Obviously, you missed the point. It was a dig at your persistence of framing every Russian loss into a glorious, brilliant maneuver designed by the greatest strategist the world has ever known.
I’m not saying Russia hasn’t suffered setbacks. I’m saying that posters like yourself are ignorant as to the circumstances underlying to the two commonly cited events said to have been crushing defeats for Russia.
You’ve changed your position exactly as frequently as Russia has changed its position. It’s my view that people who absorb their news sources from hyper-censored Russian propaganda, such as yourself, and believe those stories to be true, are definitionally ignorant,because those people, like yourself, know without a shadow of a doubt that your sources are not founded in truth or accuracy but rather how the narrative fits into the chosen theme.
You know what else isn’t helping Ukrainians? Your Russian brothers invading their country, butchering their population, destroying their infrastructure, and waging war, despite solemnly agreeing and pledging in 1994 to recognize, respect, AND PROTECT the Ukrainian territorial borders. What would help the Ukrainians is for your Master to get the hell out of Ukraine.
Why are you engaging ? *chortles* Russia has watched NATO add 16 countries and move 1,000 km East since 1990. It’s watched Ukrainian nationalists shelling ethnic-Russians for eight years. And thanks to recent statements by Biden, Blinken and Nod, I mean Austin, we now all know what Putin has surely known for years, that it has been the aim of the US to regime change Putin and weaken Russia. This is my shocked face that Putin has taken the actions that he has.
Between the two of us, I’m not the one operating in the propaganda bubble. I get my info from Western sources that are not shot through with prior hatred for Russia.
Excellent point and a reminder to not feed the people who hate my country. Thank you for the reminder.
I hate the things about my country that need hating. In other words, I’m a better American than you are. Because I want better for it.
Why does the size of the whole country matter? It isn't like Russian ground troops have ever approached Lviv. And they also had local militias and a variety of mercenary groups like Wagner. But even accepting the thoughts here, that is a weird position to be in for a side that you claim is easily winning. Having to withdraw from major cities to throw people at a defensive force for months doesn't seem like the type of thing a winning side would be doing. It would allow the Ukrainians to concentrate the battle themselves, lowering the amount of their territory that is contested. Very odd move for a country that invaded another country. Especially if the claim is that they are winning.
Simply put: if you’re assuming that Russia originally intended to square off against Ukraine, how could they do that on a contact like of 600 miles and against hundreds of thousands ?
But they don't want to leave Russia. Any time there is a concern that they want to leave Russia, Russia has a referendum, soldiers put guns to people's heads, and ask them if they want to leave Russia. The answer is no. Case closed. End of story. Time to move on. Sure, the last time they had a referendum without the soldiers putting guns to people's heads, 90% wanted to be independent. But Russia has figured out some subtle referendum technique that helps the citizens channel their innermost feelings into enthusiastic support for being part of the Russian Empire. No one has apparently figured out what that technique is, unfortunately.
All Russia had to do was capture Kiev, and it would have been game over. They had one job. ONE. . . . And they failed to do it. And they've been retreating ever since.
They seemed pretty confident in the beginning. It seems like a pretty major step back to go from trying to push on the capital city and through the entire Eastern portion of the country, aided by air and naval power, to this position of "How could we possibly have been expected to maintain territory?"
I don’t know. You don’t know. I can imagine that Russia hoped that a show a force might bring Zelensky to the table. Wait, it did bring Zelensky to the table. Reportedly, Boris Johnson scuttled negotiations, pledged unlimited Western aid and urged Zelensky to fight to the finish.
Well, whose fault is that? Maybe next time they'll make a note to bring enough troops to get the job done. Maybe the Russian army didn't have anyone with enough mathematics education to know that numbers greater than 30,000 existed, so they could not ask for more troops than that. Even for barbarians, Russians don't sound very smart. LOL.
But didn't you just argue they never showed up with that much in the way of force? Seems like a strange strategy if the goal is to overwhelm them.
Strange way to show force then. We don't have enough troops to capture your capital city, but you should negotiate with us because of our show of force and we are going to throw troops at it?