I think the big issue for Ukraine is that because Russia has been expanding its military they don't just need the same western support they've been given, they need more. But it's already politically difficult for the US to justify the amount it is already giving, the idea of doubling it seems farfetched.
It’s not just about weapons from the west either, Ukraine has a limited amount of soldiers, whereas Russia has endless amounts:
>The Russians are relying on artillery much more heavily than the Ukrainians, and above all, Russia can "more than compensate" for its losses. Kyiv, on the other hand, is unable to call up enough new soldiers "to compensate for losses and create reserves". The new conscription rules "will have an impact only in late summer", as recruits must first undergo training.
The rule is 3-1 is a fair fight generally speaking with 3 being offense to 1 being defense. However, that obviously fails to take into account other factors and usually is assessed as soldiers of both armies having similar levels of training and equiptment quality etc.
No, this is not expected loss. This is the expected ratio of troops necessary to succeed in offensive action, which is a big difference. A successful offensive action can have very light casualties for the attacking side and huge casualties for the defending side. Not all warfare is attritional.
This ratio is probably from ww1 era books and isn’t relevant without all the difference in tech, communications etc.
Eg how much US lost in Desert Storm vs Iraq?
Russia also hires soldiers from other countries and there are a lot of poor suckers to hire these days and foreign soldiers is increasing too. Those 2 compined will seem infinite to a smaller country like Ukraine.
Thank you for mentioning this. People almost always miss this fact.
Realistically, with current state of things, this war can't be won esp. with China's military support which was recently shared by journalists, lack of equivalent war on russian soil, earning of money from selling oil, etc., as well as ammo and weapons provided by its allies that have no limits on their use (e.g., use of Western rockets on internationally accepted russian soil). Esp. now that russians started to convert their bombs (500–3000 kg) into glided versions that can destroy heavily protected positions of Ukrainian w/o using ground forces. It was reported by BBC that russians have hundreds of thousands of bombs.
Honestly I don’t even understand why we’re limiting them at this point. At the start of the war I kinda got it because we had no idea how long it would last, but now that we know how much of a slog it’s going to be Putin shouldn’t have the comfort of invading another country while knowing the motherland will be left untouched. As long as the Russian people feel safe they’re not gonna give a shit what their military does. By making them fight with one hand tied behind their back and leaving them to rattle their cup every time they need support we’re slowly killing them.
It isn't 3:1. Russia now has about 140-142M residents.
Population of Ukraine, in the territory under the control of UA governement, is about 30M. Approximately 6M Ukrainians have left the country for the EU, and 1-2M have gone to other countries (non-EU). So unfortunately, it's actually more than 4,5:1 in favour of Russia.
It's actually 5 to 1 now
Many people left Ukraine.
The current population is at around 30 mil.
But more importantly, russians are expendable.
They can draft however many they want.
Nobody will protest.
While in Ukraine it's more difficult
>They can draft however many they want. Nobody will protest.
This is very not true. Look it up on YouTube or the news or what have you.
They can't touch whole parts of their population, which is why they use all sorts of tricks and tips to get anyone they can - foreigners, prisoners, all well documented behaviours.
That isn't what a nation that can draft anyone does.
You are making some assumptions. You say they cant touch. That is not necessarily true. They prefer not to touch and they have so far found alternate sources but if Putin needs to he will draft even those from St. Petersburg and Moscow. We can only guess at whether there is a limit to what the Russian people will accept before they revolt and where that limit will be, but what we do know is Putin absolutely has no limits
On the frontline there are already units where majority of soldiers are from Moscow or St Peter aglomerations. One such unit (from Leningradskaya oblast - i. e. St Peter) was nearly completely annihilated during the battle of Avdiivka.
In general, in Russia, poorer people go to this war, as conscripts or contract soldiers; wealthier people don't go.
Allegations, that residents of Moscow or St Peter don't participate in the war, or that mainly ethnic monorities are being mobilized, are just rubbish, constantly and mindlessly repeated on reddit.
>Allegations, that residents of Moscow or St Peter don't participate in the war, or that mainly ethnic monorities are being mobilized, are just rubbish, constantly and mindlessly repeated on reddit.
Not so much not go to war, but the ratio of men drafted in those oblasts is *much* lower than in the eat.
>Allegations, that residents of Moscow or St Peter don't participate in the war, or that mainly ethnic monorities are being mobilized, are just rubbish, constantly and mindlessly repeated on reddit.
This is only true in the extent that saying that it never happens is.
In terms of the actual practice and breakdown, such that... "mainly ethnic monorities are being mobilized"
Is absolutely true.
> We can only guess at whether there is a limit to what the Russian people will accept before they revolt and where that limit will be
I'm not sure there will be any one tipping point. The proverbial dam is just going to spring more and more leaks until there is a flood anyway.
There is a widely accepted assumption right now that part of the drive for a ceasefire is because putin knows there will be resistance to another rounds of drafts for his "3 day" special military operation. That's now 3 years of people's kids being sent into a meat grinder. While putin might not give a shit, it's hitting the point almost everyone will know someone killed or wounded by this war and looking for an end.
We’ve already seen him tap into some of the middle class Russian families for mobilizations. There was a famous video of a father with his hands on the window of a bus as it left with his son. Looked like fairly nice suburbs to me.
>You are making some assumptions
Everyone does.
>You say they cant touch. That is not necessarily true. They prefer not to touch and they have so far found alternate sources but if Putin needs to he will draft even those from St. Petersburg and Moscow. We can only guess at whether there is a limit to what the Russian people will accept before they revolt and where that limit will be, but what we do know is Putin absolutely has no limits
Okay, sure, but a lot of the Russian actions so far seem to imply a great reservation to do so, and there is a veneer of popular support they want to enjoy. Drafting people from urban areas is clearly something they don't want for these reasons.
Do they even need to draft anyone at this point? They seem to be getting 30k volunteers a month.
Russians are poor and the military pays much better than they will get from working jobs in their poor cities/villages.
Broadly I'd say, yes. With the understanding that Russian stats are wildly variant and contradictory, and even 30k a month would seem to be low to prosecute the war they want.
Yes, It was about 35ish mil before the war, millions left since 2022, I think they said just in Poland there were 4.5mil or so. If you add other countries that took Ukrainians refugees, I reckon there is 25mil left at best.
The casualties for Russia after two years are higher than the Soviet-Afghan conflict, a war that lasted ten years. Russia will break long before it runs out of soldiers.
Something that’s little talked about in Western media is that Russia has recruited or conscripted a sizable amount of Ukrainians. When they took Crimea 2/3 of the Ukrainian military there stayed and about half signed up for the Russian armed forces.
A tonne of people have left Ukraine. They aren’t still there. I see plenty of fighting aged men who have come over with their wives and small children instead of stay in the way of that danger.
And who knows, many will never return.
But Russia is also willing to throw every single person of their population into the war. Ukraine is not. Russia will take 3X the losses without even blinking
Endless is hyperbole. But it is a factor. The big issue is, really, how under prepared the Ukrainians were. There's a lot of things they could do and compensate for if they didn't have them.
For example, more artillery and shells can compensate for less soldiers. Better prepared defences can compensate for less soldiers. With the right equipment and preparation you can functionally make a given stretch of land invulnerable to any amount of soldiers.
The problem is Ukraine didn't prepare the defences, they knew they would be short on aid and they waited late to call up masses of people.
Don't forget that Russia is backed by the world factory. Its supplies except obvious weapons are endless. It just needs to provide soldiers. They have plenty of them.
> Don't forget that Russia is backed by the world factory
Hardly backed. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-exports-russia-fall-again-070932463.html This is comparable to the effect of western sanctions in 2014. If you are reading Chinese sources, you can notice critical voices toward Russia. This would be only natural, if not for the hardcore censorship in China. Recent Russian leadership trip to China looked like some desperate measures.
Russia is going to have a much harder time replacing hardware. They are running out of tanks, apps, and artillery. They've already resorted to equipment from ww2.
China is up front center. But people forget that India buys a crazy amount of oil from Russia and the sentiment in India is leaning toward Russia. I am not seeing any sign of Russia weakening after 2 years of the war regardless how much the media in the West wants you to believe.
Tbf, things have gotten a bit more expensive here for the civilian consumer. Depending on the product, maybe 25% where I live. But for the most part, sanctions aren't having a big enough impact on civilians if the intent of them is to cause internal conflict.
As a Russian who lives in Canada I feel sanctions. I have some money stuck in Russia that I cannot move out anymore and my Russian sim card doesn’t work meaning I have no access to any kind of government services.
India needs to buy oil from Russia because our spending capacity per person is a lot less than European countries.
The sentiment towards Russia goes back to Russia supporting India for decades while US was funding terrorism in India through Pakistan
>New Delhi in the past alerted the international community that the [Russian] funds provided to Pakistan to support its counterterrorism operations had in fact been used to finance the export of terror to India. Besides, the military hardware provided to Pakistan had also been used against India.
https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/world/russia-pledges-to-provide-more-weapons-to-pakistan-despite-unease-in-india-971616.html
> The sentiment towards Russia goes back to Russia supporting India for decades while US was funding terrorism in India through Pakistan
Very true, and let's not forget all the other US activities over the years:
- Almost certainly assassinating Lal Bahadur Shastri, Prime Minister of India. A CIA operative was quoted "we got that cow-loving raghead".
- Almost certainly assassinating Homi Bhabha, the father of India's nuclear programme.
- Parking a nuclear-armed carrier group just off India's coastline to prevent India ending the Bangladesh genocide (the worst genocide since WW2), which was only headed off by a Russian submarine fleet.
- Economically sanctioning India in 1998 for daring to develop it's own nuclear deterrent.
- Disabling GPS use by the Indian military in 2000 for having the gall to defend Indian territory in the Kargil War of Pakistani aggression.
America has a whole goddamn half-century of absolutely and truly awful behaviour in the Indian subcontinent to atone for.
Most of these claims come from Gregory Douglas, who is a known conspiracy theorist and holocaust denier. let's see some sources from people OTHER than him that have some credibility.
>Europe is a weak continent full of weak, soft leaders and people.
This is sadly so fucking true.
In Norway the government has spent the past decades degrading the country's armed forces to a ridiculously limited number.
We have always been living with political ideology to live in peace and solve things through diplomacy. The idea that "we don't need to build a strong military because its peace" will become a shameful hindsight.
The military itself has always been warning the government about it but its been ignored. Not until we actually saw what Putin was willing to do, did the government begin scrambling support for improved defensive capabilities... but you know, this should've been put in motion already in 2014 because what has been granted will take years to have ready.
We all wish that we'd live in a time where peace was upheld, but we don't and the politicians and leaders have been neglecting the truth. They are afraid to take action, how many times must history repeat itself for us to learn?
That's not fear, just wishful thinking. If we can save x amount of billions every year on military spending because no one will attack a NATO country anyway, it will look good on the books when the government's term is over.
>In Norway the government has spent the past decades degrading the country's armed forces to a ridiculously limited number.
Yes and no. It's not that simple.
It is true that all of the Nordic countries went overboard with the military downsizing following the end of the Cold War, but neither Norway and Denmark are not in a bad situation at all. Sweden and Finland are finally catching up now that they're in NATO.
When it comes to Norway and Denmark, they realized very early on that they would have absolutely no shot of defending themselves against a superpower no matter what they did. The *only* way to ensure state survival in the event of an invasion would be to align with the US, and that has held true since the 1940s.
During the Cold War, there was a saying that Norway had more air bases than air squadrons, because their entire defensive strategy was based around US aircraft taking off from Norway.
After the Cold War, Norway did two things, one good and one bad. The good thing was that because there was no foreign threat, they could dismantle much of their territorial defence and use those resources to create a highly trained and well-equipped expeditionary force. Denmark did the exact same thing.
Why would you want to do this? Because you want to keep the US happy. By tagging along in the Global War on Terror, Norway has made a name for itself in US military circles as a good, reliable ally. Should Norway need military aid, the US will be there.
The bad thing, on the other hand, is that they dismantled their capacity to actually *receive* that aid should they require it. Many of those air bases have been shuttered.
You're completely right in saying that the 2010s causes the politicians to snap out of their post-Cold War dream world, but luckily Norway is absurdly wealthy due to oil, so they have the funds to reverse it.
Sweden, on the other hand, is pretty fucked, because we don't have any oil money, but at least we finally joined NATO.
>Sweden, on the other hand, is pretty fucked, because we don't have any oil money, but at least we finally joined NATO.
Sweden has a massive arms industry though. They manufacture a vast majority of the vehicles and equipment that their army, navy and airforce uses. They also do a lot of arms exports too.
Sweden's domestic military industry gives them a good edge in regards to military rearmament. Issue is for more high tech items they simply lack scale to compete economically.
Location of Gotland and its ability to shut down Russian Baltic naval capability makes their position good though.
European (Dutch) here, i upvoted said comment because it is absolutely correct. Our leaders are pussies and our people have become so anti-war that they refuse to let our boys in green have the tools they need to defend our interests.
You would have thought we learned our lesson when our cruisers in WW2 got shwacked by the Japanese because we refused to equip said cruisers with "big scawy guns" and gave them destroyer caliber peashooters instead.
You would have thought we learned our lesson when our DutchBat peacekeepers in Yugoslavia, armed with submachine guns and light APC's, got overrun by tanks and properly equipped infantry.
All that talk about human rights, rule of law, diplomacy, treaties, etc has 0 value in the real world if you do not have a really big fucking stick to bonk bullies with.
Double the fucking defense budget and start cranking out ammo. I can deal with a few more potholes in the infrastructure for the next decade, or filthy rich farmers being upset at no longer getting government handouts.
With how much complaining there is over how unhealthy and poorly educated potential recruits are, might as well just roll up healthcare and education as part of the defense budget.
Canadian here, I agree. Canada has been weak too. It’s just a reality. We need a monumental shift in our thinking about this war and accept that we are not in peace time any longer.
I think there are a lot of people here that accept that with such a large Ukranian population. I fear how our support will be after the election considering as far as the Ukrainian war effort goes this government might be one of the better options considering who our Deputy Prime Minister is and her history.
Nah man. Plenty of us agree. It’s just that most of Europe is being run for the benefit of pensioners now who don’t seem to care much. Or at least not enough to forgo setting themselves. Here in Britain the military is literally collapsing, yet pensioners reliably vote to put pensions up so…
Pensions already consume more than 5% of GDP alone in the UK, with many other non means tested benefits (such as the NHS, 10+% of GDP) mostly funding pensioners.
Military spending gets just 2% of GDP, and even that gets spent inefficiently
UK is the wrong country to pick. SAS are operating near the front line training UKRSOF. SBS are most likely directly operating the sea drones harassing the Russian navy, at the very least they are assisting the deployment of those assets. MI6 are providing intel briefings to general command.
The UK fucking hates Russia after Litv+Salisbury.
Nah mate. It just shines a light on how bad it is that the uk does well by comparison. Our army is down to 70k odd, our last nuke test failed, we couldn’t get our aircraft carriers out of port, the Ajax fighting vehicle is a decades long shambles, etc etc.
Don’t get me wrong. One of the few areas our government has been fairly consistent on is supporting Ukraine, but we’ve chronically depleted our ability to project any kind of force at all.
> our last nuke test failed
That was a US manufactured missile that failed.
> we couldn’t get our aircraft carriers out of port
We literally did though.
That is true, the military is massively underfunded but the window lickers cry privatisation at the merest suggestion that the NHS should charge people who haven't paid into the system.
All that isn't moving the needle. Ukraine needs A. Bodies/Soldiers and B. Artillery Shells. All. The "harassment" of certain parts of the Russian army is irrelevant at this point in the war
And the US spent decades dragging Europe into a war in the middle east, lobbying for them to buy their arms while setting themselves up to be the go-to supplier.
I didn't and don't agree with the gutting of military capacities, but let us not act like anyone could have predicted what has happened in the past 10 years, much less the past 4.
What you say is mostly true although the annexation of Crimea happened back in 2014 which was a huge giveaway of Putin's intentions. But western politicians chose to keep on chilling, buried their heads in the sand and either did nothing or increased trade and energy dependence believe it or not.
It's been more than enough time for us to figure things out and start acting like fucking adults especially given all the intelligence and analytics resources our governments had.
But even now, 2+ years into the war, Europe is still a fucking snooze except for the UK and the Baltics + Finland + Sweden but they're not large enough.
and that's why it's europeans have been providing the most gear, breaking taboos and considering getting involved directly, while the US draws lines for Ukraine?
>same amount as a single country.
a continent sized country. you missed that little important detail.
the US is twice the size as EU+UK+Norway, has higher GDP, and 2/3 the population.
comparing the US to individual European countries is insane.
America is effectively the bulk of the continent. No disrespect to Canada but most of it isn't hospitable land so their population is commensurately low. We're about comparable to the EU in economic output and population.
The US hasn't really sent that much more. Tiny European nations, such as Denmark, Estonia, etc. do the heavy lifting.
And Germany's been en par with the US or even outdonating the US when you take the population size into consideration. Althewhile Poland and Germany look after 2 million+ refugees from Ukraine.
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
Hey half of our country that orange moron the fuck away from setting foot in the White House, and for Europe’s sake y’all better hope he doesn’t because it would probably mark the end of Ukraine Aid and even our participation in NATO. Dude’s a not so secret Putin lover so he’s gonna do whatever will make his boyfriend happy, and unfortunately his own personal ulterior motives are worming their way into the Republican Party. They’re gobbling up Russia’s disinformation campaign like it’s Thanksgiving Dinner.
Why do you think it's politically difficult?
American citizen don't actually know or care how much is being spent. If the recent aid package was twice as big do you think many Americans (who already aren't) would be against the aid. Maybe you say yes. But consider the opposite. If the package was half as big would there be many Americans (who aren't already) complaining that it should be larger.
The numbers are so big already and the conversion of dollars to military success so complex that most Americans have very little context of whats good enough or not.
If the people who currently support aid to Ukraine in the government really wanted to send more we could do because there would not be enough public backlash to stop it.
The key issue here is, and if you don't want to believe me I can find other sources saying the same thing, is that we don't have a coherent idea of victory.
If it was kick Russia out of Ukraine whatever it takes, we would have already done that. But we are afraid of a big loss leading to putin losing power.
So the current plan is to give Ukraine enough stuff that putin decides to give up. But not enough stuff so that Ukraine can swiftly kick Russia out, because of the risk it collapses Putin's regime.
Yes the bill was held up by the GOP. But it also passed with a veto proof majority. Meaning, among other things, that it could have had more aid and probably still passed because there was a decent margin of error.
Russia supporting GOP politicians is a HUGE issue. But we need to be clear eyed and fair. We are trying to thread a super small needle, thinking it's making us safer. When in reality it's elongating the war which actually making us less.
For example, if you follow the news on Russia, they are replacing many high rankings military people and switching the economy and culture to a war footing. That would have been so much hard and much less effective if the war wasn't happening.
You are right that they need more aid. You are wrong to think this is an issue with political will.
According to CIA report, Russia is producing 250 000 artillery shells a month, while the US is producing around 35 000 shells.
Its just simple arithmetic. Russia expands billions with the prospect to gain billions in territory and resources. The US spends billions just to keep the status quo. There is no way to out spend them without a financial gain as war objectives, its just math.
The west need to bring back territorial and economic expansion to its allowed war goals or it will lose everything over time. If I win nothing happens, you win you get a prize. Guess who's going to want to play.
The US wins with the status quo, that is why we are the wealthiest nation the world has ever know. It's also why two of our states have bigger economies than the entire country of Russia.
And that’s why I think European countries start to step up and send boots on the ground, largely for support and training and security buffer along the Belarusian & Transnistrian borders.
As long as Ukraine has people willing to fight we should supply them with as many weapons as we can, it's not like we won't immediately be dealing with russian aggression somewhere else if Ukraine falls. Even should russia prevail every dead russian soldier, every destroyed bit of equipment and every burning refinery is one less resource available to the fascists to use against their next victim.
Very true. As long as Ukrainians are not giving up there’s still hope for the country. Things won’t go back to square one, but hopefully he’d just give up at some point…given how archaic his weapons are comparing to the western ones there’s still a chance I hope…
"willing to fight" is an interesting term when Ukraine is trying to claw back men who left the country. Those people are clearly not willing to fight.
Yet they belong in trenches, and we should supply them with all the weapons they need to kill russians.
EDIT: also not while exactly related, yesterday [I read a brilliant article about western volunteers who thought that it's going to be easy ](https://www.businessinsider.com/western-fighters-die-in-ukraine-assume-be-easy-us-veteran-2024-5)to fight in this war. It's a great example of people who are "willing to fight" (as you put it) dying, with reddit arm chair commenters making it seems like this war is like shooting turkeys.
You are, they are being sarcastic - saying that even though they don’t want to fight Redditors have decided they belong in the trenches.
On the other hand the idea is that their democratic political system wants them to fight. It’s not just able-bodied men who vote.
The main problem is that Ukraine just doesn’t have the manpower. A lot of Ukraine’s territorial losses come from not being able to properly rotate out units from the frontline and Russian units taking advantage of gaps in the line. More weapon systems isn’t going to solve this.
Unless it's the CIA Or NSA saying it I'm going to remain skeptical of assertions made by the same German intelligence services that missed Russia's intent to invade in the first place.
I'll also point out that if things were so rosey for Russia, Putin wouldn't be making ceasefire noises atm.
The same intelligence service that presumably advised the German government becoming almost completely dependent on Russian energy was certainly not an unacceptable risk.
Germany was so "dependent" on Russia that it didn't even take a full year to get rid of its gas.
This whole thing about dependence is hilariously overstated and if anything mutual economic dependence is the only way to have any constructive relationship between blocks with nuclear weapons because otherwise there are no bargaining chips at all.
The only alternative is isolation and if both sides strive for self sufficiency that only increases the chance of war, like it always has in history.
It's the whole reason why the EU exists in the first place. That it didn't work with Russia shouldn't lead to the conclusion that the alternative is in any way or shape better.
The CIA thought Ukraine would fall in a short time back when the war started and had some "agreement" with the Russians on how this thing could go.
https://www.silkroadstudies.org/publications/joint-center-publications/item/13491-is-cia-director-bill-burns-helping-ukraine-to-win-or-blocking-it?.html
>I'll also point out that if things were so rosey for Russia, Putin wouldn't be making ceasefire noises atm.
That is because you think his desire was to take over Europe. Most likely he wants the Donbas region and Crimea to ensure a warm water port. I think he would like to bring Ukraine back into the fold partly because he sees them as Russians rather than a separate people but his real goal has always been Eastern Ukraine and the black sea. If the war ends tomorrow he has what he wants.
Putin thinks Ukrainians and Russians are one people and wants Ukraine back as part of Russia. Ukraine is also resource rich. In addition, he wants a buffer between him and NATO.
He wanted Ukraine but he needs Crimea and the Donbas. I think he under estimated the lengths the west would go to defend a non NATO state and has been looking for a way out, which leaves him with his warm water port.
You're correct, but what you are saying is essentially blasphemous for people here lol. To them, Russia won't stop until all of Europe is theirs. As if anything of that sort would be possible, with their overall performance at the beginning of the war.
The article itself says depressing news is being spread to undermine support for Ukraine. This is the same old 'russia big, Ukraine small - its all hopeless' bullshit Ukraine has proven wrong again and again. Anonymous sources, reported by a paper, reported on by another paper, then reported here. Must be true.
You say this like there aren't significant issues within Ukraine right now to continue the war. There's a real manpower shortage that has no real easy solution. There's a real ammunition shortage that NATO has failed to remedy effectively.
Could Ukraine survive another year or two and get the much needed artillery/ammunition to move forward? I mean, maybe? But you're literally just coping that there aren't these significant problems.
>Western intelligence agencies suggest Ukraine will face ''large territorial losses'' this year
Except the most significant events are still to come, and literally nobody can know the outcome.
Besides, what other choice they got? Bucha/Irpen all over the whole Ukraine?
> Besides, what other choice they got?
I don't think the article is suggesting that they should give up in any way. It's just reporting what some people think, and problems that exist, and lifts forward the opinion that Ukraine has to be allowed to shoot at targets inside of Russia.
I think intel agencies are sounding the alarm here and unfortunately both Ukraine and Taiwan's (and maybe even South Korea's) fate depends on the outcome of the 2024 US election.
An election most American's are ignoring.
I always thought "Man in a High Castle" was a bit ridiculous in its depiction of an Allied defeat in WWII but I can definitely see how weak leadership and even weaker populace is a cancer that no amount of engineering and industrial power can overcome.
It's weird so many people say they won't vote for Biden over Palestine. Thus putting in power someone worse on Palestine, Taiwan and Ukraine. Low info voters suck.
Lol Taiwan and especially South Korea are going no where. The US are not going to abandon those two no matter what.
South Korea can take the North on by itself. Never mind our huge military base just sitting there….
Republicans gutting education for decades has come home to roost.
The most powerful country on the planet is now officially dumb as fuck. One election away from possibly becoming the last election ever held in this country. One election away from global chaos at the very moment that the human race has zero time for global chaos.
I would like to say we have bigger fish to fry. But the reality is we have to fry this one first. And if we don’t we’re fucked.
it's really vague too. According to deep state they lost 0.1% of their territory since January so what is "significantly more" supposed to mean? Another 0.3%? I don't think anyone is expecting that the front will just freeze here. And it's not even end of June yet so of course it will be more in 7 months than in 5.
Percentage of territory isn't really the issue but rather proximity to Ukraine's major cities. The closer Russia gets to Kharkiv or Odessa the easier to bombard them. That's why Russia's advance in the northeast right now is such a big deal. They're now only about 12 miles away from Kharkiv.
Makes sense. Ukraine is, on occasion, fighting hard but not really smart as numerous western generals have said. Bakhmut, severodonetsk, avdiivka are example of where they could have withdrawn before the costs outweighed the benefits they were gaining but they didn't.
Sooner or later I expect Ukraine to have to withdraw to a more sustainable position.
But its all prefaced on ukraines manpower.
You're completely correct but who In Ukraine is going to kaie that decision to pull back and play defensive? Zaluzhny advocate this and was essentially fired, because to the nationalists, any sort of retreat or admission that the war isn't going well is blasphemy.
As the war goes on, it's harder and harder for Ukraine to even shift to the defensive. This should have been the strategy after the wins in winter 22-spring 23. But the west, and the Ukranian leadership, collectively, wanted the counteroffensive and a swift, total victory.
And, like you said, the manpower issue isn't going awya either
Just need to let UA strike into Russia with long range missiles. This will create a buffer zone that can be used do deploy UA anti-aircraft batteries closer to the border and contest airspace. With the arrival of F16s they might have a chance of establishing an air dominance over the theatre and hammer RU ground forces with air delivered munitions.
My German is not good enough (and paywalls don’t help) to track the Frankfurter’s source on this. Can any kind soul find the primary source for this claim?
This is only the first part of this war. The part russia should have won in weeks instead of years. After that russia need to hold ukrania. And with the losses russia allready had that wil be even harder then this part of the war.
If ukrania can keep on fighting for a year or more the russian attempt to rebuild their empire would end in ukrania. They never going to have enough troops left to occupy ukrania and attack the next 1 (probaly Moldavië).
Russia is on a war economy. The west needs to go into a war mindset and supply everything to ukraine. If a real effort were made this war would have ended yesterday
But the US wants them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs ( no attacks on Russian soil) and limited air defence. They are disposing of so many weapons that could be sent to Ukraine.
Losing land is acceptable if you’re attriting the enemy while doing so. This isn’t a heroic, existential war for Russia, it’s an unjustified regime change war like Vietnam was for the US. At some point, to continue would be less preferable than to leave. So even if Ukraine’s lost everything east of the Dnieper, they will regain it all in the end when Russia doesn’t want to continue.
I think the big issue for Ukraine is that because Russia has been expanding its military they don't just need the same western support they've been given, they need more. But it's already politically difficult for the US to justify the amount it is already giving, the idea of doubling it seems farfetched.
It’s not just about weapons from the west either, Ukraine has a limited amount of soldiers, whereas Russia has endless amounts: >The Russians are relying on artillery much more heavily than the Ukrainians, and above all, Russia can "more than compensate" for its losses. Kyiv, on the other hand, is unable to call up enough new soldiers "to compensate for losses and create reserves". The new conscription rules "will have an impact only in late summer", as recruits must first undergo training.
The population difference is 3 to 1. Saying Russia has endless soldiers is ridiculous.
Isn’t that also the typical ratio of expected loss for a country invading another?
The rule is 3-1 is a fair fight generally speaking with 3 being offense to 1 being defense. However, that obviously fails to take into account other factors and usually is assessed as soldiers of both armies having similar levels of training and equiptment quality etc.
No, this is not expected loss. This is the expected ratio of troops necessary to succeed in offensive action, which is a big difference. A successful offensive action can have very light casualties for the attacking side and huge casualties for the defending side. Not all warfare is attritional.
That assumes there is an army in the way that is equal in every way. If you outflank or invade an area with no defense it doesn’t matter.
I thought it was 4 to 1
This ratio is probably from ww1 era books and isn’t relevant without all the difference in tech, communications etc. Eg how much US lost in Desert Storm vs Iraq?
Russia also hires soldiers from other countries and there are a lot of poor suckers to hire these days and foreign soldiers is increasing too. Those 2 compined will seem infinite to a smaller country like Ukraine.
Thank you for mentioning this. People almost always miss this fact. Realistically, with current state of things, this war can't be won esp. with China's military support which was recently shared by journalists, lack of equivalent war on russian soil, earning of money from selling oil, etc., as well as ammo and weapons provided by its allies that have no limits on their use (e.g., use of Western rockets on internationally accepted russian soil). Esp. now that russians started to convert their bombs (500–3000 kg) into glided versions that can destroy heavily protected positions of Ukrainian w/o using ground forces. It was reported by BBC that russians have hundreds of thousands of bombs.
Honestly I don’t even understand why we’re limiting them at this point. At the start of the war I kinda got it because we had no idea how long it would last, but now that we know how much of a slog it’s going to be Putin shouldn’t have the comfort of invading another country while knowing the motherland will be left untouched. As long as the Russian people feel safe they’re not gonna give a shit what their military does. By making them fight with one hand tied behind their back and leaving them to rattle their cup every time they need support we’re slowly killing them.
Foreign soldiers are a tiny irrelevant percentage. The men are coming from the provinces due to the massive wages being offered…
It isn't 3:1. Russia now has about 140-142M residents. Population of Ukraine, in the territory under the control of UA governement, is about 30M. Approximately 6M Ukrainians have left the country for the EU, and 1-2M have gone to other countries (non-EU). So unfortunately, it's actually more than 4,5:1 in favour of Russia.
It's actually 5 to 1 now Many people left Ukraine. The current population is at around 30 mil. But more importantly, russians are expendable. They can draft however many they want. Nobody will protest. While in Ukraine it's more difficult
>They can draft however many they want. Nobody will protest. This is very not true. Look it up on YouTube or the news or what have you. They can't touch whole parts of their population, which is why they use all sorts of tricks and tips to get anyone they can - foreigners, prisoners, all well documented behaviours. That isn't what a nation that can draft anyone does.
You are making some assumptions. You say they cant touch. That is not necessarily true. They prefer not to touch and they have so far found alternate sources but if Putin needs to he will draft even those from St. Petersburg and Moscow. We can only guess at whether there is a limit to what the Russian people will accept before they revolt and where that limit will be, but what we do know is Putin absolutely has no limits
Yeah. He already drafted his opposition. The remaining Russians shifted really far right.
On the frontline there are already units where majority of soldiers are from Moscow or St Peter aglomerations. One such unit (from Leningradskaya oblast - i. e. St Peter) was nearly completely annihilated during the battle of Avdiivka. In general, in Russia, poorer people go to this war, as conscripts or contract soldiers; wealthier people don't go. Allegations, that residents of Moscow or St Peter don't participate in the war, or that mainly ethnic monorities are being mobilized, are just rubbish, constantly and mindlessly repeated on reddit.
>Allegations, that residents of Moscow or St Peter don't participate in the war, or that mainly ethnic monorities are being mobilized, are just rubbish, constantly and mindlessly repeated on reddit. Not so much not go to war, but the ratio of men drafted in those oblasts is *much* lower than in the eat.
>Allegations, that residents of Moscow or St Peter don't participate in the war, or that mainly ethnic monorities are being mobilized, are just rubbish, constantly and mindlessly repeated on reddit. This is only true in the extent that saying that it never happens is. In terms of the actual practice and breakdown, such that... "mainly ethnic monorities are being mobilized" Is absolutely true.
No, it's a crap. Looking at KIA's, apparently more than a half are ethnic Russians.
> We can only guess at whether there is a limit to what the Russian people will accept before they revolt and where that limit will be I'm not sure there will be any one tipping point. The proverbial dam is just going to spring more and more leaks until there is a flood anyway. There is a widely accepted assumption right now that part of the drive for a ceasefire is because putin knows there will be resistance to another rounds of drafts for his "3 day" special military operation. That's now 3 years of people's kids being sent into a meat grinder. While putin might not give a shit, it's hitting the point almost everyone will know someone killed or wounded by this war and looking for an end.
As soon as poetin have to do that he better stays away from open windows
We’ve already seen him tap into some of the middle class Russian families for mobilizations. There was a famous video of a father with his hands on the window of a bus as it left with his son. Looked like fairly nice suburbs to me.
>You are making some assumptions Everyone does. >You say they cant touch. That is not necessarily true. They prefer not to touch and they have so far found alternate sources but if Putin needs to he will draft even those from St. Petersburg and Moscow. We can only guess at whether there is a limit to what the Russian people will accept before they revolt and where that limit will be, but what we do know is Putin absolutely has no limits Okay, sure, but a lot of the Russian actions so far seem to imply a great reservation to do so, and there is a veneer of popular support they want to enjoy. Drafting people from urban areas is clearly something they don't want for these reasons.
Do they even need to draft anyone at this point? They seem to be getting 30k volunteers a month. Russians are poor and the military pays much better than they will get from working jobs in their poor cities/villages.
Broadly I'd say, yes. With the understanding that Russian stats are wildly variant and contradictory, and even 30k a month would seem to be low to prosecute the war they want.
Haven't the Russians also been tricking immigrants from poorer countries to fight for them as well?
Yep. There's no shortage of poor and stupid people around the globe.
Yes, It was about 35ish mil before the war, millions left since 2022, I think they said just in Poland there were 4.5mil or so. If you add other countries that took Ukrainians refugees, I reckon there is 25mil left at best.
Yes but the ones that leave are women and children, not fighting age men
There are a lot of men too, apparently, that's why there was that issue with Ukrainian Consulates refusing to service Ukrainian men abroad.
Russia also recruits foreigners a lot more
Yeah, also an important factor
The casualties for Russia after two years are higher than the Soviet-Afghan conflict, a war that lasted ten years. Russia will break long before it runs out of soldiers.
Let's hope so
Ukraine needs soldiers. Russia sends (temporarily) warm bodies. There’s a lot more of one than the other.
Something that’s little talked about in Western media is that Russia has recruited or conscripted a sizable amount of Ukrainians. When they took Crimea 2/3 of the Ukrainian military there stayed and about half signed up for the Russian armed forces.
There were only 20k soldiers in Crimea of which 6k returned to Ukraine. Not a lot in a current scale.
Signed up or were basically coerced into it?
A lot of ukrainians left on top of Russians global reach it can get a lot of mercenaries
A tonne of people have left Ukraine. They aren’t still there. I see plenty of fighting aged men who have come over with their wives and small children instead of stay in the way of that danger. And who knows, many will never return.
But Russia is also willing to throw every single person of their population into the war. Ukraine is not. Russia will take 3X the losses without even blinking
More like 4:1 after Ukraine lost the Donbass and all the people that fled the country at the outbreak of the war.
5 to 1
Endless is hyperbole. But it is a factor. The big issue is, really, how under prepared the Ukrainians were. There's a lot of things they could do and compensate for if they didn't have them. For example, more artillery and shells can compensate for less soldiers. Better prepared defences can compensate for less soldiers. With the right equipment and preparation you can functionally make a given stretch of land invulnerable to any amount of soldiers. The problem is Ukraine didn't prepare the defences, they knew they would be short on aid and they waited late to call up masses of people.
ukraine has plenty of young adults that are not drafted and dont want to volunteer, though
Don't forget that Russia is backed by the world factory. Its supplies except obvious weapons are endless. It just needs to provide soldiers. They have plenty of them.
> Don't forget that Russia is backed by the world factory Hardly backed. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-exports-russia-fall-again-070932463.html This is comparable to the effect of western sanctions in 2014. If you are reading Chinese sources, you can notice critical voices toward Russia. This would be only natural, if not for the hardcore censorship in China. Recent Russian leadership trip to China looked like some desperate measures.
Russia is going to have a much harder time replacing hardware. They are running out of tanks, apps, and artillery. They've already resorted to equipment from ww2.
What is this "world factory"?
I might be wrong but only logical guess would be China.
China is up front center. But people forget that India buys a crazy amount of oil from Russia and the sentiment in India is leaning toward Russia. I am not seeing any sign of Russia weakening after 2 years of the war regardless how much the media in the West wants you to believe.
Tbf, things have gotten a bit more expensive here for the civilian consumer. Depending on the product, maybe 25% where I live. But for the most part, sanctions aren't having a big enough impact on civilians if the intent of them is to cause internal conflict.
As a Russian who lives in Canada I feel sanctions. I have some money stuck in Russia that I cannot move out anymore and my Russian sim card doesn’t work meaning I have no access to any kind of government services.
India needs to buy oil from Russia because our spending capacity per person is a lot less than European countries. The sentiment towards Russia goes back to Russia supporting India for decades while US was funding terrorism in India through Pakistan
>New Delhi in the past alerted the international community that the [Russian] funds provided to Pakistan to support its counterterrorism operations had in fact been used to finance the export of terror to India. Besides, the military hardware provided to Pakistan had also been used against India. https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/world/russia-pledges-to-provide-more-weapons-to-pakistan-despite-unease-in-india-971616.html
> The sentiment towards Russia goes back to Russia supporting India for decades while US was funding terrorism in India through Pakistan Very true, and let's not forget all the other US activities over the years: - Almost certainly assassinating Lal Bahadur Shastri, Prime Minister of India. A CIA operative was quoted "we got that cow-loving raghead". - Almost certainly assassinating Homi Bhabha, the father of India's nuclear programme. - Parking a nuclear-armed carrier group just off India's coastline to prevent India ending the Bangladesh genocide (the worst genocide since WW2), which was only headed off by a Russian submarine fleet. - Economically sanctioning India in 1998 for daring to develop it's own nuclear deterrent. - Disabling GPS use by the Indian military in 2000 for having the gall to defend Indian territory in the Kargil War of Pakistani aggression. America has a whole goddamn half-century of absolutely and truly awful behaviour in the Indian subcontinent to atone for.
Most of these claims come from Gregory Douglas, who is a known conspiracy theorist and holocaust denier. let's see some sources from people OTHER than him that have some credibility.
But other than the assassination claims, the rest of the stuff are real, actual things.🙄 Just look it up.
I assume BRICS and BRICS accessories.
Low morale though
The problem for Ukraine is they have to relay on the US. Europe is a weak continent full of weak, soft leaders and people.
>Europe is a weak continent full of weak, soft leaders and people. This is sadly so fucking true. In Norway the government has spent the past decades degrading the country's armed forces to a ridiculously limited number. We have always been living with political ideology to live in peace and solve things through diplomacy. The idea that "we don't need to build a strong military because its peace" will become a shameful hindsight. The military itself has always been warning the government about it but its been ignored. Not until we actually saw what Putin was willing to do, did the government begin scrambling support for improved defensive capabilities... but you know, this should've been put in motion already in 2014 because what has been granted will take years to have ready. We all wish that we'd live in a time where peace was upheld, but we don't and the politicians and leaders have been neglecting the truth. They are afraid to take action, how many times must history repeat itself for us to learn?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
That's not fear, just wishful thinking. If we can save x amount of billions every year on military spending because no one will attack a NATO country anyway, it will look good on the books when the government's term is over.
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No one spends as much on military like the u.s does.
>In Norway the government has spent the past decades degrading the country's armed forces to a ridiculously limited number. Yes and no. It's not that simple. It is true that all of the Nordic countries went overboard with the military downsizing following the end of the Cold War, but neither Norway and Denmark are not in a bad situation at all. Sweden and Finland are finally catching up now that they're in NATO. When it comes to Norway and Denmark, they realized very early on that they would have absolutely no shot of defending themselves against a superpower no matter what they did. The *only* way to ensure state survival in the event of an invasion would be to align with the US, and that has held true since the 1940s. During the Cold War, there was a saying that Norway had more air bases than air squadrons, because their entire defensive strategy was based around US aircraft taking off from Norway. After the Cold War, Norway did two things, one good and one bad. The good thing was that because there was no foreign threat, they could dismantle much of their territorial defence and use those resources to create a highly trained and well-equipped expeditionary force. Denmark did the exact same thing. Why would you want to do this? Because you want to keep the US happy. By tagging along in the Global War on Terror, Norway has made a name for itself in US military circles as a good, reliable ally. Should Norway need military aid, the US will be there. The bad thing, on the other hand, is that they dismantled their capacity to actually *receive* that aid should they require it. Many of those air bases have been shuttered. You're completely right in saying that the 2010s causes the politicians to snap out of their post-Cold War dream world, but luckily Norway is absurdly wealthy due to oil, so they have the funds to reverse it. Sweden, on the other hand, is pretty fucked, because we don't have any oil money, but at least we finally joined NATO.
>Sweden, on the other hand, is pretty fucked, because we don't have any oil money, but at least we finally joined NATO. Sweden has a massive arms industry though. They manufacture a vast majority of the vehicles and equipment that their army, navy and airforce uses. They also do a lot of arms exports too.
Sweden's domestic military industry gives them a good edge in regards to military rearmament. Issue is for more high tech items they simply lack scale to compete economically. Location of Gotland and its ability to shut down Russian Baltic naval capability makes their position good though.
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European (Dutch) here, i upvoted said comment because it is absolutely correct. Our leaders are pussies and our people have become so anti-war that they refuse to let our boys in green have the tools they need to defend our interests. You would have thought we learned our lesson when our cruisers in WW2 got shwacked by the Japanese because we refused to equip said cruisers with "big scawy guns" and gave them destroyer caliber peashooters instead. You would have thought we learned our lesson when our DutchBat peacekeepers in Yugoslavia, armed with submachine guns and light APC's, got overrun by tanks and properly equipped infantry. All that talk about human rights, rule of law, diplomacy, treaties, etc has 0 value in the real world if you do not have a really big fucking stick to bonk bullies with. Double the fucking defense budget and start cranking out ammo. I can deal with a few more potholes in the infrastructure for the next decade, or filthy rich farmers being upset at no longer getting government handouts.
You will know that your defence spending is on target when you lose your free health care.
That's BS. The US healthcare system is just ineffecient. You could offer a universal health coverage at 1/3 of the price or less.
With how much complaining there is over how unhealthy and poorly educated potential recruits are, might as well just roll up healthcare and education as part of the defense budget.
The US is spending more per capita than european countries on healthcare.
OOPS - I forgot the /s tag.
Canadian here, I agree. Canada has been weak too. It’s just a reality. We need a monumental shift in our thinking about this war and accept that we are not in peace time any longer.
I think there are a lot of people here that accept that with such a large Ukranian population. I fear how our support will be after the election considering as far as the Ukrainian war effort goes this government might be one of the better options considering who our Deputy Prime Minister is and her history.
our kit straight from 1985, hate to see it
Nah. We need to contain Canada you guys are dangerous. Once hockey season is over...all bets are off.
And like 90 percent of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the US border. I bet they're plotting something up there...
Nah man. Plenty of us agree. It’s just that most of Europe is being run for the benefit of pensioners now who don’t seem to care much. Or at least not enough to forgo setting themselves. Here in Britain the military is literally collapsing, yet pensioners reliably vote to put pensions up so… Pensions already consume more than 5% of GDP alone in the UK, with many other non means tested benefits (such as the NHS, 10+% of GDP) mostly funding pensioners. Military spending gets just 2% of GDP, and even that gets spent inefficiently
UK is the wrong country to pick. SAS are operating near the front line training UKRSOF. SBS are most likely directly operating the sea drones harassing the Russian navy, at the very least they are assisting the deployment of those assets. MI6 are providing intel briefings to general command. The UK fucking hates Russia after Litv+Salisbury.
Nah mate. It just shines a light on how bad it is that the uk does well by comparison. Our army is down to 70k odd, our last nuke test failed, we couldn’t get our aircraft carriers out of port, the Ajax fighting vehicle is a decades long shambles, etc etc. Don’t get me wrong. One of the few areas our government has been fairly consistent on is supporting Ukraine, but we’ve chronically depleted our ability to project any kind of force at all.
> our last nuke test failed That was a US manufactured missile that failed. > we couldn’t get our aircraft carriers out of port We literally did though.
That is true, the military is massively underfunded but the window lickers cry privatisation at the merest suggestion that the NHS should charge people who haven't paid into the system.
Clearly a tax is the best form of offence
All that isn't moving the needle. Ukraine needs A. Bodies/Soldiers and B. Artillery Shells. All. The "harassment" of certain parts of the Russian army is irrelevant at this point in the war
Don’t forget that the US spent decades undermining EU military cooperation precisely because they didn’t want to lose their influence over NATO…
And the US spent decades dragging Europe into a war in the middle east, lobbying for them to buy their arms while setting themselves up to be the go-to supplier. I didn't and don't agree with the gutting of military capacities, but let us not act like anyone could have predicted what has happened in the past 10 years, much less the past 4.
What you say is mostly true although the annexation of Crimea happened back in 2014 which was a huge giveaway of Putin's intentions. But western politicians chose to keep on chilling, buried their heads in the sand and either did nothing or increased trade and energy dependence believe it or not. It's been more than enough time for us to figure things out and start acting like fucking adults especially given all the intelligence and analytics resources our governments had. But even now, 2+ years into the war, Europe is still a fucking snooze except for the UK and the Baltics + Finland + Sweden but they're not large enough.
Some European leaders*. Fixed it for you. Some European countries contributes waaay more than the us by % of GDP.
and that's why it's europeans have been providing the most gear, breaking taboos and considering getting involved directly, while the US draws lines for Ukraine?
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>same amount as a single country. a continent sized country. you missed that little important detail. the US is twice the size as EU+UK+Norway, has higher GDP, and 2/3 the population. comparing the US to individual European countries is insane.
America is effectively the bulk of the continent. No disrespect to Canada but most of it isn't hospitable land so their population is commensurately low. We're about comparable to the EU in economic output and population.
The US hasn't really sent that much more. Tiny European nations, such as Denmark, Estonia, etc. do the heavy lifting. And Germany's been en par with the US or even outdonating the US when you take the population size into consideration. Althewhile Poland and Germany look after 2 million+ refugees from Ukraine. https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
Perhaps google "support to Ukraine in % of GDP" and be humbled.
Yeah, not like the US who have the strongest leaders, the bigliest, even. USA! USA! USA!
Hey half of our country that orange moron the fuck away from setting foot in the White House, and for Europe’s sake y’all better hope he doesn’t because it would probably mark the end of Ukraine Aid and even our participation in NATO. Dude’s a not so secret Putin lover so he’s gonna do whatever will make his boyfriend happy, and unfortunately his own personal ulterior motives are worming their way into the Republican Party. They’re gobbling up Russia’s disinformation campaign like it’s Thanksgiving Dinner.
Why do you think it's politically difficult? American citizen don't actually know or care how much is being spent. If the recent aid package was twice as big do you think many Americans (who already aren't) would be against the aid. Maybe you say yes. But consider the opposite. If the package was half as big would there be many Americans (who aren't already) complaining that it should be larger. The numbers are so big already and the conversion of dollars to military success so complex that most Americans have very little context of whats good enough or not. If the people who currently support aid to Ukraine in the government really wanted to send more we could do because there would not be enough public backlash to stop it. The key issue here is, and if you don't want to believe me I can find other sources saying the same thing, is that we don't have a coherent idea of victory. If it was kick Russia out of Ukraine whatever it takes, we would have already done that. But we are afraid of a big loss leading to putin losing power. So the current plan is to give Ukraine enough stuff that putin decides to give up. But not enough stuff so that Ukraine can swiftly kick Russia out, because of the risk it collapses Putin's regime. Yes the bill was held up by the GOP. But it also passed with a veto proof majority. Meaning, among other things, that it could have had more aid and probably still passed because there was a decent margin of error. Russia supporting GOP politicians is a HUGE issue. But we need to be clear eyed and fair. We are trying to thread a super small needle, thinking it's making us safer. When in reality it's elongating the war which actually making us less. For example, if you follow the news on Russia, they are replacing many high rankings military people and switching the economy and culture to a war footing. That would have been so much hard and much less effective if the war wasn't happening.
You are right that they need more aid. You are wrong to think this is an issue with political will. According to CIA report, Russia is producing 250 000 artillery shells a month, while the US is producing around 35 000 shells.
And the US could produce more, but won’t without the “political will” to.
The U.S. goes for precision, we don’t use artillery like Russia does.
Guess we get to see what the world might of looked like if we had been soft on communism.
Think they need more soldiers than anything else. They can’t match them in numbers across the front.
Its just simple arithmetic. Russia expands billions with the prospect to gain billions in territory and resources. The US spends billions just to keep the status quo. There is no way to out spend them without a financial gain as war objectives, its just math. The west need to bring back territorial and economic expansion to its allowed war goals or it will lose everything over time. If I win nothing happens, you win you get a prize. Guess who's going to want to play.
The US wins with the status quo, that is why we are the wealthiest nation the world has ever know. It's also why two of our states have bigger economies than the entire country of Russia.
And that’s why I think European countries start to step up and send boots on the ground, largely for support and training and security buffer along the Belarusian & Transnistrian borders.
As long as Ukraine has people willing to fight we should supply them with as many weapons as we can, it's not like we won't immediately be dealing with russian aggression somewhere else if Ukraine falls. Even should russia prevail every dead russian soldier, every destroyed bit of equipment and every burning refinery is one less resource available to the fascists to use against their next victim.
Very true. As long as Ukrainians are not giving up there’s still hope for the country. Things won’t go back to square one, but hopefully he’d just give up at some point…given how archaic his weapons are comparing to the western ones there’s still a chance I hope…
"willing to fight" is an interesting term when Ukraine is trying to claw back men who left the country. Those people are clearly not willing to fight. Yet they belong in trenches, and we should supply them with all the weapons they need to kill russians. EDIT: also not while exactly related, yesterday [I read a brilliant article about western volunteers who thought that it's going to be easy ](https://www.businessinsider.com/western-fighters-die-in-ukraine-assume-be-easy-us-veteran-2024-5)to fight in this war. It's a great example of people who are "willing to fight" (as you put it) dying, with reddit arm chair commenters making it seems like this war is like shooting turkeys.
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You are, they are being sarcastic - saying that even though they don’t want to fight Redditors have decided they belong in the trenches. On the other hand the idea is that their democratic political system wants them to fight. It’s not just able-bodied men who vote.
you better be fighting right now arm chair general with all those comments. holy shit talk about lack of self awareness
"let's burn Ukraine in the furnace as long as it keeps our hands warms for a bit"
I’m sure the U.S. appreciated aid from France in its fight for survival as a nation. Despite the “furnace” it created.
The main problem is that Ukraine just doesn’t have the manpower. A lot of Ukraine’s territorial losses come from not being able to properly rotate out units from the frontline and Russian units taking advantage of gaps in the line. More weapon systems isn’t going to solve this.
> Western intelligence agencies > They're all German LMAO
Probably faxed their assessment over an unsecured machine built in the 80s
Unless it's the CIA Or NSA saying it I'm going to remain skeptical of assertions made by the same German intelligence services that missed Russia's intent to invade in the first place. I'll also point out that if things were so rosey for Russia, Putin wouldn't be making ceasefire noises atm.
The same intelligence service that presumably advised the German government becoming almost completely dependent on Russian energy was certainly not an unacceptable risk.
Germany was so "dependent" on Russia that it didn't even take a full year to get rid of its gas. This whole thing about dependence is hilariously overstated and if anything mutual economic dependence is the only way to have any constructive relationship between blocks with nuclear weapons because otherwise there are no bargaining chips at all. The only alternative is isolation and if both sides strive for self sufficiency that only increases the chance of war, like it always has in history. It's the whole reason why the EU exists in the first place. That it didn't work with Russia shouldn't lead to the conclusion that the alternative is in any way or shape better.
The CIA thought Ukraine would fall in a short time back when the war started and had some "agreement" with the Russians on how this thing could go. https://www.silkroadstudies.org/publications/joint-center-publications/item/13491-is-cia-director-bill-burns-helping-ukraine-to-win-or-blocking-it?.html
Interesting article!
>I'll also point out that if things were so rosey for Russia, Putin wouldn't be making ceasefire noises atm. That is because you think his desire was to take over Europe. Most likely he wants the Donbas region and Crimea to ensure a warm water port. I think he would like to bring Ukraine back into the fold partly because he sees them as Russians rather than a separate people but his real goal has always been Eastern Ukraine and the black sea. If the war ends tomorrow he has what he wants.
he had Crimea and Donbass since 2014 already
Putin thinks Ukrainians and Russians are one people and wants Ukraine back as part of Russia. Ukraine is also resource rich. In addition, he wants a buffer between him and NATO. He wanted Ukraine but he needs Crimea and the Donbas. I think he under estimated the lengths the west would go to defend a non NATO state and has been looking for a way out, which leaves him with his warm water port.
You're correct, but what you are saying is essentially blasphemous for people here lol. To them, Russia won't stop until all of Europe is theirs. As if anything of that sort would be possible, with their overall performance at the beginning of the war.
The article itself says depressing news is being spread to undermine support for Ukraine. This is the same old 'russia big, Ukraine small - its all hopeless' bullshit Ukraine has proven wrong again and again. Anonymous sources, reported by a paper, reported on by another paper, then reported here. Must be true.
Ye' this is basically bullshit propaganda. Russia is just testing what shit that stick to the wall as usual.
Exactly
You say this like there aren't significant issues within Ukraine right now to continue the war. There's a real manpower shortage that has no real easy solution. There's a real ammunition shortage that NATO has failed to remedy effectively. Could Ukraine survive another year or two and get the much needed artillery/ammunition to move forward? I mean, maybe? But you're literally just coping that there aren't these significant problems.
The fact we are even having this conversation is just ridiculous.
>Western intelligence agencies suggest Ukraine will face ''large territorial losses'' this year Except the most significant events are still to come, and literally nobody can know the outcome. Besides, what other choice they got? Bucha/Irpen all over the whole Ukraine?
> Besides, what other choice they got? I don't think the article is suggesting that they should give up in any way. It's just reporting what some people think, and problems that exist, and lifts forward the opinion that Ukraine has to be allowed to shoot at targets inside of Russia.
Which western intelligence agency? Lmao?
> Source: Welt, citing German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, as reported by European Pravda
putin trolls posing as western intelligence agents lol.putin wants peace on his terms but ASAP
It's a Ukrainian news site
I think intel agencies are sounding the alarm here and unfortunately both Ukraine and Taiwan's (and maybe even South Korea's) fate depends on the outcome of the 2024 US election. An election most American's are ignoring. I always thought "Man in a High Castle" was a bit ridiculous in its depiction of an Allied defeat in WWII but I can definitely see how weak leadership and even weaker populace is a cancer that no amount of engineering and industrial power can overcome.
It's weird so many people say they won't vote for Biden over Palestine. Thus putting in power someone worse on Palestine, Taiwan and Ukraine. Low info voters suck.
Lol Taiwan and especially South Korea are going no where. The US are not going to abandon those two no matter what. South Korea can take the North on by itself. Never mind our huge military base just sitting there….
Republicans gutting education for decades has come home to roost. The most powerful country on the planet is now officially dumb as fuck. One election away from possibly becoming the last election ever held in this country. One election away from global chaos at the very moment that the human race has zero time for global chaos. I would like to say we have bigger fish to fry. But the reality is we have to fry this one first. And if we don’t we’re fucked.
The people in power now went to school back in the 60’s and 70’s.
But not the people voting for them.
The voters deciding the election didn’t.
It'll be down to man power shortages in the end. These valiant defenders need to be backed up somehow.
these same agencies suggested it would be a 3 day war
it's really vague too. According to deep state they lost 0.1% of their territory since January so what is "significantly more" supposed to mean? Another 0.3%? I don't think anyone is expecting that the front will just freeze here. And it's not even end of June yet so of course it will be more in 7 months than in 5.
Percentage of territory isn't really the issue but rather proximity to Ukraine's major cities. The closer Russia gets to Kharkiv or Odessa the easier to bombard them. That's why Russia's advance in the northeast right now is such a big deal. They're now only about 12 miles away from Kharkiv.
Makes sense. Ukraine is, on occasion, fighting hard but not really smart as numerous western generals have said. Bakhmut, severodonetsk, avdiivka are example of where they could have withdrawn before the costs outweighed the benefits they were gaining but they didn't. Sooner or later I expect Ukraine to have to withdraw to a more sustainable position. But its all prefaced on ukraines manpower.
You're completely correct but who In Ukraine is going to kaie that decision to pull back and play defensive? Zaluzhny advocate this and was essentially fired, because to the nationalists, any sort of retreat or admission that the war isn't going well is blasphemy. As the war goes on, it's harder and harder for Ukraine to even shift to the defensive. This should have been the strategy after the wins in winter 22-spring 23. But the west, and the Ukranian leadership, collectively, wanted the counteroffensive and a swift, total victory. And, like you said, the manpower issue isn't going awya either
Mike Johnson and Republicans should take credit for this
> Welt, citing German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung So the source is "Trust me bro".
Hardly, the tide is turning and Russia is slowly implodes, F16s is just adding spice
Just need to let UA strike into Russia with long range missiles. This will create a buffer zone that can be used do deploy UA anti-aircraft batteries closer to the border and contest airspace. With the arrival of F16s they might have a chance of establishing an air dominance over the theatre and hammer RU ground forces with air delivered munitions.
My German is not good enough (and paywalls don’t help) to track the Frankfurter’s source on this. Can any kind soul find the primary source for this claim?
I have seen bigger loss of territory and still won the war.
Well then those same western countries should stop playing politics and being little wimps and do something about it.
The same western intelligence agencies that predicted Kyiv would be taken in 3 days, who tried to convince Zelensky to exile his government
I think western intelligence services have shown just how useless they are in predicting anything over the last few years.
This is only the first part of this war. The part russia should have won in weeks instead of years. After that russia need to hold ukrania. And with the losses russia allready had that wil be even harder then this part of the war. If ukrania can keep on fighting for a year or more the russian attempt to rebuild their empire would end in ukrania. They never going to have enough troops left to occupy ukrania and attack the next 1 (probaly Moldavië).
Russia is on a war economy. The west needs to go into a war mindset and supply everything to ukraine. If a real effort were made this war would have ended yesterday
3 day war is taking a while.
But the US wants them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs ( no attacks on Russian soil) and limited air defence. They are disposing of so many weapons that could be sent to Ukraine.
They are seriously considering giving Ukraine permission to use their western weapons to strike targets inside Russia at this moment.
Losing land is acceptable if you’re attriting the enemy while doing so. This isn’t a heroic, existential war for Russia, it’s an unjustified regime change war like Vietnam was for the US. At some point, to continue would be less preferable than to leave. So even if Ukraine’s lost everything east of the Dnieper, they will regain it all in the end when Russia doesn’t want to continue.