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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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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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 : )
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I wish I didn’t have to individually block lemmygrad accounts- it’s my only issue with kbin.social. Still love you, Ernest.
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.
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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
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.
Truly the only trustworthy source
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Define “winning”.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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
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?
the us military industrial complex’s investors seems to be winning real good
Let me guess, can’t bring yourself to say Russia is winning?
I mean, I don’t want Russia to win, but I have no problem with accepting facts where I see them. I think almost everyone here would agree that both the countries involved have lost much more than they can ever gain out of this war.
Russia is totally burning through crazy amounts of men and material, at an unsustainable level, without any advancements. So there is absolutely no “Russia wins” on the horizon.
I also think that Ukrainian freedom is what Ukraine thinks is worth more than anything.
More to the point, Ukrainian freedom isn’t the empty, abstract “freedom” you see so many American politicians talk about. It’s freedom from Russian rule, and since the start of the war, Russia has been showing us exactly how much that kind of freedom is worth.
You make it sound like this is a voluntary war for both sides, but it’s not. Only Russia chose to invade Ukraine, and they can choose to go back home and end it tomorrow. Ukraine is fighting because it was attacked and it’s people are still living under occupation.
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.
