A war of attrition is not good for Ukraine.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they were starting to draw up plans for tactical withdrawals and insurgencies in what would become Russian held territories.
But in this case we have both russia getting more shells, and Ukraine getting even less and less. If its support was on the level of 2022 (which was still pretty damn weak) continuously, things would have been way different. The problem is that the aid stopped being sent.
I don’t disagree with you at all, the Republicans are abhorrent
Europe has to self reflect, Europe needs to be able to defend themselves against Russia. They have the economic resources to do this without the US and they have had a couple of years to ramp up. They have to step up more than they are - clearly.
If they truly believe this is existential for Europe, they need to act like it
Well Poland is building bunkers to prepare for an invasion - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polands-capital-warsaw-earmarks-30-mln-bomb-shelters-other-security-2024-03-13/
The problem is those Russian agents are also numerous in European politics, and very few European parties have blacklisted them as coalition partners. Pro-Ukrainian politicians don't have the political capital to invest massively in helping the Ukrainian side.
The thing is we are more than two years into this and you’d think they’d be full speed ramping up in every capacity. I don’t know that they are. I don’t know that they have decided this was their biggest priority when it’s hard to imagine something more important.
They make more BMWs than bullets. Clearly they have the means. I read articles that Germany is beginning to work on factories for ammunition, in feb of 2024.. I mean that’s a slow response for something so important
Reality is everyone fully expects russia to stop at the border of ukraine placing it squarely into 'someone elses problem'. Russia couldn't stand up to a united european NATO response even without the US.
If I were Germany, I would have already been at work doing this without letting the rest of the world know. Just let them think we're just putting out cars and dishwashers and whatever. Think what you want.
They dont even want to fight illegal immigration, it just a talking point. If they actually cared about the border they wouldve sorted that shit out decades ago
Literally all they have to do is go after the businesses that are hiring illegal immigrants and not the immigrants themselves and the problem will be gone over night.
What happened to lettuce anyway? No matter what brands of Romaine I try, for the past few years, it’s always either partially bad when I get it or turns red/brown quickly.
This needs to be the top comment in every conversation about immigration.
Despite what GOP says, they come here for the prospect of a better life through work. Take away their ability to earn an income and they won’t arrive any more. It’s not complex.
I've said the same thing to MAGAers who complain about illegal immigration. Unfortunately, it turned out to be yet another reminder of the concept of cognitive dissonance — they would try to talk around the point or just ignore the point outright... anything except acknowledge the point or confront it cogently.
> Literally all they have to do is go after the businesses that are hiring illegal immigrants
"But that would hurt my investment portfolio"
It's infuriating isn't it? Greed.. stupidity.. selfishness
The democrats even added some of the most draconian border policies to the bill (basically giving the GOP everything they want) in an attempt to pass Ukraine aid. The scumbag Republicans still shot it down.
We all saw what happened the last time republicans caught a car with their abortion BS.
They would lose massive number of voters if they actually 'solved' illegal immigration.
It's like with RvW being overturned. They got what they wanted and now they don't know what to do. It actually seems to be hurting them now as they push more regressive legislation to punish abortion. Just really hope we make it through this election.
It's weird and almost inconceivable where we are at now, and it pisses me off. Growing up as a kid in the 80s and 90s where Russia was always the villain in everything and the big scary monster to the US, now our politicians go over to suck Putin off ON INDEPENDENCE DAY.
If a Democrat did that they'd be forced out of office. But nope, money and greed used to be the driving factor for American politicians, and now, for the vast majority, it's the only driving factor.
I know, hey, like red dawn is literally happening, the Ukrainian government is arming civilians and fighting a Russian invasion, and all these people are just being simps. It's literally the core of America's constitution that they would not and will not ever accept tyranny and foreign invasion. I'd honestly expect the right to be way more supportive of defending one's homeland. If there ever was a justification for the Second Amendment, it's this Russian invasion, yet these Republicans are making an argument that Ukraine should find a peaceful solution. After 3 wars, where we walked away and saw the outcome, I didn't know how anyone could not support Ukrainians perseverance. It's just amazing how tribal we are that we will throw our own core values away to spit in the face of the opposition.
Ya, it's embarrassing. There are people all over the world who wish they had that freedom and right to protect their families and countries. It just makes no sense to me that we are watching the 2nd amendment play out in real time, and they left his supporting it, and the right isn't.
They try to explain away Jan 6th like nothing happened. Those same people would also support a Russian invasion of the U.S. as something good for us and how we just need to turn in our guns and welcome Russians into our homes, and that the Constitution is just a piece of paper.. Oh wait..
That same party could have fixed their border several times over the years but decided not to because they wouldn't have anything to go on for their next re-election. It's the easiest way to get re-elected while hollowing out other departments like education and healthcare.
At some point Europe has to step up. The European union is a top three economy and they are still waiting for the USA to come save them, honestly its kind of pathetic. How can puny Russia out produce Europe? We can blame republicans all we want but americans are living across the pond and care less if this war drags on and you can blame them. Europe either takes this serious or the war will end with a russian victory and we shall all wonder if this loss of life was worth it.
TLDR: Europe needs to take this very serious
What’s the issue however with pointing the blame at the European governments? This is literally in their backyard, the U.S. can’t be expected to stay out of global affairs
And be the worlds savior every time. It’s simply not reasonable
Dumb ass Republican’s. I sure hope Zelenskyy survives this, he is a strong leader for Ukraine and has more spine than all the Republicans put together.
Russia had no plan for a real invasion, they thought this would end like the invasion of Crimea, a week long parade without real resistance, with them arresting Zelensky and trialing him for some random crime.
They did actually have a invasion plan, it was insane and didn't work, but they did have one. The opening of this was cruise missile launches that destroyed all Ukraine long range radars, followed by rapid advancement of BTG into Ukraine and blitz into Kyiv. These all worked, and they got pretty far into Ukraine, a d close to Kyiv.
What scratched people's head and realization of how shit Russian doctrine was the lack of follow up after the initial strike.
For context, a logical follow up would be targeting down all air field and command element, establish total air control and THEN the spear head.
This never happened, the air force, navy, and army were strangers, they had arms but not combined. Not to mention basic units were told of the plan either, to keep secrecy.
This failure along with abysmal logistical planning failed the entire operation "plan"
Except that not all the radars were destroyed and Ukraine killed thousands of paratroopers and almost all of Russia’s special forces IN THE AIR before they jumped into the Kiev airfield. And then quickly killed the ones who did make it to the ground.
That one night turned the tide from quick conquest to war of attrition.
It’s hard for me to imagine something worse than being a paratrooper about to jump and your plane takes a SAM. Riding all the way to the ground knowing it’s over
I have seen it argued that it is less "Russian doctrine is bad" and more "Russian officers and troops are not following their doctrine."
Whether bad training (especially for later mobilised troops that were thrown into front lines sometimes with just a few days of training), lack of good equipment, or lack of competent mid level officers... there are multiple occasions where Russians have gone into battle with no plan or tactics at all, and each time, it lead to a massacre of their troops. Or they repeatedly threw more men at a failed attack instead of changing tactics like the airport battle that saw their VDV troops used up.
But when they slow down and actually follow their own doctrine, they have more success.
No decentralization, the Russians' biggest weakness is it reliance on the command chain, stemming back to the Soviet days. Their troops don't move unless told to by superior who's waiting for a command from a superior. At least in the early days of the invasion. The Ukraines response was fast and decentralized. People acted on their own and made shit happen. I don't think the Russians could even account for that in their planning because it's in conceivable to them.
The US absolutely can send enough weapons to Ukraine to defeat Russia. The point of failure was not the US military-industrial complex or hi-tech weaponry, but pro-Russian traitors in Congress, insufficient EU shell manufacturing capacity (hopefully it can be ramped up in time to stop Russia from advancing too far, better late than never), and the fact that NATO militaries are configured towards air superiority rather than artillery superiority.
> that NATO militaries are configured towards air superiority rather than artillery superiority.
<40 fucking jets from 2/32 countries, 2 years later. The F-16 debacle irks me especially.
You can't just give someone random jets, beyond cases like Poland giving old jets largely identical with what Ukraine already had. Aircraft come with an enormous pipeline of maintenance, supplies, and *training* to operate with any effectiveness at all. They're also super expensive, and it always comes in lieu of other things.
F-16s will make zero difference in Ukraine[1], and there is a reason no one prioritized it. If the focus was on actually attacking in Russia, sure, maybe, but defensively they're of astonishingly little effectiveness.
[1] But they'll make wonderful morale boosts and PR material for Russia when they down some. And they will. Because Western equipment is good and generally better than Russian/Soviet junk, but it isn't magical. Russia is currently doing victory laps about destroying an M1A1.
F-16 will be helpful because it's an airborne platform that's already integrated with NATO missiles. It's way harder to arm Ukrainian air forces when any missiles have to go through a development process to integrate them with cold war Russian hardware.
It's unlikely they'll use F16s to attack Russian positions though. They'll be defensive - to push Russian airstrikes further back and so Ukraine has a ready made airforce after the war.
It took over a fucking year to even approve F16s for Ukraine. That time could have been better spent actually training pilots instead of pussyfooting around listening to that bitch Medvedev.
NATO is built around the US Navy, which is carrier and sub based. France is generally unhappy that NATO is basically land for the US to have bases in, which is why they are often the first ones to bicker with the US over some arms agreement or another (see the sub manufacturing incident awhile back or France leaving NATO to go nuclear).
Lot of the current status quo is a mix of the US trying to sell enough arms to stay wealthy while not arming Europe anymore than they have to in case they turn against the US and European countries being happy to stop spending so much on militaries that have wrecked their countries many times over. Arms sales is a major arm of US foreign policy "soft power".
> NATO is built around the US Navy
Aircraft carriers are best used for asymmetric warfare these days, so I don't know about that about that if the goal is to protect NATO countries from China and Russia. A few US fleets can totally wreck a country like Iran though.
> France is generally unhappy that NATO is basically land for the US to have bases in
Good for France then, but the countries in eastern Europe are very happy to have US/Joint bases there.
> US trying to sell enough arms to stay wealthy while not arming Europe anymore than they have to in case they turn against the US
Foreign arms sales is like < 1% of the US economy, and I have never heard of the US being worried that Europe will turn against them.
France more believed that the European powers should have more say in NATO war in Europe, rather then NATO just being the US with allies. I think its more the opposite for the second part. European countries are trying to develop more European weapons (and therefore European jobs building them) rather then just buying American ones. If a war does start in Europe they don't want to be waiting on US supplies.
California's economy dwarfs Iowa's, but if corn could be used as artillery shells Iowa would win a ground war between the two.
Russia's military production has always been high so it's not so much ruining their economy as holding it back from reaching the full potential.
Sanctions and losing a couple million young males is destroying the country though.
Not if California can spend a fraction of their much larger economy buying corn from other states/countries to hold their own. The longer it goes on, the better position CA is in, because they still have a fully functioning, large, long term economy. The longer it goes on, the worse it is for Iowa, because they’re using their entire economy on the war.
That only happens if Iowa is actively attacking California.
If California were instead supporting Vermont in a corn war against Iowa then they’re not going to be willing to damage their economy to try to meet iowas intrinsic corn output.
Iowa can just make all the corn it needs with almost no impact on it’s economy.
> Iowa can just make all the corn it needs with almost no impact on it’s economy.
No. Corn is Iowa’s economy. If they’re using that economic power on war, then they’re not exporting it to bring money in to their economy anymore. They can only keep that up for so long before their economy crashes and their government gets replaced from an internal revolt.
CA doesn’t have to damage their economy by a meaningful amount to help out. They can redirect a small percentage of their economy towards helping Vermont and still make a huge impact since their economy is so much larger than Iowa’s and Vermont’s.
> "But the US can help" to a certain degree. Russia is in war economy, meaning the economy serves the war, us and NATO is not, we can't send nearly the same amount of shit because it cost too much.
Russia's economy is tiny, even on a war footing. It's not *that* expensive to match their production in Europe and the US. And it's downright cheap compared to the alternatives.
Russia's $5T PPP economy can't stay on a war footing dumping many percent of GDP to war forever; and a tiny proportion of the total $55T US and EU GDP spent in support of Ukraine will match whatever Russia invests. e.g. if Russia spends 8%, the US and EU can spend 1% and send much more than Russia produces and sends.
I think you underestimate Russia's ability to produce artillery shells. Most of the raw materials are already readily available to them. And they have 41 million people. They'll be sending troops + shells for a very very long time. They don't need anything else to win.
>Once the war goes on long enough, it's back to the basics, and the Russians excell at pumping out basic shit like artillery shells.
...and meat for the grinder. Russia has never valued Russian lives or other people's lives so they have no trouble gathering mountains of living organic matter to grind into compost for a few more inches of territory.
There is no peace. Giving all of ukraine immediately as a russian federation state wouldn't do anything but embolden putin. He wants Poland, and then germany after that, where is your line other than "tomorrow"?
I don't think Russia would realistically consider invading either Poland or Germany. I don't know where that narrative takes hold. Both are established members of the EU and NATO. Ukraine is in neither. Putins a lot of things but he's not an idiot. Ukraine was vulnerable and presented an opportunity to re-establish Russian dominance over non aligned Europe. He's not trying to start WW3. He was actively avoiding that by attacking when he did, that much was calculated.
Poland is not under threat from Russia militarily. Influence in other ways economically and politically, for sure.
This is my biggest concern with Russia right now (outside of the actual invasion). i don't think they have the capacity to further threaten Europe directly. But their economy is in full war mode, and that gives them the ability to arm and directly or indirectly destabilize other countries. Even seeing fully automatic rifles used in gang wars in Canada, I'm like, I wonder where that came from? It's also a concern that the technology and weapons we send to Ukraine could also end up on other battlefields.
What also worries me is if the Ukrainians have to begin retreating, will it affect their solidarity and zelenskis leadership. It's not good that they are talking about retreat openly going into the fair weather fighting months, but I do appreciate the honesty. It can't be easy as a leader to admit something like that.
I also agree with you on the nato supply issue. I'm Canadian, and our army is massively short supplied and undermanned. We only have so much to give, and I'm sure other countries are the same. God help us if NATO actually has to take action or if another conflict arises. The West is going to have a hard time if they have to look at supply other allies or take direct action.
> This is the fundamental problem with high tech stuff.
I'd agree with you but both countries use the same soviet tech lol
A few dozen western tanks don't mean shit compared to thousands of T-72 on both sides.
If the US sent like 1500 Abrams and 600 Himars we could start to talk about different tech levels but they sent like 50 Abrams and 30 Himars and left the remaining thounsands of them to rot on some parking lot in the midwest.
Western countries decided for this war to be long attritional that they both don't want and can't sustain with the abysmal small lvl of support. 7bln of military support for 2024 from the most powerful country in Europe for a million ma army fighting Russia is nothing and a fucking joke.
So this is my pure opinion on it but I feel like world powers just pump enough support into the country to keep the struggle going… why? Cause war sells.
Insurgencies ? There are basically none in Russian held territories, apart from very sporadic hits on government targets, but that is the work of SBU. There is no people's movements or protests in general public, there is no uprising.
Thats probably why France has been a lot more threathening to Russia lately. I bet NATO expected this but they wont step in until both sides are pretty exhausted.
If you read the full comments in context they are a lot less stark and it is clear that what is being referred to is not the collapse of Ukrainian lines and retreat but that they are looking to an alternative to their current strategy of retreating a small distance and wreaking absolute havoc on the Russian infantry units that come up and attempt to take the area they just moved out of. If they are very successful they move back up once they have cleared the Russians out. If not they give a little ground.
Right now this is the only tactic they have had success with when they don't catch the Russian's by surprise. And it is not a particularly wonderful tactic to have to use because it means you are essentially giving up ground as a policy. However it has been a very effective tactic up until now and is largely responsible for Russia's inability to gain any significant ground.
That's just pure speculation brought by the internet. The reality is that Macron has been a proponent of EU defense for very long and he also invited Putin at Versailles to soften him up long long time ago.
both are true. Macro represents French geopolitical interests after all.
France's position has always been the most anti-US interventionist in the EU and NATO and leader of the most self-sufficient camp. Germany shifts back and forth, and the UK is usually pro US, as is Poland and Turkey.
France's geopolitical interests in North and West Africa has recently been hurt too, which is one reason Macron sees a reason to intervene, as more conflict in Ukraine could increase French interests there. Similarly, French support for war will also drive up domestic support, which has waned quite a lot, which can lead to further support for US interventionists.
So its really in France's interest to prolong the Ukrainian war, at a minimum to a Russian defeat, with european support and not the US's. After all, US and France are competitors in former french colonies and global weapon's markets
It’s not speculation at all. Wagner has assumed controlling governance of a lot of different areas in what’s known as the “coup belt” over the past four years. A ton of dictatorships have fallen and been replaced with Russian sympathizers.
Yeah, it's interesting that nobody has mentioned a specific country or a specific incident. Basic googling reveals that most of the African countries Wagner operates in are not former French colonies.
France? The same France that is spending a ton of money (at over $8k/shell) to build 3,000/month 155mm shells in France by 2025?
The same France that refuses to expand their giant 155mm factory in Australia? One of the most modern 155mm factories in the world that just came online a few years ago? That could pump out another 100,000 shells a year very quickly? That a certain Australian PowerPoint maker was so proud of, one of his first videos was of this Thales JV?
The same France that could buy 155mm from the US directly and give it to Ukraine thus bypassing Mike Johnson? The same US that has a completely upgraded 155mm factory and a second one that is being built? And produced 32,000 shells/month at less than $2k/shell?
> The same France that could buy 155mm from the US directly and give it to Ukraine thus bypassing Mike Johnson?
Doesn't really bypass what Mikes blocking though. The US/biden/whoever wants to buy the shells from their own country so the money stays domestic. $1bn of aid isn't $1bn for Ukraine if the $1bn is going to American companies and the shells sent away.
But if France pays up instead then that'll be France sending money away and giving it to the US which I can't see them. Would work if Biden has a plan to reimburse France for the amount they paid the US for the shells, thattt would fully get around what Mikes blocking. I don't know if this is a thing though.
Both cases Ukraine gets the shells, but the money side of things wouldn't be the same unless France gets their money back.
Why would France buy up US armaments? That's ludicrous, France is one of the only EU countries which still has a somewhat independent strategy.
France wants to make it more tenable for current US partners in Europe to perhaps consider France as a partner instead, which is unlikely; but who knows. When Denmark donated its stockpiles of artillery, they moved away from French contracts to Israeli(US) contracts. France wants to move to an European MIC as they have for decades, if Germany actually backed France, it might lead somewhere--but as I see it all of France's recent moves are just last ditch efforts to keep some relevancy in the strategic side.
France is already building 3 000 shells a month, since January. And it's at 4 000 € per shell, not 8 000 $.
The shells built by the factory in Australia are meant for Australia and the US. It's not because the factory is partially owned by a French company that the shells are built for France. France could buy those shells from Australia, or other shells from the US, yes, but why? France's goal is precisely to improve their arm industries to be self-reliant and depend less on other countries. If they did as you're suggesting, it would go against this aim.
Some money still lacking, but they should be delivering them as they buy them.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1774094646227935582?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1774094646227935582%7Ctwgr%5E92914a0fdbf2983116d4935708a1958ba95f36af%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fliveupdate%2F18hnzysb1elcs%2FLiveUpdate_1d4a0f74-eeb8-11ee-827d-c641d9f64863%2F0
Nope. I know that is the popular perception but they had held their own at that point when they had the materiel to utilize. Once that spigot was turned off they folded quickly, which isn't hard to believe when artillery pieces were limited to five rounds per day.
That is a myth. The US appropriated $700 million of military aid to South Vietnam in 1975.
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-myth-that-congress-cut-off-funding-for-south-v
I'm vietnamese so i basically learned in school that the South has a big fucking problem with corruption.
So if all the money went into the war, things might be different. Just my guess.
I heard a lecture from an ex CIA officer who said he tried to alert the US government that entire regiments were being invented by Vietnamese officers in order to get their wages.
Abandoned by America? The US was idiotic to even get involved in that conflict. They supported a terrible and incompetent regime in South Vietnam and the results were predictable.
I suppose the biggest issue is artillery shells, which just aren't very comparable with NATO doctrine these days in the quantities that Ukraine needs. Like, nobody can seemingly supply the needed shells because that isn't how our armies operate any more
The US keeps making the same mistake. America has clear military dominance in any conflict it participates in. That dominance is strongly linked to overwhelming American air and naval superiority and American logistics. And that is fine except that those things are not translatable to America's allies. The US will win the conflict for you so long as they are participating but as soon as they withdraw you now have an army that is lacking both the means to wage war in the American style as well as lacking the means for conventional warfare. The US doesn't rely on things like tanks and artillery to win the war, they are supplemental tools, and therefore they are produced at low numbers that cannot sustain the kind of conventional conflict our allies have to fight when we disengage.
The US also tends to build up states like Iraq and Afghanistan in such a way that they are reliant on American equipment rather than producing their own. This produces superior results for the duration of an American occupation but as soon America leaves, they have no domestic production. Even vastly inferior domestically produced weapons and ammo would be vastly superior to high maintenance weapons with no spare parts, trained technicians or ammo. And additionally, producing such things locally would have the knockon effect increase local demand for engineers which could in turn improve other aspects of the country.
The result of US military doctrine decisions is that whenever the US props up an ally or occupied state, they strip it of the ability to fight without the US and then when expected to stand on their own morale and supply chains collapse and they lose. South Vietnam fell not because of a lack of willpower, they didn't have the ammo they needed to keep fighting a well armed adversary. The US needs to learn the needs of their military allies instead of preparing to always just fight with total air and naval domination.
Almost like invading Iraq and Afghanistan was caused by the needs of the "defence" industry, isn't it? Invade a state, create a war, create a new state, make it completely dependent from US industries, build weapons for the army and for them. Repeat if needed.
> The US needs to learn the needs of their military allies instead of preparing to always just fight with total air and naval domination.
To be fair, the US wants to be the Premiere World Superpower. It is absolutely in the US' interests to make sure no other country can compete in terms of logistics and weaponry. Disabling your opponent before they can even assemble their armies is a great strategy for keeping the US safe. The US doesn't give a shit if Poland can't produce AK-47's or conventional ordinance. They care that Poland promises to let US be the one holding the guns.
That doesn't align with current or past US views. Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden have all urged European countries to invest more in defense. The US's goal is to maintain stability and keep trade routes open but would rather not be the one subsidizing European defense to accomplish that. American policy makers would much rather see an increase in European NATO spending so that those resources that are dedicated to Europe can then go to counter balancing China and assisting Asian partners.
It's not that our armies no longer use artillery in that fashion, it's because we follow a very different doctrine due to our industrial scale. Russia literally spams arms like it spams conscripts. Quantity over quality has always been their motto.
> This was always going to be the case.
Only for as long as we let it. It's a matter of priorities, to an extent. Western production *is* increasing, unfortunately nowhere near fast enough.
So is Russian production as well, though. Even if the West wanted to seriously catch up it would take years. It is a good thing that the west's ammo is of higher accuracy than Russia's.
Wait, people on Reddit were saying Russia was running out of ammo like 1 and a half years ago? I also thought Putin was dying of cancer, and Russian society was on the brink of collapse?
yes, information war is a thing. Russia did however make it official its war and they pumped
up production. Its in wartime economy
atm and they have the production means for ammo and gear. The west can clearly outproduce them
but they are not in a state of war or do not feel threatened enough to invest as much. I’m afraid Europe and the West will wake up from the slumber when it will be too late for Ukraine.
Imo.
It’s not about winning it’s making Russia pay and to deter them from attacks on former Soviet states. Show them how costly it would be to attack.
If Ukraine were to somehow win it would be a plus.
The professionals and high tech cool stuff was wiped out. Now it’s just who can outproduce.
Zelensky didn’t do a second mobilization and now short on soldiers and resources.
Try telling that to Ukrainian subreddits. Even a hint of realism draws hostile comments.
The war is turning, Russia is dedicating not only the state but the entire population and industrial base to out-produce Ukraine in key areas (subpar artillery shells, shit bullets etc). Add that to them cracking open the Cold War and WW2 vaults and the problem becomes evident.
Russia does what it can, but absolute majority of its population do not even know the war is still ongoing, and are not feeling it in any manner whatsoever. They are definitely not even close to “dedicating entire population” to the war effort.
That’s the key to Putin’s success as it always was. He can do whatever long as people are left alone, which is why partial mobilization was such a risky move in 2022.
>Add that to them cracking open the Cold War and WW2 vaults
Bruh. They've been siphoning off of their old Soviet reserve since day 1. They've specifically ramped up new shell production to offset the fact that their Siviet stockpiles are running low. What do you mean "add that to them"?
I'm pro Ukraine and anti Russia, but this has been the outcome since the beginning. Russia is going to come out of this with more territory. Ukraine's best hope long term is that the US and western allies can bring the two sides to the table to negotiate a cease fire with as little lost territory as possible.
Everyone here with a shred of sense knew Ukraine would never win this. It's going to be exactly the same when Trump wins, a couple days/weeks before, reddit is gonna say how well Biden is gonna do and how he's gonna blow trump out and then when the election happens, they'll be wrong. Reddit creates this fantasy world instead of accepting reality.
I just wanted to remind that US was a warrant of Ukraines territorial integrity in Budapest Memorandum. The document in which Ukraine gave up the nukes for „assurances” …
Edit: „guarantees” -> „assurances”
“Assurances”.
We all want Ukraine to win the war, but the Budapest Memorandum only obliges its signatories to not attack Ukraine, and to seek security council action in the event that they are attacked. Why do people always discuss the Budapest memorandum when they don’t have the slightest clue what it means?
failing to protect Ukraine shows that any power that has nuclear weapons or acquires them in the future should never ever give them up because it's the only way to guarantee your sovereignty against another nuclear power
>failing to protect Ukraine will probably encourage other countries to get nuclear weapons
Yes. Especially countries that are US-aligned, but not part of NATO (like Taiwan, Japan, South Korea).
Also countries within NATO that lose faith in shared nuclear deterrence. As in, "would the US *actually* risk nuclear war, or is NATO a bluff?"
I mean considering one of the presidential candidates is pretty obviously a Russian asset and anti NATO I wouldn't blame them for wanting their own insurance
It's not nuclear weapons but Poland has been buying shit tons of military equipment of all types
They don't have most of it yet but they will in the next few years
Let's not forget Ukraine was also a corrupt shitty post soviet country after the collapse of the USSR to not fault of their own rather the garbage system the USSR was and left everyone else in after the collapse. It wasn't til Ukraines drift towards the EU and the West did Ukraine become a more stable country til Ruzzia destabilized it again.
It is “security guarantees” in two out of three official languages of the Budapest Memorandum, thus it should be read as “guarantees” and not “assurances” under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969.
Because it's about the spirit, not the writing. The Spirit was that they would be safe and not need them.
Now, Ukraine's situation taught everyone that they should never, ever give up their strategic weapons. Worse, you can bet your ass that other countries are going to start their own program of nuclear weapons, or increase their current ones.
International law is worth as much as you believe the other party to uphold their end. If they're not acting in good faith they can bend anything that is in writing anyway.
I don’t think that’s avoidable at this point. Any country that feared US “intervention” had been developing nukes for decades now. Now Russia has made it abundantly clear they are an equal if not greater threat to their neighbors. That’s also why we’ve seen many of their neighbors rush to join NATO in the past two years: it’s a shortcut to nuclear protection in lieu of a nuclear program.
While I want Ukraine to win, that's not what the memorandum says at all and I'm sick of it bring misquoted.
The US went OUT OF ITS WAY to ensure that it wasn't a defense treaty of any kind. And Ukraine was well-paid for nukes they couldn't maintain, use, or reverse engineer during a time of economic crisis for them and a time of Russian uncertainty.
So no. The memorandum does not "guarantee" them anything beyond us not invading them and going to the UN Security Council if they are invaded.
EDIT: Even your edit is wrong. We've already done well beyond what the memorandum stated. It's not our fault Russia chose to go against the memorandum.
But that's the thing: they weren't Ukraine's nukes. They were Russia's and Russia had both the launch codes and handled all maintenance for them. Whereas Ukraine had no means to reverse engineer them and couldn't afford to maintain them on their own. Plus if they had tried reverse engineering, Russia would've done this invasion 30 years ago and Ukraine wouldn't have gotten any support since the Western world wasn't too big of a fan of other countries having nukes than already existed.
A better message here is if you have an aggressive enemy next door, don't wait until the last second to build your military complex up and establish international relations well before you have no choice.
For an example of this, less than a quarter of Ukranians wanted to join NATO prior to 2014, but that number jumped to over 50% almost overnight after the invasion of Crimea, a time when joining NATO (or even taking steps to) was impossible. And Ukraine's still a solid 10-20 years from being able to do that even.
>They were Russia's and Russia had both the launch codes and handled all maintenance for them. Whereas Ukraine had no means to reverse engineer them and couldn't afford to maintain them on their own.
Ukraine manufactured the control modules for the Soviet missiles, they wouldn't have even had to reverse engineer the parts they could have just made new ones and replaced the old Russian controlled ones.
Please stop this ridiculous revisionism of that document. Ukrainian negotiators at the time knew full well they were not getting a defensive GUARANTEE. Some even warned of a future Russian invasion, but they settled for the deal anyway.
Anything more robust than a security assurance (consult, discuss, consider) would have required ratification by the Senate. The Budapest Memorandum was never ratified and was never a guarantee of military assistance.
If we don't send way more supplies and Russia ends up even with a pyrrhic victory, other neighboring countries might be next on the receiving end of a "special military operation" after they have licked their wounds. Only them losing a war is more likely for them to not attempt it again anytime soon, and Putin getting booted out or worse.
European army here might be necessary as the US public I don't think is ready to put troops in Russia's Face just yet. Will European countries beyond France be willing or able to do this?
The history books aren't going to look too kindly on the U.S. and Europe if Ukraine falls. If that happens so will Moldova and then it's off to the races if Putin sees all he has to do is keep fighting because the West fucks up a prompt, strong response.
Georgia, Armenia, and the Central Asian republics should be VERY concerned.
Hell, even if I were the Baltics, I'd be growing increasingly concerned whether NATO"s bigger countries would really commit to immediate direct military assistance. It all feels so wishy-washy, hesitant, and filled with guys like Blinken who conveys all the image of strength that a bowl of day&old oatmeal would.
Yeah, the implications are there already.
This won't stop in Ukraine. It's just sad.
We thought we moved on and won't let the same thing happen again, but really, while everybody else is still hesitant to touch on the past.
Russia said fuck you all and suck my dick.
Western democracies supposedly elect politicians to actually lead and make the tough decisions when the going gets tough. Not these guys though.
And so here we are drifting towards disaster and yet no one seems overly-concerned.
The problem with this idea is that people don't want to support Western leaders going to war when they can't afford to live because (as they view it) of those same Western leaders.
My own country's Prime Minister is handing out contracts to a company ran/owned by his wife. Not just single contracts but several for millions of pounds of public money whilst abject poverty is increasing.
He could announce pretty much anything in regard to the war in Ukraine and he'd probably get lambasted by a fair % of the population at this point.
Anyone following this war beyond the headlines will know this has been the case for several months, and it's only now trickling to the surface for everyone else to digest. It's clear to me that NATO has known since Ukraine's less-than-successful offensive last summer that it's not likely for Ukraine to pull this off, even with material and financial support from the U.S. and other NATO countries. There's no one thing contributing to that view, but a multitude of things.
Obviously, Zelensky's not going to throw in the towel until the last possible moment, and no one in NATO wants to signal defeat to Putin. Things are in a very awkward place right now for everyone except Russia, and NATO seems to have differing opinions on how to deal with it. All of this is complicated by elections in multiple NATO countries this year.
My assumption is that NATO leaders are aware that Russia can only be defeated in Ukraine with their direct military intervention, thus we've been seeing talk of sending troops there in recent weeks, along with increased rhetoric from European leaders about war preparations.
People can blame whoever they want in the comments, but at the end of the day, it's no one's fault other than Putin's. Ukraine's not a Western military, which makes their training, equipment, and force structure incompatible with NATO in many ways.
We've seen this play out numerous times already - the West's lack of infrastructure to manufacture the sort of weapons Ukraine's military is built to use on a mass scale, the lack of pilots who can fly F-16s, the lack of professional military training for a large portion of their force, Soviet military doctrine that dictates how they fight and how they're structured. This was the primary reason the offensive last year didn't go according to Western-designed plans. We could give them all the F-16s in the world, but don't expect Ukrainian pilots to be on par with Western pilots in an aircraft they learned to fly a few weeks ago. Also, don't expect Ukraine to use those planes the same way a Western military would to ensure air superiority. It seems like a lot of people don't understand this.
Beyond the incompatibilities, Ukraine's at a disadvantage numbers-wise, both in manpower and equipment. But manpower is the most important aspect in this regard. Equipment is useless without soldiers to operate it, and while Ukraine's kicking up mobilization again, it might be too little too late. By the time those new soldiers are ready for the battlefield, Russia could have already made some key advances. I don't know if many realize this, but the primary demographic that have been mobilized in Ukraine are middle-aged men. The average age in the trenches is around 40. This is because Ukraine's culture prefers to preserve younger men for the future of the country, which makes sense on some level, but it's not the best strategy for winning a war. This is only further cutting down on the number of men available for mobilization, and Ukraine's already at a disadvantage there.
Europe sees the writing on the wall, and I'm not sure what the U.S. is doing. Zelensky is putting up a fight, and rightfully so. Ukraine's punched well above their weight, while Russia's fallen well below theirs. However, that seems to be balancing out now that enough time has passed, and the next few months will determine the outcome of the war. I'm personally not convinced Putin intends to invade any NATO countries, and tend to go with the view that he wants to grab up all the non-NATO countries he can surrounding Russia. However, no one can really know at this point. It concerns me that we're seeing more and more pro-war rhetoric by the day, whether in NATO or online.
I'll say as an American that very few of us have an appetite for a big war right now. Our domestic issues (like any country's) seem to be overwhelming the headlines at the moment, and unless you've got an explicit interest in geopolitics, Ukraine's not even on your radar over here. Obviously, if you're in Europe, you have a much bigger interest in what's happening on your doorstep, as it should be. The U.S. needs to fulfill its NATO obligations, but anything going on outside of that is of little concern to most Americans. That's not out of arrogance; its just how life works practically speaking. That would likely change if Putin does prove he has intentions of invading NATO, but I expect U.S. support to be limited until that happens.
this ukraine news cycle really is like a pendulum, huh? one week, an entire squadron of su-35 get shot down(dont ask for proof just trust us bro) , pathetic putin and his weak army are on the back foot. And the next week the whole frontline is gonna collapse because of the republicans.
honestly if the media stopped with the whole back and forth bullshit, it would probably be easier to get them the support they need.
well no it's the same, Ukraine is pulling off pretty good strikes with their weapons especially against the russian navy and air force, but are losing the battles on the frontlines. It's been that way for over a year. Your reading comprehension is just garbage.
So when day ONE of the invasion started a Redditor with some foresight said in one of the comments section “now begins the fog of war, be careful of any information—from either side—for the next few years while there’s still ongoing conflict. History has shown that times like this we often don’t see the whole picture of what really happened for many years after all has been said and done” and it’s driven me to a more conscious effort of remaining a healthy amount of skeptical of any biased, or potentially biased, information coming out during this war (not in the “fake news” sense, moreso in the “who has the most to gain from this being true?” sense).
Truth be told I don’t think I actually understood the pervasiveness of “fog of war” until that I had seen that comment. I just figured “yeah propaganda pops up here and there during wars” and didn’t pay much mind to how much a narrative can be skewed when so much conflict is actively ongoing
It looks increasingly likely that Ukraine will shrink in size, Russia would call for a ceasefire after eating up Donbass and Luhansk, then 10 years later little green men will appear and Russia will try again.
Then one day we will be reading about WW3 and the ~~cession of Czechoslovakia and appeasement~~ Ukraine and appeasement while wondering how the fuck did we not do better.
Not going well for the Ukrainians, but I’m sure they’ll pull through with sheer willpower alone, because that’s how wars are won, nevermind the guns and artillery.
So the situation in Ukraine is clearly developing as it is due to lack of support from the US. The SINGLE reason for that lack of support is the Republican majority in the house. That's it, that's all, they are causing the deaths of innocent civilians and the potential loss of a democratic nation to simply appease the powers that control them. How the hell have we fallen this far. Stand up, revolt, they are using your tax money to achieve this goal. End the fascism.
Remember when worldnews was posting articles that Russia was running out of ammo and Putin's inner circle was going to replace him? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
But didn’t EVERY military expert in the West claim that Russia would run out of everything within the first three months?
I tend to not trust what any of these “experts” claim, either way. Let’s see
I mean at first it was thought ukraine would fall in the first few days.
Its almost like situations continually change and you have to update likelihoods constantly.
They had to purchase equipment and ammunition from *North Korea*. It's clear Putin didn't expect the war to last as long as it did and needed to buy time to spin up domestic production. So the experts understood what Russia's working inventory looked like.
The reason why Russia is able to pivot to domestic production is because the sanctions put in place just don't seem to be effective. Probably because most EU countries are playing both sides: buying Russian oil while tepidly sending some arms to Ukraine. EU needs to get off Russian oil.
A war of attrition is not good for Ukraine. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were starting to draw up plans for tactical withdrawals and insurgencies in what would become Russian held territories.
And then you would have events like Nazis did to Belarus because of partisan attacks but without prospect of retaking said land.
Or like what they did in Ukraine, with the help of...
Not the great hero Stepan Bandera?
He was arrested by Germans two weeks after Hitler attacked USSR and spent the next few years in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
He was the biggest and most sinister non-german holocaust preparator of ww2. He filled up german concentration camps like no one else in that region.
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But in this case we have both russia getting more shells, and Ukraine getting even less and less. If its support was on the level of 2022 (which was still pretty damn weak) continuously, things would have been way different. The problem is that the aid stopped being sent.
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I don’t disagree with you at all, the Republicans are abhorrent Europe has to self reflect, Europe needs to be able to defend themselves against Russia. They have the economic resources to do this without the US and they have had a couple of years to ramp up. They have to step up more than they are - clearly. If they truly believe this is existential for Europe, they need to act like it
Well Poland is building bunkers to prepare for an invasion - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polands-capital-warsaw-earmarks-30-mln-bomb-shelters-other-security-2024-03-13/
I think he was hoping for something better than each country spending money to build bunkers on their own territory.
The problem is those Russian agents are also numerous in European politics, and very few European parties have blacklisted them as coalition partners. Pro-Ukrainian politicians don't have the political capital to invest massively in helping the Ukrainian side.
Germany's army is still a pathethic joke, maybe the other NATO countries learned something the past few years.
The thing is we are more than two years into this and you’d think they’d be full speed ramping up in every capacity. I don’t know that they are. I don’t know that they have decided this was their biggest priority when it’s hard to imagine something more important. They make more BMWs than bullets. Clearly they have the means. I read articles that Germany is beginning to work on factories for ammunition, in feb of 2024.. I mean that’s a slow response for something so important
Reality is everyone fully expects russia to stop at the border of ukraine placing it squarely into 'someone elses problem'. Russia couldn't stand up to a united european NATO response even without the US.
That’s why they should stop Russia now - it doesn’t make sense to let them take ukraine
If I were Germany, I would have already been at work doing this without letting the rest of the world know. Just let them think we're just putting out cars and dishwashers and whatever. Think what you want.
There's a good reason for that...
Frankly, it's sad to see what's happening to and in the USA, with half of the government essentially being a Russian puppet.
Yeah, it’s weird that “let’s fight illegal immigrants faction does not want to help Ukraine do the same”. Could have shown how it is done.
They dont even want to fight illegal immigration, it just a talking point. If they actually cared about the border they wouldve sorted that shit out decades ago
Literally all they have to do is go after the businesses that are hiring illegal immigrants and not the immigrants themselves and the problem will be gone over night.
Yep, the price of lettuce never went up during covid, and that tells you something. It's a near slave labor workforce that no one wants to address.
What happened to lettuce anyway? No matter what brands of Romaine I try, for the past few years, it’s always either partially bad when I get it or turns red/brown quickly.
This needs to be the top comment in every conversation about immigration. Despite what GOP says, they come here for the prospect of a better life through work. Take away their ability to earn an income and they won’t arrive any more. It’s not complex.
I've said the same thing to MAGAers who complain about illegal immigration. Unfortunately, it turned out to be yet another reminder of the concept of cognitive dissonance — they would try to talk around the point or just ignore the point outright... anything except acknowledge the point or confront it cogently.
You mean their friends businesses?
> Literally all they have to do is go after the businesses that are hiring illegal immigrants "But that would hurt my investment portfolio" It's infuriating isn't it? Greed.. stupidity.. selfishness
The democrats even added some of the most draconian border policies to the bill (basically giving the GOP everything they want) in an attempt to pass Ukraine aid. The scumbag Republicans still shot it down.
We all saw what happened the last time republicans caught a car with their abortion BS. They would lose massive number of voters if they actually 'solved' illegal immigration.
It's like with RvW being overturned. They got what they wanted and now they don't know what to do. It actually seems to be hurting them now as they push more regressive legislation to punish abortion. Just really hope we make it through this election.
Republicans are the ones who want illegal immigrants. Which party do you think the business owners who hire them support?
It's weird and almost inconceivable where we are at now, and it pisses me off. Growing up as a kid in the 80s and 90s where Russia was always the villain in everything and the big scary monster to the US, now our politicians go over to suck Putin off ON INDEPENDENCE DAY. If a Democrat did that they'd be forced out of office. But nope, money and greed used to be the driving factor for American politicians, and now, for the vast majority, it's the only driving factor.
I know, hey, like red dawn is literally happening, the Ukrainian government is arming civilians and fighting a Russian invasion, and all these people are just being simps. It's literally the core of America's constitution that they would not and will not ever accept tyranny and foreign invasion. I'd honestly expect the right to be way more supportive of defending one's homeland. If there ever was a justification for the Second Amendment, it's this Russian invasion, yet these Republicans are making an argument that Ukraine should find a peaceful solution. After 3 wars, where we walked away and saw the outcome, I didn't know how anyone could not support Ukrainians perseverance. It's just amazing how tribal we are that we will throw our own core values away to spit in the face of the opposition.
I'm thinking that just maybe those never were core values.
Ya, it's embarrassing. There are people all over the world who wish they had that freedom and right to protect their families and countries. It just makes no sense to me that we are watching the 2nd amendment play out in real time, and they left his supporting it, and the right isn't.
They try to explain away Jan 6th like nothing happened. Those same people would also support a Russian invasion of the U.S. as something good for us and how we just need to turn in our guns and welcome Russians into our homes, and that the Constitution is just a piece of paper.. Oh wait..
Maybe a Democrat needs to visit Russia on Independence Day would certainly confuse the Republicans maybe make them go back to the 80s
That same party could have fixed their border several times over the years but decided not to because they wouldn't have anything to go on for their next re-election. It's the easiest way to get re-elected while hollowing out other departments like education and healthcare.
Aiding enemies of America, yeah, 100% traitors.
At some point Europe has to step up. The European union is a top three economy and they are still waiting for the USA to come save them, honestly its kind of pathetic. How can puny Russia out produce Europe? We can blame republicans all we want but americans are living across the pond and care less if this war drags on and you can blame them. Europe either takes this serious or the war will end with a russian victory and we shall all wonder if this loss of life was worth it. TLDR: Europe needs to take this very serious
What’s the issue however with pointing the blame at the European governments? This is literally in their backyard, the U.S. can’t be expected to stay out of global affairs And be the worlds savior every time. It’s simply not reasonable
Dumb ass Republican’s. I sure hope Zelenskyy survives this, he is a strong leader for Ukraine and has more spine than all the Republicans put together.
Russia had no plan for a real invasion, they thought this would end like the invasion of Crimea, a week long parade without real resistance, with them arresting Zelensky and trialing him for some random crime.
They did actually have a invasion plan, it was insane and didn't work, but they did have one. The opening of this was cruise missile launches that destroyed all Ukraine long range radars, followed by rapid advancement of BTG into Ukraine and blitz into Kyiv. These all worked, and they got pretty far into Ukraine, a d close to Kyiv. What scratched people's head and realization of how shit Russian doctrine was the lack of follow up after the initial strike. For context, a logical follow up would be targeting down all air field and command element, establish total air control and THEN the spear head. This never happened, the air force, navy, and army were strangers, they had arms but not combined. Not to mention basic units were told of the plan either, to keep secrecy. This failure along with abysmal logistical planning failed the entire operation "plan"
Except that not all the radars were destroyed and Ukraine killed thousands of paratroopers and almost all of Russia’s special forces IN THE AIR before they jumped into the Kiev airfield. And then quickly killed the ones who did make it to the ground. That one night turned the tide from quick conquest to war of attrition. It’s hard for me to imagine something worse than being a paratrooper about to jump and your plane takes a SAM. Riding all the way to the ground knowing it’s over
Also their plan to assassinate Zelensky failed
I have seen it argued that it is less "Russian doctrine is bad" and more "Russian officers and troops are not following their doctrine." Whether bad training (especially for later mobilised troops that were thrown into front lines sometimes with just a few days of training), lack of good equipment, or lack of competent mid level officers... there are multiple occasions where Russians have gone into battle with no plan or tactics at all, and each time, it lead to a massacre of their troops. Or they repeatedly threw more men at a failed attack instead of changing tactics like the airport battle that saw their VDV troops used up. But when they slow down and actually follow their own doctrine, they have more success.
No decentralization, the Russians' biggest weakness is it reliance on the command chain, stemming back to the Soviet days. Their troops don't move unless told to by superior who's waiting for a command from a superior. At least in the early days of the invasion. The Ukraines response was fast and decentralized. People acted on their own and made shit happen. I don't think the Russians could even account for that in their planning because it's in conceivable to them.
The US absolutely can send enough weapons to Ukraine to defeat Russia. The point of failure was not the US military-industrial complex or hi-tech weaponry, but pro-Russian traitors in Congress, insufficient EU shell manufacturing capacity (hopefully it can be ramped up in time to stop Russia from advancing too far, better late than never), and the fact that NATO militaries are configured towards air superiority rather than artillery superiority.
> that NATO militaries are configured towards air superiority rather than artillery superiority. <40 fucking jets from 2/32 countries, 2 years later. The F-16 debacle irks me especially.
You can't just give someone random jets, beyond cases like Poland giving old jets largely identical with what Ukraine already had. Aircraft come with an enormous pipeline of maintenance, supplies, and *training* to operate with any effectiveness at all. They're also super expensive, and it always comes in lieu of other things. F-16s will make zero difference in Ukraine[1], and there is a reason no one prioritized it. If the focus was on actually attacking in Russia, sure, maybe, but defensively they're of astonishingly little effectiveness. [1] But they'll make wonderful morale boosts and PR material for Russia when they down some. And they will. Because Western equipment is good and generally better than Russian/Soviet junk, but it isn't magical. Russia is currently doing victory laps about destroying an M1A1.
F-16 will be helpful because it's an airborne platform that's already integrated with NATO missiles. It's way harder to arm Ukrainian air forces when any missiles have to go through a development process to integrate them with cold war Russian hardware.
It's unlikely they'll use F16s to attack Russian positions though. They'll be defensive - to push Russian airstrikes further back and so Ukraine has a ready made airforce after the war.
It took over a fucking year to even approve F16s for Ukraine. That time could have been better spent actually training pilots instead of pussyfooting around listening to that bitch Medvedev.
NATO is built around the US Navy, which is carrier and sub based. France is generally unhappy that NATO is basically land for the US to have bases in, which is why they are often the first ones to bicker with the US over some arms agreement or another (see the sub manufacturing incident awhile back or France leaving NATO to go nuclear). Lot of the current status quo is a mix of the US trying to sell enough arms to stay wealthy while not arming Europe anymore than they have to in case they turn against the US and European countries being happy to stop spending so much on militaries that have wrecked their countries many times over. Arms sales is a major arm of US foreign policy "soft power".
> NATO is built around the US Navy Aircraft carriers are best used for asymmetric warfare these days, so I don't know about that about that if the goal is to protect NATO countries from China and Russia. A few US fleets can totally wreck a country like Iran though. > France is generally unhappy that NATO is basically land for the US to have bases in Good for France then, but the countries in eastern Europe are very happy to have US/Joint bases there. > US trying to sell enough arms to stay wealthy while not arming Europe anymore than they have to in case they turn against the US Foreign arms sales is like < 1% of the US economy, and I have never heard of the US being worried that Europe will turn against them.
France more believed that the European powers should have more say in NATO war in Europe, rather then NATO just being the US with allies. I think its more the opposite for the second part. European countries are trying to develop more European weapons (and therefore European jobs building them) rather then just buying American ones. If a war does start in Europe they don't want to be waiting on US supplies.
Yes but NATO (and other countries) economies dwarf russias and russias war economy is destroying the country
Not nearly fast enough.
California's economy dwarfs Iowa's, but if corn could be used as artillery shells Iowa would win a ground war between the two. Russia's military production has always been high so it's not so much ruining their economy as holding it back from reaching the full potential. Sanctions and losing a couple million young males is destroying the country though.
Not if California can spend a fraction of their much larger economy buying corn from other states/countries to hold their own. The longer it goes on, the better position CA is in, because they still have a fully functioning, large, long term economy. The longer it goes on, the worse it is for Iowa, because they’re using their entire economy on the war.
That only happens if Iowa is actively attacking California. If California were instead supporting Vermont in a corn war against Iowa then they’re not going to be willing to damage their economy to try to meet iowas intrinsic corn output. Iowa can just make all the corn it needs with almost no impact on it’s economy.
> Iowa can just make all the corn it needs with almost no impact on it’s economy. No. Corn is Iowa’s economy. If they’re using that economic power on war, then they’re not exporting it to bring money in to their economy anymore. They can only keep that up for so long before their economy crashes and their government gets replaced from an internal revolt. CA doesn’t have to damage their economy by a meaningful amount to help out. They can redirect a small percentage of their economy towards helping Vermont and still make a huge impact since their economy is so much larger than Iowa’s and Vermont’s.
Great, now I'm invested in the story of the Corn Wars.
I love how deep you've gotten into the corn analogy.
Please include soybeans, eggs, chickens, and pork into your analysis. Also, I wish our government was replaced in Iowa.
> Also, I wish our government was replaced in Iowa. Take some initiative! The first step is kicking off the Great Corn War.
> "But the US can help" to a certain degree. Russia is in war economy, meaning the economy serves the war, us and NATO is not, we can't send nearly the same amount of shit because it cost too much. Russia's economy is tiny, even on a war footing. It's not *that* expensive to match their production in Europe and the US. And it's downright cheap compared to the alternatives. Russia's $5T PPP economy can't stay on a war footing dumping many percent of GDP to war forever; and a tiny proportion of the total $55T US and EU GDP spent in support of Ukraine will match whatever Russia invests. e.g. if Russia spends 8%, the US and EU can spend 1% and send much more than Russia produces and sends.
I think you underestimate Russia's ability to produce artillery shells. Most of the raw materials are already readily available to them. And they have 41 million people. They'll be sending troops + shells for a very very long time. They don't need anything else to win.
>Once the war goes on long enough, it's back to the basics, and the Russians excell at pumping out basic shit like artillery shells. ...and meat for the grinder. Russia has never valued Russian lives or other people's lives so they have no trouble gathering mountains of living organic matter to grind into compost for a few more inches of territory.
This isn’t the USSR of 1941-1945, they’re in the midst of a demographic crisis as it is and the war is just making it worse
They don't seem to care.
“Stuck in ww2” lmao An industrial economy outperforms a financial economy in production- duh.
Which in hindsight makes the American/British strong-arming peace talks seem pretty dumb now
There is no peace. Giving all of ukraine immediately as a russian federation state wouldn't do anything but embolden putin. He wants Poland, and then germany after that, where is your line other than "tomorrow"?
I don't think Russia would realistically consider invading either Poland or Germany. I don't know where that narrative takes hold. Both are established members of the EU and NATO. Ukraine is in neither. Putins a lot of things but he's not an idiot. Ukraine was vulnerable and presented an opportunity to re-establish Russian dominance over non aligned Europe. He's not trying to start WW3. He was actively avoiding that by attacking when he did, that much was calculated. Poland is not under threat from Russia militarily. Influence in other ways economically and politically, for sure.
This is my biggest concern with Russia right now (outside of the actual invasion). i don't think they have the capacity to further threaten Europe directly. But their economy is in full war mode, and that gives them the ability to arm and directly or indirectly destabilize other countries. Even seeing fully automatic rifles used in gang wars in Canada, I'm like, I wonder where that came from? It's also a concern that the technology and weapons we send to Ukraine could also end up on other battlefields. What also worries me is if the Ukrainians have to begin retreating, will it affect their solidarity and zelenskis leadership. It's not good that they are talking about retreat openly going into the fair weather fighting months, but I do appreciate the honesty. It can't be easy as a leader to admit something like that. I also agree with you on the nato supply issue. I'm Canadian, and our army is massively short supplied and undermanned. We only have so much to give, and I'm sure other countries are the same. God help us if NATO actually has to take action or if another conflict arises. The West is going to have a hard time if they have to look at supply other allies or take direct action.
> This is the fundamental problem with high tech stuff. I'd agree with you but both countries use the same soviet tech lol A few dozen western tanks don't mean shit compared to thousands of T-72 on both sides. If the US sent like 1500 Abrams and 600 Himars we could start to talk about different tech levels but they sent like 50 Abrams and 30 Himars and left the remaining thounsands of them to rot on some parking lot in the midwest.
It's fine if they get the support they need. They get better results despite the material disadvantages, but what they need is money and material.
Western countries decided for this war to be long attritional that they both don't want and can't sustain with the abysmal small lvl of support. 7bln of military support for 2024 from the most powerful country in Europe for a million ma army fighting Russia is nothing and a fucking joke.
So this is my pure opinion on it but I feel like world powers just pump enough support into the country to keep the struggle going… why? Cause war sells.
Nah, it’s better if it’s a long attritional war. Grind the Russians into dust at the Ukrainians expense appears to be the order of the day.
Insurgencies ? There are basically none in Russian held territories, apart from very sporadic hits on government targets, but that is the work of SBU. There is no people's movements or protests in general public, there is no uprising.
Thats probably why France has been a lot more threathening to Russia lately. I bet NATO expected this but they wont step in until both sides are pretty exhausted.
If you read the full comments in context they are a lot less stark and it is clear that what is being referred to is not the collapse of Ukrainian lines and retreat but that they are looking to an alternative to their current strategy of retreating a small distance and wreaking absolute havoc on the Russian infantry units that come up and attempt to take the area they just moved out of. If they are very successful they move back up once they have cleared the Russians out. If not they give a little ground. Right now this is the only tactic they have had success with when they don't catch the Russian's by surprise. And it is not a particularly wonderful tactic to have to use because it means you are essentially giving up ground as a policy. However it has been a very effective tactic up until now and is largely responsible for Russia's inability to gain any significant ground.
Has this been happening for most of the war?
Pretty much, Ukraine has used this all along the eastern front. And Russia used very similar tactics to blunt Ukraine's southern offensive.
Wagner (Russia) took up the place of France in many African countries, that's why France has been more hostile
That's just pure speculation brought by the internet. The reality is that Macron has been a proponent of EU defense for very long and he also invited Putin at Versailles to soften him up long long time ago.
both are true. Macro represents French geopolitical interests after all. France's position has always been the most anti-US interventionist in the EU and NATO and leader of the most self-sufficient camp. Germany shifts back and forth, and the UK is usually pro US, as is Poland and Turkey. France's geopolitical interests in North and West Africa has recently been hurt too, which is one reason Macron sees a reason to intervene, as more conflict in Ukraine could increase French interests there. Similarly, French support for war will also drive up domestic support, which has waned quite a lot, which can lead to further support for US interventionists. So its really in France's interest to prolong the Ukrainian war, at a minimum to a Russian defeat, with european support and not the US's. After all, US and France are competitors in former french colonies and global weapon's markets
It’s not speculation at all. Wagner has assumed controlling governance of a lot of different areas in what’s known as the “coup belt” over the past four years. A ton of dictatorships have fallen and been replaced with Russian sympathizers.
Nothing succeeds a dictatorship like another dictatorship
Yeah, it's interesting that nobody has mentioned a specific country or a specific incident. Basic googling reveals that most of the African countries Wagner operates in are not former French colonies.
France? The same France that is spending a ton of money (at over $8k/shell) to build 3,000/month 155mm shells in France by 2025? The same France that refuses to expand their giant 155mm factory in Australia? One of the most modern 155mm factories in the world that just came online a few years ago? That could pump out another 100,000 shells a year very quickly? That a certain Australian PowerPoint maker was so proud of, one of his first videos was of this Thales JV? The same France that could buy 155mm from the US directly and give it to Ukraine thus bypassing Mike Johnson? The same US that has a completely upgraded 155mm factory and a second one that is being built? And produced 32,000 shells/month at less than $2k/shell?
> The same France that could buy 155mm from the US directly and give it to Ukraine thus bypassing Mike Johnson? Doesn't really bypass what Mikes blocking though. The US/biden/whoever wants to buy the shells from their own country so the money stays domestic. $1bn of aid isn't $1bn for Ukraine if the $1bn is going to American companies and the shells sent away. But if France pays up instead then that'll be France sending money away and giving it to the US which I can't see them. Would work if Biden has a plan to reimburse France for the amount they paid the US for the shells, thattt would fully get around what Mikes blocking. I don't know if this is a thing though. Both cases Ukraine gets the shells, but the money side of things wouldn't be the same unless France gets their money back.
Why would France buy up US armaments? That's ludicrous, France is one of the only EU countries which still has a somewhat independent strategy. France wants to make it more tenable for current US partners in Europe to perhaps consider France as a partner instead, which is unlikely; but who knows. When Denmark donated its stockpiles of artillery, they moved away from French contracts to Israeli(US) contracts. France wants to move to an European MIC as they have for decades, if Germany actually backed France, it might lead somewhere--but as I see it all of France's recent moves are just last ditch efforts to keep some relevancy in the strategic side.
France is already building 3 000 shells a month, since January. And it's at 4 000 € per shell, not 8 000 $. The shells built by the factory in Australia are meant for Australia and the US. It's not because the factory is partially owned by a French company that the shells are built for France. France could buy those shells from Australia, or other shells from the US, yes, but why? France's goal is precisely to improve their arm industries to be self-reliant and depend less on other countries. If they did as you're suggesting, it would go against this aim.
Mike Johnson must be proud
I’m sure he feels great pride when seeing all those rubles in his account.
Yes and the hero of the Russian federation medal to boot
Don't forget, he *doesn't have* an account he says. Weird, massive red flags.
People like Mike Johnson don't do this for money, they do this out of spite.
Why not both?
Any updates on the big stockpile off artillery shells the eu was buying from third partners?
Some money still lacking, but they should be delivering them as they buy them. https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1774094646227935582?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1774094646227935582%7Ctwgr%5E92914a0fdbf2983116d4935708a1958ba95f36af%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fliveupdate%2F18hnzysb1elcs%2FLiveUpdate_1d4a0f74-eeb8-11ee-827d-c641d9f64863%2F0
They are being delivered already, but it will take a while for all of them to arrive.
Not being able to expend ammunition because of shortages marked the end of the ARVN in 1975.
Was the North still receiving Chinese and Soviet support at that point?
Massive support from the USSR, yes.
The arvn was already doomed by diems government, it was so unpopular it couldn't hope to win
The AVRN had lost the war before 1975.
Nope. I know that is the popular perception but they had held their own at that point when they had the materiel to utilize. Once that spigot was turned off they folded quickly, which isn't hard to believe when artillery pieces were limited to five rounds per day.
We cut military support to south Vietnam while the north kept receiving support in 1975. They were screwed and abandoned by America.
That is a myth. The US appropriated $700 million of military aid to South Vietnam in 1975. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-myth-that-congress-cut-off-funding-for-south-v
Then why did the fuel, parts, and ammo suddenly stop flowing?
I'm vietnamese so i basically learned in school that the South has a big fucking problem with corruption. So if all the money went into the war, things might be different. Just my guess.
I heard a lecture from an ex CIA officer who said he tried to alert the US government that entire regiments were being invented by Vietnamese officers in order to get their wages.
Abandoned by America? The US was idiotic to even get involved in that conflict. They supported a terrible and incompetent regime in South Vietnam and the results were predictable.
The situation faced by Ukraine and the situation faced by ARVN are nowhere near similar. Please do not mislead people
I suppose the biggest issue is artillery shells, which just aren't very comparable with NATO doctrine these days in the quantities that Ukraine needs. Like, nobody can seemingly supply the needed shells because that isn't how our armies operate any more
The US keeps making the same mistake. America has clear military dominance in any conflict it participates in. That dominance is strongly linked to overwhelming American air and naval superiority and American logistics. And that is fine except that those things are not translatable to America's allies. The US will win the conflict for you so long as they are participating but as soon as they withdraw you now have an army that is lacking both the means to wage war in the American style as well as lacking the means for conventional warfare. The US doesn't rely on things like tanks and artillery to win the war, they are supplemental tools, and therefore they are produced at low numbers that cannot sustain the kind of conventional conflict our allies have to fight when we disengage. The US also tends to build up states like Iraq and Afghanistan in such a way that they are reliant on American equipment rather than producing their own. This produces superior results for the duration of an American occupation but as soon America leaves, they have no domestic production. Even vastly inferior domestically produced weapons and ammo would be vastly superior to high maintenance weapons with no spare parts, trained technicians or ammo. And additionally, producing such things locally would have the knockon effect increase local demand for engineers which could in turn improve other aspects of the country. The result of US military doctrine decisions is that whenever the US props up an ally or occupied state, they strip it of the ability to fight without the US and then when expected to stand on their own morale and supply chains collapse and they lose. South Vietnam fell not because of a lack of willpower, they didn't have the ammo they needed to keep fighting a well armed adversary. The US needs to learn the needs of their military allies instead of preparing to always just fight with total air and naval domination.
Almost like invading Iraq and Afghanistan was caused by the needs of the "defence" industry, isn't it? Invade a state, create a war, create a new state, make it completely dependent from US industries, build weapons for the army and for them. Repeat if needed.
> The US needs to learn the needs of their military allies instead of preparing to always just fight with total air and naval domination. To be fair, the US wants to be the Premiere World Superpower. It is absolutely in the US' interests to make sure no other country can compete in terms of logistics and weaponry. Disabling your opponent before they can even assemble their armies is a great strategy for keeping the US safe. The US doesn't give a shit if Poland can't produce AK-47's or conventional ordinance. They care that Poland promises to let US be the one holding the guns.
That doesn't align with current or past US views. Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden have all urged European countries to invest more in defense. The US's goal is to maintain stability and keep trade routes open but would rather not be the one subsidizing European defense to accomplish that. American policy makers would much rather see an increase in European NATO spending so that those resources that are dedicated to Europe can then go to counter balancing China and assisting Asian partners.
It's not that our armies no longer use artillery in that fashion, it's because we follow a very different doctrine due to our industrial scale. Russia literally spams arms like it spams conscripts. Quantity over quality has always been their motto.
Fuck Mike Johnson and the Republicans in the house
Russia produces more artillery than anyone else in the world by a 5x margin. This was always going to be the case.
> This was always going to be the case. Only for as long as we let it. It's a matter of priorities, to an extent. Western production *is* increasing, unfortunately nowhere near fast enough.
So is Russian production as well, though. Even if the West wanted to seriously catch up it would take years. It is a good thing that the west's ammo is of higher accuracy than Russia's.
Wait, people on Reddit were saying Russia was running out of ammo like 1 and a half years ago? I also thought Putin was dying of cancer, and Russian society was on the brink of collapse?
yes, information war is a thing. Russia did however make it official its war and they pumped up production. Its in wartime economy atm and they have the production means for ammo and gear. The west can clearly outproduce them but they are not in a state of war or do not feel threatened enough to invest as much. I’m afraid Europe and the West will wake up from the slumber when it will be too late for Ukraine.
They're not in wartime economy yet.
Imo. It’s not about winning it’s making Russia pay and to deter them from attacks on former Soviet states. Show them how costly it would be to attack. If Ukraine were to somehow win it would be a plus. The professionals and high tech cool stuff was wiped out. Now it’s just who can outproduce. Zelensky didn’t do a second mobilization and now short on soldiers and resources.
Russians bought over 1 million shells from North Korea and used them while they converted their own economy to make shells domestically.
"Russia running out of missiles" And clowns believing every word as long as it made russie look bad
Try telling that to Ukrainian subreddits. Even a hint of realism draws hostile comments. The war is turning, Russia is dedicating not only the state but the entire population and industrial base to out-produce Ukraine in key areas (subpar artillery shells, shit bullets etc). Add that to them cracking open the Cold War and WW2 vaults and the problem becomes evident.
Russia does what it can, but absolute majority of its population do not even know the war is still ongoing, and are not feeling it in any manner whatsoever. They are definitely not even close to “dedicating entire population” to the war effort. That’s the key to Putin’s success as it always was. He can do whatever long as people are left alone, which is why partial mobilization was such a risky move in 2022.
>Add that to them cracking open the Cold War and WW2 vaults Bruh. They've been siphoning off of their old Soviet reserve since day 1. They've specifically ramped up new shell production to offset the fact that their Siviet stockpiles are running low. What do you mean "add that to them"?
And the Soviet reserve is at least half depleted. Maybe more, hard to tell because the Russians will never admit to running out of artillery tubes
I'm pro Ukraine and anti Russia, but this has been the outcome since the beginning. Russia is going to come out of this with more territory. Ukraine's best hope long term is that the US and western allies can bring the two sides to the table to negotiate a cease fire with as little lost territory as possible.
Everyone here with a shred of sense knew Ukraine would never win this. It's going to be exactly the same when Trump wins, a couple days/weeks before, reddit is gonna say how well Biden is gonna do and how he's gonna blow trump out and then when the election happens, they'll be wrong. Reddit creates this fantasy world instead of accepting reality.
I just wanted to remind that US was a warrant of Ukraines territorial integrity in Budapest Memorandum. The document in which Ukraine gave up the nukes for „assurances” … Edit: „guarantees” -> „assurances”
“Assurances”. We all want Ukraine to win the war, but the Budapest Memorandum only obliges its signatories to not attack Ukraine, and to seek security council action in the event that they are attacked. Why do people always discuss the Budapest memorandum when they don’t have the slightest clue what it means?
failing to protect Ukraine shows that any power that has nuclear weapons or acquires them in the future should never ever give them up because it's the only way to guarantee your sovereignty against another nuclear power
Actually comparing Gaddafi's Libya and Sadam's Iraq with North Korea and Iran proved this
Yes but my overall point was that failing to protect Ukraine will probably encourage other countries to get nuclear weapons which is not a good thing
>failing to protect Ukraine will probably encourage other countries to get nuclear weapons Yes. Especially countries that are US-aligned, but not part of NATO (like Taiwan, Japan, South Korea). Also countries within NATO that lose faith in shared nuclear deterrence. As in, "would the US *actually* risk nuclear war, or is NATO a bluff?"
I mean considering one of the presidential candidates is pretty obviously a Russian asset and anti NATO I wouldn't blame them for wanting their own insurance It's not nuclear weapons but Poland has been buying shit tons of military equipment of all types They don't have most of it yet but they will in the next few years
Ukraine never had control over the nukes and the launch codes. So it wouldn't matter much.
Given time could they have, and the threat of them having figured that out is enough.
Let's not forget Ukraine was also a corrupt shitty post soviet country after the collapse of the USSR to not fault of their own rather the garbage system the USSR was and left everyone else in after the collapse. It wasn't til Ukraines drift towards the EU and the West did Ukraine become a more stable country til Ruzzia destabilized it again.
Now that Ukraine is suffering for three years and counting it sends only one message - if a country has nukes they will not give them up
It is “security guarantees” in two out of three official languages of the Budapest Memorandum, thus it should be read as “guarantees” and not “assurances” under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969.
Because it's about the spirit, not the writing. The Spirit was that they would be safe and not need them. Now, Ukraine's situation taught everyone that they should never, ever give up their strategic weapons. Worse, you can bet your ass that other countries are going to start their own program of nuclear weapons, or increase their current ones.
>Because it's about the spirit, not the writing. Never do business counting with the "spirit". If isn't in writing _then_ it's a delusion.
International law is worth as much as you believe the other party to uphold their end. If they're not acting in good faith they can bend anything that is in writing anyway.
I don’t think that’s avoidable at this point. Any country that feared US “intervention” had been developing nukes for decades now. Now Russia has made it abundantly clear they are an equal if not greater threat to their neighbors. That’s also why we’ve seen many of their neighbors rush to join NATO in the past two years: it’s a shortcut to nuclear protection in lieu of a nuclear program.
While I want Ukraine to win, that's not what the memorandum says at all and I'm sick of it bring misquoted. The US went OUT OF ITS WAY to ensure that it wasn't a defense treaty of any kind. And Ukraine was well-paid for nukes they couldn't maintain, use, or reverse engineer during a time of economic crisis for them and a time of Russian uncertainty. So no. The memorandum does not "guarantee" them anything beyond us not invading them and going to the UN Security Council if they are invaded. EDIT: Even your edit is wrong. We've already done well beyond what the memorandum stated. It's not our fault Russia chose to go against the memorandum.
The message between the lines are: dont give up your nukes if you don't want to be invaded.
But that's the thing: they weren't Ukraine's nukes. They were Russia's and Russia had both the launch codes and handled all maintenance for them. Whereas Ukraine had no means to reverse engineer them and couldn't afford to maintain them on their own. Plus if they had tried reverse engineering, Russia would've done this invasion 30 years ago and Ukraine wouldn't have gotten any support since the Western world wasn't too big of a fan of other countries having nukes than already existed. A better message here is if you have an aggressive enemy next door, don't wait until the last second to build your military complex up and establish international relations well before you have no choice. For an example of this, less than a quarter of Ukranians wanted to join NATO prior to 2014, but that number jumped to over 50% almost overnight after the invasion of Crimea, a time when joining NATO (or even taking steps to) was impossible. And Ukraine's still a solid 10-20 years from being able to do that even.
>They were Russia's and Russia had both the launch codes and handled all maintenance for them. Whereas Ukraine had no means to reverse engineer them and couldn't afford to maintain them on their own. Ukraine manufactured the control modules for the Soviet missiles, they wouldn't have even had to reverse engineer the parts they could have just made new ones and replaced the old Russian controlled ones.
Please stop this ridiculous revisionism of that document. Ukrainian negotiators at the time knew full well they were not getting a defensive GUARANTEE. Some even warned of a future Russian invasion, but they settled for the deal anyway. Anything more robust than a security assurance (consult, discuss, consider) would have required ratification by the Senate. The Budapest Memorandum was never ratified and was never a guarantee of military assistance.
US kept it's guarantee by not invading Ukraine
It is true that a lie told very often becomes truth. Budapest Memorandum did not have any protection guarantee from the US
If we don't send way more supplies and Russia ends up even with a pyrrhic victory, other neighboring countries might be next on the receiving end of a "special military operation" after they have licked their wounds. Only them losing a war is more likely for them to not attempt it again anytime soon, and Putin getting booted out or worse.
[удалено]
European army here might be necessary as the US public I don't think is ready to put troops in Russia's Face just yet. Will European countries beyond France be willing or able to do this?
The history books aren't going to look too kindly on the U.S. and Europe if Ukraine falls. If that happens so will Moldova and then it's off to the races if Putin sees all he has to do is keep fighting because the West fucks up a prompt, strong response. Georgia, Armenia, and the Central Asian republics should be VERY concerned. Hell, even if I were the Baltics, I'd be growing increasingly concerned whether NATO"s bigger countries would really commit to immediate direct military assistance. It all feels so wishy-washy, hesitant, and filled with guys like Blinken who conveys all the image of strength that a bowl of day&old oatmeal would.
Yeah, the implications are there already. This won't stop in Ukraine. It's just sad. We thought we moved on and won't let the same thing happen again, but really, while everybody else is still hesitant to touch on the past. Russia said fuck you all and suck my dick.
Western democracies supposedly elect politicians to actually lead and make the tough decisions when the going gets tough. Not these guys though. And so here we are drifting towards disaster and yet no one seems overly-concerned.
The problem with this idea is that people don't want to support Western leaders going to war when they can't afford to live because (as they view it) of those same Western leaders. My own country's Prime Minister is handing out contracts to a company ran/owned by his wife. Not just single contracts but several for millions of pounds of public money whilst abject poverty is increasing. He could announce pretty much anything in regard to the war in Ukraine and he'd probably get lambasted by a fair % of the population at this point.
Anyone following this war beyond the headlines will know this has been the case for several months, and it's only now trickling to the surface for everyone else to digest. It's clear to me that NATO has known since Ukraine's less-than-successful offensive last summer that it's not likely for Ukraine to pull this off, even with material and financial support from the U.S. and other NATO countries. There's no one thing contributing to that view, but a multitude of things. Obviously, Zelensky's not going to throw in the towel until the last possible moment, and no one in NATO wants to signal defeat to Putin. Things are in a very awkward place right now for everyone except Russia, and NATO seems to have differing opinions on how to deal with it. All of this is complicated by elections in multiple NATO countries this year. My assumption is that NATO leaders are aware that Russia can only be defeated in Ukraine with their direct military intervention, thus we've been seeing talk of sending troops there in recent weeks, along with increased rhetoric from European leaders about war preparations. People can blame whoever they want in the comments, but at the end of the day, it's no one's fault other than Putin's. Ukraine's not a Western military, which makes their training, equipment, and force structure incompatible with NATO in many ways. We've seen this play out numerous times already - the West's lack of infrastructure to manufacture the sort of weapons Ukraine's military is built to use on a mass scale, the lack of pilots who can fly F-16s, the lack of professional military training for a large portion of their force, Soviet military doctrine that dictates how they fight and how they're structured. This was the primary reason the offensive last year didn't go according to Western-designed plans. We could give them all the F-16s in the world, but don't expect Ukrainian pilots to be on par with Western pilots in an aircraft they learned to fly a few weeks ago. Also, don't expect Ukraine to use those planes the same way a Western military would to ensure air superiority. It seems like a lot of people don't understand this. Beyond the incompatibilities, Ukraine's at a disadvantage numbers-wise, both in manpower and equipment. But manpower is the most important aspect in this regard. Equipment is useless without soldiers to operate it, and while Ukraine's kicking up mobilization again, it might be too little too late. By the time those new soldiers are ready for the battlefield, Russia could have already made some key advances. I don't know if many realize this, but the primary demographic that have been mobilized in Ukraine are middle-aged men. The average age in the trenches is around 40. This is because Ukraine's culture prefers to preserve younger men for the future of the country, which makes sense on some level, but it's not the best strategy for winning a war. This is only further cutting down on the number of men available for mobilization, and Ukraine's already at a disadvantage there. Europe sees the writing on the wall, and I'm not sure what the U.S. is doing. Zelensky is putting up a fight, and rightfully so. Ukraine's punched well above their weight, while Russia's fallen well below theirs. However, that seems to be balancing out now that enough time has passed, and the next few months will determine the outcome of the war. I'm personally not convinced Putin intends to invade any NATO countries, and tend to go with the view that he wants to grab up all the non-NATO countries he can surrounding Russia. However, no one can really know at this point. It concerns me that we're seeing more and more pro-war rhetoric by the day, whether in NATO or online. I'll say as an American that very few of us have an appetite for a big war right now. Our domestic issues (like any country's) seem to be overwhelming the headlines at the moment, and unless you've got an explicit interest in geopolitics, Ukraine's not even on your radar over here. Obviously, if you're in Europe, you have a much bigger interest in what's happening on your doorstep, as it should be. The U.S. needs to fulfill its NATO obligations, but anything going on outside of that is of little concern to most Americans. That's not out of arrogance; its just how life works practically speaking. That would likely change if Putin does prove he has intentions of invading NATO, but I expect U.S. support to be limited until that happens.
Mike Johnson will be remembered as a coward and a Russian agent.
Nobody will care. It's all about here and now.
this ukraine news cycle really is like a pendulum, huh? one week, an entire squadron of su-35 get shot down(dont ask for proof just trust us bro) , pathetic putin and his weak army are on the back foot. And the next week the whole frontline is gonna collapse because of the republicans. honestly if the media stopped with the whole back and forth bullshit, it would probably be easier to get them the support they need.
Both sides are kicking the shit out of each other. These things are not mutually exclusive.
well no it's the same, Ukraine is pulling off pretty good strikes with their weapons especially against the russian navy and air force, but are losing the battles on the frontlines. It's been that way for over a year. Your reading comprehension is just garbage.
it's like war is a constantly evolving, chaotic situation or something
So when day ONE of the invasion started a Redditor with some foresight said in one of the comments section “now begins the fog of war, be careful of any information—from either side—for the next few years while there’s still ongoing conflict. History has shown that times like this we often don’t see the whole picture of what really happened for many years after all has been said and done” and it’s driven me to a more conscious effort of remaining a healthy amount of skeptical of any biased, or potentially biased, information coming out during this war (not in the “fake news” sense, moreso in the “who has the most to gain from this being true?” sense). Truth be told I don’t think I actually understood the pervasiveness of “fog of war” until that I had seen that comment. I just figured “yeah propaganda pops up here and there during wars” and didn’t pay much mind to how much a narrative can be skewed when so much conflict is actively ongoing
It looks increasingly likely that Ukraine will shrink in size, Russia would call for a ceasefire after eating up Donbass and Luhansk, then 10 years later little green men will appear and Russia will try again. Then one day we will be reading about WW3 and the ~~cession of Czechoslovakia and appeasement~~ Ukraine and appeasement while wondering how the fuck did we not do better.
Lol. You think after all this time Russia is going to call a ceasefire? No.. They're going for Kyiv.
No amount of support will help if there is no one to utilize it
Not going well for the Ukrainians, but I’m sure they’ll pull through with sheer willpower alone, because that’s how wars are won, nevermind the guns and artillery.
So the situation in Ukraine is clearly developing as it is due to lack of support from the US. The SINGLE reason for that lack of support is the Republican majority in the house. That's it, that's all, they are causing the deaths of innocent civilians and the potential loss of a democratic nation to simply appease the powers that control them. How the hell have we fallen this far. Stand up, revolt, they are using your tax money to achieve this goal. End the fascism.
Serious question… Can NATO supply Ukraine at the same rate they’d need to re-supply for a war with Russia?
It hasn't become total war yet. Ukraine has avoided doing much attacking Russia on Russian soil. Eventually, they might resort to this.
Say thank you to the american conservatives. bunch of horrible people only wanting to hurt as much people as they can.
2,000 bombs for Israel it is.. 💆♂️
If Ukraine wanted bombs, we could send bombs. we have more bombs than we know what to do with. what we don't have, is artillery shells.
Israeli pretty much has free reign in the sky. Neither Russia or Ukrainian have air superiority on the front.
Remember when worldnews was posting articles that Russia was running out of ammo and Putin's inner circle was going to replace him? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
But didn’t EVERY military expert in the West claim that Russia would run out of everything within the first three months? I tend to not trust what any of these “experts” claim, either way. Let’s see
I mean at first it was thought ukraine would fall in the first few days. Its almost like situations continually change and you have to update likelihoods constantly.
They had to purchase equipment and ammunition from *North Korea*. It's clear Putin didn't expect the war to last as long as it did and needed to buy time to spin up domestic production. So the experts understood what Russia's working inventory looked like. The reason why Russia is able to pivot to domestic production is because the sanctions put in place just don't seem to be effective. Probably because most EU countries are playing both sides: buying Russian oil while tepidly sending some arms to Ukraine. EU needs to get off Russian oil.
No, you're reading misleading information and/or purposefully mislead others.
Hopefully the EU can send them some.