The media won’t give me great answers to this question and I think this I trust this community more, thus I want to know from you. Also, I have heard reports that Russia was winning the war, if that’s true, did the west miscalculate the situation by allowing diplomacy to take a backseat and allowing Ukraine to a large plethora of military resources?
PS: I realize there are many casualties on both sides and I am not trying to downplay the suffering, but I am curious as to how it is going for Ukraine. Right now I am hearing ever louder calls of Russia winning, those have existed forever, but they seem to have grown louder now, so I was wondering what you thought about it. Also, I am somewhat concerned of allowing a dictatorship to just erase at it’s convenience a free and democratic country.
Arms 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.
arms manufacturers
Came here to say this.
winners: arms manufacturers and dealers, “defense” industry, military-industrial complex
losers: soldiers, civilians
Add people like Putin, oligarchs, etc. To losers, add just about everyone else, the climate, any actually important social or economic program as billions of money are burned on an unnecessary pyre for someone’s ego, etc etc etc.
Is Putin really a winner tho? They almost had a coup. I mean if the war was going amazingly well, but their economy is shit, they’re isolated, and they are in stale mate with an enemy they should dominate…
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to fully take over Ukraine
This was never Russia’s goal, you can’t quote a single Russian official stating that this was the objective of the SMO.
Ukraine’s goal was to stop Russia from wiping them off of the map
No, Ukraine’s goal was to “liberate” Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea and return to their 1991 borders.
https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/ukraine-will-liberate-crimea-by-military-means-danilov/
https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-fight-until-last-liberated-005810749.html
https://tvpworld.com/74421963/ukraine-is-fighting-to-restore-its-1991-borders-fm
They’ve failed and will never reach this goal.
So I may sound like a doomer, but it’s not looking good for the good guys
It is, you’re just not on the side of the good guys : )
Pretty funny how you can provide an explanation backed by references and then get mass downvotes because libs still have problems engaging with reality after a year and a half of being wrong about absolutely everything.
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I love how libs just regurgitate the same lines in lieu of an argument like trained seals. 😂
I wish I didn’t have to individually block lemmygrad accounts- it’s my only issue with kbin.social. Still love you, Ernest.
I love how libs can’t even block others without doing virtue signalling 😂
You are really living up to your username.
Could you whine less? I like the positive energy of this place and you are ruining my vibes.
I’m positive that this comment will help me find more users who stray from your echo chamber. Keep ‘em coming.
The people straying from the “echo chamber” aren’t the ones blocking others for dissent. Sounds like you’re projecting.
I’m open to new political opinions, just not regressing through yours.
I completely understand blocking or ignoring those who engage you in bad faith, but when someone disagrees with you and also engages in a discussion in good faith, you are merely silencing voices of dissent by blocking them.
How is that approach not creating an echo chamber? It seems hypocritical to label spaces that welcome good faith discourse “echo chambers” while creating your own.
Are you upset?
You don’t understand blocks do you? Here’s another shot.
The invading Russian forces have basically failed their first goal; to fully take over Ukraine.
Has Russia ever stated that this was their goal?
Yes.
Sauce?
That time they tried to fully take over Ukraine. That’s a pretty good indicator.
Since they’re very obviously not trying to take over all of Ukraine, I’ll take that as an admission that you’re full of shit.
So you don’t consider charging at a countries capital and dropping airborne troops into a capital trying to take over a country? That’s a really weird take.
Reality isn’t a paradox game, so no, I don’t.
Can you provide proof for this?
Oh my god, we get it, you’re exhausting.
No, I’m not providing proof of this exhaustion. Do your own research.
I did try. I just didn’t find anything that remotely comes close to supporting what you claimed.
Keep looking. You’ll get it eventually.
Considering Russia denied their intent to invade as they were conducting it, I don’t know that their statements should be considered truth regarding their plans and goals. But here’s Westpoint’s take on the matter:
Initially, the Russian regime may have regarded its invasion of Ukraine as a “regional conflict” with “important” military-political goals, and its classification as a “special military operation” may have been genuine. Indeed, it seems that the Kremlin’s ambitious political objective was to install a new, pro-Russian government in Kyiv by lightning action.
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/what-is-russias-theory-of-victory-in-ukraine.
You are unironically sharing a quote riddled with "may"s and "seem"s from United States Military Academy
And you are making a statement that seems to suggest absolute knowledge of a country’s intentions are possible with a leader with a lack of credibility and long history of lying on the world stage.
Gee, this is fun. Or were you making some point? Were you expecting some report about their magic mind-reading device?
Were you expecting some report about their magic mind-reading device?
But this is what you have been doing all along. Nothing in reality suggests that total annexation of Ukraine was the goal. Not the words of anyone nor the manner in which Russia has executed the invasion yet here you are somehow reading minds to conjure grand motives and subjecting me to smug Reddittor-speak for the crime of asking you to back your frivolous claims. “Gee, this is fun.” Jesus Christ.
Nothing in reality suggests that total annexation of Ukraine was the goal
Wait, I’m confused, were you looking for “is” or “suggests?” Because I sent you an article all about “suggests.” And, follow-up question, did you think ‘You are unironically sharing a quote riddled with "may"s and "seem"s from United States Military Academy’ is not smug and was a genuinely civil question?
Since it seems you might not be great at this whole “communicating” thing, I’ll be explicit: Yes, those questions were rhetorical. No, you’ve given me nothing to suggest I should care what your response is.
Gee, this is fun. Reality is not wishy washy statements from literal America military institutions. It just exposes you as someone who gobbles American state department nonsense wholesale uncritically. If you watched your Rick and Morty properly you would have known that it is not a smart thing to do. Reality in this case refers to what’s happening on the ground in the war. Like Russia holding it’s annexed territories rather trying to expand indiscriminately.
No, you’ve given me nothing to suggest I should care what your response is.
You are an idiot.
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This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability.
I think the fact that Kyiv didn’t fall within hours like everybody thought it would, and the morale/inspiration/call to action effect of “I need ammunition, not a ride,” shouldn’t be taken lightly either.
I agree. Ukraine did a great job in preparing for an inevitable invasion. Zelensky is the reason the preparations succeeded.
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
Funny how you request sources to one argument but swallow the other without question and provide none for your counter arguments.
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.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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
I agree with what you said and appreciate the insight. Thanks for writing it.
I think part of it from Russia’s side is definitely an attempt to rebuild Stalin’s buffer to the west, but there are echoes of the appeasement that took place before WW2. Crimea was quick and done.
Then, it’s a repeat years later in an attempt to grab more. Thing is, since then there was a lot of election tampering in the form of misinformation and it continues as an attempt to turn Americans against each other. Russia is waging war via the Internet and it’s working.
I think the US government is unable to control it because there is no direct control of social media companies, and social media companies are ineffective. Their interests are purely financial and to truly be effective, it would require significant investment.
The US is instead providing just enough support, but I think it’s purposely done. What happens if they were to provide double? Ukraine pushes Russia back to the border and then what? They continue forward? That’s WW3. Even if they stop at the border, Putin may be forced to stop and may lose power. Then you’re dealing with a potentially worse successor who wants to destroy at all costs…again a dangerous unknown.
They’re doing it this way on purpose to bleed Russia slowly over time. Russia expected to drive a 40 mile column into the capital and finish fast. A long war is not sustainable for Russia economically and the population isn’t interested either (as shown by the huge expatriation that took place when conscription was announced).
If enough western countries continue to provide arms, it will damage Russia for a long time to come.
The US Military Industrial Complex of course.
100%! I think most people would agree with you there.
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.
We were here two years ago. Stop gaslighting.
You were lying two years ago just the same as you are now. Where are the sources?
gIvE mE sOuRCeS
Yeah, give me sources for the wild shit you keep making up here. The fact that this is your reaction when being confronted about your lies says all we need to know about you.
gIvE mE sOuRCeS
don’t have any do you troll
so, what, you just make shit up then deflect when someone points that out?
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.
Perun
Garbage NATO propaganda channel, about as reliable to give you an honest summary of what is happening as listening to the Ukrainian government itself.
WW2 was won (not wholly, but in large part) due to the larger economy being on the allies side
On the Soviet’s side*, 80% of Germany’s casualties were in the Eastern Front.
During ww2 the involved parties and their allies were in wartime economy. This is the support that ukraine needs. I feel like today, the west is sending the military version of happy meal aid packages, once in a while, when it’s politically convenient. Should we scale up manufacturing for wartime? Let’s procrastinate.
Nah, the amount of aid and material they’re sending is substantial, including modern tanks and artillery, as well as more mundane things like shells, bullets etc.
And they will keep doing it for as long as it takes.
The West would like Ukraine to win, but it’s more important to the West that the war drag on and be a drain on Russia’s resources.
No it’s not. The west has nothing to gain from it dragging on. Nobody wants it to drag on.
It sucks for Ukraine but a Russia tied down in Ukraine has less funds to meddle with the rest of the World.
It drains their military and their economy while Putin must be extra careful against coups. There has been one very famous coup attempt directly related to the war (Wagner Group) and who knows how many other smaller attempts have been stopped preemptively?
This is some absolutely depraved shit. You’re sitting here justifying levels of death and destruction and human misery that are beyond your comprehension just because of some made up conspiracy theories about Russia “meddling” with other countries. In what possible universe does that make you anything other than pure fucking evil?
Very expensive way to drain Russia. Tbh following trends the best way to drain Russia was the status quo of letting Putin dictate it into obscurity through corruption.
But during the status quo, Putin had his hands free to finance destabilizing extremists, Internet troll armies and wage cyberwarfare on the West.
All while reflecting an image of strength.
They have quite a lot to gain by it. Getting the other side stuck in a quagmire has been the preferred strategy for both sides in US vs. Russia for decades.
They would gain more by cooperation or ignoring.
It’s just that you can’t do that when the other party is actively destructive.
Doesn’t make it a gain in my eyes. Labeling it a gain at least requires a contextualized qualification. So saying the EU is interested in prolonging the conflict is very disingenuous.
EU would have far more to gain ffrom Russia leaving Ukraine. Saying the EU wants to prolong the conflict for gains is disingenuous, at least misleading or ambiguous.
What the West gains is a diminished Russia less inclined to adventure. That’s a big gain.
The most important goal in this situation for the West is to avoid war with Russia. Since Russia has the resources to wage the war for a long time as long as the West doesn’t join it, then whether Ukraine wins is purely a Russian decision.
The amount of people fighting back on supporting a sovereign democracy getting attacked by a oligarchical dictatorship is nuts.
Like we did appeasement in the 40s already, it was a bad strategy.
Like we did appeasement in the 40s already, it was a bad strategy.
No no. It was a great strategy. Germany went to war. It was just that Germany also went to war with us, which wasn’t what we wanted.
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.
Truly the only trustworthy source
Define “winning”.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.
Really? I was hearing the opposite all this while. PS: Slowly and very painfully, fuck, I wish there was an end to this war and we could return to status quo!
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.
India is absolutely leaning (hard) towards Russia. They probably never bought gas/oil and fertiliser so cheap.
I watch this channel for daily updates: https://youtube.com/@RFU
It obviously leans pretty heavily pro-Ukrainian, but it seems to do the daily updates accurately enough from the times I’ve double checked.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Considering this is a war of attrition, “winning” such as it is doesn’t look like conscripting every man, woman and child that can hold a gun to get blown up in trenches. They should have just negotiated a year ago.
And they were very close to doing just that until the west stepped in and told Ukraine to stop negotiating https://www.aaronmate.net/p/ukraines-top-negotiator-confirms
I wish it wasn’t paywalled, I remember being hopeful something might happen but then Boris showed up- people still talk about it, just not always in english.
Bojo sabotaging the negotiations was a heinous crime against humanity. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result and millions more had their lives ruined.
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Britain has the geopolitical relevance of the North Sentinel island and Boris can’t even control his hair not to mention a foreign nation. Even if he told Ukraine to not negotiate why would they listen?
Because Boris is just the messenger boy for the empire.
But why? The US has plenty of people to deliver a message like that that would actually be believable, like if Boris told another country that the US wants this or that it just would sound like he’s lying. This whole thing sounds too convoluted and ridiculous to be true.
I mean that’s what Ukrainian chief negotiator told us himself now, and this is what western media admits. UK has always acted as a running dog for the US, and I’m not sure why anybody would find the idea of Boris being the one to deliver the terms to Ukraine as a representative of NATO convoluted or ridiculous. Boris represents the country that’s most closely aligned in US in Europe, this makes him the natural person to go and tell Ukraine what NATO and US want from them. You seem to be making this more complicated than it is.
It’s a stalemate, largely. While Russia was massively on the backfoot earlier in the year, they mined massive swaths of eastern Ukraine before partially retreating.
Which makes it unlikely for Russia to actually have any future forward progress, but it also stymies Ukraine from doing the same except extremely slowly. There’s still been several victories for Ukraine over the past few months, but they haven’t changed the fighting area much.
It’s largely a war of attrition to wear down Russia now, who has been having more and more internal issues as time goes on.
It’s mostly a stalemate for now. The dam destruction helped Russia funnel Ukraine counterattack on its biggest fortifications, so not much progress for Ukraine in the south. Russia resumed its offensive in the Dombass and Aavdiivka is starting to look like the new Bhakmut.
It’s an attrition war and Russia is losing like 2 or 3 times as much as Ukraine in men or material. But Russia has much more men than Ukraine. Russian morale is very low, but Ukraine support from the west is under big pressure, both from Russian propaganda and conservative/fascist political parties. This last one is the real war happening now.
Next year will be important because of the elections in the US. What happen on the battlefield is still to be seen.
Economically, Russia has also been hit hard. NATO has also expanded, which is a blow to Russia.
Yes, but Russia is also supported by Iran and China. And there’s no sign of political collapse in Russia.
I’m not saying Russia is winning. It would take them a millenia to conquer Ukraine at this pace. But I think currently they are only buying time to wait for US election. After that, and depending on whether a breakthrough happen or not before that, peace talk may happen, or not. Time will tell.
the Capitalism
Ohh, cmon now! Seriously? You blame this on Capitalism?
The propaganda is strong against the Western system. There is an argument to be made that the origins of this conflict are in energy finds in the Black Sea. Ukraine is uniquely positioned to take advantage of access to the European and Asian markets. Competition in these sections would threaten oligarch monopolies. These energy monopolies are granted to the oligarchs by Putin himself and this is the entire basis of power in the Russian Federation.
This is simultaneously the reason for the conflict and why the oligarchs have been lock step the entire way.
It’s this capitalism? Absolutely not.
Is it economic power? Absolutely so.
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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.
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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.
Death is the winner of any war
Don’t forget the defense contractors. People who make and sell weaponry and other war products are always the biggest winners.
Oh, they have nothing against the void. All of them will die.
True. Death is the great equalizer. Nobody gets out of this world alive. Lol
Astronauts might
Well Ukraine itself is definitely losing. They will probably lose territory to Poland as well if this keeps up and they have sold their country out to capitalists, mostly Americans. Loans, land, industries, etc all to pay for “their” war effort. The common Ukrainian is who suffers the most under this. They will be more exploited (paid less for the value of their labor), see more social programs dismantled, and go into a serious recession/depression that may not lift for decades.
Russia is doing okay. The US is pulling Europe more into its orbit (making them pay more for less from the US while losing a lot of their industry), which is a loss for Russia, but that was the remand endgame of the US anyways. What was surprising, at least to some, was the extent to which Russia could survive and even thrive when subjected to the most significant financial weapons the West has. Overall their economy is certainly in a better place now and a chunk of Ukraine will be theirs and the other chunk will be weak. This is a victory for the ruling class of Russia and its overall geopolitical self-interest.
The US ruling class is making out like bandits as usual, funding its weapons industry, basically a cash injection for the owner class and the only thing the US ever reliably does (threaten its chosen enemies with destruction).
They will probably lose territory to Poland as well if this keeps up
Sigh
No they won’t. It was a fringe position in the Polish far-right before the election and now that the libs have won it’s even less likely to happen.
It was a fringe position in the Polish far-right before the election and now that the libs have won it’s even less likely to happen.
The Polish far-right are a dominant political force.
And it’s under the relatively lib coalition that relations have reached their lowest point.
I think if Ukraine comes out of this with borders that roughly resemble the current front lines then they’ll keep Lviv but there’s a real possibility of political collapse in Ukraine, if things get worse and if the currently cooperating power centers turn on each other, and in that collapse scenario it becomes pretty plausible.
probably still less likely to happen than not but it’s definitely plausible and there are multiple plausible-to-likely pathways where you can see the political situation in Ukraine deteriorating to the point of collapse.
I don’t think I buy the current Russian narrative that the military camp are about to coup Zelenskyy but he’s definitely under enormous pressure right now, and even if a coup likely isn’t about to happen you can nonetheless see Zelenskyy and the military camp making political defense lines between each other, and the number of high level aides, spouses, and the like opening boxes that accidentally contained a grenade or suffered an unfortunate food poisoning incident is pretty eyebrow raising.
Also Russia is totally cooking the books/cozying up to China as the lesser power in the relationship
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