My post was in response to Dugger, who posted an offensive meme (from Shrek) on Zelensky saying, “Some of you may die but it’s a sacrifice that I’m willing to make.” I found it particularly disingenuous and offensive.
Russian motivations for the war lay almost entirely within the government and are geopolitical strategies for the most part while Ukraine’s motivations to defend their homeland are within the people who fight for their very existence. I am cognizant of that reality of this war.
not a surprise Ukrainian spies say they intercepted a phone call of a Russian soldier saying 'it was our sabotage group' that destroyed the Kakhovka dam (msn.com) Ukrainian spies said on Friday that they intercepted a phone call from a Russian soldier who admits it was Russia's forces that blew up the Kakhovka dam, sending floodwaters careening into Ukrainian villages and towns downstream. The Security Service of Ukraine said the phone call was between two Russian service members. "It's not them [Ukrainians] who hit it. It was our sabotage group," one soldier says, according to Ukraine. "They wanted to scare with this dam. It went not as planned, but more than they planned.'
I picked up on that. I mean, I don’t know exactly what he posted, but I’ll bet it fell into one or more of the main Russian themes and messages essential to its disinformation campaign designed to erode allied support for Ukraine: 1. Ukraine is bad and, therefore, not worthy of your support. This includes the narratives about Ukrainian corruption, Ukraine is a Nazi state, Ukraine’s leadership came to power through a coup not an election, etc. 2. Russian victory is inevitable. Russia just has too many people, inexhaustible resources, and irresistible will. So why bother? 3. All Ukraine can do is delay the inevitable and make Russia “madder.” This includes minimization of Russian casualties, exaggeration of Ukrainian casualties, excusing or rewriting the history of Russian defeats, etc.
No, I didn't. But with what I've known about Russian objectives, I think too much is made over what happened in northern Ukraine at the very outset of the war. You typically don't completely abandon a theatre of war in a month, when you're targeting a capital. While I don't want to diminish Ukraine's very successful defense of Kyiv, I think the northern theatre was an attempt by Russia to put a quick end to things and give something for Ukraine to chew on for a longer, protracted war in the southeast, which was their goal all along. From Russia's perspective, if they were successful in taking Kyiv, awesome, but they weren't resolved to take Kyiv or anything in the north, which is why they jettisoned so quickly. Compare that with how they dug in and spared no expenses for a town like Bakhmut, for example. Russia has a vested interest there. Attacking the north also gave something else for Ukraine to defend, which made operations in the southeast regions easier, as Ukraine still has to be weary of an attack from Belarussian soil. This partly ties in with the first paragraph above, but as of recent times, Russia has had the air superiority on the front lines in the southeast, so this isn't even a thing anymore. Kherson isn't predominantly ethnic Russian. Its population is roughly 20% ethnic Russian. Predominantly ethnic Russian areas would be Lugansk, Donetsk, Crimea, etc. What we do know is Ukrainian advances have slowed down tremendously in the past few months as they suffer massive losses of men. What we do know is how embedded and dug in the Russians are in the southeast. What we have heard from Zelenskyy recently is apprehension about a lack of air superiority on the front lines. Nobody knows for sure what will happen other than a lot more death and destruction. That’s the only guarantee.
He’s suggesting again that Zelensky’s hubris is leading his people to death, you know, as if they have any real choice in the matter.
I agree with that, but you're missing a very big 3rd component. What's NATO fighting for? Equally importantly, how much resolve does NATO's motivation lead to versus Russia's and Ukraine's? My assessment is that NATO's resolve is nowhere near Russia's and Ukraine's resolve. As such, the most likely outcome is Russia continuing to occupy a large portion of Ukraine, including Crimea, while Ukraine gets to become truly independent within its remaining territory. Ukraine survives, but Russia gains a buffer zone and an Ukraine that's completely deindustrialized. This way the core objectives of the most resolute participants are maintained. If NATO is as resolute as Russia and Ukraine, then we need to be refurbishing and sending all our thousands of Abrams, F-16/15/14/18s, along with a large recruitment project of Ukrainians who fled the war with high pay, as well as volunteer Eastern European soldiers to form an army of hundreds of thousands equipped with our 2nd tier equipment. Russia would then need to fully mobilize to have a chance, and yet it would still not involve active NATO troops or equipment.
NATO’s “resolve” is $100 billion in petrol buys from Russia since the start of the war. That’s NATO’s resolve. That mean ole Trump.
Where are you getting your numbers? Fan 1.7 trillion is the most generous estimate I could find, comrade. Stop the trumpist love of Russia. You are going to look foolish in weeks.
How does $1.7 trillion compare to the aid we've given to Ukraine? You're the one who claimed that the aid we've given to Ukraine is equal to Russia's entire year's economic output, right?
Well the aid from Europe and us is equal to multiple years of their defense budget. I also didn’t say that I trusted those numbers but that they were the best reported. I want to ad comrade here but maybe dupe is more accurate in your case. Stupid trumpists are the only ones believing any on the nonsense coming from Russia. Other data can be slanted but the crap from Russia is absolute fantasy. Useful idiot wants to be used but I am not sure if it would get me banned or should be pluralized.
Big development in Ukraine? - Asia Times OK, well you said economic output, which I took to mean GDP, thus my disbelief. We've given Ukraine maybe $100 billion or so of aid. Russia has increased its defense spending by ~$60 billion since the war started. Even on a pure dollar to dollar term that would've been close to offset our aid. Then you consider the inherent inefficiency of supplying a hodge-podge mix of NATO and Soviet weaponry which require vastly different logistical support from countries all over the world to Russia supplying itself, you can see how inadequate our aid has been.
It’s unfortunate to watch you implode like this, but if you think I’m going to look like a fool, I’m feeling pretty good about things. Russia | GDP | 2023 | Economic Data | World Economics.
Until you realize that our weapons work much better than the Russian weapons. And that the Ukrainians are much more skilled in wielding the weapons they have (whether they be Russian, European, or American) than the Russians are with their weapons. And then recall that Ukraine has been much more capable when it comes to targeting weapons supply caches than the Russians have been at destroying Ukrainian weapons supplies (mostly due to home-field advantage). Throw in the fact that Russia has routinely abandoned large caches of weapons and ammo in their haste to retreat from Ukrainian forces, and some of Russia's spending on weapons is actually going to Ukraine. Very inefficient way to run a war, of course. Our aid has been much more than adequate, which probably explains why every time we consider sending a new weapon to Ukraine, Russia starts threatening to use nuclear weapons against us, Europe, or Ukraine.
Good luck with that Komrad. I honestly tried to verify your source it returned almost nothing. World economics.com has never according to my google search been used as a reference. It has an important name but does that count as data?
My prediction is that the Ukrainians will suffer some significant losses breaking through the Russian lines in the next few weeks. There is no avoiding that. Russia has had enough time to dig in and reinforce their positions. Once Ukraine does break through in a few places (and they do not have to break through everywhere they are trying to, just a few places), then the Russians will panic and run for their lives. They do not want Ukraine to get behind them with superior weapons and tactics, causing the Russians to get wiped out. The Russians are not that good at improvising, or changing their strategy in the middle of a battle. The U.S. faced a similar situation in WWII in Normandy. Lots of U.S. soldiers killed trying to get through at the beaches of Normandy, after the Germans spent years building defenses there. Once U.S./British/Canadian troops got past the beaches, the Germans were routed, partially because the deception at Calais had worked so well, but also partly because the Germans put all their faith in the defenses at the beach. And the U.S. did not necessarily have better weapons than the Germans did (unlike Ukraine has against Russia).
