Except that you didn't even quote my reply to which you replied "they fear Nato"--which was me saying they "respect" nato (bc the post it was directed to, said they wouldn't respect Ukraine, since they hadn't). Tbl: you're disagreeing with me bc its me, not my post. Boo!
There's not going to be a revolution inside Russia over this war. Within a very short period of time, Putin readjusted Russia's economy to absorb the worst sanctions the West could throw at them. The Russian people do not react to fallen soldiers the same way Americans do. The fallacy is assuming that they do. It's not necessarily because all of the people are shallow, it's just the way their society has been molded over the past century plus. This war is a drop in the bucket compared to what Russia has endured in the past. As long as the economy is functioning decently in Russia, he's safe, bro. The sanctions were the best shot and even then, we had to practically beg Europe to wean itself off of Russian oil and gas. That should tell you all you need to know about how resolved NATO is to have the outcome you desire.
It has been Russia's foreign policy since the early 1990's to keep Ukraine tightly held within its sphere, to prevent any possible drift towards NATO. That is how we got Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yanukovych. Ukrainian ascension to NATO is absolutely considered existential and has been for decades by Russia. They will not bend on this issue. As I have stated here repeatedly, Russia's goal is not to occupy the entirety of Ukraine. It's to keep Ukraine weak and unfit for NATO ascension. That's always been the goal, for 25+ years now. When they ran Yanukovych out, Maidan occurred, Putin raised the defcon. This isn't some new imperial binge Putin is on. The Russians have been trying to corral Ukraine since the breakup of the USSR.
reading more and more about russian anti-aircraft positions being taken out. wish I could plot them on a map but it feels like they are opening up a corridor so they can provide air cover for a spear Putin’s Army Bombarded as First Dead Bodies Emerge in Floods (msn.com) Meanwhile, four people working for Ukraine’s armed forces confirmed to The Washington Post that Ukraine was intensifying attacks on the front lines. Attacks have particularly intensified in southern Ukraine in the last 24 hours, according to U.S. officials who spoke with The New York Times. Ukraine’s Air Force also launched 23 strikes on locations with Russian troops and four strikes on enemy anti-aircraft missile systems in the past 24 hours, Ukraine’s military said. The current fighting in Ukraine is a “highly complex operational picture,” according to a new British intelligence community assessment released Thursday. “Heavy fighting continues along multiple sectors of the front. In most areas Ukraine holds the initiative,” the assessment states. Earlier this week, Ukrainian and U.S. officials acknowledged that a series of counteroffensives had begun. On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces hit four Russian command posts, nine locations with Russian troops and military equipment, as well as two enemy anti-aircraft missile systems, five Russian ammunition depots, and an enemy radar station, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement.
They won't fold. At this stage, Russia is defending ethnic Russian areas of Ukraine. Expecting Russia to tuck its tail and run should tell you all you need to know about how warped the thinking in this thread is. I loathe what Russia is doing to Ukraine, but ignoring the problem, underestimating the enemy's resolve is exactly how we've found ourselves in perilous situations before. You were correct up front. You don't need to water it down for them. Russians are completely dug in. A shoestring budget of foreign aid, with a few tanks and some HIMARS slowly trickling in isn't going to be enough for a country that's been decimated and can't replenish their own war machine.
I think too many here only started hearing about Ukraine in 2014. If one has been following the Ukraine/Russia dynamic for a long time, one would know that Russia's view of Ukraine has been consistent and is as you described. You don't have to agree with Russia's view, but it's important to understand it. If you don't understand it, then you may make decisions based on poor assumptions, such as that haphazard shipments of arms to Ukraine is enough to break Russia's resolve.
We shall see shortly how wrong you are. Your nonsense is thick. You act as if Russia’s economy is a well oiled machine and it’s a patriotic war. Russian’s economy is corrupt. Its military output is crap, and the soldiers fighting it are conscripts most pulled from prisons and neglect. Historically it has always been thus except in WW2 when we armed them and they did a slash and burn defense of their own country. the amount of military aid we have sent to Ukraine is about the same as Russia’s entire economic output for a year. It looks like it’s trickling in if you are looking at it from our side. It’s a flood if you are looking at it with Russian eyes.
LOL, wut?? Russia’s GDP in 2022 (with sanctions and all) was $4 trillion. We’re sending Ukraine $4 trillion in military aid? C’mon man. Half the aid money we have sent to Ukraine has been humanitarian in nature. We’re talking what, about $50 billion in total military aid by now? For perspective, Europe alone sent Russia $140 billion for oil and gas payments in the year following the Russian invasion in February 2022. Let that sink in. Ukraine is getting scraps from us militarily and their own military has been wrecked by this war. That’s not anywhere near enough to wage a long-term war with Russia, especially as you factor in what Ukraine has already lost. Get your head around the facts. It tends to help.
Hi danmanne65 - Reading the posts I'm sure your aware there is a small faction of posters that are completely sympathetic to Russia's position on Ukraine. They do have talking points. Ukraine was certainly a breeding ground for massive corruption, you know kinda like......RUSSIA. So be it, but it's laughable to read thier posts. As if Putins strategy on it is to be where we are today - a year and a half in, who knows how many Russian casulties, Finland in NATO, Sweden about to be, the NATO alliance resurected. As Uftaipan has posed many times, it's the end result that counts and the conflict is still undetermined. But I have a pretty good idea this Putin project is NOT on time and NOT in the budget!
I don’t see anybody here who’s “sympathetic to Russia’s position on Ukraine”, except for perhaps that duggersdad account, which I blocked a long time ago. Some of us are simply more cognizant of reality and have a better grasp of the motivations behind Russia’s actions in Ukraine. It’s important to understand those two things if you’re going to opine on the war. Understanding the enemy’s real motive is essential in any conflict. Otherwise, you’re simply regurgitating war propaganda, which historically has been very dishonest and has cost us dearly in the past. Beware the neo-cons who push the war doctrine no matter what the actual facts on the ground may be. I think we all agree Russia’s actions against Ukraine are vile, brutal, illegal and reprehensible. But to some degree, they are understandable from the Russian’s standpoint as it relates to maintaining a buffer against NATO expansionism. P.S. kudos for admitting a country we are aiding and relying on for accurate information on this war has a long history of corruption, which should make any of us cautious and skeptical regardless of how ugly the situation is.
Did you predict when the war started that Ukraine would successfully defend Kyiv? Did you predict that Russia would fail to achieve air superiority? Did you predict that Russia would tuck tail and abandon Kherson (another “ethnic Russian area”) under military pressure from Ukraine? If you did, then you made predictions that very few if any people did (certainly not me), including people who study the Russian military for a living. If you didn’t, then you’re like most of us here. Only I’ve learned to stop betting against Ukraine, and you keep throwing good money after bad on Russia. You have no idea if Russia will successfully defend against this Ukrainian counteroffensive (neither do I). We will see. But if they don’t, you have no idea how that will translate domestically in Russia. You say there won’t be revolution, but revolution is only the most extreme outcome and not one that anyone wants if they understood what it meant. There is an entire spectrum of things that could happen inside Russia to effect policy change on Ukraine. I earlier pointed out the critical years of 1903, 1916, and 1985. In all three of those years domestic troubles, created by or exacerbated by war, boiled over to the point that the ruling regime had to make significant change, effectively resulting in abandoning the wars then in progress, but in only one case (famously, in 1917) did it result in revolution. Even in that case it took a confluence of strange events, not just losses in the war, for the revolution to ignite. My point is that Ukraine’s best play for a successful end to this war is centered around maximizing Russian casualties, not merely retaking ground, and my point stands.
So on-point for you to mock Ukraine’s President, claiming he is murdering his own troops and his own people by controlling the Russian Army’s weaponry and aiming. Or, are you once again saying he should just tell his people to lay down, on the street, and beg the Russians to usurp their Country and hope for mercy? You post these awful memes with absurd context, yet Zelensky is the guy that remained in his country when the Russians explicitly targeted him. He didn’t cower and run. He has been the voice for his people, has led their efforts to gain the tools and resources necessary to DEFEND themselves against a far-superior armed force that has murdered hundreds of thousands of his population, and has towered above his enemy.
I appreciate that you believe you have a better grasp on reality than all the others. It just appears, at least to me, that the sourcing of your superior knowledge is tainted and agenda-driven. It sounds, and again perhaps only to me, that your sourcing has the same core threading as Gateway had in its uncovering of “truth” of countless election fraud articles, all of which had no footing in reality.
We have to keep fighting wars even if we continue losing them. But we can’t fight them with American soldiers as that’s unpopular. Which is why we’re fighting this war to the last dead Ukrainian …
As I’ve pointed out ad naseum, it’s Russia’s disinformation campaign where words substitute for battlefield success. Russia is, wisely perhaps, centering its strategy as Master Sun stated on first targeting the enemy’s strategy and alliances before its army and lastly its cities. But if the Master were with us today he would point out that you still need those successes on the battlefield to back up your words. I’m not seeing any of that. I’m seeing a lot of talk from Russia about how its victory is inevitable and much more action from Ukraine that strongly suggests Russian victory is not inevitable.
