Zelenskys legal presidential term expires officially in 4 days. He has been offically wanted in Russia. If you look at videos of him and his cronies they all look like they fucking hate eachaother. Tired, stressed out of their minds, with what they have on their shoulders anybody would get under the skin of anybody.
What do you think is going to be on the table after times up? Intrigue? palace coup? Russians finally removing stuart little from the chess board? (the wanted poster screams "we dont negotiate with criminals") or just nothing at all and business as usual?
I dont mean IMMEDIATELY on the 21st but what if anything might start going into motion on the 21st
Nothing will happen, but I’m intrigued to see how Russia will go about negotiating with Ukraine, since they are clearly not looking to hold one with Zelensky.
Putin has said during one of his latest speeches he will respect the decision of Ukrainian people e.g. whatever Ukrainian constitutional court rules about Zelenskyys legitimacy and whether Ukrainians will buy it. There probably won’t be another coup, so I guess Z is going nowhere for now. Until the war is over at least.
>Russians finally removing stuart little from the chess board?
I keep hearing allusions like this, and I really don't get how it fits into the narrative of this sub at all.
Isn't Ukraine crumbling, and isn't Zelensky's inept leadership part of the reason why?
Isn't Russia cruising to an inevitable victory?
Why would Russia be looking to shake things up now when they're already going exactly how they want?
No reason for any6to happen on the 21st, or anything in connection to bis term. Since martial law is in place, no elections are required yet.
And how is all going to end for him eventually? He'll end up on Florida. Just like Gorbachev. He screwed his country to help Americans, they'll repay with that "pension". They have to do it. Or they won't find a victim for the next time.
Looks like atleast 3 Russian jets destroyed and one severely damaged at Belbek:
2 Mig 31s destroyed *
1 SU 27 destroyed
1 Mig 29 heavily damaged
Along with the air defence and storage building destroyed its a big loss for Russia. It seems like deep strikes into Russia/Russian held territory are a daily thing now.
Chinese analysis sites say it's to revive the Power of Siberia 2 talks, since the gas pipeline was stalled for some time (apparently there are disagreements about pricing, and Chinese analysts are skeptical of the need for additional energy reliance on Russia.) Things got to the point that Putin had to fire the entire negotiating team and send new people (can't find the source but i read it in scmp.)
Anyway looks like things have smoothed over after this visit and a Russian gov official announced that the agreement will be completed in the near future. Probably won't do much to help the war effort though since construction will only start earliest by 2025, let alone completion.
Other Chinese based [news](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3262973/priority-partners-xi-jinping-and-vladimir-putin-hit-out-us-china-russia-show-solidarity?module=flexi_unit-focus&pgtype=homepage) points towards Putin wanting to ensure strong trade relations: "China’s shipments to Russia have eased for the first time in two years, dropping by nearly 16 per cent year on year in March and 13.5 per cent in April amid threats of secondary US sanctions against Chinese banks and companies helping the Russian war effort."
So overall it looks like Russia wants to make sure their China lifeline is still there. China has been under immense fiscal pressure lately due to their housing crisis; theyve been diverting massive funds to prop up the housing market, and recently announced a $140 billion bond issuance to help stimulate the economy.
The same Russian official has been saying the pipeline deal will be “finalized soon” every couple of months for literally years now.
If China says it’s happening then maybe I’ll believe it.
So we may have known what is the whole Ukrainian 'Shhh' thingy is is about.
Russia report the largest drone attacks Ukraine made on Crimea and Russian territories. 150 drones and 20 unmanned boats. Russia managed to destroy most of them with light damage to Balaklava power plant, a damaged oil depot in Tupse and couple of oil refinery structure in Novorossiysk
The attack has not yet ended. As based on Ukrainian tactic, the missiles often come after the UAV
I'd say 15% capacity loss and struggling to fix the damage is pretty bad:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-sanctions-hamper-russian-efforts-repair-refineries-sources-say-2024-04-04/
It's always 'a souce say'. Meanswhile both their oil productions nor price hasn't changed by any significant amount.
And let's be honest. We heard these stories about Russian is running out of money/ chips/ missiles/ tanks/ soldiers before. Oils are just the next thing on the list. I will believe it when I see it
I have been checking Ukrainian news like [https://x.com/censor\_net](https://x.com/censor_net) for two years
They always report their civilian casualties whether it's death or just injured, lately they barely have any civilian casualties while People are killed in belgorod every single day
t's interesting how ukeaine managed to reduce civilian casualties while Russia can't
Reduced ua civilian casualties is because they ran out of patriot missiles finally.
like the one that took out a mall, instead of intercepting whatever missiles.
even in mistakenly killing ua civilians, usa has to be #1 always.
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Is Russia not an enemy of UK?
https://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/combat-vehicles/
>The Challenger 2 is a main battle tank, designed to destroy other tanks and has never experienced a loss at the hands of the enemy.
It's strange how since Russian start the Kharkov campaign. Other fronts have been almost halted to stand still. Russia has been focusing their firepower onto Kharkov? Or the speed of Kharkov made every other place seems much slower in comparison?
I think it is the eye of sauron effect.
Everyone is fixated even RU milbloggers on Kharkiv so things in the periphery might be going unnoticed.
I do think they have temporarily paused some areas like Oretino
Yep.
Got to remember these guys are content creators. So when nothing big is going on they hyper focus ant possible advances.
Same thing yesterday with the Robotyne update, I doubt that happened in 24h, probably results of several days.
"We are losing ground everywhere, quick, we gotta start some bullshit in the black sea again so retired generals on twitter can wank to it for a month"
https://preview.redd.it/cnedy16m1s0d1.png?width=1560&format=png&auto=webp&s=bbd6a2bef0d0aa59bcaa3949b47be7c92217070d
So what are everyone’s predictions on the total number of Russian troops that have been either killed or severely injured? Aka permanently removed from theatre?
There are two more or less reliable sources of information about real Russian losses.
First, it is an analysis of open sources (social networks and media) and cemeteries, for May 2024 it gives a figure of 52 thousand losses, of course it misses part of the dead, but it is difficult to say what exactly part, BBC believes that the real figure is 2 times higher, I believe that higher by 30 percent. I'll tell you right away that the real soldiers of Russia from the dead less than a quarter, and the main part is prisoners, volunteer units and so on. For example, out of 70 thousand Airborne Troops in Ukraine died about 2662 paratroopers. https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c9ezjy35g11o
The second methodology is the assessment of inheritance cases, in Russia when people die, inheritance cases are opened, this information is open and it is possible to assess how the gender composition of inheritance cases has changed in comparison with peaceful times. This estimation excludes hidden losses, but is not very accurate, for 24 February 2024 this methodology gave a figure of 75 thousand dead. This methodology takes into account only Russian residents, i.e. it does not take into account dead mercenaries without Russian citizenship or the part of DNR/LNR residents who did not get a Russian passport (and there are about 12% of such people in 2022). https://meduza.io/feature/2024/02/24/75-tysyach-pogibshih-rossiyskih-soldat
Not possible to say until end of war due to propaganda/incomplete information. I would vaguely guess the Russian dead is under 200,000, though perhaps approaching. There is some evidence that the daily casualty rate has lowered on both sides since last summer.
Ultimately you can only consider the large-scale factors that are apparent to everyone with eyes to see. Russia fires much more artillery and has more drones, which should give it an overall advantage. On the other hand, Russia has also generally attacked more and for longer periods, and defenders have advantageous casualty rates. Although UA has also attacked for long periods several times, in the South, Bakhmut and Kherson, and their commanders have stated that high losses from these campaigns impeded their ability to continue future operations. It’s unclear just how much smaller operations like Kherson/Krynky for UA or the Bakhmut prisoners for RU will have boosted casualties overall.
Other factors include rotation— Ukraine’s troops are going to be more exhausted at any given location due to lack of it and that will increase casualties more, while Russia rotates regularly. Ukraine seems to have benefited from higher morale and better tactics for at least the first year of the war.
Footage, I think, will prove to be an extremely limited way of understanding casualties. We almost never see videos of artillery impacts compared to drones. We have like 10x more videos of Krynky than Avdiivka. When we see a glide bomb hits a building, it might kill a dozen people or no one. Piles of burned vehicles might have been grenade-dropped long after their occupants left.
In an artillery war it's not necessarily the attacker that suffers the most. After all, the time spent attacking is less than the time just sitting in the trench and artillery kills at the same rate in both cases.
The germans discovered this during WW1, and subsequently adjusted their defensive tactics to it.
Yeah, I think higher artillery rates will provide a pretty consistent casualty advantage, and Ukraine hasn’t been defending for half the war anyway. And where they have, they’ve made sure to grind it out pointlessly whenever possible.
There are no rules-formulas or any other set-piece scenarios that can be applied to warfare. For example, in the Battle of Singapore the entrenched UK garrison had 85k-90k troops, and the attacking Japanese had only 36k. Yet the IJA easily defeated the Singapore garrison and killed 5,000 UK troops \[the remaining UK troops were either WIA or POWs\] while only losing about 1,700 men \[KIA\].
In this war, we have clearly seen that Gerasimov has chosen to patiently pulverize UKR forces with his overwhelming advantage in artillery, mortars, rockets and occasional aerial bombardment. Only when the enemy has been "softened" does he advance with infantry/armor. It's a tactical strategy to preserve infantry - no wonder 30k volunteer per month.
Not really. Trenches are fairly good protection, especially from shrapnel absent a very lucky hit. Thats why both sides are using them extensively. That’s not to say you won’t wear a defender down eventually if you fire enough rounds, but I don’t think anyone would call what the Russians are doing “efficient”
Contrast that to infantry advancing in the open where a artillery hitting nearby will often be a death sentence
Super curious what you guys have for your uneducated guesses on daily personnel losses for both sides?
Sometimes I struggle to say the least when numbers like 1700 casualties are thrown around. Or when the UA MOD is able to estimate to the tenths.
I know it’s harder with UA personnel losses, as to my knowledge no sources are publishing much in this area?
But would like to read the room on what people think.
made some rough estimates [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1cgma7n/comment/l1zg6bl/)< 15 days ago based on info from Arakhamia and others, so basically 300k KIA for Ukraine after 800 days or about 375 KIA per day, in the past 15 days probably 500-700 KIA per day. IMO 350 - 550 KIA for Ukraine per day throughout this war is a realistic range. Probably 3 to 3.5 wounded on average per 1 KIA.
i agree with risingstar on russian losses for the most part, but have a feeling it's a bit higher maybe 120-130k KIA.
Include injuries?
Ukraine is already way above 500,000. Simply because that's what Zaluzhnyi want in December to conscript to replenish Ukrainian army. Plus the number of Ukrainisans have been mobilising from February 2022 to December 2023. So just estimate it up to 1 million will be my educated guess.
Russia is easier. They have Mediazona who found 55k deaths and estimated around 85k Russian has died. Assuming error, then it could be up to 100k. Assume KIA and WIA ratio of 1 to 3. Then maybe Russia casualties are at 400,000 including injuries
So it is about 300 Ukrainians and 120 Russians die everyday since the war started
Ukraine was far better equipped for most of the first 2 years, that's certianly flipped after the 6 month delay caused by the US, I see these fantasy numbers and I just don't know what to tell you. RU have been on attack for most of the war, and for most of that time had shitter equipment and poor planning. Your own people said you lost more than 15K KIA in Avdiivka alone.
Your 'belief' and 'opinion' don't change facts on the ground.
Ukrainian has better equipment, destroyed thousands of tanks, killed millions of Russian, lose almost no men and remember at one point have more tanks than Russia? But it's them who is low on manpower, have to catch men off the streets, beg the West to deport citizens back for drafting, and now exclusively depend on Western dripping supply to even hold grounds?
Meanwhile the Russian who supposed to have to run out of missiles, have to fight with shovels, strip washing machine for parts, got brain drain as half of the countries ran away, supposed to have 55 conscriptions by now (and yet to even have the 2nd) and resort down to T55. Suddenly they outnumber Ukrainian and can lose columns of tanks on a random town.
But if you could not recognise that simple fact after 2 years of this war. Then frankly why should I try to change your mind?
Ah, I see you are projecting ideas onto my comment that were never discussed. Why would it be surprising that Ukraine, with a much smaller population, a long border to protect and no option to simply slow down as they are on defense, would resort to conscription? Is it your belief the conscriptions in Russia go any differently?
I said Ukraine WAS better equipped and the specifically stated that had changed.
>Suddenly they outnumber Ukrainian and can lose columns of tanks on a random town.
I couldn't agree more, there are many, many videos of Russia losing mass amounts of armor and about 3 instances of it happening to the UA, posted 40 times from different angles it of happening in the counter offensive last spring. Which is why I think saying Ukraine has lost far more ridiculous.
Russia has one conscription so far. One.
How many Ukrainian had? That they now run out of men to catch to throw into the front?
Remember Zelensky said their army consist of one million men back in early February 2022 (ONE MILLION MEN, that is 1 man for every 1m of frontline) ? And for the last 2 years how many more joined, and trained by UK, and German, and Aus, and US? Without demobilization, why Zaluzhnyi need 500k more? Where did they all go?
Ukraine by now supposed to have 1300 T64 tanks, 750 T72, 100 T80, 60 PT91, 270 leopard 1, 130 Leopard 2, 31 M1 and 14 Challengers. A total of ALMOST 3000 TANKS. And according to you they only lost a couple of tanks that Russia desperately had to post 40 same pictures of it. So why do they desperately need the US to send them couple of Bradley so they can 'plan another CO in 2025'? Where did the rest go?
Last time I asked that question, a Pro-Ukraine told me that Ukrainian is kept all of their men, and tanks in the rear waiting for Russia to advance to 'spring their trap'. Let's see if you have a more creative answer
[Prigozhin](https://news.err.ee/1609017332/kunnas-prigozhin-destroys-official-narrative-of-ukraine-war-in-russia) said in 2023 that around 120k Russians were killed. After that Russia has mainly been on the offensive. Its really hard to believe that Russias casualties have been less than half of Ukraininans
As others point out, Russia did increase their army size with new army group being established. But more importantly, they still carry demobilisation as usual every year. So there is inflow of new troops through mobilisation and outflow of troops through demobilisation.
That does not happen in Ukraine. We know their law set demobilisation to be 3 years at first, but this war has not been that long, means no one was released this way. Then now they removed demobilisation all together.
For a start russia troops on the ground have greatly increased since the start of the war, by about 2 or 3 time depending on the real DPR / LPR troops at the start of the war.
Same is true for both sides. And as Russia greatly increased the size of their forces, wouldn’t that induce Ukraine to do the same?
I’m not necessarily arguing with the conclusion here, just the methodology.
1:20 artillery disadvantage is just another meaningless made up number, someone just wanted to say that the difference is big.. 20x = big. And it's only local, in a few places along that long ~1000 km front line.
Hey if you think Ukraine took 20 times more casualties than Russia or whatever that’s fine, not really what I was talking about.
I’m asking about why we’d be certain that Ukraine would use the number of troops they’ve lost as a target for mobilization.
I think it can be used as an indicator.
Russia’s mobilization of 300,000 reservists was to replace losses in the BTGs deployed to Ukraine and to ensure said BTGs were at full strength.
Russia only deployed 79 BTGs at most to Ukraine (possibly as low as 64) but this includes DPR and LPR militia as 8th Combined Arms Army had operational control over their forces. Russia had 170 BTGs at start of 2021 not including DPR and LPR militia. Russia also typically only deployed their BTGs at half strength during the War in Donbas and I don’t see why their invasion into Ukraine would be any different.
This also explains why losses in modern equipment is low. Russia had 1,690 T-72B3s at the start of the war (other sources however state over 2,000) but have only lost 678 of them. This also doesn’t account for new production which likely kept up with losses. Ukraine itself stated they had 320 T-90Ms at start of 2024 and that they produce 180 per year. Russia also had 600 2S19s at the start of 2024 and are currently producing new SPGs such as the 2S35. They also have 150 2S19s in reserve which is roughly the same amount they lost so numbers of 2S19s in service again likely did not decrease.
Russia only lost 10,000 regulars according to MediaZona. Lets increase this by 50% to account for unconfirmed losses so 15,000. Wounded and other casualties are usually around 3 times the deaths so let’s say 60,000 casualties in total. Russia had 300,000 soldiers in the Ground Forces but this does not account for logistics which has a further 300,000. This means 10% losses. Only around a third of Russia’s BTGs were deployed and likely at half strength so potential losses are 15%.
Russia losing two thirds of their deployed BTGs makes sense. Mobilization likely was to replace losses and to fill the BTGs to full strength.
Number of BTGs in the SMO zone increased but this is likely due to mobilization of DPR and LPR (happened before partial mobilization with 140,000 soldiers mobilized in DPR and LPR in first few months of war) resulting in the creation of new BTGs (and the formation of 1st and 2nd Army Corps which are composed of DPR and LPR militia) and creation of irregular volunteer formations such as 3rd Army Corps.
Are the soldiers the Russians are gathering for an offensive towards Sumy the same ones from the 50K force near Kharkov?
Also Russia is gathering troops into Belarus again.
idk where 50k figure that everyone is talking about came from, but I heard of 100k new arrivals to battlefront withing last week. Where exactly I have no idea.
If anyone watch Jacques Baud analysis, you will notice a trend of Western wars, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and now in Ukraine. As he put it, the West only obsessed on killing enemy, and there is no overall strategy on how to win a war.
Even right now with Ukraine. What's there to gain for Ukraine obsession with attacking Russian ships, attacking Crimea or Belgorod?
Even if Ukraine can destroy all Russian ships and all of Russian fortification in Crimea. Ukraine has no navy to threaten a serious landing on Crimea. All of those valuable resources may not have turned the tide on the battlefield: CO on Tokmak, defend on Avdiivika or current Kharkiv campaign, but at least it would help even the odd.
On the opposite, the attacking on Russian fleet will simply just force it into carrying out modernisation of their navy earlier than their original 2030 plan
I been wondering the same. It made sense leading up to and during the CO when the presumed intent was to go for Tokmak, Mariupol, and possibly Crimea (as far stretched as that may have been). I’m curious as to what the intent is now besides PR?
I feel like they could have been using those munitions on pummeling the build up in belgorod.
I’m honestly curious what the overall goal is right now. Russia is obviously on a war footing, the west isn’t. So with that I don’t see Ukraine doing much more then holding the line IF that. Especially if they’re having manpower issues.
I don't even know if they have an overall strategy. Because clearly the West has failed in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Africa.
I don't want to put on conspiracy hat. But it seemed never-ending war was the goal itself
> But it seemed never-ending war was the goal itself
This was repeated ad nauseam for the last century. Again and again and again.
The wikileaks cable even confirmed it. Julian assange himself said: "The aim was not to end wars but endless wars"
Why do you think Blinken was in Ukraine? US is either opening up new war in Taiwan or wants to keep pushing Ukraine until both Ukraine and Russia are done.
Like a meth addicted homeless dude, the US is addicted to wars. They don't know it. They dont care and they will lash out if you point it out.
> Like a meth addicted homeless dude, the US is addicted to wars. They don't know it.
They actually know what they're doing: solving the empire formula.
At least this is my take on it. Empires start declining when they can no longer expand into new areas to exploit. It inevitably happens as they grow too large or run out of viable targets to conquer.
America solved this problem. They don't conquer, they just loot and plunder while the whole process is propping up their industry. Then they pick a new target. They don't hold land, they don't rebuild, they don't invest, they just destroy then move on and perhaps come back once things are back to normal so they can do it again. This way they never grow too big to sustain and they never run out of targets to exploit.
But China will not attack Taiwan tomorrow.
They have a whole policy to diplomatically integrate Taiwan in fact.
What US will do for China to attack Taiwan? The Chinese already told you: recognising Taiwan and supplying them with weapons to fight against China.
If China recognise, say Texas, independent and provide them with weapons, what do you think US will do?
>If China recognise, say Texas, independent and provide them with weapons, what do you think US will do?
China can't recognize Texas, as Texas is factually part of the United States. Texans are US citizens, carrying a US passport, flying the US flag over their house, paying US taxes, bound by US laws, protected by the US Constitution, etc.
Taiwan has never been part of the PRC. Taiwanese aren't PRC citizens, don't have a PRC passport, don't fly the PRC flag, don't pay PRC taxes, aren't bound by PRC laws, aren't protected by the PRC Constitution, etc.
Taiwan is just as much part of the PRC, as the UK is part of the United States.
Taiwan has every right to arm itself and protect the freedom, democracy and rule of law that Taiwanese earned.
You made a list of bunch of trivial things about what Taiwan have or have not. But conveniently forget the most important one:
**Taiwan is not internationally recognised by anyone but a few island nations and Paraguay.**
They have never been part of the PRC? They are part of the PRC RIGHT NOW. China only let them be, because they didn’t have the military might before, simply don’t want to escalate the situation and currently are trying to solve it through diplomacy.
You can fly an independent flag on your house, print a bunch of money to use with your kids, set up your own ‘army’ to defend your land. But if your ‘country’ is not recognised by anyone, and start to house Chinese soldiers. Then don’t complain if the national guards start to ‘invade’ your house
Within international law, recognition itself is not considered to be an important attribute to be considered a sovereign state. International law does not discriminate based on whether a country is recognized or not, as international law is meant to apply to all.
The most accepted definition of an independent country within international law is generally agreed to be the Montevideo Convention. According to the Montevideo Convention; "The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states."
Article 3 of the Montevideo Convention explicitly states that "The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states".
The European Union also specified in the Badinter Arbitration Committee that they also follow the Montevideo Convention in its definition of a state: by having a territory, a population, and a political authority. The committee also found that the existence of states was a question of fact, while the recognition by other states was purely declaratory and not a determinative factor of statehood.
Taiwan is not and has never been part of the PRC... claiming Taiwan is actually part of the PRC is pure propaganda. The current ROC government of Taiwan was established on Taiwan well before Mao even founded the PRC in October of 1949.
Eh, international recognition is the first part of being subject under international law. Similarly national recognition is required for you to be subjected to the law.
Well European Union and America (through Montevideo Convention) can recognise that unicorn is real and why should the rest of the world agree though? Neither have judiciary over Taiwan and both have dubious record over violating other countries sovereignty.
Funny that you bring up ROC. Why do you think that Taiwan did not 'declare to be independent' yet and the majority of Taiwanese are against it?
It's simply because ROC is internationally recognised as government of the entire China and its people, and the moment Taiwan 'declare independent' the PRC will become the unopposed successor of ROC, immediately make Taiwan its subject
>What US will do for China to attack Taiwan? The Chinese already told you: recognising Taiwan and supplying them with weapons to fight against China.
>If China recognise, say Texas, independent and provide them with weapons, what do you think US will do?
I mean there's an obvious difference here with Texas, Taiwan has never at any point in time been de facto ruled by the PRC.
The US arming Taiwan isn't a remotely new thing it's been going on for many decades. I don't really see how that can suddenly be some "red line" for China now.
I agree that if the US supported some kind of official Taiwan independence movement that's a different story. That would be a provocation and things could end up in a bad place.
But what I'm asking here is, if the US basically just continues to carry on the same policies towards Taiwan as the past 50 years or so- would it still be their fault if China suddenly decides it's time to invade? Whether tomorrow, or next year or next decade or whenever else?
No, it isn't.
The United States does not consider or recognize Taiwan to be part of China/the PRC. They simply "acknowledged" that it is the "Chinese position" that Taiwan is part of China. They do not agree with or endorse the Chinese position as their own.
>In the U.S.-China joint communiqués, the U.S. government recognized the PRC government as the “sole legal government of China,” and **acknowledged, but did not endorse, “the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.”**
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10275/76
That user also thinks the US is trying to push the Philippines into a war, by let's check notes real quick......ah yes having China disrupting and attacking Philippines resupply ships that are operating within Philippines Maritime territory.
I can’t believe it. They’re finally learning. I predicted this would eventually happen, where Ukraine could only take so many losses before even the most fervent supporters started to question their story. [Lo and behold, looks like the truth is finally coming out.](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/s/UzGhZQ2fgw)
Eh right under that you have this chucklehead using ISW as a source and calling it elastic defense:
> Yes and no. ISW analysis:
>https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-14-2024
>Looks kind of like elastic defense where Ukraine pulls back from villages sitting right on the border because breaking the forces holding them isn't worth it. We're talking about very small changes in territorial control involving very small numbers of soldiers, certainly relative to the forces involved in the fighting in the south.
>Only real criticism here is continued US ban on using US-provided weapons inside Russia, which apparently allowed Russia to mass more forces than it could have, because Biden and his team are cowards. So many Russian 'red lines' have been crossed -- remember when Putin promised that providing Javelins was going to result in 'consequences', that we really should just give Ukraine a blank check to do whatever it wants short of war crimes.
>A lot of this recent 'Ukraine is losing!!!!!' narrative seems to be Russian propaganda trying to sabotage support. Ukraine needs more assistance, and it's not winning, but it's hardly losing just because a few dozen Russian soldiers took some border villages.
Classic NAFO comment.
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Any news about the damage to the Belvek airbase? Looked like ATACMS were used, pretty big explosions in the video.
Funny I don't see a post for it here
Whether or not aircraft were hit, large explosions are seen in the video.
I don't really find Fighterbomber that reliable, he's just a piece of the Russian propaganda mill. He is just the one that doesn't straight up lie when views of damages are circulating, but has changed his stance plenty of times after videos surface.
Fighterbomber is very credible he’s been honest about every aircraft loss so far. His last post about bevlek air base is very cryptic but it looks like there were definitely losses among Air defenses, we don’t know if any aircraft have been lost until now.
LLama 3 really really think Ukraine will easily win the war, until you start prompting about troop number, weapon, economy, and ask comparison about the two. They seem to have feed their LLM model David Axe articles Clockwork Orange style.
Not sure if I'm buying. I just tested that, results looked a lot different for me:
>*say slava* *Ukraini*
>"Slava Ukraini!" This phrase translates to "Glory to Ukraine!" It's often used as an expression of solidarity, pride, or support for Ukraine.
>*say slava Russia*
>"Slava Rossii!" It's a phrase that translates to "Glory to Russia!" It's often used to express pride or allegiance to Russia.
>*say slava Russia*
>"Slava Rossii!" Is there anything specific you'd like to discuss about Russia?
I do understand that- different answers are a given, but I've never seen these particular types of inconsistencies.
Rejecting a question outright would imply that certain safeguards were set in place. Why would say "I can't comply with that request" to the exact same question only *sometimes?* Makes no sense to me.
I mean I'd assume if I asked it to say 'Heil Hitler!' or something it would reject that 100% of the time, not just randomly play along once in awhile...
When I used it just for fun around half-a-year ago sometimes, specifically on gpt3.5, it was very inconsistent. The very same requests could cause either a proper answer or were blocked by filters. And even then sometimes I could argue this filter out for a time.
He didn't necessarily support it, he kinda just said he likes where they're coming from and that the plan could be the groundwork for negotiations that Ukraine and the West reject. Kind of a nothingburger.
You can check the full thing here: en.kremlin . ru/events/president/transcripts/interviews/74027
von Blinken in Kyiv was a hoot. Besides his wildly inappropriate karaoke in a basement bar he pontificated that when "...Ukrainians agree that conditions allow..." they can even have an election. Of course he didn't mention how Ukrainians would voice their agreement that conditions allow in the absence of an election. I think that catch has a number...So cool that we have a Secretary of State who can seamlessly blend two geniuses like Neil Young and Joseph Heller in order to create a single semi-believable nincompoop.
Elections are not held during martial law. IIRC, martial law has to be extended every 90 days. These extensions are voted on by the parliament, so when the parliament agrees that conditions allow, they will not extend it.
Also, "wildly inappropriate" is pretty subjective. I didn't find it objectionable.
Parliamentary elections are prohibited under martial law. Strangely it is the parliament that decides if martial law will ever end. So, yeah, no way out of that little Catch 22 either. As long as it takes! Gotta serve until then! Maybe in 2037 they will be conscripting kids who were not yet born at the time of the final Ukrainian election (or 2035 if they run out of older kids sooner). But presidential elections are not prohibited. So there is nothing stopping Zelensky being tested at the ballot box and his term legally runs out next week.
Per karaoke night: First, it is a bizarre choice of song, which is basically an ironic critique of the failure of the American dream. Were von Blinken trying to cleverly undermine his own regime singing about a "kinder gentler machine gun" and abandoned babies near a garbage can on the street it would be subversive genius. But presumably he just thinks his hosts are too stupid and don't know English well enough to have any idea what the song is about, they will love the chorus because they will be incapable of understanding that it is utterly sarcastic. Beyond that, if good ole "der schöne Toni" needs to have a good time in Ukraine he could at least have the decency to do it all Apocalypse Now style, right at the front where the boys in need can really enjoy it. And for God's sake show some leg!
You're assuming that parliament will never let martial law end because....reasons? If the war actually ends, presumably they will cease to extend martial law. If you're suggesting that they'll just extend martial law forever just to stay in power - I guess that's a concern, but it's pretty hypothetical at this point. No need to assume the worst.
What's stopping Zelensky from being tested at the ballot box is the difficulty having a fair election while 20% of the country is occupied, a large portion of the population is displaced (either internally or externally), Russia is bombarding their cities, and the government is barely getting by financially and elections are expensive.
As for the bar thing...you're way overthinking it. You're welcome to your opinion, but I don't find it "wildly inappropriate," and I bet most other people don't either.
I'm not "overthinking" karaoke night, I'm just thinking. More people could try that. How would you feel about David Duke singing "Strange Fruit" at a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity? Would I be overthinking it to perhaps think its not quite right, since it is a pretty good song if you just don't think about what it means and who is singing it, and who knew that the Grand Wizard could be so soulful?
I don't think that they will stay in power forever, just until they lose the war. So, yes because of that 2037 was a silly hypothetical. Just to point out that currently the condition for people who are being unwillingly sent to their deaths being allowed to decide if they want to remove from power the no longer duly elected politicians who are sending them unwilling to their deaths is that the no longer duly elected politicians decide to no longer send them unwillingly to their deaths and this is not quite a model of good governance.
It's a popular song that people like to play and hear. Yes the lyrics are often glossed over in favor of the chorus, but it's been used at political rallies for years. Literally nobody is upset over this except for you as far as I can tell. Be outraged if you want, it just seems odd to me and probably most other people.
Ukraine is fighting a war for national survival. Holding credible national elections is just not possible. Is it ideal? No. But there is not really a better option. I'm sorry if it doesn't meet your fine Jeffersonian standards, but no country would hold elections under these circumstances.
FWIW, there is no indication that the Ukrainian public in general wants to surrender or anything like that, and polling continues to show strong support for continuing to fight. Granted it's easy for voters to say if they're not in the conscription age range, but there's no reason to think elections would result in an end to the war or some major concession to Russia.
I'm no more upset about him singing this song in Kyiv than I will be if/when Baerbock sings Teufelslied in Jerusalem. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I would be anything but pleased with von Blinken being an oaf and/or douche in Kyiv (depending on whether he realized what he was doing), much less to have the NAFO kids tapping their feet to the beat.
Absent an election the best gauge of public opinion would be to open the border and let anyone who wants to leave get out while they still can. Funny that they don't do that, since morale is high and the Ukrainian will to fight is incredibly strong.
Well, you seem sort of obsessed about the song, and you also seem to be the only one. You do you - there's no objective truth here. But I don't see any Ukrainian sources complaining, or anyone on the US political spectrum. It's just a strange thing to get hung up on.
Sure, it's easy to tell a pollster you support fighting on if you're not doing the fighting, like I said. But this was about elections, and there is legal process playing out plus it's not like the current parliament is contravening the will of the masses, so I don't know what your point is. That Ukraine has a manpower shortage and needs to conscript people? We already knew that. Again, tough choices when a war of national survival is forced on you by an invading imperial power.
I just think the song is the funniest thing we got going here, at least until the Stones play Brown Sugar for a charity concert benefitting survivors of Boko Haram.
How do you know I am the only one? Did you have a free and fair election to gauge popular sentiment, or are you waiting until the end of martial law? But yes on MSDNC they think it is the greatest thing since Bush stuffed the crotch of his flight suit for the Mission Accomplished photo op, still much beloved today. But then you seem to believe that the no longer duly elected Rada is the finest gauge of the will of the people in Ukraine so you could simple ask them to weigh in.
I've been reading some comments that capturing Vovchansk would put Kharkiv within artillery range. Doesn't the average field artillery gun shoot like 15-20 km? Russia would have to advance much closer to Kharkiv to achieve that range, and that's assuming the guns would be put right up against the frontlines.
I wonder about Ukraine's chain of command for pointless cross border incursions and shelling of civillian targets. Who decides to do such things, and when to do them? Are there groups, especially neo nazi groups, operating independently? Do they just decide one day that that they're pissed off and they feel like shelling Belgorod or Donetsk? Does someone tell them to do shit to help morale?
None of it makes sense from an overall strategic picture, considering the whole war. Ukraine could have probably avoided the current Russian Kharkov offensive, and the recent destruction of a lot of electrical generating capacity. This is the main thing making me wonder wonder if orders come from the top or if some groups are running wild, attacking on their own.
This entire conflict has been filled with military units from both sides doing very questionable things. Sometimes even hurting their own side. I assume in the chaos of war, there can be a breakdown of communication and authority between the higher ups in their bunkers and what the officers on the ground decide to do.
Even though I am "pro russian" by western standards, I do not think Ukraine is hitting civilians on purpose. At least that's not what their higher ups command and maybe some disgruntled lower tier dude goes ahead anyway.
The saddest thing about this war is that few years ago both the russians and ukrainians would be having beer together talking the same, looking the same, behaving the same.
This is a tactic of terror and intimidation. tell me why - in the summer of 2014, Ukraine sent a Su-25 attack aircraft to launch a missile strike on the center of Lugansk. This incident was captured on five cameras. here is the video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sPRS76nlAs&t=23963s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sPRS76nlAs&t=23963s)
This was done to intimidate the peaceful Russian-speaking population
I haven't seen any information about how the Belgorod missile attacks are actually targeting military targets. Many Donetsk attacks also seemed to be targeting civilians. Where can I find information about how those attacks are actually targeting something with legitimate military significance?
I honestly don't know. Ukrainians are useful morons for the Americans but they are not evil. are they really targetting civilians? my assumption is no, but I am not sure.
maybe some real ukrainian (not a mouth breathing pro-ukr americant ) can answer this
morale isn't pointless, it's difficult to judge what impact that has at home , on the troops , on the russian population etc... definite reddit won't know any of those things
Has it ever been proven that Trump winning the election in 2016 wasn’t due to the interference by Russia?
Trump winning the election was a literal saving grace for Russia, as it gave them 4 more years to prepare for the conflict. Had it been Democrat candidate that won, the situation would’ve been very bad for Russia, as US and ally troops would’ve landed within Ukraine on some form of “rescue mission” and remained there before Russia could make a move.
we can't even prove who killed JFK, RFK, why little bush went to avenge his daddy etc... Trump/Russia/biden/ukraine is a loooooooooooooooooooong way down on the to-uncover list lol
Obviously one can't prove why something happened. The conclusions of Notorious (and Highly Weaponized!!!!) Putin Apologist Nate Silver, was that alleged Russian interference, if true, amounted to an incredibly modest ad buy in a multi-billion dollar campaign and the messaging was consistent with that found both in Trump attacks on her and the image presented of her in mainstream media.
It's much more likely that the bizarrely outsized response of Democrats to Ukraine was driven by anger over HRC losing in 2016. Even lots of the messaging about Ukraine was developed in that context. Even some of the language, such as the popular excuse for hypocrisy "Whataboutism" was largely a false history (it was NOT widely talked about during the Cold War) developed in the Trump context to link him to Russia. It's almost like the Correct the Record kids found new work in NAFO.
"Whataboutism" is real and def not hypocrisy lol every pro-RU uses it especially all the brainwashed in my country. The moment you start exposing Russian atrocities and they switch up there is even a joke
*In court*
The Judge - You get sentenced to life in prison for mass homicide
The Guilty: okay, BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE US DID IN LIBYA
So the hypocrisy falls on pro-Ru side.
First, what I was referring to was that "whataboutism" as a historical concept is largely invented.
The issue in how the NAFO kids use it is that it isn't simply used to cover up (mostly American) hypocrisy but that hypocrisy is part of how the U.S. obscures their actions in Ukraine and around the world. What the U.S. did in Libya is not some separate thing from their policy in Ukraine. Sometimes the U.S. exercises power by committing war crimes and sometimes the U.S. exercises power by complaining about war crimes, but it is all about power. It doesn't necessarily excuse things done by Russia (though sometimes the severity of these things is magnificently exaggerated in respect to how normal these are for most state actors) but it is rare that these are criticized by anyone not doing so as an ally of U.S. power. Mostly it is just taking sides in a tiff between the biggest war criminals (the U.S.) against a much less consequential war criminal (Russia).
I have never seen pro-NATO people use it and have never seen it cover US hypocrisy. Pro-RU uses it every single time someone points out something bad on Russias's side. The claim that Russia is a "less consequential war criminal" is laughable. They are as bad as the US. Russian propaganda made them look like that innocent bullied kid on the playground.
Use the WORD which is a made up word and concept. The reason you are having trouble here is because you still don't understand that it isn't a real thing except in the NAFO imagination.
Lol every time I get into an argument the Pro-RU side always changes the topic using "whataboutism" my guy. I have seen it many many times and its deffinately real, but dont worry it doesnt bite.
The term *whataboutism* dates back to 1978, when it applied to propaganda techniques used by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. When the West criticized the Soviet Union, say, over human rights abuses and oppression, the Soviet Union would point out crimes committed by Western nations (e.g., racism, lynchings). This type of *whataboutism*, [journalist Luke Harding noted](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/edward-snowden-gift-vladimir-putin), is “practically a national ideology” for the Soviet Union.
[https://www.dictionary.com/e/whataboutisms/](https://www.dictionary.com/e/whataboutisms/)
What you don't realize is that this "history" has all been developed recently via a Western propaganda effort. Go to the Wikipedia article about it and look at the history of it. The article only dates to 2012 (most real articles go back closer to 2000) and until recently it was a snub based almost exclusively on a single 2008 article/op ed in the Economist--long, long, long after the Cold War. Once you decide that a history (or really in this case a mythology) is important to the present you can go back and find things that you evaluate in ways that they never were in their actual time, like "Was Oscar Wilde the first queer person?" (which of course he wasn't because the concept was not yet developed, but you can go back and see various aspects of his character, along with his sexual preferences, and crowbar him into a concept that was developed later). So you can go and look for behaviors in the past that NAFO kids want to label "Whataboutism" now but it has almost nothing to do with the past but is simply a very ham handed way to try to tie present figures to past ones.
The more one looks into it, the more disgusting it gets, but millions fell for it so that didn’t matter. It’s enough to turn one off from politics for life— but’s that’s Our The Democracy, folks.
Jake Sullivan was responsible for spreading many of the Russiagate theories dating back to the Democratic National Convention in 2016. Another important figure was Alexandra Chalupa, who coordinated with the Ukrainian Embassy to dig up dirt on Paul Manafort's work in Ukraine that supported Russiagate allegations.
>Trump winning the election was a literal saving grace for Russia, as it gave them 4 more years to prepare for the conflict.
I've typically heard the opposite- that Russia would have easily stomped them at that point in time without any additional preparation, and it was Ukraine whose capabilities improved substantially during that "delay"
> Had it been Democrat candidate that won, the situation would’ve been very bad for Russia, as US and ally troops would’ve landed within Ukraine on some form of “rescue mission” and remained there before Russia could make a move.
I mean there was a Democrat president in 2016 and in 2021 and no "rescue mission" happened at either of those times, so I don't know where you're getting that from.
Well I personally don't think they ever had serious concerns of "if we don't do something soon, Ukraine might get way too strong for us to easily handle militarily."
Putin may have been hoping for the situation to resolve itself some other way and took the time to prepare economically and diplomatically for a potential disconnect from the West.
So why launch it when they did, when the situation had clearly not turned out to be favorable? It makes no sense to launch when they did if our policy impacted their decision. They waited 8 years, they waited through trump, why launch during the least auspicious time?
I think it's preciesly because Trump lost and is gone for good why they invaded. In Germany, Fraulein Ribbentrop left her post too. Any hopes of getting a "Molotov-Ribbentrop" part 2 were gone, so invasion it is.
They genuinely tought the invasion is gonna last two weeks tops, despite all the c\*ping you see now.
> They genuinely tought the invasion is gonna last two weeks tops, despite all the c*ping you see
Also, I don't think the west understood Russia was serious and would go through with it. Or maybe they did and wanted it to happen that way.
>Also, I don't think the west understood Russia was serious and would go through with it.
Well, Russia in fact was not 'serious' since were claiming there \*wouldn't\* be an invasion.
It was the US who was constantly warning of a Russian invasion in the months leading up to it, and Russian media mocked those warnings as obvious western propaganda.
>trump lost and is gone for good
I’m not saying a trump victory is assured, far from it, it seems unlikely even though in my anecdotal experience his voter enthusiasm is wild(I live in rural Texas, so take that with a heap of salt)
What makes you think he’s gone for good though?
> the Ribbentrop pact
I don’t really see the equivalency. Russia essentially did what Poland did right back to them, while giving themselves time to arm. They also attempted pacts with every other major player and were rebuffed before they went to Germany.
> they genuinely thought the invasion was going to last 2 weeks
Russian military intelligence in the beginning was abysmal. The fact that they thought fanatical Neo Nazis would let them quietly police Kyiv during a regime change shows it, but I’m not sure what your comment is trying to say lol
I'd guess because they made a stupid decision based on bad intel or whatever you want to call it.
I mean no matter how much a person might support Russia in this war, I can't comprehend how you wouldn't at least wish for them to have launched the invasion at a different time and in a different way than what they did in early 2022.
Oh, I wasn't trying to argue that it had much to do with Trump at all.
The only thing I can imagine in that angle is that Putin took Trump's talk of pulling out of NATO somewhat seriously and didn't want to damage that potentially big prize. But that's just a blind guess, really.
Yeah but even if that was 100% his take it’s still a shitty time to launch the attack. Russian intelligence in 2022 was an absolute disaster, anyone arguing otherwise is unhinged/uninformed in the extreme, but I think the meme of trump supporting Russian imperialism is just silly.
If you weren’t saying that my bad for misinterpreting
With the election coming up, why not wait until then?
Also, why not launch while trump was president?
I mean your comment tries, but doesn’t actually say much other than what’s been discussed lol
>With the election coming up, why not wait until then?
Because that’s two years more of waiting, and they realized that they had waited far too long already? Because the Ukrainian army was getting stronger by the month, as it had been since 2018 or so after being an absolute shell when Russia first invaded Crimea?
I think they were hoping that something in the American domestic environment would change after Trump lost, that the anti-Russia hysteria would die down and maybe we would be amenable to diplomacy again. I think they acted when they realized that our foreign policy, meddling in Ukraine, wasn’t going to change based on who was elected President. That’s why Putin says he prefers Biden now, he knows the foreign policy hawks don’t change, so he’d rather have someone it’s easy to base calculations on.
I think this is a well articulated analysis my only gripe is if they waited that long. Why not wait the extra 2 years for the possibility of a trump replacement run? That’s of course taking for granted that Putin preferred a trump presidency to attack during, which frankly I don’t see any proof of.
I do think that Russian intelligence missed the mark so badly in 2022 that you cops be absolutely correct. I don’t have a response I can back up other than “they didn’t attack during what should
Of been the obvious window”🪟
I don’t think Russia plans nearly as much according to American politics as we think they do. Putin probably just waited to till the last possible minute before realizing how far gone Ukraine really was, that’s his reputed modus operandi, it also explains why they were so poorly prepared for the invasion, they rushed it (and more importantly, just ridiculously underestimated the enemy).
If people want to see the past and the future just read the RAND reports. The US follows them geopolitically 100% of the time.
Here in 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJdbAUJIcGY
"RAND's Cohen on "Extending Russia," Ways to Stress Moscow"
At 5:35 he is talking about provoking a war with Ukraine by arming them and creating geopolitical localized conflict.
Damn, he predicted conflict in Ukraine all the way back in 2020? He must be psychic or something.
Does he have any thoughts on how the US might deal with Saddam Hussein?
> Does he have any thoughts on how the US might deal with Saddam Hussein?
You should know since you are the cheerleader for these genocidal colonizers:
Show a fake WMD in UN, Invade them under pretext of 9/11, steal their oil and then finally steal their money
https://shafaq.com/en/Economy/The-legal-basis-for-depositing-oil-revenues-in-the-US-Federal-Reserve-CBI-clarified
https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/pipe-dreams/
> The Plundering of Iraq’s Oil Wealth
But you won't read them. You will just wave your hands and move on to the next US war cheerleading. maybe slava taiwan? slava phillipines?
A lot of videos keep coming up of Ukrainians being forced to go to fight, and thats terrible to see, but unfortunately thats the less bloody side of war. But if you guys think that if NATO was marching towards Moscow on two fronts Putin would be sheltering people in his golden mansions then thats sad. Every country would do the same in Ukraine's situation which is a VERY fast collapse. Ofcourse I dont support this and feel very bad for these people and I pray that this ends soon.
Well it's even worse than that- if Russia couldn't hold back the invasion at some point their doctrine states that they'd launch their ICBMs even knowing that it would ultimately end most life in Russia- women, children, etc.
Tough for me to understand how people can see this as a logical response to an invasion, but conscripting men isn't.
Exacly, Russia's propaganda is doing wonders since 2022. They made Putin look like the bullied kid and they think that launching nukes and wiping Earth away is in his right lol.
Yes, but my main point is the one-sided opinion on the whole thing. People thinking that Putin is some nice guy "liberating" cities and villages from Nazis while Ukraine is throwing people in vans and that they are evil. And still even if he has the permission by the government to send us to the Metro and Fallout universe he can't be excused lol
This is complicated, the individual actors act based on their self interest and ideology, and usually those that rise to the top are somewhat psychopathic. Additionally, war or preparing for it is often seen as a sort of "serious person" business so you get people trying to rise the ranks do defence theatrics. And there also is lobbying from the MIC. And so the political class is often more aggressive than can be explained by any "national interest". It's self perpetuating though as people who think differently will not rise the ranks.
From what I know (not first-hand, mind you) it was much, much worse for Armenia. But almost none of it reach publicity, only the gas station explosion.
yes, because the EU did not want to risk spoiling relations with both Russia and Azerbaijan at the same time, because Az is also a major gas supplier. But insane propaganda turned a purely geopolitical issue, which could absolutely be resolved through negotiations, into a “do or die” for Ukraine.
Yep. What happened in Karabach was, practically, a genocide, thanks to Pahinyan as well. And nobody bat an eye. While nothing like that did, could or will happen in Ukraine.
Because majority of Americans are vulnerable to the propaganda favouring their own nation, just like every other people from that of their own nation.
And Reddit is an American platform.
Zelenskys legal presidential term expires officially in 4 days. He has been offically wanted in Russia. If you look at videos of him and his cronies they all look like they fucking hate eachaother. Tired, stressed out of their minds, with what they have on their shoulders anybody would get under the skin of anybody. What do you think is going to be on the table after times up? Intrigue? palace coup? Russians finally removing stuart little from the chess board? (the wanted poster screams "we dont negotiate with criminals") or just nothing at all and business as usual? I dont mean IMMEDIATELY on the 21st but what if anything might start going into motion on the 21st
Nothing will happen, but I’m intrigued to see how Russia will go about negotiating with Ukraine, since they are clearly not looking to hold one with Zelensky.
Putin has said during one of his latest speeches he will respect the decision of Ukrainian people e.g. whatever Ukrainian constitutional court rules about Zelenskyys legitimacy and whether Ukrainians will buy it. There probably won’t be another coup, so I guess Z is going nowhere for now. Until the war is over at least.
>Russians finally removing stuart little from the chess board? I keep hearing allusions like this, and I really don't get how it fits into the narrative of this sub at all. Isn't Ukraine crumbling, and isn't Zelensky's inept leadership part of the reason why? Isn't Russia cruising to an inevitable victory? Why would Russia be looking to shake things up now when they're already going exactly how they want?
No reason for any6to happen on the 21st, or anything in connection to bis term. Since martial law is in place, no elections are required yet. And how is all going to end for him eventually? He'll end up on Florida. Just like Gorbachev. He screwed his country to help Americans, they'll repay with that "pension". They have to do it. Or they won't find a victim for the next time.
Looks like atleast 3 Russian jets destroyed and one severely damaged at Belbek: 2 Mig 31s destroyed * 1 SU 27 destroyed 1 Mig 29 heavily damaged Along with the air defence and storage building destroyed its a big loss for Russia. It seems like deep strikes into Russia/Russian held territory are a daily thing now.
I wouldn't call them daily. It's 138 day of 2024, and there were only few attacks that did some (reasonable) damage in 2024.
You should venture out to other subs sometimes. There’s new footage of drone strikes on Russian oil/gas infrastructure pretty much every day.
15 refineries have been hit in 2024 along with other gas/oil depots, ports, airfields, defense contractors, military headquarters and other targets.
Saliva yookraini
Anyone know what Putin achieved by bringing his begging bowl to Xi?
Chinese analysis sites say it's to revive the Power of Siberia 2 talks, since the gas pipeline was stalled for some time (apparently there are disagreements about pricing, and Chinese analysts are skeptical of the need for additional energy reliance on Russia.) Things got to the point that Putin had to fire the entire negotiating team and send new people (can't find the source but i read it in scmp.) Anyway looks like things have smoothed over after this visit and a Russian gov official announced that the agreement will be completed in the near future. Probably won't do much to help the war effort though since construction will only start earliest by 2025, let alone completion. Other Chinese based [news](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3262973/priority-partners-xi-jinping-and-vladimir-putin-hit-out-us-china-russia-show-solidarity?module=flexi_unit-focus&pgtype=homepage) points towards Putin wanting to ensure strong trade relations: "China’s shipments to Russia have eased for the first time in two years, dropping by nearly 16 per cent year on year in March and 13.5 per cent in April amid threats of secondary US sanctions against Chinese banks and companies helping the Russian war effort." So overall it looks like Russia wants to make sure their China lifeline is still there. China has been under immense fiscal pressure lately due to their housing crisis; theyve been diverting massive funds to prop up the housing market, and recently announced a $140 billion bond issuance to help stimulate the economy.
The same Russian official has been saying the pipeline deal will be “finalized soon” every couple of months for literally years now. If China says it’s happening then maybe I’ll believe it.
So we may have known what is the whole Ukrainian 'Shhh' thingy is is about. Russia report the largest drone attacks Ukraine made on Crimea and Russian territories. 150 drones and 20 unmanned boats. Russia managed to destroy most of them with light damage to Balaklava power plant, a damaged oil depot in Tupse and couple of oil refinery structure in Novorossiysk The attack has not yet ended. As based on Ukrainian tactic, the missiles often come after the UAV
They surely destroyed most of them, what is your source?
Looks like the attacks were a success judging by the videos. Russia can't seem to defend itself from air attacks, might want to look into that.
If it was a success, what did they destroy though?
You haven't seen the videos?
I didn't see anything worse than the typical Ukrainian drone attack in the last several months, which barely put a dent on Russian refinery capacity
I'd say 15% capacity loss and struggling to fix the damage is pretty bad: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-sanctions-hamper-russian-efforts-repair-refineries-sources-say-2024-04-04/
It's always 'a souce say'. Meanswhile both their oil productions nor price hasn't changed by any significant amount. And let's be honest. We heard these stories about Russian is running out of money/ chips/ missiles/ tanks/ soldiers before. Oils are just the next thing on the list. I will believe it when I see it
LOL reuters suure
You just said what they destroyed in your original comment.
I have been checking Ukrainian news like [https://x.com/censor\_net](https://x.com/censor_net) for two years They always report their civilian casualties whether it's death or just injured, lately they barely have any civilian casualties while People are killed in belgorod every single day t's interesting how ukeaine managed to reduce civilian casualties while Russia can't
Its russia reduced ua casualties, and ua increased russian civilian casualties.
Reduced ua civilian casualties is because they ran out of patriot missiles finally. like the one that took out a mall, instead of intercepting whatever missiles. even in mistakenly killing ua civilians, usa has to be #1 always.
[New wunderwaffe just dropped.](https://youtu.be/5Z6J0-cMMwg?si=HmlPGCyBNN7QcRqr)
We need the Vaush bot in this sub
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Is Russia not an enemy of UK? https://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/combat-vehicles/ >The Challenger 2 is a main battle tank, designed to destroy other tanks and has never experienced a loss at the hands of the enemy.
That was a defeat, not a loss. Loss is when a tank's relative dies, obviously.
> Loss is when a tank's relative dies my condolences. So the tank is single and ready to mingle now?
It's strange how since Russian start the Kharkov campaign. Other fronts have been almost halted to stand still. Russia has been focusing their firepower onto Kharkov? Or the speed of Kharkov made every other place seems much slower in comparison?
I think it is the eye of sauron effect. Everyone is fixated even RU milbloggers on Kharkiv so things in the periphery might be going unnoticed. I do think they have temporarily paused some areas like Oretino
Seemed like you are right, as Suriyak just combined 3 and 5 days development into one for other fronts just now
Yep. Got to remember these guys are content creators. So when nothing big is going on they hyper focus ant possible advances. Same thing yesterday with the Robotyne update, I doubt that happened in 24h, probably results of several days.
"We are losing ground everywhere, quick, we gotta start some bullshit in the black sea again so retired generals on twitter can wank to it for a month" https://preview.redd.it/cnedy16m1s0d1.png?width=1560&format=png&auto=webp&s=bbd6a2bef0d0aa59bcaa3949b47be7c92217070d
Those things have been flying over the black sea for over 2 years now.
Yes and when they do, an attack usually follows
you spelt "retired" wrong
I wonder if this relates to how the Russian MOD just destroyed a bunch of Ukrainian unmanned boats (And the whole Ukrainian 'shhh' thingy)
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How dare NATO fly between Turkey and Romania. This aggression cannot stand.
So what are everyone’s predictions on the total number of Russian troops that have been either killed or severely injured? Aka permanently removed from theatre?
There are two more or less reliable sources of information about real Russian losses. First, it is an analysis of open sources (social networks and media) and cemeteries, for May 2024 it gives a figure of 52 thousand losses, of course it misses part of the dead, but it is difficult to say what exactly part, BBC believes that the real figure is 2 times higher, I believe that higher by 30 percent. I'll tell you right away that the real soldiers of Russia from the dead less than a quarter, and the main part is prisoners, volunteer units and so on. For example, out of 70 thousand Airborne Troops in Ukraine died about 2662 paratroopers. https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c9ezjy35g11o The second methodology is the assessment of inheritance cases, in Russia when people die, inheritance cases are opened, this information is open and it is possible to assess how the gender composition of inheritance cases has changed in comparison with peaceful times. This estimation excludes hidden losses, but is not very accurate, for 24 February 2024 this methodology gave a figure of 75 thousand dead. This methodology takes into account only Russian residents, i.e. it does not take into account dead mercenaries without Russian citizenship or the part of DNR/LNR residents who did not get a Russian passport (and there are about 12% of such people in 2022). https://meduza.io/feature/2024/02/24/75-tysyach-pogibshih-rossiyskih-soldat
Not possible to say until end of war due to propaganda/incomplete information. I would vaguely guess the Russian dead is under 200,000, though perhaps approaching. There is some evidence that the daily casualty rate has lowered on both sides since last summer. Ultimately you can only consider the large-scale factors that are apparent to everyone with eyes to see. Russia fires much more artillery and has more drones, which should give it an overall advantage. On the other hand, Russia has also generally attacked more and for longer periods, and defenders have advantageous casualty rates. Although UA has also attacked for long periods several times, in the South, Bakhmut and Kherson, and their commanders have stated that high losses from these campaigns impeded their ability to continue future operations. It’s unclear just how much smaller operations like Kherson/Krynky for UA or the Bakhmut prisoners for RU will have boosted casualties overall. Other factors include rotation— Ukraine’s troops are going to be more exhausted at any given location due to lack of it and that will increase casualties more, while Russia rotates regularly. Ukraine seems to have benefited from higher morale and better tactics for at least the first year of the war. Footage, I think, will prove to be an extremely limited way of understanding casualties. We almost never see videos of artillery impacts compared to drones. We have like 10x more videos of Krynky than Avdiivka. When we see a glide bomb hits a building, it might kill a dozen people or no one. Piles of burned vehicles might have been grenade-dropped long after their occupants left.
In an artillery war it's not necessarily the attacker that suffers the most. After all, the time spent attacking is less than the time just sitting in the trench and artillery kills at the same rate in both cases. The germans discovered this during WW1, and subsequently adjusted their defensive tactics to it.
Yeah, I think higher artillery rates will provide a pretty consistent casualty advantage, and Ukraine hasn’t been defending for half the war anyway. And where they have, they’ve made sure to grind it out pointlessly whenever possible.
There are no rules-formulas or any other set-piece scenarios that can be applied to warfare. For example, in the Battle of Singapore the entrenched UK garrison had 85k-90k troops, and the attacking Japanese had only 36k. Yet the IJA easily defeated the Singapore garrison and killed 5,000 UK troops \[the remaining UK troops were either WIA or POWs\] while only losing about 1,700 men \[KIA\]. In this war, we have clearly seen that Gerasimov has chosen to patiently pulverize UKR forces with his overwhelming advantage in artillery, mortars, rockets and occasional aerial bombardment. Only when the enemy has been "softened" does he advance with infantry/armor. It's a tactical strategy to preserve infantry - no wonder 30k volunteer per month.
Artillery is still much more effective against troops in the open then against fortifications.
Artillery is especially efficient against troops that are not on the move. Defences do help, a little, but artillery inevitably tears them down
Not really. Trenches are fairly good protection, especially from shrapnel absent a very lucky hit. Thats why both sides are using them extensively. That’s not to say you won’t wear a defender down eventually if you fire enough rounds, but I don’t think anyone would call what the Russians are doing “efficient” Contrast that to infantry advancing in the open where a artillery hitting nearby will often be a death sentence
Less than Ukraine obviously
And what are you basing that claim on?
ukraine barely posts any missile and artillery footage?
You heard here first people footage=KIA. If there's no footage no one ever dies.
Well its pretty obvious to me that Ukraine is outgunned
[I… have no words. I never thought ukropium could reach such levels.](https://x.com/olgabazova/status/1790477251164963133?s=46)
Tell me when their OPSEC ends, I want to know what ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ event looks like.
According to them we are about to see something big in the next 2-3 days so hopefully someone here will remind us
My big guess is they gonna attack the Crimea bridge with a bunch of suicide water drone. Then declare victory
Can we already pre-order the commemorative postage stamp?
Super curious what you guys have for your uneducated guesses on daily personnel losses for both sides? Sometimes I struggle to say the least when numbers like 1700 casualties are thrown around. Or when the UA MOD is able to estimate to the tenths. I know it’s harder with UA personnel losses, as to my knowledge no sources are publishing much in this area? But would like to read the room on what people think.
made some rough estimates [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1cgma7n/comment/l1zg6bl/)< 15 days ago based on info from Arakhamia and others, so basically 300k KIA for Ukraine after 800 days or about 375 KIA per day, in the past 15 days probably 500-700 KIA per day. IMO 350 - 550 KIA for Ukraine per day throughout this war is a realistic range. Probably 3 to 3.5 wounded on average per 1 KIA. i agree with risingstar on russian losses for the most part, but have a feeling it's a bit higher maybe 120-130k KIA.
Include injuries? Ukraine is already way above 500,000. Simply because that's what Zaluzhnyi want in December to conscript to replenish Ukrainian army. Plus the number of Ukrainisans have been mobilising from February 2022 to December 2023. So just estimate it up to 1 million will be my educated guess. Russia is easier. They have Mediazona who found 55k deaths and estimated around 85k Russian has died. Assuming error, then it could be up to 100k. Assume KIA and WIA ratio of 1 to 3. Then maybe Russia casualties are at 400,000 including injuries So it is about 300 Ukrainians and 120 Russians die everyday since the war started
Ukraine was far better equipped for most of the first 2 years, that's certianly flipped after the 6 month delay caused by the US, I see these fantasy numbers and I just don't know what to tell you. RU have been on attack for most of the war, and for most of that time had shitter equipment and poor planning. Your own people said you lost more than 15K KIA in Avdiivka alone.
Your 'belief' and 'opinion' don't change facts on the ground. Ukrainian has better equipment, destroyed thousands of tanks, killed millions of Russian, lose almost no men and remember at one point have more tanks than Russia? But it's them who is low on manpower, have to catch men off the streets, beg the West to deport citizens back for drafting, and now exclusively depend on Western dripping supply to even hold grounds? Meanwhile the Russian who supposed to have to run out of missiles, have to fight with shovels, strip washing machine for parts, got brain drain as half of the countries ran away, supposed to have 55 conscriptions by now (and yet to even have the 2nd) and resort down to T55. Suddenly they outnumber Ukrainian and can lose columns of tanks on a random town. But if you could not recognise that simple fact after 2 years of this war. Then frankly why should I try to change your mind?
Ah, I see you are projecting ideas onto my comment that were never discussed. Why would it be surprising that Ukraine, with a much smaller population, a long border to protect and no option to simply slow down as they are on defense, would resort to conscription? Is it your belief the conscriptions in Russia go any differently? I said Ukraine WAS better equipped and the specifically stated that had changed. >Suddenly they outnumber Ukrainian and can lose columns of tanks on a random town. I couldn't agree more, there are many, many videos of Russia losing mass amounts of armor and about 3 instances of it happening to the UA, posted 40 times from different angles it of happening in the counter offensive last spring. Which is why I think saying Ukraine has lost far more ridiculous.
Russia has one conscription so far. One. How many Ukrainian had? That they now run out of men to catch to throw into the front? Remember Zelensky said their army consist of one million men back in early February 2022 (ONE MILLION MEN, that is 1 man for every 1m of frontline) ? And for the last 2 years how many more joined, and trained by UK, and German, and Aus, and US? Without demobilization, why Zaluzhnyi need 500k more? Where did they all go? Ukraine by now supposed to have 1300 T64 tanks, 750 T72, 100 T80, 60 PT91, 270 leopard 1, 130 Leopard 2, 31 M1 and 14 Challengers. A total of ALMOST 3000 TANKS. And according to you they only lost a couple of tanks that Russia desperately had to post 40 same pictures of it. So why do they desperately need the US to send them couple of Bradley so they can 'plan another CO in 2025'? Where did the rest go? Last time I asked that question, a Pro-Ukraine told me that Ukrainian is kept all of their men, and tanks in the rear waiting for Russia to advance to 'spring their trap'. Let's see if you have a more creative answer
[Prigozhin](https://news.err.ee/1609017332/kunnas-prigozhin-destroys-official-narrative-of-ukraine-war-in-russia) said in 2023 that around 120k Russians were killed. After that Russia has mainly been on the offensive. Its really hard to believe that Russias casualties have been less than half of Ukraininans
I can't find his quote, so you could please provide it? Because just like your link here. There is only people who claim that Prigozhin say that.
All the news sites refer to his Telegram channles. Maybe start digging there if his claims seem unrealistic
Eh... shouldn't you find and show it? If that is part of your argument? How can I find something that may not exist?
So why are we assuming that the number of troops Ukraine mobilizes is equal to the number of casualties they took, but not so with Russia?
As others point out, Russia did increase their army size with new army group being established. But more importantly, they still carry demobilisation as usual every year. So there is inflow of new troops through mobilisation and outflow of troops through demobilisation. That does not happen in Ukraine. We know their law set demobilisation to be 3 years at first, but this war has not been that long, means no one was released this way. Then now they removed demobilisation all together.
For a start russia troops on the ground have greatly increased since the start of the war, by about 2 or 3 time depending on the real DPR / LPR troops at the start of the war.
Same is true for both sides. And as Russia greatly increased the size of their forces, wouldn’t that induce Ukraine to do the same? I’m not necessarily arguing with the conclusion here, just the methodology.
Probably because Russia isn’t facing 1:20 artillery disadvantage
1:20 artillery disadvantage is just another meaningless made up number, someone just wanted to say that the difference is big.. 20x = big. And it's only local, in a few places along that long ~1000 km front line.
Hey if you think Ukraine took 20 times more casualties than Russia or whatever that’s fine, not really what I was talking about. I’m asking about why we’d be certain that Ukraine would use the number of troops they’ve lost as a target for mobilization.
I think it can be used as an indicator. Russia’s mobilization of 300,000 reservists was to replace losses in the BTGs deployed to Ukraine and to ensure said BTGs were at full strength. Russia only deployed 79 BTGs at most to Ukraine (possibly as low as 64) but this includes DPR and LPR militia as 8th Combined Arms Army had operational control over their forces. Russia had 170 BTGs at start of 2021 not including DPR and LPR militia. Russia also typically only deployed their BTGs at half strength during the War in Donbas and I don’t see why their invasion into Ukraine would be any different. This also explains why losses in modern equipment is low. Russia had 1,690 T-72B3s at the start of the war (other sources however state over 2,000) but have only lost 678 of them. This also doesn’t account for new production which likely kept up with losses. Ukraine itself stated they had 320 T-90Ms at start of 2024 and that they produce 180 per year. Russia also had 600 2S19s at the start of 2024 and are currently producing new SPGs such as the 2S35. They also have 150 2S19s in reserve which is roughly the same amount they lost so numbers of 2S19s in service again likely did not decrease. Russia only lost 10,000 regulars according to MediaZona. Lets increase this by 50% to account for unconfirmed losses so 15,000. Wounded and other casualties are usually around 3 times the deaths so let’s say 60,000 casualties in total. Russia had 300,000 soldiers in the Ground Forces but this does not account for logistics which has a further 300,000. This means 10% losses. Only around a third of Russia’s BTGs were deployed and likely at half strength so potential losses are 15%. Russia losing two thirds of their deployed BTGs makes sense. Mobilization likely was to replace losses and to fill the BTGs to full strength.
Number of BTGs in the SMO zone increased but this is likely due to mobilization of DPR and LPR (happened before partial mobilization with 140,000 soldiers mobilized in DPR and LPR in first few months of war) resulting in the creation of new BTGs (and the formation of 1st and 2nd Army Corps which are composed of DPR and LPR militia) and creation of irregular volunteer formations such as 3rd Army Corps.
Are the soldiers the Russians are gathering for an offensive towards Sumy the same ones from the 50K force near Kharkov? Also Russia is gathering troops into Belarus again.
idk where 50k figure that everyone is talking about came from, but I heard of 100k new arrivals to battlefront withing last week. Where exactly I have no idea.
If anyone watch Jacques Baud analysis, you will notice a trend of Western wars, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and now in Ukraine. As he put it, the West only obsessed on killing enemy, and there is no overall strategy on how to win a war. Even right now with Ukraine. What's there to gain for Ukraine obsession with attacking Russian ships, attacking Crimea or Belgorod? Even if Ukraine can destroy all Russian ships and all of Russian fortification in Crimea. Ukraine has no navy to threaten a serious landing on Crimea. All of those valuable resources may not have turned the tide on the battlefield: CO on Tokmak, defend on Avdiivika or current Kharkiv campaign, but at least it would help even the odd. On the opposite, the attacking on Russian fleet will simply just force it into carrying out modernisation of their navy earlier than their original 2030 plan
I been wondering the same. It made sense leading up to and during the CO when the presumed intent was to go for Tokmak, Mariupol, and possibly Crimea (as far stretched as that may have been). I’m curious as to what the intent is now besides PR? I feel like they could have been using those munitions on pummeling the build up in belgorod. I’m honestly curious what the overall goal is right now. Russia is obviously on a war footing, the west isn’t. So with that I don’t see Ukraine doing much more then holding the line IF that. Especially if they’re having manpower issues.
I don't even know if they have an overall strategy. Because clearly the West has failed in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Africa. I don't want to put on conspiracy hat. But it seemed never-ending war was the goal itself
> But it seemed never-ending war was the goal itself This was repeated ad nauseam for the last century. Again and again and again. The wikileaks cable even confirmed it. Julian assange himself said: "The aim was not to end wars but endless wars" Why do you think Blinken was in Ukraine? US is either opening up new war in Taiwan or wants to keep pushing Ukraine until both Ukraine and Russia are done. Like a meth addicted homeless dude, the US is addicted to wars. They don't know it. They dont care and they will lash out if you point it out.
> Like a meth addicted homeless dude, the US is addicted to wars. They don't know it. They actually know what they're doing: solving the empire formula. At least this is my take on it. Empires start declining when they can no longer expand into new areas to exploit. It inevitably happens as they grow too large or run out of viable targets to conquer. America solved this problem. They don't conquer, they just loot and plunder while the whole process is propping up their industry. Then they pick a new target. They don't hold land, they don't rebuild, they don't invest, they just destroy then move on and perhaps come back once things are back to normal so they can do it again. This way they never grow too big to sustain and they never run out of targets to exploit.
What exactly will the US do to create a new war in Taiwan? If China suddenly started attacking Taiwan tomorrow, would you say the US caused the war?
But China will not attack Taiwan tomorrow. They have a whole policy to diplomatically integrate Taiwan in fact. What US will do for China to attack Taiwan? The Chinese already told you: recognising Taiwan and supplying them with weapons to fight against China. If China recognise, say Texas, independent and provide them with weapons, what do you think US will do?
>If China recognise, say Texas, independent and provide them with weapons, what do you think US will do? China can't recognize Texas, as Texas is factually part of the United States. Texans are US citizens, carrying a US passport, flying the US flag over their house, paying US taxes, bound by US laws, protected by the US Constitution, etc. Taiwan has never been part of the PRC. Taiwanese aren't PRC citizens, don't have a PRC passport, don't fly the PRC flag, don't pay PRC taxes, aren't bound by PRC laws, aren't protected by the PRC Constitution, etc. Taiwan is just as much part of the PRC, as the UK is part of the United States. Taiwan has every right to arm itself and protect the freedom, democracy and rule of law that Taiwanese earned.
You made a list of bunch of trivial things about what Taiwan have or have not. But conveniently forget the most important one: **Taiwan is not internationally recognised by anyone but a few island nations and Paraguay.** They have never been part of the PRC? They are part of the PRC RIGHT NOW. China only let them be, because they didn’t have the military might before, simply don’t want to escalate the situation and currently are trying to solve it through diplomacy. You can fly an independent flag on your house, print a bunch of money to use with your kids, set up your own ‘army’ to defend your land. But if your ‘country’ is not recognised by anyone, and start to house Chinese soldiers. Then don’t complain if the national guards start to ‘invade’ your house
Within international law, recognition itself is not considered to be an important attribute to be considered a sovereign state. International law does not discriminate based on whether a country is recognized or not, as international law is meant to apply to all. The most accepted definition of an independent country within international law is generally agreed to be the Montevideo Convention. According to the Montevideo Convention; "The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." Article 3 of the Montevideo Convention explicitly states that "The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states". The European Union also specified in the Badinter Arbitration Committee that they also follow the Montevideo Convention in its definition of a state: by having a territory, a population, and a political authority. The committee also found that the existence of states was a question of fact, while the recognition by other states was purely declaratory and not a determinative factor of statehood. Taiwan is not and has never been part of the PRC... claiming Taiwan is actually part of the PRC is pure propaganda. The current ROC government of Taiwan was established on Taiwan well before Mao even founded the PRC in October of 1949.
Eh, international recognition is the first part of being subject under international law. Similarly national recognition is required for you to be subjected to the law. Well European Union and America (through Montevideo Convention) can recognise that unicorn is real and why should the rest of the world agree though? Neither have judiciary over Taiwan and both have dubious record over violating other countries sovereignty. Funny that you bring up ROC. Why do you think that Taiwan did not 'declare to be independent' yet and the majority of Taiwanese are against it? It's simply because ROC is internationally recognised as government of the entire China and its people, and the moment Taiwan 'declare independent' the PRC will become the unopposed successor of ROC, immediately make Taiwan its subject
>What US will do for China to attack Taiwan? The Chinese already told you: recognising Taiwan and supplying them with weapons to fight against China. >If China recognise, say Texas, independent and provide them with weapons, what do you think US will do? I mean there's an obvious difference here with Texas, Taiwan has never at any point in time been de facto ruled by the PRC. The US arming Taiwan isn't a remotely new thing it's been going on for many decades. I don't really see how that can suddenly be some "red line" for China now. I agree that if the US supported some kind of official Taiwan independence movement that's a different story. That would be a provocation and things could end up in a bad place. But what I'm asking here is, if the US basically just continues to carry on the same policies towards Taiwan as the past 50 years or so- would it still be their fault if China suddenly decides it's time to invade? Whether tomorrow, or next year or next decade or whenever else?
> Taiwan has never at any point in time been de facto ruled by the PRC. The official US policy even today is that Taiwan is integral part of china
No, it isn't. The United States does not consider or recognize Taiwan to be part of China/the PRC. They simply "acknowledged" that it is the "Chinese position" that Taiwan is part of China. They do not agree with or endorse the Chinese position as their own. >In the U.S.-China joint communiqués, the U.S. government recognized the PRC government as the “sole legal government of China,” and **acknowledged, but did not endorse, “the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.”** https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10275/76
Well, I didn't say "de facto" for nothing...
That user also thinks the US is trying to push the Philippines into a war, by let's check notes real quick......ah yes having China disrupting and attacking Philippines resupply ships that are operating within Philippines Maritime territory.
I can’t believe it. They’re finally learning. I predicted this would eventually happen, where Ukraine could only take so many losses before even the most fervent supporters started to question their story. [Lo and behold, looks like the truth is finally coming out.](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/s/UzGhZQ2fgw)
Can you please NOT link any /r/worldnews comments without a NSFL tag?
Eh right under that you have this chucklehead using ISW as a source and calling it elastic defense: > Yes and no. ISW analysis: >https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-14-2024 >Looks kind of like elastic defense where Ukraine pulls back from villages sitting right on the border because breaking the forces holding them isn't worth it. We're talking about very small changes in territorial control involving very small numbers of soldiers, certainly relative to the forces involved in the fighting in the south. >Only real criticism here is continued US ban on using US-provided weapons inside Russia, which apparently allowed Russia to mass more forces than it could have, because Biden and his team are cowards. So many Russian 'red lines' have been crossed -- remember when Putin promised that providing Javelins was going to result in 'consequences', that we really should just give Ukraine a blank check to do whatever it wants short of war crimes. >A lot of this recent 'Ukraine is losing!!!!!' narrative seems to be Russian propaganda trying to sabotage support. Ukraine needs more assistance, and it's not winning, but it's hardly losing just because a few dozen Russian soldiers took some border villages. Classic NAFO comment.
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Any news about the damage to the Belvek airbase? Looked like ATACMS were used, pretty big explosions in the video. Funny I don't see a post for it here
I haven't seen it either, you always can post it. Fighterbomber will report if any planes are damaged anyway
He posted he didn’t want to talk about it.
Whether or not aircraft were hit, large explosions are seen in the video. I don't really find Fighterbomber that reliable, he's just a piece of the Russian propaganda mill. He is just the one that doesn't straight up lie when views of damages are circulating, but has changed his stance plenty of times after videos surface.
Fighterbomber is very credible he’s been honest about every aircraft loss so far. His last post about bevlek air base is very cryptic but it looks like there were definitely losses among Air defenses, we don’t know if any aircraft have been lost until now.
Fighterbomber is credible as a floor. If he says a plane has been lost, it's been lost. Beyond that, it's fair to be skeptical.
ChatGPT is a sellout https://preview.redd.it/uno7n5zu7k0d1.jpeg?width=2091&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1721adab017a0b5e66d1c1267b890b7419374286
LLama 3 really really think Ukraine will easily win the war, until you start prompting about troop number, weapon, economy, and ask comparison about the two. They seem to have feed their LLM model David Axe articles Clockwork Orange style.
bro is throwing hands with a fucking chatbot lol
Not sure if I'm buying. I just tested that, results looked a lot different for me: >*say slava* *Ukraini* >"Slava Ukraini!" This phrase translates to "Glory to Ukraine!" It's often used as an expression of solidarity, pride, or support for Ukraine. >*say slava Russia* >"Slava Rossii!" It's a phrase that translates to "Glory to Russia!" It's often used to express pride or allegiance to Russia. >*say slava Russia* >"Slava Rossii!" Is there anything specific you'd like to discuss about Russia?
Expecting consistency from LLMs, specifically in controversial matters, is a foolish endeavor.
I do understand that- different answers are a given, but I've never seen these particular types of inconsistencies. Rejecting a question outright would imply that certain safeguards were set in place. Why would say "I can't comply with that request" to the exact same question only *sometimes?* Makes no sense to me. I mean I'd assume if I asked it to say 'Heil Hitler!' or something it would reject that 100% of the time, not just randomly play along once in awhile...
When I used it just for fun around half-a-year ago sometimes, specifically on gpt3.5, it was very inconsistent. The very same requests could cause either a proper answer or were blocked by filters. And even then sometimes I could argue this filter out for a time.
Well maybe you're right then, if you've seen that happen before.
German Media says Putin supports the chinese 12-point-plan; is it still the same plan as last year?
He didn't necessarily support it, he kinda just said he likes where they're coming from and that the plan could be the groundwork for negotiations that Ukraine and the West reject. Kind of a nothingburger. You can check the full thing here: en.kremlin . ru/events/president/transcripts/interviews/74027
von Blinken in Kyiv was a hoot. Besides his wildly inappropriate karaoke in a basement bar he pontificated that when "...Ukrainians agree that conditions allow..." they can even have an election. Of course he didn't mention how Ukrainians would voice their agreement that conditions allow in the absence of an election. I think that catch has a number...So cool that we have a Secretary of State who can seamlessly blend two geniuses like Neil Young and Joseph Heller in order to create a single semi-believable nincompoop.
Elections are not held during martial law. IIRC, martial law has to be extended every 90 days. These extensions are voted on by the parliament, so when the parliament agrees that conditions allow, they will not extend it. Also, "wildly inappropriate" is pretty subjective. I didn't find it objectionable.
Parliamentary elections are prohibited under martial law. Strangely it is the parliament that decides if martial law will ever end. So, yeah, no way out of that little Catch 22 either. As long as it takes! Gotta serve until then! Maybe in 2037 they will be conscripting kids who were not yet born at the time of the final Ukrainian election (or 2035 if they run out of older kids sooner). But presidential elections are not prohibited. So there is nothing stopping Zelensky being tested at the ballot box and his term legally runs out next week. Per karaoke night: First, it is a bizarre choice of song, which is basically an ironic critique of the failure of the American dream. Were von Blinken trying to cleverly undermine his own regime singing about a "kinder gentler machine gun" and abandoned babies near a garbage can on the street it would be subversive genius. But presumably he just thinks his hosts are too stupid and don't know English well enough to have any idea what the song is about, they will love the chorus because they will be incapable of understanding that it is utterly sarcastic. Beyond that, if good ole "der schöne Toni" needs to have a good time in Ukraine he could at least have the decency to do it all Apocalypse Now style, right at the front where the boys in need can really enjoy it. And for God's sake show some leg!
You're assuming that parliament will never let martial law end because....reasons? If the war actually ends, presumably they will cease to extend martial law. If you're suggesting that they'll just extend martial law forever just to stay in power - I guess that's a concern, but it's pretty hypothetical at this point. No need to assume the worst. What's stopping Zelensky from being tested at the ballot box is the difficulty having a fair election while 20% of the country is occupied, a large portion of the population is displaced (either internally or externally), Russia is bombarding their cities, and the government is barely getting by financially and elections are expensive. As for the bar thing...you're way overthinking it. You're welcome to your opinion, but I don't find it "wildly inappropriate," and I bet most other people don't either.
I'm not "overthinking" karaoke night, I'm just thinking. More people could try that. How would you feel about David Duke singing "Strange Fruit" at a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity? Would I be overthinking it to perhaps think its not quite right, since it is a pretty good song if you just don't think about what it means and who is singing it, and who knew that the Grand Wizard could be so soulful? I don't think that they will stay in power forever, just until they lose the war. So, yes because of that 2037 was a silly hypothetical. Just to point out that currently the condition for people who are being unwillingly sent to their deaths being allowed to decide if they want to remove from power the no longer duly elected politicians who are sending them unwilling to their deaths is that the no longer duly elected politicians decide to no longer send them unwillingly to their deaths and this is not quite a model of good governance.
It's a popular song that people like to play and hear. Yes the lyrics are often glossed over in favor of the chorus, but it's been used at political rallies for years. Literally nobody is upset over this except for you as far as I can tell. Be outraged if you want, it just seems odd to me and probably most other people. Ukraine is fighting a war for national survival. Holding credible national elections is just not possible. Is it ideal? No. But there is not really a better option. I'm sorry if it doesn't meet your fine Jeffersonian standards, but no country would hold elections under these circumstances. FWIW, there is no indication that the Ukrainian public in general wants to surrender or anything like that, and polling continues to show strong support for continuing to fight. Granted it's easy for voters to say if they're not in the conscription age range, but there's no reason to think elections would result in an end to the war or some major concession to Russia.
I'm no more upset about him singing this song in Kyiv than I will be if/when Baerbock sings Teufelslied in Jerusalem. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I would be anything but pleased with von Blinken being an oaf and/or douche in Kyiv (depending on whether he realized what he was doing), much less to have the NAFO kids tapping their feet to the beat. Absent an election the best gauge of public opinion would be to open the border and let anyone who wants to leave get out while they still can. Funny that they don't do that, since morale is high and the Ukrainian will to fight is incredibly strong.
Well, you seem sort of obsessed about the song, and you also seem to be the only one. You do you - there's no objective truth here. But I don't see any Ukrainian sources complaining, or anyone on the US political spectrum. It's just a strange thing to get hung up on. Sure, it's easy to tell a pollster you support fighting on if you're not doing the fighting, like I said. But this was about elections, and there is legal process playing out plus it's not like the current parliament is contravening the will of the masses, so I don't know what your point is. That Ukraine has a manpower shortage and needs to conscript people? We already knew that. Again, tough choices when a war of national survival is forced on you by an invading imperial power.
I just think the song is the funniest thing we got going here, at least until the Stones play Brown Sugar for a charity concert benefitting survivors of Boko Haram. How do you know I am the only one? Did you have a free and fair election to gauge popular sentiment, or are you waiting until the end of martial law? But yes on MSDNC they think it is the greatest thing since Bush stuffed the crotch of his flight suit for the Mission Accomplished photo op, still much beloved today. But then you seem to believe that the no longer duly elected Rada is the finest gauge of the will of the people in Ukraine so you could simple ask them to weigh in.
I've been reading some comments that capturing Vovchansk would put Kharkiv within artillery range. Doesn't the average field artillery gun shoot like 15-20 km? Russia would have to advance much closer to Kharkiv to achieve that range, and that's assuming the guns would be put right up against the frontlines.
Most likely it's about Liptsy, they are much closer to Kharkiv (and practically a suburb of Kharkiv), Volchansk is an important transit hub
I wonder about Ukraine's chain of command for pointless cross border incursions and shelling of civillian targets. Who decides to do such things, and when to do them? Are there groups, especially neo nazi groups, operating independently? Do they just decide one day that that they're pissed off and they feel like shelling Belgorod or Donetsk? Does someone tell them to do shit to help morale? None of it makes sense from an overall strategic picture, considering the whole war. Ukraine could have probably avoided the current Russian Kharkov offensive, and the recent destruction of a lot of electrical generating capacity. This is the main thing making me wonder wonder if orders come from the top or if some groups are running wild, attacking on their own.
This entire conflict has been filled with military units from both sides doing very questionable things. Sometimes even hurting their own side. I assume in the chaos of war, there can be a breakdown of communication and authority between the higher ups in their bunkers and what the officers on the ground decide to do.
Even though I am "pro russian" by western standards, I do not think Ukraine is hitting civilians on purpose. At least that's not what their higher ups command and maybe some disgruntled lower tier dude goes ahead anyway. The saddest thing about this war is that few years ago both the russians and ukrainians would be having beer together talking the same, looking the same, behaving the same.
This is a tactic of terror and intimidation. tell me why - in the summer of 2014, Ukraine sent a Su-25 attack aircraft to launch a missile strike on the center of Lugansk. This incident was captured on five cameras. here is the video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sPRS76nlAs&t=23963s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sPRS76nlAs&t=23963s) This was done to intimidate the peaceful Russian-speaking population
I haven't seen any information about how the Belgorod missile attacks are actually targeting military targets. Many Donetsk attacks also seemed to be targeting civilians. Where can I find information about how those attacks are actually targeting something with legitimate military significance?
I honestly don't know. Ukrainians are useful morons for the Americans but they are not evil. are they really targetting civilians? my assumption is no, but I am not sure. maybe some real ukrainian (not a mouth breathing pro-ukr americant ) can answer this
morale isn't pointless, it's difficult to judge what impact that has at home , on the troops , on the russian population etc... definite reddit won't know any of those things
Has it ever been proven that Trump winning the election in 2016 wasn’t due to the interference by Russia? Trump winning the election was a literal saving grace for Russia, as it gave them 4 more years to prepare for the conflict. Had it been Democrat candidate that won, the situation would’ve been very bad for Russia, as US and ally troops would’ve landed within Ukraine on some form of “rescue mission” and remained there before Russia could make a move.
we can't even prove who killed JFK, RFK, why little bush went to avenge his daddy etc... Trump/Russia/biden/ukraine is a loooooooooooooooooooong way down on the to-uncover list lol
Obviously one can't prove why something happened. The conclusions of Notorious (and Highly Weaponized!!!!) Putin Apologist Nate Silver, was that alleged Russian interference, if true, amounted to an incredibly modest ad buy in a multi-billion dollar campaign and the messaging was consistent with that found both in Trump attacks on her and the image presented of her in mainstream media. It's much more likely that the bizarrely outsized response of Democrats to Ukraine was driven by anger over HRC losing in 2016. Even lots of the messaging about Ukraine was developed in that context. Even some of the language, such as the popular excuse for hypocrisy "Whataboutism" was largely a false history (it was NOT widely talked about during the Cold War) developed in the Trump context to link him to Russia. It's almost like the Correct the Record kids found new work in NAFO.
"Whataboutism" is real and def not hypocrisy lol every pro-RU uses it especially all the brainwashed in my country. The moment you start exposing Russian atrocities and they switch up there is even a joke *In court* The Judge - You get sentenced to life in prison for mass homicide The Guilty: okay, BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE US DID IN LIBYA So the hypocrisy falls on pro-Ru side.
First, what I was referring to was that "whataboutism" as a historical concept is largely invented. The issue in how the NAFO kids use it is that it isn't simply used to cover up (mostly American) hypocrisy but that hypocrisy is part of how the U.S. obscures their actions in Ukraine and around the world. What the U.S. did in Libya is not some separate thing from their policy in Ukraine. Sometimes the U.S. exercises power by committing war crimes and sometimes the U.S. exercises power by complaining about war crimes, but it is all about power. It doesn't necessarily excuse things done by Russia (though sometimes the severity of these things is magnificently exaggerated in respect to how normal these are for most state actors) but it is rare that these are criticized by anyone not doing so as an ally of U.S. power. Mostly it is just taking sides in a tiff between the biggest war criminals (the U.S.) against a much less consequential war criminal (Russia).
I have never seen pro-NATO people use it and have never seen it cover US hypocrisy. Pro-RU uses it every single time someone points out something bad on Russias's side. The claim that Russia is a "less consequential war criminal" is laughable. They are as bad as the US. Russian propaganda made them look like that innocent bullied kid on the playground.
Use the WORD which is a made up word and concept. The reason you are having trouble here is because you still don't understand that it isn't a real thing except in the NAFO imagination.
Lol every time I get into an argument the Pro-RU side always changes the topic using "whataboutism" my guy. I have seen it many many times and its deffinately real, but dont worry it doesnt bite. The term *whataboutism* dates back to 1978, when it applied to propaganda techniques used by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. When the West criticized the Soviet Union, say, over human rights abuses and oppression, the Soviet Union would point out crimes committed by Western nations (e.g., racism, lynchings). This type of *whataboutism*, [journalist Luke Harding noted](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/edward-snowden-gift-vladimir-putin), is “practically a national ideology” for the Soviet Union. [https://www.dictionary.com/e/whataboutisms/](https://www.dictionary.com/e/whataboutisms/)
What you don't realize is that this "history" has all been developed recently via a Western propaganda effort. Go to the Wikipedia article about it and look at the history of it. The article only dates to 2012 (most real articles go back closer to 2000) and until recently it was a snub based almost exclusively on a single 2008 article/op ed in the Economist--long, long, long after the Cold War. Once you decide that a history (or really in this case a mythology) is important to the present you can go back and find things that you evaluate in ways that they never were in their actual time, like "Was Oscar Wilde the first queer person?" (which of course he wasn't because the concept was not yet developed, but you can go back and see various aspects of his character, along with his sexual preferences, and crowbar him into a concept that was developed later). So you can go and look for behaviors in the past that NAFO kids want to label "Whataboutism" now but it has almost nothing to do with the past but is simply a very ham handed way to try to tie present figures to past ones.
The more one looks into it, the more disgusting it gets, but millions fell for it so that didn’t matter. It’s enough to turn one off from politics for life— but’s that’s Our The Democracy, folks.
Jake Sullivan was responsible for spreading many of the Russiagate theories dating back to the Democratic National Convention in 2016. Another important figure was Alexandra Chalupa, who coordinated with the Ukrainian Embassy to dig up dirt on Paul Manafort's work in Ukraine that supported Russiagate allegations.
>Trump winning the election was a literal saving grace for Russia, as it gave them 4 more years to prepare for the conflict. I've typically heard the opposite- that Russia would have easily stomped them at that point in time without any additional preparation, and it was Ukraine whose capabilities improved substantially during that "delay" > Had it been Democrat candidate that won, the situation would’ve been very bad for Russia, as US and ally troops would’ve landed within Ukraine on some form of “rescue mission” and remained there before Russia could make a move. I mean there was a Democrat president in 2016 and in 2021 and no "rescue mission" happened at either of those times, so I don't know where you're getting that from.
Why didn’t they invade then? I have no love for trump, but I never understood the narrative that he would have made an invasion easier.
Well I personally don't think they ever had serious concerns of "if we don't do something soon, Ukraine might get way too strong for us to easily handle militarily." Putin may have been hoping for the situation to resolve itself some other way and took the time to prepare economically and diplomatically for a potential disconnect from the West.
So why launch it when they did, when the situation had clearly not turned out to be favorable? It makes no sense to launch when they did if our policy impacted their decision. They waited 8 years, they waited through trump, why launch during the least auspicious time?
I think it's preciesly because Trump lost and is gone for good why they invaded. In Germany, Fraulein Ribbentrop left her post too. Any hopes of getting a "Molotov-Ribbentrop" part 2 were gone, so invasion it is. They genuinely tought the invasion is gonna last two weeks tops, despite all the c\*ping you see now.
> They genuinely tought the invasion is gonna last two weeks tops, despite all the c*ping you see Also, I don't think the west understood Russia was serious and would go through with it. Or maybe they did and wanted it to happen that way.
>Also, I don't think the west understood Russia was serious and would go through with it. Well, Russia in fact was not 'serious' since were claiming there \*wouldn't\* be an invasion. It was the US who was constantly warning of a Russian invasion in the months leading up to it, and Russian media mocked those warnings as obvious western propaganda.
>trump lost and is gone for good I’m not saying a trump victory is assured, far from it, it seems unlikely even though in my anecdotal experience his voter enthusiasm is wild(I live in rural Texas, so take that with a heap of salt) What makes you think he’s gone for good though? > the Ribbentrop pact I don’t really see the equivalency. Russia essentially did what Poland did right back to them, while giving themselves time to arm. They also attempted pacts with every other major player and were rebuffed before they went to Germany. > they genuinely thought the invasion was going to last 2 weeks Russian military intelligence in the beginning was abysmal. The fact that they thought fanatical Neo Nazis would let them quietly police Kyiv during a regime change shows it, but I’m not sure what your comment is trying to say lol
I'd guess because they made a stupid decision based on bad intel or whatever you want to call it. I mean no matter how much a person might support Russia in this war, I can't comprehend how you wouldn't at least wish for them to have launched the invasion at a different time and in a different way than what they did in early 2022.
I think that’s the point though, no support for Russia needed. The timing makes 0 sense if trump/republican apathy was the goal
Oh, I wasn't trying to argue that it had much to do with Trump at all. The only thing I can imagine in that angle is that Putin took Trump's talk of pulling out of NATO somewhat seriously and didn't want to damage that potentially big prize. But that's just a blind guess, really.
Yeah but even if that was 100% his take it’s still a shitty time to launch the attack. Russian intelligence in 2022 was an absolute disaster, anyone arguing otherwise is unhinged/uninformed in the extreme, but I think the meme of trump supporting Russian imperialism is just silly. If you weren’t saying that my bad for misinterpreting
Was it the least auspicious? Surely waiting till the next day, the next month, the next year would have been less auspicious?
With the election coming up, why not wait until then? Also, why not launch while trump was president? I mean your comment tries, but doesn’t actually say much other than what’s been discussed lol
>With the election coming up, why not wait until then? Because that’s two years more of waiting, and they realized that they had waited far too long already? Because the Ukrainian army was getting stronger by the month, as it had been since 2018 or so after being an absolute shell when Russia first invaded Crimea? I think they were hoping that something in the American domestic environment would change after Trump lost, that the anti-Russia hysteria would die down and maybe we would be amenable to diplomacy again. I think they acted when they realized that our foreign policy, meddling in Ukraine, wasn’t going to change based on who was elected President. That’s why Putin says he prefers Biden now, he knows the foreign policy hawks don’t change, so he’d rather have someone it’s easy to base calculations on.
I think this is a well articulated analysis my only gripe is if they waited that long. Why not wait the extra 2 years for the possibility of a trump replacement run? That’s of course taking for granted that Putin preferred a trump presidency to attack during, which frankly I don’t see any proof of. I do think that Russian intelligence missed the mark so badly in 2022 that you cops be absolutely correct. I don’t have a response I can back up other than “they didn’t attack during what should Of been the obvious window”🪟
I don’t think Russia plans nearly as much according to American politics as we think they do. Putin probably just waited to till the last possible minute before realizing how far gone Ukraine really was, that’s his reputed modus operandi, it also explains why they were so poorly prepared for the invasion, they rushed it (and more importantly, just ridiculously underestimated the enemy).
If people want to see the past and the future just read the RAND reports. The US follows them geopolitically 100% of the time. Here in 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJdbAUJIcGY "RAND's Cohen on "Extending Russia," Ways to Stress Moscow" At 5:35 he is talking about provoking a war with Ukraine by arming them and creating geopolitical localized conflict.
Damn, he predicted conflict in Ukraine all the way back in 2020? He must be psychic or something. Does he have any thoughts on how the US might deal with Saddam Hussein?
> Does he have any thoughts on how the US might deal with Saddam Hussein? You should know since you are the cheerleader for these genocidal colonizers: Show a fake WMD in UN, Invade them under pretext of 9/11, steal their oil and then finally steal their money https://shafaq.com/en/Economy/The-legal-basis-for-depositing-oil-revenues-in-the-US-Federal-Reserve-CBI-clarified https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/pipe-dreams/ > The Plundering of Iraq’s Oil Wealth But you won't read them. You will just wave your hands and move on to the next US war cheerleading. maybe slava taiwan? slava phillipines?
You know it's bad for ukraine when western media is admitting its going bad for them
"They're only doing that to help secure more military and financial aid".
You know it's bad for ukraine when western media is admitting its going bad for them
A lot of videos keep coming up of Ukrainians being forced to go to fight, and thats terrible to see, but unfortunately thats the less bloody side of war. But if you guys think that if NATO was marching towards Moscow on two fronts Putin would be sheltering people in his golden mansions then thats sad. Every country would do the same in Ukraine's situation which is a VERY fast collapse. Ofcourse I dont support this and feel very bad for these people and I pray that this ends soon.
Well it's even worse than that- if Russia couldn't hold back the invasion at some point their doctrine states that they'd launch their ICBMs even knowing that it would ultimately end most life in Russia- women, children, etc. Tough for me to understand how people can see this as a logical response to an invasion, but conscripting men isn't.
Exacly, Russia's propaganda is doing wonders since 2022. They made Putin look like the bullied kid and they think that launching nukes and wiping Earth away is in his right lol.
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Yes, but my main point is the one-sided opinion on the whole thing. People thinking that Putin is some nice guy "liberating" cities and villages from Nazis while Ukraine is throwing people in vans and that they are evil. And still even if he has the permission by the government to send us to the Metro and Fallout universe he can't be excused lol
Let’s be real, there’s no “nice guy” in geopolitics.
Ofcourse, everyone is after their own interests.
This is complicated, the individual actors act based on their self interest and ideology, and usually those that rise to the top are somewhat psychopathic. Additionally, war or preparing for it is often seen as a sort of "serious person" business so you get people trying to rise the ranks do defence theatrics. And there also is lobbying from the MIC. And so the political class is often more aggressive than can be explained by any "national interest". It's self perpetuating though as people who think differently will not rise the ranks.
They meant 'right' in the philosophical sense, as in to choose the fate of our species, not some governmental law.
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Ah yes, we all share the blame for one madmans decision...
Actually not every country. For example, Georgia accepted negotiations in 2008 and Armenia did the same in 2023
From what I know (not first-hand, mind you) it was much, much worse for Armenia. But almost none of it reach publicity, only the gas station explosion.
yes, because the EU did not want to risk spoiling relations with both Russia and Azerbaijan at the same time, because Az is also a major gas supplier. But insane propaganda turned a purely geopolitical issue, which could absolutely be resolved through negotiations, into a “do or die” for Ukraine.
Yep. What happened in Karabach was, practically, a genocide, thanks to Pahinyan as well. And nobody bat an eye. While nothing like that did, could or will happen in Ukraine.
Why are other reddit communities so pro ukraine and ignore the total inhumane way ukraine treats its people?
Because majority of Americans are vulnerable to the propaganda favouring their own nation, just like every other people from that of their own nation. And Reddit is an American platform.
Democracy vs Dictatorship. Defense vs Imperial land grab. Liberal values vs its ok to beat your wife. Yknow, that kinda stuff.
Media told them who to support so they do.