The media won’t give me great answers to this question and I think this I trust this community more. Thus I want to know from you. Also, I have heard reports that Russia was winning the war, if that’s true, did the west miscalculate the situation by allowing diplomacy to take a backseat and allowing Ukraine to a large plethora of military resources?
PS: I realize there are many casualties on both sides and I am not trying to downplay the suffering, but I am curious as to how it is going for Ukraine. Right now I am hearing ever louder calls of Russia winning, those have existed forever, but they seem to have grown louder now, so I was wondering what you thought it. Also, I am somewhat concerned of allowing a dictatorship to just erase at it’s convenience a free and democratic country.
Arms dealers.
Reminds me of the starting scene in Lord of War
“Warlord.”
“I prefer it my way.”
Came here to say “Raytheon”.
The Military Industrial complex … which has no allegiance to any nation and controls more money than most nations in the planet.
Even the US is beholden to it’s power … one of the best descriptions of America is that I’ve ever read was …
The US isn’t a nation … it’s a corporation with a military.
Right now I am hearing ever louder calls of Russia winning
Winning was taking over the county at first. Then it was kherson, and donbass, crimea, and a few others. Now it’s just like 3 areas. If you’re hearing anything about winning it’s because the goal posts are moving.
Youtuber Perun had some good high level takes on the war. It all boils down to Western support will win. As long as support keeps coming from the rest of the world, eventually Russia will run out of material. WW2 was won (not wholly, but in large part) due to the larger economy being on the allies side.
Do provide us with sources where Russians stated these were the goals. Seems like it’s western propagandists who’ve been making up goals for Russia and then moving the goal posts.
Do I need sources for the failed invasion of Kyiv?
Everyone knows about it.
Yeah, I need sources for the fantastical claim that Russia was trying to take Kyiv with 100k troops. It’s a particularly interesting claim given that they allocated 40k troops to take Mariupol which is an order of magnitude smaller city. A far more plausible scenario is that Russia used 100k troops to fix a chunk of Ukrainian army around Kyiv while Russians took large parts of Ukrainian territory in the east which they still hold today.
The paratroopers in Kyiv’s airport were just taking in the scenery. Really unfortunate that they were shot. And that 50 km tank column headed for Kyiv really was just lost on its way to Mariupol. Yep, exactly, that’s what happened.
Lmao what a lame-ass trolling attempt, you have mush for brains if you think this is either effective propaganda or… funny?
The only one with mush for brains is the guy who thinks Russia would be trying to take Kyiv with 100k troops. The fact that you don’t even understand why that’s absurd makes it all the more hilarious.
The absurd claims of Russia’s goals are all from western propaganda. This is from the day of the invasion: https://www.rt.com/russia/550466-putin-ukraine-opeartion-goals/ What are their goals?
- Demilitarise Ukraine – This is a huge task, but they’re making fast progress.
- Denazify Ukraine – They’re failing this task, but it’s something that can’t be done until after the war anyway.
- Create a buffer between a NATO-member-Ukraine and Russia – Incorporating Donbas might satisfy this goal.
- Stop the sieges on Donetsk and Lugansk – This goal has been met.
And then they clarify, denazification is optional. A general occupation of Ukraine is not their plan.
If there is more land they want to occupy, then occupying and holding it now doesn’t actually further that goal. The only thing holding it now is good for is protecting the civilians or using it strategically, either industrially or for staging. Because if the country is successfully demilitarised, Ukraine won’t be able to resist occupation, so that land can be taken later for cheaper. But they haven’t outlined a goal of taking additional land. Crimea was already incorporated at the time, so that’s an extra implied goal – Don’t lose Russian land.
arms manufacturers
Came here to say this.
winners: arms manufacturers and dealers, “defense” industry, military-industrial complex
losers: soldiers, civilians
Truly the only trustworthy source
It’s mostly a war of attrition now, whoever can hold the stalemate longer than the other before everything unravels will win.
The war is largely in a stalemate at the moment. Odds are, if this continues for years longer, Russia will eventually win just by virtue of having more people to send to die for the country, but if it comes to that, Russia will suffer far moreso than they already are, both due to increased strikes within Russia and just loosing the majority of their working population.
Russia should have had the conventional phase all finished in a couple months, so by that measure Ukraine. Russia has also lost territory the whole way past the battle of Kiev, so by that measure also Ukraine. Neither look set to win any time soon, so by that measure (which is probably the important one) it’s a stalemate. The big variables now are Western support and Russian political stability as the conflict drags on. Neither side is close to running out of men.
The claims that Russia was winning the whole time come from basically the geopolitical version of flat earthers, who believe exactly the opposite of what everyone else does. Or actual Russian agents, but as far as I can tell that’s rare.
I’d say the only ones winning are those selling stuff to Ukraine and Russia. I also remember a panel some months ago, about how the other EU countries will help rebuild Ukraine once the war is over. To me, it looked like they were already slicing the not even dead body in order to profit off it.
Ukraine as a whole is at a bigger loss, given all the infrastructure damage and population losses, this one counting both deaths and people fleeing the country.
How is rebuilding a country equivalent to slicing it up?
Slicing it up like slicing a cake. Dividing up the profits between themselves. Rebuilding a country doesn’t happen for free you know. There’s no depths to the debt the west can plunge Ukraine into over this war, unless we force Russia to pay. I hear they have lots of oil.
What a terrible analogy. It implies that “rebuilding” Ukraine will actually involve destroying it just because people are paid to do the work.
The capitalist class. War profiteers gonna war profiteer. The billions of dollars in funding, arming, and training nazis has also broken the overton window. It’s gotten so bad that criticism received for giving a standing ovation to an ss veteran can be dismissed as Russian propaganda.
There’s like twenty Hexbear dorks in this thread saying exactly the same thing, you’re not a very original bunch.
Objective shitjustworks post calling out the military industrial complex
hexbear dork spreading kremlin misinformation by attacking the pro-democracy lethal aid suppliers
Hexbear user ranting about nazis, you mean.
There has been some good answers, but I’m not entirely satisfied with the details, so I will add my own response.
Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.
Russia sees the former Soviet Union countries as property of the Rus people, and NATO involvement as outsider influence in affairs that do not concern them.
Globally, the world values stability more than they value justice or peace. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, it came after several other invasions of other former Soviet countries. There was little global response on any occasion.
Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.
This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability. Gas, oil and grain were traded openly with Russia and Ukraine and a war upset the market right when the world was trying to stabilise markets rocked by inflation, pandemic recovery and suppy chain problems.
The result was many countries around the world pledging military support. This was always older generation materiel which essentially costs those countries to maintain. It was the global equivalent of giving a homeless man the doggy bag you didn’t want anyway.
Why did they do this? They wanted Russia to pull back, return to its 2014 lines and go back to stability so that global markets could resume. So they gave Ukraine just enough to defend itself, but not enough to win.
Why did they do this? Because the world wants stability more than peace. Of the pledges of materiel, almost none has actually come to fruition. About 1/4 of the armor promised has arrived that was promised. Ukraine continues to beg for alms (or in this case arms), and they do amazing things with the little they are given.
Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win. They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence. It does not in this case as the World is only just coming to terms that Russia will not stop just for stability.
Putin will cease to be leader if he pulls back. The Russian leader would be seen as weak, and the Russian culture loves a Tsar. Putin believes in luck and will continue the sunk cost in the hope that some outside factor or random event will go in his favor.
The West is already getting bored and tired of a war they aren’t even fighting. There is a possibility that pro-Russian Republicans could regain office or power in the US. All Putin has to do is hold and eventually the West will even start telling Ukraine to capitulate to them.
Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn’t really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.
This current grinding stalemate is a direct result of world policy. The world supplies Ukraine with just enough so they don’t lose, but not enough that they can win. In the meantime, the arms dealers are circling like sharks. India and China are cashing in on filling global supply gaps and taking advantage of Russias need for materiel frozen by sanctions. The hope would be that world leaders realise before it’s too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.
This seems mostly right, but I want to add a few points.
The first is that the Ukrainians won’t stop fighting if the west stops supporting them. They may suffer some severe defeats and the nature of the war may shift to being more of a guerrilla insurgency, but they won’t stop fighting.
The second is that even if the US withdraws support, it’s not likely that European nations will necessarily follow, and between Germany and the UK and France, the Europeans can easily continue to support Ukraine at or above current levels.
My final point is that Ukraine actually is making slow progress in pushing back the Russians, it’s just not going anywhere near as fast as anyone would like.
I also really dislike the term “stalemate” because it implies a static state of affairs as in a chess game where there are only so many pieces and moves, when in fact war is much different in the sense that additional pieces and moves can and probably will be added to the equation.
But the EU countries also dont want Ukraine to decisively push the Russians out. The longer the war goes, the more Russia will weaken itself, being less of a threat in the long run.
Also Germany is a puppet of the US, when it comes to military decisions. They will do what the US tells them to do and if Trump tells them to kiss Putins ass they will do that. They already did that before without the US telling them.
This post is pure and unadulterated bullshit.
Germany didn’t go to Iraq with the US.
Germany will never stop supporting Ukraine.You are full of shit.
Then why did Germany hesitate to promise equipment and unserselivered on its promises?
Also Germany did nit put boots on the ground in Iraq, which would be unconstitutional anyways, but it did provide extensive support to the US. US army bases in Germany were integral to the logistics and control of the US invasion. Germany did everything it could to support the Iraq invasion within its own legal limits.
Before swinging big accusations, maybe consider judging politics by actions instead of words
examples of Russia weakening itself
- https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-factory-activity-grows-fastest-pace-over-six-years-sept-pmi-2023-10-02/
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-15/russia-s-war-economy-sees-key-sectors-shrugging-off-sanctions
perhaps you were thinking of the US?
Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.
Except that now we have Ukrainian chief negotiator having come out and openly admitted that Russia and Ukraine were on a verge of making a deal back in last March before Boris Johnson sabotaged it. The only reason this was is still going on is because the west couldn’t accept peace and decided to cynically push Ukraine into further conflict.
The result was many countries around the world pledging military support.
What actually happened was that NATO countries wanted to break and balkanize Russia, which was openly said by lots of western officials. The west made a mistake thinking that they could easily break Russian economy using sanctions while using Ukraine as a proxy without having to put NATO boots on the ground. Now we’re seeing this massively backfire with western economies going into a recession while Russian economy is now growing.
Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win.
They literally can’t, and even NATO officials now admit that the west lacks industrial capacity to keep up with Russia even in basic things such as shell production.
They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence.
This is not a problem that can be fixed by throwing money at it. This requires building factories, training workers, creating supply chains and so on. These things simply can’t be done overnight. All throwing money at the problem does is raise prices as anybody with even a modicum of economic knowledge could’ve predicted
Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn’t really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.
How to say you’re a racist without saying you’re a racist.
The hope would be that world leaders realise before it’s too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.
There was never any scenario in which Ukraine could win and it’s absolutely incredible that western propaganda machine managed to convince so many people of this insane fantasy. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians lost their lives in a NATO proxy war with Russia, and Ukraine will likely cease to exist as a functioning state at the end of all this. All for the insatiable need for NATO expansion. Stoltenberg finally let the cat out of the bag and told us that this was the real reason for the war:
Except that now we have Ukrainian chief negotiator having come out and openly admitted that Russia and Ukraine were on a verge of making a deal back in last March before Boris Johnson sabotaged it.
Source? Because the only “deal” I can find is basically a surrender of Crimea and the Donbas in 2022.
Now we’re seeing this massively backfire with western economies going into a recession while Russian economy is now growing.
Again, source? Sure, this is true if you look at single numbers, but there are huge difference between Europe shifting away from over a decade of quantitative easing and into repair mode, and Russia who is nationalizing businesses left and right and forcing companies to sell them foreign currencies at a discount to prop up the ruble. The need for foreign capital is so massive, due to capital flight, you can land 15% interest in Russia right now.
The three things propping up the Russian economy are the high oil price, China and massive government intervention.
even NATO officials now admit that the west lacks industrial capacity to keep up with Russia even in basic things such as shell production.
Because lobbing shells at eachother is Soviet doctrine, not NATO. NATO doctrine is to bomb the everloving shit out of someone with massive air superiority. If NATO decided to send 200 F35s to Ukraine, there would be no need to more 155mm shells.
And because it’s not doctrine, nobody really wants to build more artillery factories that will sell great now, and get mothballed in 5 years. If Russia steps into NATO territory, those factories will sprout like mushrooms, but it’s simply a bad business decision to do so now.
He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe
And tell me, when a dictator known for annexing other countries demands appeasement, how effective has that been historically? I don’t even need Czechoslovakia for this example, although it’s a classic. Did Russia stop after, say, two Chechen wars, Georgia, Abkhazia?
“There wouldn’t have been a war if putin got what he wanted without one” is a shit take
Source? Because the only “deal” I can find is basically a surrender of Crimea and the Donbas in 2022.
https://www.aaronmate.net/p/ukraines-top-negotiator-confirms
Again, source?
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-15/russia-s-war-economy-sees-key-sectors-shrugging-off-sanctions
- https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/08/euro-zone-enters-recession-after-germany-ireland-growth-revision.html
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-30/finland-s-economy-shrinks-most-since-2020-in-broad-based-decline
- https://www.euronews.com/business/2023/11/24/german-economy-shrinks-as-household-spending-falls
Europe is in deep shit because it got cut off from cheap pipeline gas. Plain and simple. Now, Europe is forced to buy LNG on the spot market at an order of magnitude higher price, and a large chunk of this LNG still comes from Russia. The only difference is that now it’s sold through middlemen at even higher markup. German industry is no longer competitive with China, and it’s now shutting down
- https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-11-28/germany-budget-crisis-worlds-worst-performing-major-economy
- https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/10/why-germanys-once-miracle-economy-is-turning-into-a-mirage
The three things propping up the Russian economy are the high oil price, China and massive government intervention.
Russian factory activity grew at fastest pace in over six years in September. This should not be a surprise to anyone because western companies left a void that’s now being filled domestically
On the other hand, US manufacturing output actually shrank to lowest in three years
Because lobbing shells at eachother is Soviet doctrine, not NATO. NATO doctrine is to bomb the everloving shit out of someone with massive air superiority. If NATO decided to send 200 F35s to Ukraine, there would be no need to more 155mm shells.
Because lobbing shells is what actually works. Vast majority of casualties in the war come from artillery fire. That’s the reality. All the magic NATO wunderwaffe failed to make any visible impact in the conflict. IF NATO decided to send 200 F35s to Ukraine, they would just be shot down by Russian air defence. Also, the fact that you think F35s would make any difference in this kind of war shows your profound lack of understanding of the subject you’re attempting to debate here.
And because it’s not doctrine, nobody really wants to build more artillery factories that will sell great now, and get mothballed in 5 years.
NATO isn’t building artillery factories because NATO shipped all its industry overseas and isn’t capable for producing the basics that any army needs.
And tell me, when a dictator known for annexing other countries demands appeasement, how effective has that been historically? I
Once again you show deep and profound ignorance of the subject you’re opining on. To help you get a bit of an understanding, let’s take a look at a few slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and a proponent of US global hegemony. First, here’s the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
here’s how the election in 2004 went:
this is the 2010 election:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
Ukraine is clearly not some homogeneous blob, but a large country with complex cultural and ethnic situations.
In fact, what we see in Ukraine is directly modelled on what NATO did in Yugoslavia where NATO recognized breakaway regions and then had them invite NATO to help break up Yugoslavia. Russia recognized LPR and DPR and then had them invite Russia to help. So, if you want to know how that works out then you can look at modern Serbia and the breakway regions.
“There wouldn’t have been a war if putin got what he wanted without one” is a shit take
There wouldn’t be a war if NATO just got to do what it wanted is the only shit take here.
Funny how you request sources to one argument but swallow the other without question and provide none for your counter arguments.
This is quite the work of fiction you’ve written here. I wouldn’t even know where to start with all of your lies.
Literally provided sources, but you keep on living in your fantasy wonderland buddy.
Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.
I was wondering if you could provide something to back this up since these are rather sweeping claims.
The only thing I can think of that comes close is Dugin’s writings but I have never seen anything that could suggest that his ideas are widely accepted or adopted as the state’s doctrines.
Timothy Snyder makes a pretty convincing case for it in “The Road to Unfreedom.” It was published in 2018 so probably written in 2016 and 2017 at the latest, and it looks ridiculously prescient now.
Can you help me towards some starting points in the book where he explains this? Here are some digital copies of the book in case you don’t have one at hand: http://libgen.is/search.php?req=the+road+to+unfreedom&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def
Define “winning”.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.
Could you point to where Ukraine is actually gaining ground. Last I checked, Russia gained more ground than Ukraine in the past six months.
South of Orikhiv: https://deepstatemap.live/en#9/47.5023/35.8704
South of the Dneipro River https://deepstatemap.live/en#9/46.6589/32.7036
South of Bakhmut https://deepstatemap.live/en#10/48.4939/37.9399
There’s not a lot of recent movement from either side. The Russians are dug in, and the conditions are awful. Still, Russia are losing men at horrific rates, higher than at any point upto now.
If you look at liveuamap which is a pro western source, it’s pretty clearly that Russia is on the offensive all across the front https://liveuamap.com/
Meanwhile, NYT has a helpful chart showing territorial changes over the summer https://archive.ph/U3BzJ
Russian army is currently routing Ukrainians in Avdiivka as we speak, and this a large city that had population over 30 thousand before the war. This also happens to be the part of Ukraine’s only fortified line.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/whats-stake-russias-assault-avdiivka-2023-12-01/
The Russians are dug in, and the conditions are awful. Still, Russia are losing men at horrific rates, higher than at any point upto now.
That’s weird, because the only actual western source that shows any methodology puts total Russian casualties at 38 thousand, meanwhile even western sources now admit that Ukrainian casualties are now at well over a 100 thousand
https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng
Oh and here’s how things are going south of Dnieper https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67565508
"The entire river crossing is under constant fire. I’ve seen boats with my comrades on board just disappear into the water after being hit, lost forever to the Dnipro river.
"We must carry everything with us - generators, fuel and food. When you’re setting up a bridgehead you need a lot of everything, but supplies weren’t planned for this area.
"We thought after we made it there the enemy would flee and then we could calmly transport everything we needed, but it didn’t turn out that way.
“When we arrived on the [eastern] bank, the enemy were waiting. Russians we managed to capture said their forces were tipped off about our landing so when we got there, they knew exactly where to find us. They threw everything at us - artillery, mortars and flame thrower systems. I thought I’d never get out.”
Seems like things along the other parts of the front are going about the same https://archive.ph/2023.12.04-165309/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/04/ukraine-counteroffensive-stalled-russia-war-defenses/
- Seventy percent of troops in one of the brigades leading the counteroffensive, and equipped with the newest Western weapons, entered battle with no combat experience.
- Ukraine’s setbacks on the battlefield led to rifts with the United States over how best to cut through deep Russian defenses.
- The commander of U.S. forces in Europe couldn’t get in touch with Ukraine’s top commander for weeks in the early part of the campaign amid tension over the American’s second-guessing of battlefield decisions.
- Each side blamed the other for mistakes or miscalculations. U.S. military officials concluded that Ukraine had fallen short in basic military tactics, including the use of ground reconnaissance to understand the density of minefields. Ukrainian officials said the Americans didn’t seem to comprehend how attack drones and other technology had transformed the battlefield.
- In all, Ukraine has retaken only about 200 square miles of territory, at a cost of thousands of dead and wounded and billions in Western military aid in 2023 alone.
Sounds like Ukraine is doing pretty great there.
Russian army is currently routing Ukrainians in Avdiivka as we speak
Not hardly. Russian sources keep misreporting this battle. The coke plant is a great example: How many times has it been “taken”? Was capturing it once not enough? That kind of location doesn’t switch hands on a whim, btw.
The troop movements by Russia into that city are horrendous. The sheer numbers of soldiers that get turned into paste while charging into useless locations already zeroed by artillery is just weird.
A proven fact of war is that attackers are always at a disadvantage. Troop losses will be generally be much higher for any side that goes on the offense. The number 38k is just mind boggling low for the length of time it takes for Russia to take a city, especially against western weapons.
If 38k losses for Russia were actually a thing, there would be no need to increase their army size. Medvedev stated that Russia was able to recruit an additional 420k soldiers. That number is probably only about 100k, because Russia has their own numbering system for a lot of things.
Wagner alone lost ~10k prisoner conscripts in Bakhmut. Depending on the weather, or whatever, Wagner existed, or they never existed. Those numbers don’t count as Russians, I guess.
If you want a much better source of evil western fake data and propaganda, use the ISW. They also confirmed a NATO statement about Russia being at the 300k loss mark. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates
Normally, I would say that 300k is likely over-inflated as well. However, just looking at how attacks are conducted by Russia makes that number believable.
Not hardly. Russian sources keep misreporting this battle. The coke plant is a great example: How many times has it been “taken”? Was capturing it once not enough? That kind of location doesn’t switch hands on a whim, btw.
Even Ukrainian sources admit this now. Given that Ukraine spent six month trying to take a place called Piatykhatky which literally translates into five huts, the fact that Russia is now close to taking a city that used to have 30k people before the war, and has been heavily fortified shows which side is making actual progress.
The troop movements by Russia into that city are horrendous. The sheer numbers of soldiers that get turned into paste while charging into useless locations already zeroed by artillery is just weird.
Ah yes, bazillion Russians killed, asiatic hordes, and orc meat wave tactics. We’ve heard all that. By this point Russia must’ve lost like a 100 million people already.
A proven fact of war is that attackers are always at a disadvantage.
People keep regurgitating this, but that only applies to equal armies where the defender actually has weapons and troops to match. Russia massively outguns Ukraine, and vast majority of losses in this war are to artillery fire. If you actually wanted to understand what’s going on, you could read this explanation from Mearsheimer that’s well sourced.
The reality is that Russia enjoys roughly 10x artillery advantage over Ukraine, and that results in far greater casualties on the Ukrainian side. Ukraine has gone through three whole armies already, and they’re now literally mobilizing children, women, and the elderly. Meanwhile, Russia has only done a single mobilization in this whole time.
The number 38k is just mind boggling low for the length of time it takes for Russia to take a city, especially against western weapons.
38k number is total Russian losses since the start of the war.
If you want a much better source of evil western fake data and propaganda, use the ISW.
ISW is not a reliable source by any stretch of imagination. It’s Nuland’s personal propaganda outlet. There is literally zero evidence for Russian losses being anywhere near 300k. BBC and Mediazona are the only western outlets that have a methodology they can show.
Assuming that everything we both are saying is false, the fact remains that Russia hasn’t hardly been able to move the lines at all. You can flash that chart you want with land gains from 2023, but it doesn’t really apply.
Russia is still an attacking force, they are still the invaders and they are locked in a slow stalemate with a much smaller force. Russia does have many more resources, so it must be their choice to have stretched this conflict out for as long as it has been going, for whatever reason. (Without a doubt, you have a long list of counter arguments and media links to the contrary. Even your boy Rybar doesn’t align with what you are saying.)
I respect the work of Mediazona to a degree, but they are open about their inaccuracies. They appear to define “casualties” as only deaths. Of those deaths, they are only counting verified ones from social media, local news and from government sources that aren’t named. If they aren’t counting a casualty in the true definition of a “war casualty”, the numbers are going to be different. (Their own estimates put true numbers of deaths around 55k in July which would put allow for a wider casualty estimate of around 165k casualties. You use the napkin math of 1:3, killed:removed from battle permanently)
“The figures we provide are sourced from publicly available information, including social media posts from family members, local media coverage, and official statements from local authorities. However, these figures represent only a partial account and do not reflect the full extent of the casualties.”
And yeah, it’s the Russian M.O. to use mass instead of quality. It’s their thing. Little value is placed on a single soldier or even an artillery shell. That concept is baked into all of their military hardware designs and strategy.
Russia’s goal hasn’t been to move the lines. Their goal is to grind down Ukrainian army until it collapses. You don’t have to take my word for it, this was the assessment of U.S. Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin retired after 20 years of service, including eight years as an armor officer with four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and 12 years working as a modeling and simulations officer in NATO and U.S. Army concept development and experimentation. This assessment is shared by vast majority of military experts:
https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukraine
Russia is still an attacking force, they are still the invaders and they are locked in a slow stalemate with a much smaller force.
That’s a simplistic characterization. The reality is that both sides do their share of attacks. For example, if Russia takes a bit of territory then Ukraine is forced to try and take it back. Ukraine has also conducted a huge offensive over the past six months on a far bigger scale than anything Russia’s done so far, and if attacking is what nets you a lot of losses then this would be the biggest source of casualties over the course of the war.
I don’t really follow Rybar, I haven’t found them to be all that reliable. People like Vershinin, Macgregor, Berletic, and Mearsheimer have been consistently decent at explaining what’s happening, and what they’ve been predicting would happen actually aligns with what we’re seeing. Telegram channels are simply not comparable to actual experts.
55k deaths with 165k wounded is certainly a plausible number in my opinion. However, even with these numbers, Russia clearly has no problems growing the size of the army. Meanwhile, Ukraine has a much smaller population to draw on, and many people fled the country at the start of the war making the situation worse. The fact that Ukraine keeps expanding the mobilization efforts is a strong indicator of serious losses.
Ukraine has three major problems. First is that it’s entirely reliant on the west economically, and support is now dwindling. Second is that Ukraine is also reliant on the west for weapons and ammunition which are running out. Especially problematic given that the west is refocusing it’s support to backing Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Finally, Ukraine is running out of a trained and motivated soldiers needed to hold the army together. Once the professional core is gone, it can’t simply be replaced by people kidnapped off the street and given a few weeks of training.
And yeah, it’s the Russian M.O. to use mass instead of quality.
It’s absolutely not their thing, and it’s just another piece of western mythology. You should read a bit of actual history of WW2 to see this has no basis in reality.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.
Really? I was hearing the opposite all this while. PS: Slowly and very painfully, fuck, I wish there was an end to this war and we could return to status quo!
From euronews news bulletins I know Ukraine has crossed the dnipro and cleared a stable bridge head to get more troops to that russian occupied side. Also they said that nuklear reactor the russians occupied, near the front, is in danger again, because it has been cut off from electricity and had to run gasoline generators to cool it.
This shows ukraine is advancing slowly.
I was hearing the opposite all this while.
From where? There are multiple, reasonably reputable maps available that show the lines, and regardless of who the map makers support, they have to be accurate because of how easily they can be proven wrong if they make false claims.
Besides, much like Vietnam, or the many wars in Afghanistan, victory won’t happen on the battlefield, it will happen when the invader finally gets tired of paying the price of war.
From where?
Indian media mainly, I haven’t explored out of the Indian media bubble though.
Interesting. I know they’ve historically been close to Russia, I didn’t realise they still had so much support.
You might be stuck in an alt right algorithm.
Or possibly a tankie one
Tankie is to liberals as woke is to conservatives but y’all aren’t ready for that conversation
Tankie seems more targeted then woke. Woke is everything left of Reagan sometimes.
Tankie is, at it’s most general, anyone supporting authoritarian measures for “left” wing reasons.
As if. I seen someone call JT tankie in that famous Hasan clip.
It’s literally just “you’re to the left of me and I don’t like it”
Jt does support statist solutions. I mean so do I so yeah he’s not a tankie to me, but for some anarchy is the only acceptable end game.
Again it’s not generally a “too left” thing, but “too authoritarian” thing.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground
That doesn’t seem right. In 2023 they actually lost more ground than they gained. At least that was the situation until this september, but i don’t think there where significant developments in the last 2 months.
The numbers are so small, it’s not an argument worth having. What is certainly true is that Russia is sending wave upon wave of men to their death against Ukrainian defences. All for very little gain. Russia lost more people in November than any month so far in this conflict, and any month during Afghanistan. The numbers are horrific. Putin has just ordered another round of drafting, and they were scraping the barrel last time.
To add to what a lot of people said, it seems that Ukraine is doing better, but Russia has more people / convicts / anti-fascists to (arrest then) throw at the other side. When the support for Ukraine dries up is a key question too.
if by “doing better” you mean conscripting women and children then yeah, ukraine is kicking ass
Russia. It’s a war of attrition and Russia has the manpower and industrial capacity
the west didn’t misread the situatiom because the west doesn’t care about Ukraine they just wanted to kill people
You probably shouldn’t be getting your news from randos on the internet. Literally anyone can post here.
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I mean, this isn’t a very important piece of news for me, so, I am just looking at the consensus here.
As others have said, it’s a war of attrition. There’s no end in sight. As it stands, we can only speculate on who is winning. Russia have so far failed to make any significant gains, and Ukraine have so far failed to push the Russians out.
It’s a bit like the stalemates of trench warfare in WW1. Something will have to give eventually.
Or, the fighting will eventually stop and the current status quo will remain permanent. It’s hard to tell.
That’s probably the only outcome that will never happen. Russia will re-attack again (as seen 2008, 2014, etc etc).
It’s like the trenches of WWI combined with the forever wars the US fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congratulations Russia, you’ve saddled yourself with a decades long conflict potentially and lost the geopolitical purpose of invading Ukraine within months since Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership.
Sweden and Finland were part of the EU defense clause. They were already defacto NATO members. Sweden even was constantly aggressive towards russia before the Ukraine war.
Now the Americans can openly build their bases. The welfare states of these two nations will certainly decline as well. The presence of american bases, curiously leads to the same economic policies each time.
Ukraine eventually would have invaded Russian lands under a pretense that Russia had attacked first.
Western media would have covered for this. How exactly could Russia have avoided this war of Western aggression?
It’s a war of attrition that Ukraine is losing because they have a much smaller population to draw on and rely on weapons from the west. Ukraine is already conscripting children, women, and the elderly now. It’s absurd to think that such conscripts are going to be able to hold off a seasoned professional army for long.
If Russia actually had a “seasoned professional army”, this war would already be over. Russia is putting inexperienced youths from underdeveloped regions at the front line because their elite doesnt want to fight.
I recommend reading what people who actually have a clue have to say on the subject https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukraine
