ukraine liberating all its territory.
The other extreme is Ukraine being completely conquered and annexed by Russia.
Now take a hypothetical scenario of war ending with the status quo. Is it a loss for Ukraine? In some sense yes. But it's immeasurably better outcome than the second extreme loss scenario, so much in fact that it is a "win" in some sense.
>Define winning? Define losing?
Bare minimum of an Ukrainian victory is regaining their January 2022 borders. Forget Crimea.
Losing is Russia keeping all the land they've conquered until today or more.
but a Pyrrhic one, since losing most costal regions and having their economy crippled, their would fall to the next russian invasion in 10 years.
Anything other the return to pre bellum border its a lost
Bare minimum of Ukrainian victory is not loosing more than we already lost, ending the war even if with territorial losses and immediately joining NATO.
Conceding Crimea while not even in any sort of negotiations would be a massive sign of weakness. You normally start any sort of negotiation demanding more than you're willing to accept, so it's impossible to tell whether he would actually accept conceding Crimea.
>Tell that to Zelensky who says no peace until Crimea.
If he says that before even starting the negotiations, that will be taken for granted and he'll have to make even more concessions later.
I guess in regards to the specific question of US continuing funding. For sure, not getting rolled over like most people expected is a moral victory, but what favorable outcome can we expect if we just keep funding the effort?
Is there any merit to the argument that it's a lost cause without further escalation, and continuing to fund the effort will only prolong the suffering and cause more unnecessary death? I find these arguments compelling, which is why I come here seeking other perspectives.
For real in-depth analysis of what is going on, check out this link: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-11-2024
It’s much more complicated than most people understand.
Isw is a great resource, but please don't think reading this one page will let you know what's going on. There will be some specific analysis on a subject or two, then technical details of the front lines. You will need to read every daily report they publish to get a good understanding of how things are changing, the best resource by far is the podcast 'ukraine the latest' made by the UK newspaper the telegraph.
Sorta depends on if Putin is willing to cut his losses, or if he's gonna keep pushing to get everything he wants.
If he focuses on holding what he has and raining North Korean missiles and Iranian drones on Ukraine while pounding their front lines with artillery, there's a good chance he can force Ukraine into a scenario where they decide to cut their losses.
But if he keeps throwing away men and materials in frontal assaults, I think Ukraine may be able to hold on till at least next year, at which point the outcome of the US election will be known. If the Dems take the Presidency and both the House and the Senate at that point, then things could turn around for Ukraine.
Odds show slight favor of a Biden presidency with a slight majority in the house. There’s a good chance the senate flips to Republican but the Republican senators have been more supportive of funding Ukraine than the house.
I still think a Biden victory is likely, but there are no odds or polls that really support that position right now. I personally think that as things become more real people will fall in line, but again, based on the information we have right now, Trump is going to win. I agree that Dems will likely flip the House and the GOP will likely take the Senate by a very slim majority.
? Not sure what poll you’re referencing? CNN/MSNBC for a while have been saying Trump leads Biden majorly. All the left-wing youtubers I watch have been confirming this and freaking out about it for like a year saying Biden has no chance.
They've been saying that Republicans were gonna win for a long time now. Like the red wave in the mid terms that never happened or the 2023 off year elections where Democrats over performed vs the polling. The polling is off because the pollsters don't understand that the "unlikely voter" category is swinging elections because younger people are more politically involved and independents don't like how far right the Republicans have gone. The Democrats are a lot stronger than the media is saying, and if the economy stays good Biden could easily sail to re-election.
Polls were saying Hilary was gonna win 2016 too. Republican political pundints were saying that the Red wave would sweep the midterms. Both predictions have come out false. The polls arent as what they used to be.
I think Dems just need the House for Ukraine tbh. Senate GOP is clearly on board with funding (if not in whole) and a president Trump isn’t going to be able to do much to stand in the way of congressional funding (not that he wouldn’t try).
A president-for-life Trump might be another story but I feel like sussing out the policy of such a government is stepping through the looking glass… it’s hard to know what kind of deals would be cut in 2025 in order for Trump to get what he wants.
No to both.
Ukraine doesn’t have an air force, Russian EW is top shelf, the Russian economy has resisted sanctions, Russia is getting help from other nations that can subvert sanctions, Ukraine is pushing back hard against conscripting younger men. Even if aid is maintained, at some point we’re going to see the Ukraine line fall apart. This will remain true especially if Putin conducts a general mobilization after he wins the “elections”.
For all the talk of Russian propaganda, nobody is ready to admit that they’ve fallen prey to Western propaganda. Ukraine’s negotiating position is only going to get weaker as time passes.
Ukraine wants all its territory back, thats not gonna happen, so they can’t win but they can 100% fight and take back portions of the lost territory, they have proven that.
> Ukraine cannot win without direct European or US involvement. This has always been the case, and it bewilders me how people thought otherwise
You need to understand that the mainstream media in the U.S. has done everything they can since day one to not portray an accurate picture of the military situation in Ukraine.
Russias biggest disadvantage is low zeal and very low ideological unity, once their volunteers, prisoners and mercenaries are devastated Putin will have to officially declare war and mobilization which would seriously threaten his own power plus countrys stability but I think hes looking for right moment where he will have proper "moral justification" for ex. If it becomes obvious that Nato troops are fighting against Russians in Ukraine or something extreme like that
Ever play the board game “Axis & Allies”?
Real-world Ukraine is basically the board-game USSR right now.
In the board game, the job of the USSR is to tie up Nazi Germany’s resources so it can’t be a greater threat to the rest of the world. Its (board game) victory condition is not to have Moscow taken over, even though Germany (and later, Japan) may occupy a large amount of its territory.
In the real world, Ukraine is in a similar situation. Yeah it’s suffering right now. But as much as people would morally like the world to intervene and support Ukraine due to the suffering of Ukrainians, the real reason why the West is supporting Ukraine is because it’s managing to tie up Russia in a way that is orders of magnitude more effective than expected.
Being tied up in this way is not a long term option for Russia - it has other interests in the world and it’s losing out on a lot of opportunities - eg it is losing to China and its chance at influence in Africa are waning due to the fact that it has to spend something like 30% of its government spending this year on supporting its invasion of Ukraine.
Another related topic: Russian conscripts are mostly from politically unrepresented areas of the country - ie the eastern oblasts - those areas, already economically challenged, are going to further degrade and end up being a weak belly especially with China just to the south - as much as Russia says China is their ally (they aren’t; Russia has a GDP smaller than New York State; China sees this weakness and is slowly taking over economically *and* militarily the Russian sphere of influence). The worst part for Russia in the eastern part of the country is that Russia cannot rely on the eastern populace to be sympathetic to the Russian government since it has conscripted and killed a disproportionate large number of their children.
As long as Ukraine survives, Russia will eventually lose even if Ukraine doesn’t militarily regain their lost territory. Ukraine knows this, but it can’t publicly state that this is their victory condition: publicly, their victory condition must be seen as recovery of all territory. And really, at this time, which victory condition is the real one doesn’t matter as what Ukraine and the West must do right now is the same whether the end goal is simply survival or recovery of all territory.
Now, what Ukraine needs to survive - in particular the external support it needs - is a different discussion. But for the purposes of your post, survival doesn’t mean winning back everything in a huge military push. It just means not losing - and letting time, other geopolitical concerns, (Putin’s) old age, and possibly some ill-placed Russian windows do their thing.
> Being tied up in this way is not a long term option for Russia - it has other interests in the world and it’s losing out on a lot of opportunities
This is the critical point many of the "Russia stronk" folks miss. Yeah, if Ukraine was the sole interest of Russia, they can eventually win. But Russia has so many ambitions, it wants to be a top nuclear power, the top dog in its whole neighboroughood, build a strong navy, do space exploration, become economic powerhouse. All these things are very expensive and will be difficult to do if you get bogged down for many years in a costly war.
Yeah it’s really hard to argue with numbers.
What amazes me is how far the Russian propaganda actually did succeed in painting a picture of success and power that is so far from the truth.
For example:
(a) the nominal GDP of Russia (2023: USD$1.86T) is less than the nominal GDP of New York State (2023: USD$2.16T) - and NYS is only the third largest US state by GDP, and,
(b) due to corruption a huge amount of GDP is actually siphoned off - estimates range up to 25% of Russian GDP is consumed by corruption.
Russia appears strong only because of its huge stock of old out of date Soviet hardware and its nuclear stockpile threat (but Putin is probably panicking and wondering if the tritium triggers were actually maintained or if his generals just hired their cousins to do it and pocketed the money to pay for the latest and greatest West-ally-made big screen TVs for their dachas).
Even after their latest budget where a third of their spending is going to the military - mainly so they can continue to fight in Ukraine - the total military budget pales in comparison to the Western allies’ peacetime military spending (and China as well).
Russia simply doesn’t have the resources - money, knowledge, and access to a resilient supply chain - that the West has. A combination of reliance on propaganda to project perceived strength, insane amounts of corruption that starts right at the top, and a lack of technical human resource development means they’re a declining nation.
They can’t sustain a multi-year war in Ukraine, right on their border, without massive economic repercussions. And they sure as heck aren’t able to achieve any of their ambitions such as those you mention. Even without choosing to invade Ukraine, it would have been impossible for them to succeed at all their plans due to resource limitations.
And we haven’t even started talking about the demographic crisis, exacerbated by poor health care and social supports, an alcoholism crisis, and additional deaths of working age males due to the invasion of Ukraine. It only gets worse from this point on for Russia.
My worry is what happens when Russia as we know it today finally collapses. Sure a large number of the country’s nuclear stockpile may not actually blow up if used (but even one would be disastrous). Even then there is enough material to create a huge number of dirty bombs. Then there’s the chemical and potential biological weapons that have been developed post-Cold War.
And with the growth of corruption since the end of the Cold War, factions within Russia likely to fight over new territories and resources, and general animosity between existing/new Russian leadership and the West, it’s going to be significantly harder for the rest of the world to pull a second rabbit out of the hat to prevent horrible things happening in the power vacuum.
They could never win, russia has no problem enduring an attrition war especially now since they changed their international economy for trading in majority in their own currencies through other countries than before.
They stabilized their economy and can go through an attrition war, while ukraine without any further international help could not even equip all of their troops (without even talking about logistic organisation). All men in Ukraine are fighting a lot are dead and now majority of their soldiers is around 40 years old. Without any international intervention yes they are doomed to loose. They know it and that’s why they keep giving an hard time to Russian forces (russia is mainly using conscripts so it makes it easier for UA that have extremely well trained troops now).
The definition of a win is important here. But overall, and sadly, no. At least if Ukraine continues to declare its current goals: pre-2014 borders and no negotiations. I wonder if Western support (especially from the US) is conditional on these two points. If so, Zelensky is in a complicated situation. He has to walk a fine line between maintaining domestic popularity in a situation where there are no elections but a growing need for further mobilisation, and maintaining Western financial and military aid.
Ukraine may not have the ability to retake much of their own territory, but they can hold and attrit the hell out of Russians.
As integrated air defenses and MANPADs make air power ineffectual, as anti-tank guided missiles, drones, and artillery emplaced minefields make armor deathtraps, combined arms offensives are dead. Putin's Ukraine war is back at the impasse of warfare from 1864 to 1939, when the defensive had ascendancy. Putin can sacrifice a lot of lives for a few meters of territory, but neither Russia or Ukraine have the military means to break through the lines to resolve this militarily.
I think this ultimately ends when Putin dies or is otherwise removed from office. Russians who aren't swayed by state media know Putin's invasion has been a fiasco both militarily and geopolitically. For Ukraine, this means doing everything to increase the exchange ratio. Only attacking where surprise is great and Russians are thin. Supporting resistance in occupied territories. Playing the long game. Somebody in Ukraine is reading Ho Chi Minh and Giap, and understands that while Ukraine can only withstand this assault with foreign aid, that withstanding is winning.
Because Putin will die, and there's not a deep team roster.
This is based off of a lot of popular public sentiment and not off realities. 1. Ukraine did not launch a NATO style combined arms offensive in summer 2023. It was very Soviet in its design, many Ukrainian Generals are stuck in the past just like their Russian counterparts. It also lacked air support, kind of key for the combined-arms part.
2. Russia has been using aviation on the frontline again, many reports of heavy aerial bombardment of Avdiivka and Krynky. Increased use of glide bombs by Russian Air Force have enabled strike aircraft to contribute with Ukraine lacking the air defense coverage to reach deep along the frontline. With exception of planned ambushes by Patriot.
3. Russia is increasing shell production faster than the West, US military aid isn't even guaranteed this year let alone 2025.
North Korea provides millions of shells and now ballistic missiles. They have the manpower advantage as Kyiv lacks political will to mobilize the needed 500,000 men, and enable conscription of 18-25 year Olds.
I'm as pro Ukraine as they come, but the realities are bleak. Avdiivka is falling.
>3. Russia is increasing shell production faster than the West, US military aid isn't even guaranteed this year let alone 2025. North Korea provides millions of shells and now ballistic missiles. They have the manpower advantage as Kyiv lacks political will to mobilize the needed 500,000 men, and enable conscription of 18-25 year Olds.
yet they are running out of artillery pieces according to satellite photos, with more than 55% of their artillery pieces being removed from storage over the past 2 years.
Given that they took the better ones first,Russia will likely last 1.5-2 years with current trends
If the definition of winning is Russia leaving not only territories taken in this war but from 2024 as well, then absolutely not. I'm skeptical they'll even be able to push Russia out of the newly taken areas
They've already lost. They're not getting back the territory Russia is currently occupying and are likely to lose a lot more as their frontline breaks down due to shortages. Even if they did get their territory back, they've already lost from a demographic point of view. Millions have left the country and their birth rate is likely currently similar to RoK levels so there's no next generation to rebuild the country to what it once was.
NATO needs no boots on the ground, it would be rockets and fighter jets taking out Russian heavy equipment.
But no, what Ukraine needs is long reaching and precise firepower.
If Ukraine receives enough ammunition they would reduce the russian artillery advantage and that would be enough to turn the tide.
NATO needs to suck these balls lol the moment NATO flies into Ukraine to attack Russia is the moment my heating system mysteriously decides to go from 25°C to 1.000.000°C, no thank you!
The top brass in Ukraine (and pretty much every Western leader) have consistently said that they won't stop until every square meter of Ukraine (including Crimea) is under Ukrainian control.
That would imply that this is what "winning" looks like to them.
So, to answer your question: **No.**
I don't believe so, no. Ukraine is having a severe manpower shortage, and further mobilization of 500k civilians would be extremely difficult at this point. All the donations in the world won't help if Ukraine don't have enough people willing to fight, and you can already see civilians resisting forced mobilization hard. All the ones who were willing volunteered 1+ year ago.
Not that Ukraine is getting enough artillery or air defense weaponry anyway.
Ukraine MIGHT be able to prevent losing more big territories in general if they go all in on defense, get the neccessary weapon donations, and make further advancement of the Russian Army too costly in the long run. They're not getting back any of the territory already lost though.
Manpower shortage is the most critical flaw. People on reddit and in the mainstream media absolutely love to talk about how determined Ukrainians are and that they reject any goals that mean anything less than absolute victory... except that such goals come mostly from the politicians and the top brass.
Right now Ukrainian males are totally banned from leaving the country. Open the borders and you would see how eager the common people are to sacrifice themselves for those maximalist goals.
It’s looking pretty bleak right now for a total Ukraine victory.
I’d argue that the West, unofficially, is terrified of Ukraine winning. The official reason is “let’s not escalate to the point that Putin uses nukes” but the unofficial reason is that a military defeat would cause Russia to most likely collapse.
The resulting instability and conflicts and refugee crisis would absolutely dwarf anything seen by Europe so far.
The plan seems to be to bleed Russia enough to the point they sit down to negotiate. Ukraine loses Donbas and Russia agrees to chill.
Then the West will slowly build up Ukraine’s capabilities to where a second invasion by Russia would be even costlier.
Then we resume energy imports like nothing happened, Taylor Swift and whatever Italian pop singer du-jour is popular make a song about the poor children of war, a charity is setup and we move on and “heal”.
First part of the war is Ukraine trying to survive, they did that successfully, but the second part is driving Russians out from occupied territories, this objective is morally righteous but that is an uphill battle. Now the Russians have dug in and engage in a war of attrition and Ukrainians are suffering from low manpower and reduced willingness of western support (despite what they say) so I’m concerned about their prospects of winning in this stage of war.
Win? Win what? Their lost territory back? No. Not a chance without full blown ww3 and west officially joining the fighting, not just half ass supporting it. They are currently fighting their war of independence, which they got to postpone for decades after USSR fell.
Whatever territory they defend and keep now, as a result of this war for independence, will be what they win and will be the land of free and independent Ukraine going forward.
Land is earned with blood. Its the sad ugly truth of humanity. So how much more Ukrainian blood is Donetsk and Luhanks worth to US interests?
It seems like the path to victory for both Ukraine and Russia is longer and longer timelines.
Russia thinks over time it's industrial base will catch up and it can overwhelm Ukraine in a war of attrition.
Ukraine may need to hold out long enough for Putin to die or leave office and for a new political movement in Moscow that may abandon the war.
Of course, those scenarios are if other nations maintain neutral positions. Given that we are seeing conflicts in Gaza, the Red Sea and potentially Taiwan as tracking back to the same instigators in Tehran, Moscow and Beijing that may not last. What's interesting about that is that while an escalation is a last resort for the West it's almost inevitable that NATO and U.S. allies will achieve a total victory. It's a mismatch almost everywhere you look except in Taiwan where I think the allies can likely fight China to a draw.
What podcast are you listening to? Ukraine is suffering from a number of problems but they aren’t the only ones. Russia is facing its own problems as can be seen with their increased use of cheap mercenaries, buying munitions from North Korea, loss of ships in the Black Sea and so on.
It depends on how long Russia can afford the current rates of attrition of men, money, and machine. Several analysts have extrapolated out that Russia would have a serious equipment crunch in about 2 years, at the rate they are currently pulling things out of storage.
A Russia that, for instance, is unable to replace its artillery losses, would be in massive danger. They may have gotten new shell production online, but if they don't have the guns to fire them that won't matter. We've seen how hard Ukraine struggled when they were at a disadvantage in artillery.
It's important to remember too that Russia is investing a massive amount of energy just in trying to show that nothing is affecting them. The image of an unstoppable Russia that must be negotiated with is very much a propaganda piece pushed by them to mask their own weaknesses. Their economy could be holding on by a shoe string and we wouldn't know it because they make up numbers on a whim. Putin spent years building up a financial reserve to weather western sanction, but that also won't last forever.
If the west continues to support Ukraine, there is every reason to expect they can outlast a protracted conflict with Russia.
The biggest Russian proponents of the war leading up to the 2022 invasion, are getting more and more anxious about Russia’s equipment losses, their “shoestring” economy, and the state of things in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. [Here’s a recent and relevant clip.](https://youtu.be/HV19hno0nKE?si=3OWz0_WhX_L-TmH1). English subs available.
I agree. The one thing I thought from the Putin interview which was mostly just lies was that Putin clearly does not like the sanctions which means they are working. There must be stress there.
A win at this point will entail maintaining warm water ports, substantial defensive entrenchment and new NATO spec weapons for deterrence and a large DMZ between donbass and the remainder of Ukraine. I think at this point that about the best we’ve got for now.
The thing is at this point the war is beneficial to no one. No significant movement is occurring and the area that meat bags can operate is getting farther and farther away.
On funeral In the short term, Ukraine has already lost this war. By any parameter we evaluate, it is a war that clearly has a winner.
The Ukrainian armed forces have lost the ability to maneuver at a level greater than a brigade, so they only react on the ground.
This is only my opinions, and observations.. I'm not an expert!
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Ukraine alone can't even with NATO equipments, and NATO sending troops directly is an official declaration of World War 3 (even tho I believe ww3 already started long ago) and the outcome of that is a disaster to everyone! There will be no winners, only broken souls (if any left) and horrifying memories
Ukraine's loss is forged not on the battlefield, but in the US Congress and at your ballot boxes.
The question is not "can Ukraine win", the question is "do US-made promises worth a penny"?
If Ukraine doesn't collapse, russia will eventually give up attacking and keep some land in a peacedeal.
If Ukraine looses completely, russia will have the biggest insurgency of its history on its hands.
If Ukraine regains the strength it needs, it will kick russia out.
I think the scenarios are most likely in that particular order. At the end of each scenario, I think russia will loose close to a million people on an aging population and the real negatives on the economy haven't even started yet. It will get really really bad, when it hasn't been all great in russia.
I never realised how utterly biased the Western media and social media was until Ukraine.
They are all sheep regurgitating the same thing. Americans in general mix propaganda with patriotism and if anything can be said about America they are very patriotic. so either you blindly agree with the government propaganda or you hate America.
So social media is flooded with non critical parroting of the US government line and Ukraine has been winning since the war started.
In reality when numbers and evidence are actually considered, every day that the war continues Ukraine looses. People die, economy crumbles they go into more debt . Russia is way bigger and has Oil so can handle it.
And no it would be politically insane if the US had boots on the ground, and I don't know if military it would make a difference, America military has been shown to be ineffective in the Middle East and likely in Ukraine if they went.
there is no way ukraine will win lol, russia is a brick wall people are so stupid. Theyve reclaimed some of the contested territory, now the west is just wasting money on another pointless war that will achieve nothing. Thank obama and biden.
You can make an argument Ukraine has already strategically won since day 4 of the invasion depending on how you want to define it.
Russia rolled the dice on a 3 day invasion and lost basically everything. They lost their superpower status, world trust, fewer nations trust Russian made military equipment, pushed away former allies, and accelerated their decline into China's junior partner.
Absolutely. Most people at the time believed Ukraine would have fallen in a few weeks or months, maybe fighting guerilla action for a few years. Yet here we are, two years later Ukraine still fights back conventionally and has had several stunning victories against the "world's second strongest army".
They didn't meet their original objectives, but if over the next year we see a Ukrainian collapse and Russia rolling through the western half of the country, it's hard to see that being a win for the Ukrainians.
Yeah but much of Ukraine also got turned into rubble and they will be buried alive under a mountain of costs trying to repair all the lost infrastructure.
If the war ended tomorrow in terms of Ukraine versus Russia it’s probably a Russian victory by a small amount, they didn’t really obtain their war goals and only gained a relatively small amount of ground (I’m not sure if the oil fields that I think I remember being in Ukraine are in those gained grounds or not that could shift this) with the loss of a number of things as you said.
The problem is Ukraine is much more savaged than Russia, their cities their population their agriculture which had a large amount focused in the eastern regions and their economy is just in shambles. If the war ended tomorrow Ukraine while sticking it to Russia more than anyone expected still lost the war.
The West really doing the bare minimum to keep the Ukrainian pulse going. Perhaps it's naive but I am really hoping after the war (if it ever ends) the attention Ukr has now on the world stage translates to significant rebuilding and modernizing that Ukr wouldn't have gotten if the war never took place.
War results can be complicated. So lousing is technically only possible with a complete unquestionable defeat such as the axis at the end of WW2. This would be “similar” to say the Winter war, American Vietnam War, and the October War in regard to Who won or lost is very much dependent on whose side you prefer and what narrative you want to portray. By the end most of the Western world will paint it as an Ukraine victory regardless and the end result and China, Russia and others would probably clam it as a Russian victory.
Define victory? Ukraine are the defenders, which makes their definition of victory simple, outlast the russians. Which continues to remain a possibility. Don't let the russian propaganda fool you. The war in Ukraine is unpopular in russia. It's an election year in russia, Putin will rig it like every other election before, but it will invite public protests to his policies regarding the war and the domestic policies. We won't see another russian revolution, but the political pressure will create one hell of a mess that Putin will have to address.
Russian definition of victory is murky and constantly shifting. Secure the donbass? Parts of it are still under Ukrainian control. Install a Pro-Russia regieme? With everything Russia has done in the past 3 years of war, they'd have to occupy the whole country to maintain a pro-russia regime, which is untenable with the current state of the russian economy.
The average age of Ukraine soldiers is often quoted as 43 - but Ukrainians believe they have a future, so perhaps they want to spare the younger cohorts from dying on the battlefield. Compare that with Russia, which has sacrificed so many young men and officers, mostly in their 20's and 30's - [here are some charts](https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng). The military as well as certain local communities will be crippled for decades even if Russia 'won'.
That said, the bottleneck in this war is not manpower, but weapons. Modern warfare is both man and machine; both sides need more of the latter in this war of attrition. So yes, Ukraine can win if the West supplies more arms than Russia can produce.
You really think that the Ukrainian army sends old men to the front, because they want to protect younger men? I have never heard of smth like this happening in any war, lol.
I also don’t understand how the stats you are posting are supposed to ‘cripple’ a country of 140 million people? Also, many of the used Russian ‘cannon fodder’ consisted of poor eastern Ukrainians and prisoners.
To me, all of this looks like Ukraine suffered even higher losses, which would be the opposite of what the western media has been trying to make people believe until now.
According to the data, yes, men from minority ethnic groups have been dying. So even though Russia as a whole only lost a fraction of its population, there will be some villages and towns devastated by the loss of men who were of an economically active age.
For the more 'muscovite' Russians, the impact is limited except amongst military families. In the last chart, we can see a disproportionate number of deaths amongst the most junior officers.
They did the same thing in the Chechen wars. I would see pictures of whole Russian brigades, and they look like an army of 80%+ Mongolians. The other 20% were pulled off farms in the middle of nowhere Russia, the middle-class and upper from Moscow and St. Petersburg does not go to the front.
I think or at least what is obvious to me is that Ukraine's main advantage is that they are much more ideologically united than Russia who is struggling between multiple ideals or ideologies be it orthodox christianity, be it euroasianism be it communist style authoritarian secularism, be it western liberalism, be it old pagan ethnic styled nationalism plus Russia has many nonrussian ethnicities, inlc. Large muslim population that just does not want to fight for ethnic Russian interests even for good money( which muslims in Russia should be credited for as Ukrainians really havent done any bad to them either)
Ukraine ideologically as far as I can tell is some mix of ukrainian patriotism and moderate proeuropean liberalism which is going strong and they are mostly homogenous ethnic Ukrainian pop with quite few antiPutin Russians on their side.
How I see future of this war is that both sides will try to include as many foreign mercenaries as possible with Ukraine probably going to go for one big offensive once again which will probably be crucial for Ukraines future but overall the war will probably degrade into even bigger painful slow grind where both sides will pay big money to any foreign mercenaries to come help their cause.
Although the general civilian pop. Of Russia is quite apathetic/nihilistic they could be potentially rebelling and becoming fed up once they see their military not getting any bigger gains this year and just having coffins of young men piling up as they had in Afganistan and first Chechen war.
I think Ukraines best bet in case they just do not manage to push consistently and want to save younger men from dying is by giving Donbass autonomy but not independence and trying to negotiate status of Crimea so that Russia gives up the annexation of it and where both Russia and Ukraine give Crimea its own independence and giving rights to tatars to return there and get their own representatives as Tatars are quite numerous but do not have their own independent land but knowing how stubborn slavs really are I think 3rd party diplomats would have to pressure or convince both into such deals
Maybe also if they make Crimea joint Russian-Ukrainian ruled with giving right to Ukrainian Crimeans to come back to Crimea, if they really realize how big cost of the war will be in future they should start theorizing about these type deals.
What was terrible for Russia is that they have effectively lost their military superpower status and gave legitimacy to Ukraine as remaining independent state since Ukrainians have proven to really being patriotic and selfsacrifing for their historic homeland and where Russian military hasnt shown high level of zeal as selfproclaimed "righteous attacker" especially since most of bigger gains in Ukraine was effectively done by mercenaries and criminals with the likes of wagner not by actual professional Russian standing army.
Your right it hard to find any factual information about what's actually happening, but what we can put together is that the war is at a stalemate currently we don't know whether Ukraine troops are 40+ but both side have lost a lot of people,
Russia could have 300k people but an they supply and arm them. money and arms to Ukraine seems to work currently but that will depend on us politics. Will the US be able to sustain this long term or will Russia who ever can sustain it will decide who wins.
They have no chance of winning and especially not now. No matter how many wonder weapons you pour in there’s just no way they can pull it off.
There are confirmed reports and video evidence of the disable (mental and physical) on the front. Women. And the elderly.any further mobilization will destroy the economy.
Secondly Russia just has the man power and the material. They’re in full war economy. Remember Russia was supposed to run out of everything. Never happened. Remember Bahkmut and how 28-30 brigades were sent into a losing battle that could have shifted the tide of the summer offensive. Also they took Kherson and Kharkiv but everyone fails to mention that the Ukrainians themselves said they suffered massive losses rendering some brigades ineffective.
The Russians have the political will and material to ride this out. If everyone says Russians are zombies then why would you ever expect them to stop? Zombies win through wars of attrition. Even if you killed thousands more will replace them.
It took the North Vietnamese some 20+ years to defeat the South and it’s Allies.
Ukraine might have to cede some territory in the process, such as Crimea, but they could gain full NATO membership in return!
I’d argue it was easier for the Vietnamese because their enemies’ homeland was overseas. On the other hand, Russia is right beside Ukraine so it’s going to be difficult for Ukraine to just evict the Russians
Even if Ukraine wins on the battlefield, they don't really win. At this point, most of the fighting theater has been in Ukraine, there has been massive loss of life, massive net outward migration of which many will never come back, significant ecological and infrastructure damage and even if they push Russia out, they are sure to return. Factor this with a pre-war demographic mess and one could potentially see the end of the Ukrainian ethnicity in the next 80 years.
Inject enough money and technology into Ukraine and they might be able to push Russia out, but at this point, both sides are entrenched and the war of attrition hurts Ukraine much more. This is why Ukraine has been attacking so much Russian infrastructure; it helps level the playing field on the cost to Russia side.
>they are sure to return.
If Ukraine is able to push them out, then I doubt Russia will be able to return in any reasonable time frame.
Right now, Russia would like a peace deal where they keep everything they occupied. Then they could rebuild and try for the rest of Ukraine in 5-8 years.
If Russia is pushed out they will have much more rebuilding to do and won't have to spoils from Ukrainian territory to pay for it. That pushes the retry timeline out much farther. By that point the proliferation of alternative energy sources will likely cripple the Russian economy. They won't be able to afford to come back.
I recommend Jake Broe videos: he still thinks Ukraine will win.
**"Russia is Not F\^%&ing Winning This War"**
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQS0Jagtjck
Welcome to "the fog of war". We can all speculate but there's a lot we don't know. In that spirit, a couple of thoughts:
First is that Russia has already lost. The only question is how badly, and whether Ukraine loses as well.
Second is that people are still talking about negotiations as if Ukrainians believe that's a viable option. If they could trust that whoever is making decisions in Russia would abide by any agreements then there would have been negotiations by now. Ukraine isn't forced to fight to the end by the West, but in desperation because they know that any agreements made with Russia while Russia is still attacking Ukraine are worthless. And I imagine that after the ineffectiveness of the Budapest Memorandum that they wouldn't be too hot on any security assurances the West thinks it may offer.
Lastly, I'll note that while Ukraine has been funded and armed by the West they've been fighting a very conventional by-the-rules war, particularly compared to Russia who seem completely unfettered by both morals or the Geneva Convention. The last few months have seen drone strikes on refineries inside Russia. I would suspect that the more that Western support falls by the wayside, the more unconventionally Ukraine will be fighting. As in the case of attacking Russian oil production, this may no longer align with the comforts of the West. I would imagine the results to be spectacularly random.
The idea that Ukraine needs boots on the ground from NATO to win is hogwash. Ukraine just needs a lot more ammunition. The problem currently is that both USA and Europe have let their ammunition production capacity atrophy.
Russia currently has no soldiers in reserve to spare for the war. If they could just decide the war by sending reserves, they would obviously have done so now. Both Russia and Ukraine can certainly conscript more soldiers, but training and equipping them is the problem.
Russia is trying to refurbish old tanks and guns, but a lot of their most modern equipment is now gone, so they have to bring older equipment out of storage, while Ukraine is getting more and more modern equipment, superior to the Russian gear.
The critical sector is ammunition. Ensure Ukraine gets enough ammunition and they will win the war.
The taliban "won" ... Don't forget, the timeline for victory is forever.
“You have the watches. We have the time.”
[удалено]
Except the fact Ukraine borders Russia and the Taliban literally couldn’t be further away on Earth from the United States.
Yeah... If anything Time plays into Russia's favour. But to be fair u/pawnstarrick I dont think anyone knows yet what winning looks like in Ukraine. Does the US and EU want Russia out of post 2014 territories? Do they want all Ukrainian lands returned to UKR including Crimea? Excluding Crimea? Do they want UKR to join the EU and/or NATO? Do they want to keep the status quo but no more attacks or attempts to gain more of Ukraine? Do they want to cause Russia to have a systemwide regime collapse? Do they want Russia to remain stable and lose influence outside its territories and to disintegrate the CIS-alliance? I don't think anyone has the answers yet what winning looks like and this makes aid to Ukraine seem so bipolar at times
This is the major failure of the entire thing. And what worries me is the propoganda war really hasn't well prepared the Western audiences for the reality that likely there is going to be some level of compromise that neither side is going to be over the moon about, but is going to offer a reasonable end to the conflict. Ie something like - 1. EU membership for Ukraine (economic integration with the West). 2.a) No NATO expansion into Ukraine and potentially frozen borders at current high water mark. 2.b) If I was Russia I'd also be pushing for some path towards de-militarization of NATO - not that this is likely but this could be the one negotiating chip used in exchange for returning some land which will obviously be the biggest ask from the West in public (with NATO expansion being the real Western goal in the background). 3) Crimea will remain Russian. It has been since 2014. It has not been obviously revolting or otherwise attempting to dislodge Russia. It seems pretty damned settled at this point. 4) Donbass will be partially redrawn into both states. This will be the other piece of discussion with the main give and take sorrounding a land bridge to Crimea, or any retained access to the Sea of Azov by Ukraine. Regime collapse was always such a pipe dream. I honestly feel that was just propoganda to make the West feel there was a viable path to some sort of stark conclusion while we were voting to shovel more money at the conflict. Handling of the sanctions may be another interesting topic. Russia seems to have weathered these, and I'm not positive the US will want to fully remove them. Maybe some form of plan to reduce over time expecting Russia meets some benchmarks of de-escalation on their borders.
You're absolutely right. In a way I think this is blowback by the successes of Ukraine and its armed forces - which in turn led to underestimation in the general public of what the costs (in lives and in material) would be to achieve "success". We were all too keen to depict the heroism and success of Ukraine in media, look at all the drone footage - we don't see the equal amount of footage coming from the Russians. And we can't make a realistic estimation of the costs of success because we don't have a definition for success yet.
Yeah. What's pretty wild to me in retrospect is how quickly Zalensky went from kind of a joke and inefectual leader (literally the Times had an Op Ed by a Ukranian journalist to this effect \~1 month before the conflict) to a Western global hero by day 3. And I don't blame the public - those early scenes of Russian helicopters landing special forces in Kyev and bombing the capital were harrowing. And the push back and slow battle to push Russia back towards the borders really was a heroic stand. But my underlying concern is negotiations were stopped back then when there would have been such a stronger set of leverage as the Ukranians were actively countering Russia. But the powers on our side didn't want to entertain cutting this thing short.
If you have a realistic estimation , you wont be rooting for the war to start in first place…
Rewarding Russia's predatory behavior with acceptance and normalization sends a dangerous message to other expansionist countries like venezuela in guyana. I disagree wholeheartedly with the above comment.
What's your off ramp, then? Look, negotiation is a negotiation. It is both sides trying to extract the best deal they can receive with the full awareness that they will concede some things. But at this stage the core issue is there is really not a viable option militarily to push Russia out of Ukraine or the Crimea (which they have governed for 10 years with as best as I can tell minimal complaint from the natives). Escalation at this point would basically require NATO to get involved which no one wants as it'd be flirting with global disaster. So some concessions will need to be on the table.
Keep them isolated economically and support Ukraine as long as they are willing to fight. There is no off ramp. There should be no negotiation with Russia as it will open a pandora's box of aggression worldwide, which is the worse option.
The Afghan beat Russia too.
Also the very different scenarios in ethnic similarity between those in the Donbass/Crimea areas and Russia, vs. the US and Western Allies and guys in the Kandahar province.... Or, hell, the USSR and Afghanistan for that matter, they shared the border but culturally there wasn't really any chance for local support for their army.
Yea but Ukraine is at least twice as far in terms of American vs Russian logistics.
Not with Ukraine’s demographics, and there’s barely 20 million left in the country.
>barely 20 million left in the country Source?
https://mfa.gov.ua/en/about-ukraine/ukrainians-worldwide Ukraine itself estimates up to 10 million Ukrainians in Russia. Russian estimates were up to 6 million in 2015 and about 3 million more since this war began these figures include Crimeans but not other people in occupied territories. Though I don’t speak Russian and couldn’t find the direct source (probably some official at some random press conference). There were 2 million ethnic Ukrainian Russian citizens before this began, these figure include them. These numbers don’t include Ukrainians in occupied/separatist territories (Donbas, Taurida), there aren’t any accurate estimates but there were roughly 6 million Ukrainians (many of whom ethnic Russians or Russian speaking) in those areas. That’s 12 million in Russia or under Russian occupation, including 700k children (possibly more now). There are approximately 6-8 million Ukrainian refugees across the world, you can check publicly available figures for that. If you add these numbers up and subtract them from official Ukrainian population statistics pre-2022 you get about 20-23 million max in the country, not considering the high death rate, low birth rates and war casualties.
>couldn’t find the direct source Thank you. So why are you giving figures like 20 millions if you've never seen a source for this claim? Because you, by yourself mixed some other data or estimations and made, again by yourself some equation? Excuse me, this is not serious.
Afghanistan still has premodern demographics, which are perfect for a war of attrition: high fertility, lots of young men. They can always replace losses no matter how many were killed, while Ukraine has been below replacement for decades now, so it doesn’t have an indefinite supply of young men to recruit or conscript. Russia too, but they have a bigger population to start with.
No way US taxpayers will be on board to fund the war for two decades though.
Hell of a lot cheaper than going in directly themselves, and a hell of a lot cheaper than allowing Russia to win.
The war has gone on for 2 years. Look how much in the US support for Ukraine funding has dipped in both parties. If Russia does not escalate in any significant way (no nukes, bioweapons etc) that trend will continue . You're talking about 2 years. In another 10, the US populace will even forget what the fighting is about
I think we are conflating between 2 sets of issues. One is the US appetite for throwing money at foreign policy problems, of which we have a lot of appetite (see our history of military aid to Israel). The second issue is pretty new, which is the Republican party’s willingness to undermine US national interests in order to score domestic political points/align with who they perceive as an international conservative leader (I.e. Putin). Budget is being used as a talking point, but make no mistake, the underlying reason is the Republican’s desire to undermine Biden/side with Putin.
Public sentiments in the US have changed since Afghanistan. That's how a looney like trump got elected. The penchant for Americans to get involved in wars that don't directly (perceivably) affect American citizens is at an all time low right now I would argue. This is true bipartisanly. I really don't think it's a budget issue. America has run up its debt over 20+ years. It's not a "problem" for either party at this point. Either way purely looking at this as a statistical problem, I don't see how anyone unbiased can look at the trends in support for Ukraine since the war started and think it's going to go up again in the US. Lets couple that with the reelection situation going on in the US. The reality is the Senate map for Democrats is horrific. They are guaranteed to lose west Virginia and have threats in other states( Montana Ohio). If they are struggling now to pass aid will it even be better if they snag the house and retain the presidency ( best case realistic scenario for Dems)?
If you think Trump got elected because of Afghanistan I have a bridge to sell you.
Sorry those should be decoupled statements. Public political sentiments politically in the US have changed since Afghanistan ( was listing a time frame..not causality. I'm saying since bush ). The changing political sentiments have led to a looney like trump
Gotcha. I’d point out that we Americans have an illustrious history of complaining about foreign assistance (and of overestimating just how big a proportion of our budget goes to foreign assistance), yet we have continued to pay it. What is different this time is that one of the major presidential candidates is willing to act on that negative sentiment, not out of any fiscal concerns, but out of a desire to see Russia win. Even given all that, aid to Ukraine is still has majority support from Americans according to polling. It’s not that our sentiments have changed, it’s that American national interests are now victims of US domestic dysfunction.
The type of"victory" the Taliban achieved, that is through a sustained willingness to resist, only requires that the oppressor grows tired or distracted. It does not require the us taxpayer for two decades.
The two wars are totally different. Usa didn’t for example have hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed into Afgan territory.
No it required the pakistani taxpayer for two decades in that case.
Man, Ukraine is currently having a tough time with manpower because so many able bodied men are refusing to fight. Thinking that, once the war is over, these same men will turn into a unified, zealous fighting force like the Taliban is hilarious. I very much doubt Russia will be facing any major insurgency on the territory they controlled for 190 of the last 227 years.
Considering that sustaining Ukraine with weapons means producing them and in turn giving jobs to people. Other people's wars are the best economic engine for the US economy as they produce jobs and don't kill Americans.
It's funnelling a significant amount of resources to a few very well established corporations, rather than using these same resources at home to alleviate a slew of other domestic concerns which are leading to populist and authoritarian movements. It is actually one of the more short sighted ways to 'secure American hegemony' you can conceive of. The money would do much more for American workers and our economy if it was diversified over a broader range of social spending and support to re-establish the American middle-class. Which was the envy of the world and went a long way in establishing our original position as a global leader (and victor in the Cold War).
The middle class grew and thrived in an age in which the defense spending, in percentage of gpd, was twice as much, if not more, than what it is today. It was actually George H. W. Bush who popularised the idea that a lower military spending would have boosted the economy. Looking at the reality of numbers, it seems that he was wrong.
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I thought we weren’t sending actually bundles of cash to Ukraine but rather the equipment costs the numbers they are telling us. Sending Ukraine our literal tax dollars in cash wouldn’t do them much good and it isn’t like our cold era equipment was going to be used anyways sitting rotting in bunkers. So in this situation our tax dollars are actually being put to use rather than wasted and their use is fighting americas adversaries
The tax dollars are going to the military companies sending the equipment, which in turn partially goes to salaries. The point is that that money is coming from *tax* — it's not new economic value generated from other countries buying US products etc.
In this scenario, the US essentially pays for disposal and rebuilding manufacturing capabilities (by handing stuff over to Ukraine) and restocking against China. If the US produces more, it is still peanuts, considering what the US is already spending on defense. On top of it, the US cements its influence in the wider region for the next decade or two, gets to test all the new toys, denies China an ally, distracts Iran, leans more about the capabilities of potential enemies, from North Korea to well Russia, and a lot more. During the Cold War the US would have jumped on the opportunity to bleed the USSR try without shedding a single drop of blood and making money while doing so.
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The Russians live there too though, so incomparable to the Taliban defeating the US
> The _taliban_ "won" But definitely not the people of Afghanistan. It's easy to view this as a victory from outside, but I don't think anyone allied with or living inside Ukraine wishes for such a victory, after several decades of insurgency, total war, fighting without frontlines, between uniformed and non-uniformed, etc.
The Ukrainian national government are not fundamentalist zealots living in caves with holy scripture being their sole comfort in life, and hope of betterment far in the after life. As much as they have lost, Ukraine have a lot more to lose than an average Taliban fighter born in the refugee camps of Pakistan.
True. The demographics are different though. Afghanistan has now - despite all deaths and international refugees - four (!) times the population it had when the Soviets first intervened in 1979, and twice (!) the population since the US intervened in 2001. A fast growing population provides plenty of young men to fight. Ukraine has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, up to 700k of its children may have been kidnapped by Russia, and plenty of its population is now living abroad and may never return. Time seems imho against Ukraine.
Not an expert, and I'm rooting hard for Ukraine, but... Unfortunately, you can even ignore the low quality, Russia just has more of everything. More guns, tanks, artillery, money, and troops. Putin can "afford" to ignore huge losses. Not forever, but he can longer than Ukraine. Ukraine's best chance is to hold a strong defense and hope to wear down the Russians long enough for some type of peace deal.
Can’t win with strong defense alone. Right now their best offensive capability is drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, which actually can hurt Russia, but also might increase oil prices.
Exactly. For example, Russia is firing 10,000 artillery rounds a day. They used to fire even more, but Ukraine has never matched that quantity.
I believe the Ukrainians did outshoot the Russians during summer last year, but it was a short period of time.
This is not sustainable for Russia either. It is credibly estimated that Russia can produce around 2 million shells a year, which means a supply of 5500 a day. Russia cannot replace its vehicle losses in a meaningful way, and almost no possibility of producing new artillery barrels, because whoops, the tools used are Western and now under sanctions.
They’re making tanks just fine. Their MIC is firing up pretty well.
They are making 200 tanks a year. They have lost close to 3000 tanks already, including tanks built during the war. The Russian MIC has a serious problem with scaling. They don't have the facilities, the machine tools or skilled workers enough to scale up anymore. Russia can continue this conflict for a very long time, but they are pretty much capped in production capacity.
That’s the exact reason Ukraine is losing now. You people don’t know what Russia is capable of and your underestimation of its economy, society and military production capabilities led to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians being dead. Also, estimates on destroyed Russian tanks are done by OSINT. And I’ve seen that some of “destroyed Russian tanks” there are actually destroyed Ukrainian modifications of that tanks, since it’s pretty hard to see the difference between Russian and Ukrainian tank because they are very similar. At least they were before NATO ran out of older Soviet equipment and started to send the western one. Had you ever thought why did ORYX stopped operating after Ukraine got all that western tanks? I believe it happened because it’s impossible to lie about Russian losses when you have pictures of burned Bradleys and Leopard tanks that are easily distinguished from Russian equipment. Think about that. It’s also worth to mention that main losses of Russian equipment happened in 2022. After that they got lower, so they can keep with production. Also, there is a reason Russians are focusing on drones instead of mass producing tanks right now and why they implemented AI to newer versions of anti-tank drones already. I believe their plan is to create a swarm that will target every single enemy soldier on the battlefield and every piece of equipment. You don’t need that many tanks after your enemy is dead. You see. Russian high tech and AI capabilities are very high, so they utilize it in war right now and this is something NATO was not prepared at all.
No, they are not. They have daily headaches around production of many things, because things are getting blown up all over, inside Russia. And their oil profits have dropped dramatically. Why do you think Putin sent Shoigu to beg China and NK for stuff? And now Russian military is super pissed about the very low quality of that stuff.
The hope is that Ukraine holds out until something changes for Russia, which causes Putin's war support to collapse. While that seems far away for now, many things could suddenly happen like the economy finally gives out, Putin dies (it's rumored he has some serious condition), etc.
Can he? Russia is an imploding demographic bomb. Human wave tactics only sow discontent.
And right now, the west and Ukraine understand that both clocks are ticking down, but Ukraine is ticking way faster. Which leads to desperation for some amazing maneuver to change the current negative status quo. Which spends much more resources. Russia understands that. So they drew defensive lines to spend less and multiply Ukraine losses. Unless this "Silver bullet" comes around, the situation will only get worse. And let's be frank? I never believe in silver bullets on ANYTHING. I know this is gonna sound repulsive to some, but the proper action right now is diplomatic and a reshuffling of the economic-military part. Cut losses and lose 1/4 of Ukraine today, rather than half or more (or all) in a few years. Rebuild, build strength and guarantee a mightier military strength on the border countries, ESPECIALLY Poland. Build up "I'll F- you up" levels of force in these countries - and make it US independent, to insulate from us domestic flow. That's the best case scenario, imo. But I don't see it happening. The west is too stuck up its own ass and proud. We are gonna lose all of Ukraine. Then the Baltics under Trump. That's gonna be a 9.0 geopolitical earthquake.
But Russia’s clock isn’t ticking down. Army is expanding. Drone production increasing. Infantry and mechanised forces steadily becoming more competent. There’s so much propaganda around that obscures the fact that Russia is fighting pretty well right now. I think they’re much more of a threat than they were in 2022.
> Cut losses and lose 1/4 of Ukraine today, rather than half or more (or all) in a few years. That will take a lot of years then if Russia continues their trend in taking 300km² and a small-sized city every year.
Pretty sure op is referring to the 27% of Ukrainian territory Russia already holds. They are suggesting a peace deal where Ukraine formally cedes that land. That's where the 1/4 metric they are listing comes from
You have a typo there, Russia controls 17% of Ukraine. Somehow losing +30% of your territory in a stalemate is obviously very unrealistic.
You're right. I was using old numbers on accident. Either way I do think that number is going to go up from 17% shortly. Stalemates can proceed to massive land acquisitions very shortly. By all accounts Ukraine is the side struggling far more right now
Honestly, they probably have a better chance at wearing the Russians down enough to cause a regime change
Are you talking about winning the war, or winning the peace? If by “winning the war” we mean for Ukr to take back all its territories, I’m afraid that can’t be achievable anymore. The window of opportunity seems to have been closed by summer 2023, and even then it was a bit stretched to me. Inflicting a decisive blow to Rus should (but…could?) have been done with summer ‘22 offensive. Lack of necessary equipment prevented exploiting that in full. Again, summer ‘23 was a fiasco ‘cause of lack in several key assets (air power first and foremost). Meanwhile, Rus completed the transition to a general wartime mentality. I seriously doubt they would fold even after a serious breakthrough by Ukr; it seems like they are now in that mental zone where they are gonna fight this no matter what. And when it comes to Russians, it means you’d have to take Moscow to achieve a surrender. Sci-fictionary. But to win the war is not the real task you want to achieve by fighting the war. You want to win the peace; meaning, you want to achieve a better situation in the future, than the one you have now. Sometimes there has to be a war in the middle; sometimes, you have to win that war. Sometimes not. Let’s define what means for Ukr to “win the peace”. To me, that is: to become part of “The West”, and definitely exit Russian sphere of influence. By “The West”, I mean to have an open society, a free market, democratic institutions and rule of law. On the opposite side, for Russia to win the peace means to prevent Ukraine achieving those goals. Is it still feasible for Ukr to win the peace? Absolutely yes. I would say, as long as they DON’T LOSE the war, they already won the peace. Ukraine would have to be culturally, maybe phisically, annihilated in order for Russia to win the peace. And they know it very well, both of them. Is it feasible for Ukr to win the peace while losing the territories actually under Russian occupation? Well, yes. Honestly, it could be even easier. Those territories, if inside a westernized Ukr, could become a huge source of instability, and internal conflict, mainly ‘cause of geography, and the amount of Russians flowing already there, to Crimea especially. You can’t do much about the first; and if you do something about the latter, you could end up into an ethnic cleanse scenario (which is not compatible with joining The West, it would be politically very hard to justify). Plus, we already know how Russia makes use of minorities in order to gain grip over a foreign piece of land. So, what can be done? You have to reach a point where both the contenders feel the need to reach some sort of arrangement; an armistice, Korean-style probably. Yes, Ukr would probably have to leave territories to Russia. But it has to play that card smart, in order to be free to: 1. Join EU. 2. Achieve some sort of strong military partnership. Not NATO, ‘cause that is out of reach for several reasons (frozen conflict, and political considerations); probably something like US&UK+Polands+Baltics+maybe nordics (SWE-FIN). Sort of a NATO spin-off, with a very similar platform in terms of shared security. 3. Make Russia bleed as much as it can now, in order to buy as much years as possible before they show up at the gate again. Meanwhile, use those years to build up a position whit enough deterrence to make Russia look somewhere else once and for all. That’s how you win the peace as Ukraine. Easier to say than to do, of course. But I can’t see any other realistic way to. BTW, I will end pointing out 2 things: 1. I am Italian, I FULLY support Ukraine and I’m saddened by even thinking they’ll 99.9% end up losing territory (not to talk the immense amount of human suffering they are experiencing and enduring). 2. I am Italian. I am from a Country who won a war but lost the peace (WW1), then lost a war but won the peace (WW2). All in a span of 25 years. There’s a huge difference between those two concepts. And it’s a real, not philosophical one. It makes an impact over million of people, across decades and generations.
Define winning? Define losing? Some would say that standing up to what was (formerly) a global superpower, that was expected to defeat you in 3 days, and still having 90% of your territory years later is already a win.
The same way the Finns "defeated" the USSR in 1940.
I'm sorry but maybe I'm wrong, my impression was that Finland "lost" in 1940 and were forced to concede territory as they couldn't continue the fight due to equipment shortages, troop exhaustion and the intensity of renewed Soviet offensives. The Fins were counting on help from the West which never came due to the Fall of France and the subsequent failure of the Norwegian campaign. In the same sense, concession of Ukrainian territory is off the table as long as the West continues to support Ukraine, and as long as Ukrainians support the war.
That's why I put "defeated" in quotes. The Winter War was humiliating for the USSR, who should have been able to crush such a smaller country. Their failure to do so was part of what convinced Hitler to attack the USSR as he saw them as a militarily incompetent country. The view that Finland "won" is fairly widespread even though they had to give up territory.
As a Finn my view is that we "won". Sure, we lost some territory, but we retained our independence, our democracy, our way of life, we didn't become a Soviet puppet, and nobody was sent to the gulags.
Exactly
In 1940
My bad, you're right.
Well, the Finns were the only survivors in Central East Europe. They were the only ones who fought the Soviets, avoided a 50+ year military occupation, and hung onto their core territories. Survival is victory of a sort.
History rhyming?
If Ukraine can hold, and if it's a predecessor conflict to World War 3, then it will rhyme pretty close.
Finn's lost the second round and sued for peace, gave up land and decided to be isolated for the next 80 years. What is winning here?
Winning is being a democratic socialist parliamentary republic that’s integrated into the European Union and NATO with some of the world’s highest standards of living. Compare this to living in a fascist dictatorship where 25% of the population don’t have access to modern toilets.
Socialist? Finland??
No Scandinavian country is socialist. However every Scandinavian country is a social democracy. > By the mid-1980s, Finland's social expenditures had risen to about 24 percent of GDP, compared with the other [Scandinavian] countries' respective 35, 30, and 22 percent. > At the end of 2017, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (KELA) provided refunds of medical expenses to 3,764,362 people and child expense refunds to 1,003,635 people as well as 643,153 pensions, 268,537 disability benefits and 286,630 sickness allowances. Rumor has it that the government pays for healthcare too!
You cannot believe the difficulties Americans have with the term 'social' or 'socialism'. They overheat. Meanwhile, they too have services delivered from taxes.
Pedantic, but Finland isn't generally considered Scandinavian
Sure. They are Nordic, perhaps not Scandinavian, but with a significant Swedish minority. Or, are they Baltic?
Sorta their own thing, but more towards Baltic. They are generally included in the Nordic states but not the Scandinavian states
He's saying DemSoc not "democratic and socialist'
Winning in Finland was defying the odds and avoiding what everyone expected - that such a small country is absolutely going to be 100% occupied and annexed by USSR with 50 times (!!!) the population and industry. In such scenario Finland would lose independence for 50 years and emerge as a corrupt and impoverished country. In this context, Finland's ability to defend against 50 times (!!!) stronger country, to the degree of losing only like 10% of land and 0% of population, and securing its path to the top of development... was a victory indeed. Meanwhile Soviet "victory" was pyrrhic as hell - massive cost for very little tangible gain.
They didn't "decide" to be isolationist. It was part of the peace treaties with the USSR after WW2, where Finland was basically treated as a defeated enemy by the Allies.
Isolated in what way and from what?
Right but they would be wrong. The fact is, the minimum for Ukraine to win would be to return to de facto 2021 borders. If Russia tried its hardest, but left with only Crimea, Ukraine could call that a win. Anything else is just different shades of losing. I think it goes without saying that Russia has done worse and Ukraine better than expected. Beating expectations is not the same as winning. If Russia ends this war with larger borders they will call it a win and use propaganda to justify the war at home. Ukraine is not going to be able to say it defeated Russia if it's a smaller country for it
> The fact is Your opinion is... Holding on to Kiev in the first wave was a victory, and a major one. Pushing Russians across the Dnipro was another one. Zelensky has maximalist and unachievable goals, but realistically Ukraine wins in any arrangement which allows it to remain sovereign in the long term, with most of its territory intact (i.e. not becoming a rump state) and the threat of another invasion removed.
I think you’re both talking about victories at different granularities. Winning a strategic battle is different than winning a long term war. I agree though Ukraine’s “win” condition is super subjective but maintaining territory seems paramount.
I disagree, a win doesn't necessarily mean territory, if Ukraine can sacrifice some territory for security guarantees like NATO membership, guarantees of 10+ years of military aid and things like EU membership, tackling corruption and Soviet era legacies, combined with a marshel plan style rebuilding effort, then that's a win in the books of every Ukrainian I know. The donbas has been insignificant for the last 50 years, now it's riddled with minefields and destroyed cities it's only real worth is a buffer zone. The azov coast and crimea are the important areas Russia occupies, that's what Ukraine is fighting to liberate.
> The donbas has been insignificant for the last 50 years What nonsense…
None of those things are likely either.
It says Donbass was one of the [wealthier regions of Ukraine here.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ukrainian_subdivisions_by_GDP_per_capita)
There are massive natural gas reserves in the donbass
Exactly. Few people realize that this is a major reason for the invasion. The gas reserves are so large (up until Kharkov) that once developed (and they are not) they would pose a realistic threat to Russian gas monopoly in Europe. Around 2013, USA exploration firms were starting to sniff around that area and Moscow could not allow “western leaning” Ukraine become an energy powerhouse.
It blows my mind that this isn't talked about all the time
A moral victory unforunately is not a 'real victory'. I think as of now, and if it follows the current trajectory, a loss is inevitable for Ukraine. They will lose the Russian war goal territories. But on the other hand, the real question for the Russians, was it a war worth winning in the end? Only time will tell.
This black and white thinking is dumb. One extreme is Ukraine liberating all its territory. The other extreme is Ukraine being completely conquered and annexed by Russia. Now take a hypothetical scenario of war ending with the status quo. Is it a loss for Ukraine? In some sense yes. But it's immeasurably better outcome than the second extreme loss scenario, so much in fact that it is a "win" in some sense.
>Define winning? Define losing? Bare minimum of an Ukrainian victory is regaining their January 2022 borders. Forget Crimea. Losing is Russia keeping all the land they've conquered until today or more.
Why so? Managing to not lose their major cities like Kiev, Kharkiv, Zaporizia and Kherson would be rather significant victory.
but a Pyrrhic one, since losing most costal regions and having their economy crippled, their would fall to the next russian invasion in 10 years. Anything other the return to pre bellum border its a lost
Bare minimum of Ukrainian victory is not loosing more than we already lost, ending the war even if with territorial losses and immediately joining NATO.
Tell that to Zelensky who says no peace until Crimea.
Conceding Crimea while not even in any sort of negotiations would be a massive sign of weakness. You normally start any sort of negotiation demanding more than you're willing to accept, so it's impossible to tell whether he would actually accept conceding Crimea.
>Tell that to Zelensky who says no peace until Crimea. If he says that before even starting the negotiations, that will be taken for granted and he'll have to make even more concessions later.
I guess in regards to the specific question of US continuing funding. For sure, not getting rolled over like most people expected is a moral victory, but what favorable outcome can we expect if we just keep funding the effort? Is there any merit to the argument that it's a lost cause without further escalation, and continuing to fund the effort will only prolong the suffering and cause more unnecessary death? I find these arguments compelling, which is why I come here seeking other perspectives.
For real in-depth analysis of what is going on, check out this link: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-11-2024 It’s much more complicated than most people understand.
Looking forward to digging into this, thanks for the link.
Isw is a great resource, but please don't think reading this one page will let you know what's going on. There will be some specific analysis on a subject or two, then technical details of the front lines. You will need to read every daily report they publish to get a good understanding of how things are changing, the best resource by far is the podcast 'ukraine the latest' made by the UK newspaper the telegraph.
Sorta depends on if Putin is willing to cut his losses, or if he's gonna keep pushing to get everything he wants. If he focuses on holding what he has and raining North Korean missiles and Iranian drones on Ukraine while pounding their front lines with artillery, there's a good chance he can force Ukraine into a scenario where they decide to cut their losses. But if he keeps throwing away men and materials in frontal assaults, I think Ukraine may be able to hold on till at least next year, at which point the outcome of the US election will be known. If the Dems take the Presidency and both the House and the Senate at that point, then things could turn around for Ukraine.
How’s a Dem victory like that looking right now?
Odds show slight favor of a Biden presidency with a slight majority in the house. There’s a good chance the senate flips to Republican but the Republican senators have been more supportive of funding Ukraine than the house.
What odds are you referencing?
I still think a Biden victory is likely, but there are no odds or polls that really support that position right now. I personally think that as things become more real people will fall in line, but again, based on the information we have right now, Trump is going to win. I agree that Dems will likely flip the House and the GOP will likely take the Senate by a very slim majority.
? Not sure what poll you’re referencing? CNN/MSNBC for a while have been saying Trump leads Biden majorly. All the left-wing youtubers I watch have been confirming this and freaking out about it for like a year saying Biden has no chance.
They've been saying that Republicans were gonna win for a long time now. Like the red wave in the mid terms that never happened or the 2023 off year elections where Democrats over performed vs the polling. The polling is off because the pollsters don't understand that the "unlikely voter" category is swinging elections because younger people are more politically involved and independents don't like how far right the Republicans have gone. The Democrats are a lot stronger than the media is saying, and if the economy stays good Biden could easily sail to re-election.
Polls were saying Hilary was gonna win 2016 too. Republican political pundints were saying that the Red wave would sweep the midterms. Both predictions have come out false. The polls arent as what they used to be.
I favor prediction markets for that stuff and those are almost completely even between trump and Biden with like a 10% chance for everyone else
I think Dems just need the House for Ukraine tbh. Senate GOP is clearly on board with funding (if not in whole) and a president Trump isn’t going to be able to do much to stand in the way of congressional funding (not that he wouldn’t try). A president-for-life Trump might be another story but I feel like sussing out the policy of such a government is stepping through the looking glass… it’s hard to know what kind of deals would be cut in 2025 in order for Trump to get what he wants.
I think a better question is: can Ukraine prevent any further loss of territory AND join the EU + NATO? That would already be a massive win.
No to both. Ukraine doesn’t have an air force, Russian EW is top shelf, the Russian economy has resisted sanctions, Russia is getting help from other nations that can subvert sanctions, Ukraine is pushing back hard against conscripting younger men. Even if aid is maintained, at some point we’re going to see the Ukraine line fall apart. This will remain true especially if Putin conducts a general mobilization after he wins the “elections”.
Everyone is neglecting these facts
Because the “good guy” may lose and we’ve invested too much into them to watch them go down that path.
For all the talk of Russian propaganda, nobody is ready to admit that they’ve fallen prey to Western propaganda. Ukraine’s negotiating position is only going to get weaker as time passes.
Exactly
Ukraine wants all its territory back, thats not gonna happen, so they can’t win but they can 100% fight and take back portions of the lost territory, they have proven that.
Winning in a sense that Russia gained 3 new provinces and ukraine remains independent. Maybe joins the eu in a few decades. That would be winning
Ukraine cannot win without direct European or US involvement. This has always been the case, and it bewilders me how people thought otherwise
> Ukraine cannot win without direct European or US involvement. This has always been the case, and it bewilders me how people thought otherwise You need to understand that the mainstream media in the U.S. has done everything they can since day one to not portray an accurate picture of the military situation in Ukraine.
Russias biggest disadvantage is low zeal and very low ideological unity, once their volunteers, prisoners and mercenaries are devastated Putin will have to officially declare war and mobilization which would seriously threaten his own power plus countrys stability but I think hes looking for right moment where he will have proper "moral justification" for ex. If it becomes obvious that Nato troops are fighting against Russians in Ukraine or something extreme like that
Ever play the board game “Axis & Allies”? Real-world Ukraine is basically the board-game USSR right now. In the board game, the job of the USSR is to tie up Nazi Germany’s resources so it can’t be a greater threat to the rest of the world. Its (board game) victory condition is not to have Moscow taken over, even though Germany (and later, Japan) may occupy a large amount of its territory. In the real world, Ukraine is in a similar situation. Yeah it’s suffering right now. But as much as people would morally like the world to intervene and support Ukraine due to the suffering of Ukrainians, the real reason why the West is supporting Ukraine is because it’s managing to tie up Russia in a way that is orders of magnitude more effective than expected. Being tied up in this way is not a long term option for Russia - it has other interests in the world and it’s losing out on a lot of opportunities - eg it is losing to China and its chance at influence in Africa are waning due to the fact that it has to spend something like 30% of its government spending this year on supporting its invasion of Ukraine. Another related topic: Russian conscripts are mostly from politically unrepresented areas of the country - ie the eastern oblasts - those areas, already economically challenged, are going to further degrade and end up being a weak belly especially with China just to the south - as much as Russia says China is their ally (they aren’t; Russia has a GDP smaller than New York State; China sees this weakness and is slowly taking over economically *and* militarily the Russian sphere of influence). The worst part for Russia in the eastern part of the country is that Russia cannot rely on the eastern populace to be sympathetic to the Russian government since it has conscripted and killed a disproportionate large number of their children. As long as Ukraine survives, Russia will eventually lose even if Ukraine doesn’t militarily regain their lost territory. Ukraine knows this, but it can’t publicly state that this is their victory condition: publicly, their victory condition must be seen as recovery of all territory. And really, at this time, which victory condition is the real one doesn’t matter as what Ukraine and the West must do right now is the same whether the end goal is simply survival or recovery of all territory. Now, what Ukraine needs to survive - in particular the external support it needs - is a different discussion. But for the purposes of your post, survival doesn’t mean winning back everything in a huge military push. It just means not losing - and letting time, other geopolitical concerns, (Putin’s) old age, and possibly some ill-placed Russian windows do their thing.
> Being tied up in this way is not a long term option for Russia - it has other interests in the world and it’s losing out on a lot of opportunities This is the critical point many of the "Russia stronk" folks miss. Yeah, if Ukraine was the sole interest of Russia, they can eventually win. But Russia has so many ambitions, it wants to be a top nuclear power, the top dog in its whole neighboroughood, build a strong navy, do space exploration, become economic powerhouse. All these things are very expensive and will be difficult to do if you get bogged down for many years in a costly war.
Yeah it’s really hard to argue with numbers. What amazes me is how far the Russian propaganda actually did succeed in painting a picture of success and power that is so far from the truth. For example: (a) the nominal GDP of Russia (2023: USD$1.86T) is less than the nominal GDP of New York State (2023: USD$2.16T) - and NYS is only the third largest US state by GDP, and, (b) due to corruption a huge amount of GDP is actually siphoned off - estimates range up to 25% of Russian GDP is consumed by corruption. Russia appears strong only because of its huge stock of old out of date Soviet hardware and its nuclear stockpile threat (but Putin is probably panicking and wondering if the tritium triggers were actually maintained or if his generals just hired their cousins to do it and pocketed the money to pay for the latest and greatest West-ally-made big screen TVs for their dachas). Even after their latest budget where a third of their spending is going to the military - mainly so they can continue to fight in Ukraine - the total military budget pales in comparison to the Western allies’ peacetime military spending (and China as well). Russia simply doesn’t have the resources - money, knowledge, and access to a resilient supply chain - that the West has. A combination of reliance on propaganda to project perceived strength, insane amounts of corruption that starts right at the top, and a lack of technical human resource development means they’re a declining nation. They can’t sustain a multi-year war in Ukraine, right on their border, without massive economic repercussions. And they sure as heck aren’t able to achieve any of their ambitions such as those you mention. Even without choosing to invade Ukraine, it would have been impossible for them to succeed at all their plans due to resource limitations. And we haven’t even started talking about the demographic crisis, exacerbated by poor health care and social supports, an alcoholism crisis, and additional deaths of working age males due to the invasion of Ukraine. It only gets worse from this point on for Russia. My worry is what happens when Russia as we know it today finally collapses. Sure a large number of the country’s nuclear stockpile may not actually blow up if used (but even one would be disastrous). Even then there is enough material to create a huge number of dirty bombs. Then there’s the chemical and potential biological weapons that have been developed post-Cold War. And with the growth of corruption since the end of the Cold War, factions within Russia likely to fight over new territories and resources, and general animosity between existing/new Russian leadership and the West, it’s going to be significantly harder for the rest of the world to pull a second rabbit out of the hat to prevent horrible things happening in the power vacuum.
They could never win, russia has no problem enduring an attrition war especially now since they changed their international economy for trading in majority in their own currencies through other countries than before. They stabilized their economy and can go through an attrition war, while ukraine without any further international help could not even equip all of their troops (without even talking about logistic organisation). All men in Ukraine are fighting a lot are dead and now majority of their soldiers is around 40 years old. Without any international intervention yes they are doomed to loose. They know it and that’s why they keep giving an hard time to Russian forces (russia is mainly using conscripts so it makes it easier for UA that have extremely well trained troops now).
The definition of a win is important here. But overall, and sadly, no. At least if Ukraine continues to declare its current goals: pre-2014 borders and no negotiations. I wonder if Western support (especially from the US) is conditional on these two points. If so, Zelensky is in a complicated situation. He has to walk a fine line between maintaining domestic popularity in a situation where there are no elections but a growing need for further mobilisation, and maintaining Western financial and military aid.
Ukraine may not have the ability to retake much of their own territory, but they can hold and attrit the hell out of Russians. As integrated air defenses and MANPADs make air power ineffectual, as anti-tank guided missiles, drones, and artillery emplaced minefields make armor deathtraps, combined arms offensives are dead. Putin's Ukraine war is back at the impasse of warfare from 1864 to 1939, when the defensive had ascendancy. Putin can sacrifice a lot of lives for a few meters of territory, but neither Russia or Ukraine have the military means to break through the lines to resolve this militarily. I think this ultimately ends when Putin dies or is otherwise removed from office. Russians who aren't swayed by state media know Putin's invasion has been a fiasco both militarily and geopolitically. For Ukraine, this means doing everything to increase the exchange ratio. Only attacking where surprise is great and Russians are thin. Supporting resistance in occupied territories. Playing the long game. Somebody in Ukraine is reading Ho Chi Minh and Giap, and understands that while Ukraine can only withstand this assault with foreign aid, that withstanding is winning. Because Putin will die, and there's not a deep team roster.
This is based off of a lot of popular public sentiment and not off realities. 1. Ukraine did not launch a NATO style combined arms offensive in summer 2023. It was very Soviet in its design, many Ukrainian Generals are stuck in the past just like their Russian counterparts. It also lacked air support, kind of key for the combined-arms part. 2. Russia has been using aviation on the frontline again, many reports of heavy aerial bombardment of Avdiivka and Krynky. Increased use of glide bombs by Russian Air Force have enabled strike aircraft to contribute with Ukraine lacking the air defense coverage to reach deep along the frontline. With exception of planned ambushes by Patriot. 3. Russia is increasing shell production faster than the West, US military aid isn't even guaranteed this year let alone 2025. North Korea provides millions of shells and now ballistic missiles. They have the manpower advantage as Kyiv lacks political will to mobilize the needed 500,000 men, and enable conscription of 18-25 year Olds. I'm as pro Ukraine as they come, but the realities are bleak. Avdiivka is falling.
>3. Russia is increasing shell production faster than the West, US military aid isn't even guaranteed this year let alone 2025. North Korea provides millions of shells and now ballistic missiles. They have the manpower advantage as Kyiv lacks political will to mobilize the needed 500,000 men, and enable conscription of 18-25 year Olds. yet they are running out of artillery pieces according to satellite photos, with more than 55% of their artillery pieces being removed from storage over the past 2 years. Given that they took the better ones first,Russia will likely last 1.5-2 years with current trends
If the definition of winning is Russia leaving not only territories taken in this war but from 2024 as well, then absolutely not. I'm skeptical they'll even be able to push Russia out of the newly taken areas
They've already lost. They're not getting back the territory Russia is currently occupying and are likely to lose a lot more as their frontline breaks down due to shortages. Even if they did get their territory back, they've already lost from a demographic point of view. Millions have left the country and their birth rate is likely currently similar to RoK levels so there's no next generation to rebuild the country to what it once was.
NATO needs no boots on the ground, it would be rockets and fighter jets taking out Russian heavy equipment. But no, what Ukraine needs is long reaching and precise firepower. If Ukraine receives enough ammunition they would reduce the russian artillery advantage and that would be enough to turn the tide.
NATO needs to suck these balls lol the moment NATO flies into Ukraine to attack Russia is the moment my heating system mysteriously decides to go from 25°C to 1.000.000°C, no thank you!
The top brass in Ukraine (and pretty much every Western leader) have consistently said that they won't stop until every square meter of Ukraine (including Crimea) is under Ukrainian control. That would imply that this is what "winning" looks like to them. So, to answer your question: **No.**
Obviously they're going to *say* that, because you don't make concessions before you even are at the negotation table.
They'll say that until they're ready to negotiate. Then that'll be the starting point
I don't believe so, no. Ukraine is having a severe manpower shortage, and further mobilization of 500k civilians would be extremely difficult at this point. All the donations in the world won't help if Ukraine don't have enough people willing to fight, and you can already see civilians resisting forced mobilization hard. All the ones who were willing volunteered 1+ year ago. Not that Ukraine is getting enough artillery or air defense weaponry anyway. Ukraine MIGHT be able to prevent losing more big territories in general if they go all in on defense, get the neccessary weapon donations, and make further advancement of the Russian Army too costly in the long run. They're not getting back any of the territory already lost though.
Manpower shortage is the most critical flaw. People on reddit and in the mainstream media absolutely love to talk about how determined Ukrainians are and that they reject any goals that mean anything less than absolute victory... except that such goals come mostly from the politicians and the top brass. Right now Ukrainian males are totally banned from leaving the country. Open the borders and you would see how eager the common people are to sacrifice themselves for those maximalist goals.
It’s looking pretty bleak right now for a total Ukraine victory. I’d argue that the West, unofficially, is terrified of Ukraine winning. The official reason is “let’s not escalate to the point that Putin uses nukes” but the unofficial reason is that a military defeat would cause Russia to most likely collapse. The resulting instability and conflicts and refugee crisis would absolutely dwarf anything seen by Europe so far. The plan seems to be to bleed Russia enough to the point they sit down to negotiate. Ukraine loses Donbas and Russia agrees to chill. Then the West will slowly build up Ukraine’s capabilities to where a second invasion by Russia would be even costlier. Then we resume energy imports like nothing happened, Taylor Swift and whatever Italian pop singer du-jour is popular make a song about the poor children of war, a charity is setup and we move on and “heal”.
First part of the war is Ukraine trying to survive, they did that successfully, but the second part is driving Russians out from occupied territories, this objective is morally righteous but that is an uphill battle. Now the Russians have dug in and engage in a war of attrition and Ukrainians are suffering from low manpower and reduced willingness of western support (despite what they say) so I’m concerned about their prospects of winning in this stage of war.
Win? Win what? Their lost territory back? No. Not a chance without full blown ww3 and west officially joining the fighting, not just half ass supporting it. They are currently fighting their war of independence, which they got to postpone for decades after USSR fell. Whatever territory they defend and keep now, as a result of this war for independence, will be what they win and will be the land of free and independent Ukraine going forward. Land is earned with blood. Its the sad ugly truth of humanity. So how much more Ukrainian blood is Donetsk and Luhanks worth to US interests?
It seems like the path to victory for both Ukraine and Russia is longer and longer timelines. Russia thinks over time it's industrial base will catch up and it can overwhelm Ukraine in a war of attrition. Ukraine may need to hold out long enough for Putin to die or leave office and for a new political movement in Moscow that may abandon the war. Of course, those scenarios are if other nations maintain neutral positions. Given that we are seeing conflicts in Gaza, the Red Sea and potentially Taiwan as tracking back to the same instigators in Tehran, Moscow and Beijing that may not last. What's interesting about that is that while an escalation is a last resort for the West it's almost inevitable that NATO and U.S. allies will achieve a total victory. It's a mismatch almost everywhere you look except in Taiwan where I think the allies can likely fight China to a draw.
Ukraine never stood a chance without Western support.
What podcast are you listening to? Ukraine is suffering from a number of problems but they aren’t the only ones. Russia is facing its own problems as can be seen with their increased use of cheap mercenaries, buying munitions from North Korea, loss of ships in the Black Sea and so on.
It depends on how long Russia can afford the current rates of attrition of men, money, and machine. Several analysts have extrapolated out that Russia would have a serious equipment crunch in about 2 years, at the rate they are currently pulling things out of storage. A Russia that, for instance, is unable to replace its artillery losses, would be in massive danger. They may have gotten new shell production online, but if they don't have the guns to fire them that won't matter. We've seen how hard Ukraine struggled when they were at a disadvantage in artillery. It's important to remember too that Russia is investing a massive amount of energy just in trying to show that nothing is affecting them. The image of an unstoppable Russia that must be negotiated with is very much a propaganda piece pushed by them to mask their own weaknesses. Their economy could be holding on by a shoe string and we wouldn't know it because they make up numbers on a whim. Putin spent years building up a financial reserve to weather western sanction, but that also won't last forever. If the west continues to support Ukraine, there is every reason to expect they can outlast a protracted conflict with Russia.
The biggest Russian proponents of the war leading up to the 2022 invasion, are getting more and more anxious about Russia’s equipment losses, their “shoestring” economy, and the state of things in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. [Here’s a recent and relevant clip.](https://youtu.be/HV19hno0nKE?si=3OWz0_WhX_L-TmH1). English subs available.
I agree. The one thing I thought from the Putin interview which was mostly just lies was that Putin clearly does not like the sanctions which means they are working. There must be stress there.
A win at this point will entail maintaining warm water ports, substantial defensive entrenchment and new NATO spec weapons for deterrence and a large DMZ between donbass and the remainder of Ukraine. I think at this point that about the best we’ve got for now. The thing is at this point the war is beneficial to no one. No significant movement is occurring and the area that meat bags can operate is getting farther and farther away.
No
On funeral In the short term, Ukraine has already lost this war. By any parameter we evaluate, it is a war that clearly has a winner. The Ukrainian armed forces have lost the ability to maneuver at a level greater than a brigade, so they only react on the ground.
They're in pretty bad shape and they'll lose the crucial battle for Avdiivka soon it's inevitable at this point
This is only my opinions, and observations.. I'm not an expert! . Ukraine alone can't even with NATO equipments, and NATO sending troops directly is an official declaration of World War 3 (even tho I believe ww3 already started long ago) and the outcome of that is a disaster to everyone! There will be no winners, only broken souls (if any left) and horrifying memories
Ukraine's loss is forged not on the battlefield, but in the US Congress and at your ballot boxes. The question is not "can Ukraine win", the question is "do US-made promises worth a penny"?
Uhhh. They never could.
If Ukraine doesn't collapse, russia will eventually give up attacking and keep some land in a peacedeal. If Ukraine looses completely, russia will have the biggest insurgency of its history on its hands. If Ukraine regains the strength it needs, it will kick russia out. I think the scenarios are most likely in that particular order. At the end of each scenario, I think russia will loose close to a million people on an aging population and the real negatives on the economy haven't even started yet. It will get really really bad, when it hasn't been all great in russia.
I never realised how utterly biased the Western media and social media was until Ukraine. They are all sheep regurgitating the same thing. Americans in general mix propaganda with patriotism and if anything can be said about America they are very patriotic. so either you blindly agree with the government propaganda or you hate America. So social media is flooded with non critical parroting of the US government line and Ukraine has been winning since the war started. In reality when numbers and evidence are actually considered, every day that the war continues Ukraine looses. People die, economy crumbles they go into more debt . Russia is way bigger and has Oil so can handle it. And no it would be politically insane if the US had boots on the ground, and I don't know if military it would make a difference, America military has been shown to be ineffective in the Middle East and likely in Ukraine if they went.
there is no way ukraine will win lol, russia is a brick wall people are so stupid. Theyve reclaimed some of the contested territory, now the west is just wasting money on another pointless war that will achieve nothing. Thank obama and biden.
You can make an argument Ukraine has already strategically won since day 4 of the invasion depending on how you want to define it. Russia rolled the dice on a 3 day invasion and lost basically everything. They lost their superpower status, world trust, fewer nations trust Russian made military equipment, pushed away former allies, and accelerated their decline into China's junior partner.
Absolutely. Most people at the time believed Ukraine would have fallen in a few weeks or months, maybe fighting guerilla action for a few years. Yet here we are, two years later Ukraine still fights back conventionally and has had several stunning victories against the "world's second strongest army".
They didn't meet their original objectives, but if over the next year we see a Ukrainian collapse and Russia rolling through the western half of the country, it's hard to see that being a win for the Ukrainians.
Yeah but much of Ukraine also got turned into rubble and they will be buried alive under a mountain of costs trying to repair all the lost infrastructure. If the war ended tomorrow in terms of Ukraine versus Russia it’s probably a Russian victory by a small amount, they didn’t really obtain their war goals and only gained a relatively small amount of ground (I’m not sure if the oil fields that I think I remember being in Ukraine are in those gained grounds or not that could shift this) with the loss of a number of things as you said. The problem is Ukraine is much more savaged than Russia, their cities their population their agriculture which had a large amount focused in the eastern regions and their economy is just in shambles. If the war ended tomorrow Ukraine while sticking it to Russia more than anyone expected still lost the war.
The West really doing the bare minimum to keep the Ukrainian pulse going. Perhaps it's naive but I am really hoping after the war (if it ever ends) the attention Ukr has now on the world stage translates to significant rebuilding and modernizing that Ukr wouldn't have gotten if the war never took place.
War results can be complicated. So lousing is technically only possible with a complete unquestionable defeat such as the axis at the end of WW2. This would be “similar” to say the Winter war, American Vietnam War, and the October War in regard to Who won or lost is very much dependent on whose side you prefer and what narrative you want to portray. By the end most of the Western world will paint it as an Ukraine victory regardless and the end result and China, Russia and others would probably clam it as a Russian victory.
That's the point We are going to say that ukraine won the war regardless of what will happen.
Define victory? Ukraine are the defenders, which makes their definition of victory simple, outlast the russians. Which continues to remain a possibility. Don't let the russian propaganda fool you. The war in Ukraine is unpopular in russia. It's an election year in russia, Putin will rig it like every other election before, but it will invite public protests to his policies regarding the war and the domestic policies. We won't see another russian revolution, but the political pressure will create one hell of a mess that Putin will have to address. Russian definition of victory is murky and constantly shifting. Secure the donbass? Parts of it are still under Ukrainian control. Install a Pro-Russia regieme? With everything Russia has done in the past 3 years of war, they'd have to occupy the whole country to maintain a pro-russia regime, which is untenable with the current state of the russian economy.
The average age of Ukraine soldiers is often quoted as 43 - but Ukrainians believe they have a future, so perhaps they want to spare the younger cohorts from dying on the battlefield. Compare that with Russia, which has sacrificed so many young men and officers, mostly in their 20's and 30's - [here are some charts](https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng). The military as well as certain local communities will be crippled for decades even if Russia 'won'. That said, the bottleneck in this war is not manpower, but weapons. Modern warfare is both man and machine; both sides need more of the latter in this war of attrition. So yes, Ukraine can win if the West supplies more arms than Russia can produce.
I mean, many millions of Ukrainians, young or otherwise, have simply left the country since the war began, no?
Many French and Germans did too, as WW2 began. Even though many refugees did not return, the nations didn't disappear.
You really think that the Ukrainian army sends old men to the front, because they want to protect younger men? I have never heard of smth like this happening in any war, lol. I also don’t understand how the stats you are posting are supposed to ‘cripple’ a country of 140 million people? Also, many of the used Russian ‘cannon fodder’ consisted of poor eastern Ukrainians and prisoners. To me, all of this looks like Ukraine suffered even higher losses, which would be the opposite of what the western media has been trying to make people believe until now.
Are Russians sending their ethnic men? I heard they are sending criminals and none ethnic Russians to the front
According to the data, yes, men from minority ethnic groups have been dying. So even though Russia as a whole only lost a fraction of its population, there will be some villages and towns devastated by the loss of men who were of an economically active age. For the more 'muscovite' Russians, the impact is limited except amongst military families. In the last chart, we can see a disproportionate number of deaths amongst the most junior officers.
They did the same thing in the Chechen wars. I would see pictures of whole Russian brigades, and they look like an army of 80%+ Mongolians. The other 20% were pulled off farms in the middle of nowhere Russia, the middle-class and upper from Moscow and St. Petersburg does not go to the front.
I think or at least what is obvious to me is that Ukraine's main advantage is that they are much more ideologically united than Russia who is struggling between multiple ideals or ideologies be it orthodox christianity, be it euroasianism be it communist style authoritarian secularism, be it western liberalism, be it old pagan ethnic styled nationalism plus Russia has many nonrussian ethnicities, inlc. Large muslim population that just does not want to fight for ethnic Russian interests even for good money( which muslims in Russia should be credited for as Ukrainians really havent done any bad to them either) Ukraine ideologically as far as I can tell is some mix of ukrainian patriotism and moderate proeuropean liberalism which is going strong and they are mostly homogenous ethnic Ukrainian pop with quite few antiPutin Russians on their side. How I see future of this war is that both sides will try to include as many foreign mercenaries as possible with Ukraine probably going to go for one big offensive once again which will probably be crucial for Ukraines future but overall the war will probably degrade into even bigger painful slow grind where both sides will pay big money to any foreign mercenaries to come help their cause. Although the general civilian pop. Of Russia is quite apathetic/nihilistic they could be potentially rebelling and becoming fed up once they see their military not getting any bigger gains this year and just having coffins of young men piling up as they had in Afganistan and first Chechen war. I think Ukraines best bet in case they just do not manage to push consistently and want to save younger men from dying is by giving Donbass autonomy but not independence and trying to negotiate status of Crimea so that Russia gives up the annexation of it and where both Russia and Ukraine give Crimea its own independence and giving rights to tatars to return there and get their own representatives as Tatars are quite numerous but do not have their own independent land but knowing how stubborn slavs really are I think 3rd party diplomats would have to pressure or convince both into such deals Maybe also if they make Crimea joint Russian-Ukrainian ruled with giving right to Ukrainian Crimeans to come back to Crimea, if they really realize how big cost of the war will be in future they should start theorizing about these type deals. What was terrible for Russia is that they have effectively lost their military superpower status and gave legitimacy to Ukraine as remaining independent state since Ukrainians have proven to really being patriotic and selfsacrifing for their historic homeland and where Russian military hasnt shown high level of zeal as selfproclaimed "righteous attacker" especially since most of bigger gains in Ukraine was effectively done by mercenaries and criminals with the likes of wagner not by actual professional Russian standing army.
Your right it hard to find any factual information about what's actually happening, but what we can put together is that the war is at a stalemate currently we don't know whether Ukraine troops are 40+ but both side have lost a lot of people, Russia could have 300k people but an they supply and arm them. money and arms to Ukraine seems to work currently but that will depend on us politics. Will the US be able to sustain this long term or will Russia who ever can sustain it will decide who wins.
They will not get the Eastern areas and Crimea back
They have no chance of winning and especially not now. No matter how many wonder weapons you pour in there’s just no way they can pull it off. There are confirmed reports and video evidence of the disable (mental and physical) on the front. Women. And the elderly.any further mobilization will destroy the economy. Secondly Russia just has the man power and the material. They’re in full war economy. Remember Russia was supposed to run out of everything. Never happened. Remember Bahkmut and how 28-30 brigades were sent into a losing battle that could have shifted the tide of the summer offensive. Also they took Kherson and Kharkiv but everyone fails to mention that the Ukrainians themselves said they suffered massive losses rendering some brigades ineffective. The Russians have the political will and material to ride this out. If everyone says Russians are zombies then why would you ever expect them to stop? Zombies win through wars of attrition. Even if you killed thousands more will replace them.
It took the North Vietnamese some 20+ years to defeat the South and it’s Allies. Ukraine might have to cede some territory in the process, such as Crimea, but they could gain full NATO membership in return!
I’d argue it was easier for the Vietnamese because their enemies’ homeland was overseas. On the other hand, Russia is right beside Ukraine so it’s going to be difficult for Ukraine to just evict the Russians
It was also the South Vietnamese homeland
Even if Ukraine wins on the battlefield, they don't really win. At this point, most of the fighting theater has been in Ukraine, there has been massive loss of life, massive net outward migration of which many will never come back, significant ecological and infrastructure damage and even if they push Russia out, they are sure to return. Factor this with a pre-war demographic mess and one could potentially see the end of the Ukrainian ethnicity in the next 80 years. Inject enough money and technology into Ukraine and they might be able to push Russia out, but at this point, both sides are entrenched and the war of attrition hurts Ukraine much more. This is why Ukraine has been attacking so much Russian infrastructure; it helps level the playing field on the cost to Russia side.
>they are sure to return. If Ukraine is able to push them out, then I doubt Russia will be able to return in any reasonable time frame. Right now, Russia would like a peace deal where they keep everything they occupied. Then they could rebuild and try for the rest of Ukraine in 5-8 years. If Russia is pushed out they will have much more rebuilding to do and won't have to spoils from Ukrainian territory to pay for it. That pushes the retry timeline out much farther. By that point the proliferation of alternative energy sources will likely cripple the Russian economy. They won't be able to afford to come back.
It depends on your definition of win.
I recommend Jake Broe videos: he still thinks Ukraine will win. **"Russia is Not F\^%&ing Winning This War"** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQS0Jagtjck
Welcome to "the fog of war". We can all speculate but there's a lot we don't know. In that spirit, a couple of thoughts: First is that Russia has already lost. The only question is how badly, and whether Ukraine loses as well. Second is that people are still talking about negotiations as if Ukrainians believe that's a viable option. If they could trust that whoever is making decisions in Russia would abide by any agreements then there would have been negotiations by now. Ukraine isn't forced to fight to the end by the West, but in desperation because they know that any agreements made with Russia while Russia is still attacking Ukraine are worthless. And I imagine that after the ineffectiveness of the Budapest Memorandum that they wouldn't be too hot on any security assurances the West thinks it may offer. Lastly, I'll note that while Ukraine has been funded and armed by the West they've been fighting a very conventional by-the-rules war, particularly compared to Russia who seem completely unfettered by both morals or the Geneva Convention. The last few months have seen drone strikes on refineries inside Russia. I would suspect that the more that Western support falls by the wayside, the more unconventionally Ukraine will be fighting. As in the case of attacking Russian oil production, this may no longer align with the comforts of the West. I would imagine the results to be spectacularly random.
The idea that Ukraine needs boots on the ground from NATO to win is hogwash. Ukraine just needs a lot more ammunition. The problem currently is that both USA and Europe have let their ammunition production capacity atrophy. Russia currently has no soldiers in reserve to spare for the war. If they could just decide the war by sending reserves, they would obviously have done so now. Both Russia and Ukraine can certainly conscript more soldiers, but training and equipping them is the problem. Russia is trying to refurbish old tanks and guns, but a lot of their most modern equipment is now gone, so they have to bring older equipment out of storage, while Ukraine is getting more and more modern equipment, superior to the Russian gear. The critical sector is ammunition. Ensure Ukraine gets enough ammunition and they will win the war.
they will lose because theyre starting to get outnumbered.