The media won’t give me great answers to this question and I think this I trust this community more, thus I want to know from you. Also, I have heard reports that Russia was winning the war, if that’s true, did the west miscalculate the situation by allowing diplomacy to take a backseat and allowing Ukraine to a large plethora of military resources?
PS: I realize there are many casualties on both sides and I am not trying to downplay the suffering, but I am curious as to how it is going for Ukraine. Right now I am hearing ever louder calls of Russia winning, those have existed forever, but they seem to have grown louder now, so I was wondering what you thought about it. Also, I am somewhat concerned of allowing a dictatorship to just erase at it’s convenience a free and democratic country.
Arms dealers.
Reminds me of the starting scene in Lord of War
“Warlord.”
“I prefer it my way.”
The Military Industrial complex … which has no allegiance to any nation and controls more money than most nations in the planet.
Even the US is beholden to it’s power … one of the best descriptions of America is that I’ve ever read was …
The US isn’t a nation … it’s a corporation with a military.
Came here to say “Raytheon”.
I’d say the only ones winning are those selling stuff to Ukraine and Russia. I also remember a panel some months ago, about how the other EU countries will help rebuild Ukraine once the war is over. To me, it looked like they were already slicing the not even dead body in order to profit off it.
Ukraine as a whole is at a bigger loss, given all the infrastructure damage and population losses, this one counting both deaths and people fleeing the country.
How is rebuilding a country equivalent to slicing it up?
Slicing it up like slicing a cake. Dividing up the profits between themselves. Rebuilding a country doesn’t happen for free you know. There’s no depths to the debt the west can plunge Ukraine into over this war, unless we force Russia to pay. I hear they have lots of oil.
What a terrible analogy. It implies that “rebuilding” Ukraine will actually involve destroying it just because people are paid to do the work.
Seems like a stalemate at the moment but it could really go either way from what I can tell. It depends upon if the west will lose interest and cut back on support or if public opinion in Russia wanes towards wanting an end to the war. At the moment it seems neither side is willing to accept the current status quo.
The goal posts for both sides are very, very different.
The invading Russian forces have basically failed their first goal; to fully take over Ukraine. They can now claim a minor victory by stealing more territory from Ukraine than just Crimea.
Ukraine’s goal was to stop Russia from wiping them off of the map. Things appear to have changed. Their new goal is to retake all land that Russia has stolen (including Crimea).
The war has largely been at a standstill for a while, and the only times that Ukraine has been able to make progress is when the word has given its attention and resources. Since “Israel vs Hamas” is the guerre-du-jour, Ukraine seems to be getting less of both.
So I may sound like a doomer, but it’s not looking good for the good guys. They have a much harder victory condition, and the resources that they have relied so far may be drying up.
The invading Russian forces have basically failed their first goal; to fully take over Ukraine.
Has Russia ever stated that this was their goal?
Considering Russia denied their intent to invade as they were conducting it, I don’t know that their statements should be considered truth regarding their plans and goals. But here’s Westpoint’s take on the matter:
Initially, the Russian regime may have regarded its invasion of Ukraine as a “regional conflict” with “important” military-political goals, and its classification as a “special military operation” may have been genuine. Indeed, it seems that the Kremlin’s ambitious political objective was to install a new, pro-Russian government in Kyiv by lightning action.
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/what-is-russias-theory-of-victory-in-ukraine.
You are unironically sharing a quote riddled with "may"s and "seem"s from United States Military Academy
And you are making a statement that seems to suggest absolute knowledge of a country’s intentions are possible with a leader with a lack of credibility and long history of lying on the world stage.
Gee, this is fun. Or were you making some point? Were you expecting some report about their magic mind-reading device?
Were you expecting some report about their magic mind-reading device?
But this is what you have been doing all along. Nothing in reality suggests that total annexation of Ukraine was the goal. Not the words of anyone nor the manner in which Russia has executed the invasion yet here you are somehow reading minds to conjure grand motives and subjecting me to smug Reddittor-speak for the crime of asking you to back your frivolous claims. Gee, this is fun.
Nothing in reality suggests that total annexation of Ukraine was the goal
Wait, I’m confused, were you looking for “is” or “suggests?” Because I sent you an article all about “suggests.” And, follow-up question, did you think ‘You are unironically sharing a quote riddled with "may"s and "seem"s from United States Military Academy’ is not smug and was a genuinely civil question?
Since it seems you might not be great at this whole “communicating” thing, I’ll be explicit: Yes, those questions were rhetorical. No, you’ve given me nothing to suggest I should care what your response is.
Yes.
Can you provide proof for this?
Oh my god, we get it, you’re exhausting.
No, I’m not providing proof of this exhaustion. Do your own research.
I did try. I just didn’t find anything that remotely comes close to supporting what you claimed.
Keep looking. You’ll get it eventually.
I don’t think Russia has any chance of winning. The only reason Russians are still in Ukraine is because the west is too pussy to ship the real guns.
This makes you wonder whether people benefit from this or its trully a valid strategy not to bug squash the bully cause they might go mental.
Either way, the war doesn’t have to end through military or peace agreements. Russian economy seems to be eneding first. As grim as that sounds but maybe that’ll get Russians caring.
Real answer: Who cares. Since when did your life ever improve because the results of a war?
You think it’s only about improving life?
If the incentive structure is such that it incentivizes nations invading other sovereign nations, there can be no peace.
It’s mostly a stalemate for now. The dam destruction helped Russia funnel Ukraine counterattack on its biggest fortifications, so not much progress for Ukraine in the south. Russia resumed its offensive in the Dombass and Aavdiivka is starting to look like the new Bhakmut.
It’s an attrition war and Russia is losing like 2 or 3 times as much as Ukraine in men or material. But Russia has much more men than Ukraine. Russian morale is very low, but Ukraine support from the west is under big pressure, both from Russian propaganda and conservative/fascist political parties. This last one is the real war happening now.
Next year will be important because of the elections in the US. What happen on the battlefield is still to be seen.
Economically, Russia has also been hit hard. NATO has also expanded, which is a blow to Russia.
The media won’t give you “an answer”. Is a war like a board game where everyone can see the pieces and count the score according to the rules? What is Russia objective? Idk. Are they meeting it? Sure, to some degree. At what cost? We’ll we only have a small sense of the costs.
Is Ukraine “winning”? Well they have lost so much but not everything. Are they meeting their objectives? We’ll their state didn’t fall. That’s good.
And you just want some OP ED at NYT to just sum it up like it’s a football game?
Well, you’re going to get different responses, many of which are good points, and depending on the person you asked.
But imo, it is hard to tell. And the best response we can say is: we don’t know. Ukraine retook many territories but so has Russia. Both sides suffered many casualties. The problem with analysing the war is the white noise coming from emotional responses on the events of the war happening at the time.
When Ukraine was invaded, everyone thought they will capitulate. They didn’t. Kyiv then retook Kharkiv Oblast, everyone thought Russia will surrender. The Ukrainian counteroffensive was hyped, but disappointed many. Prigozhin tried to coup Putin and thought it is the end of Putin, but he is still here.
So, the best response to your question is, we don’t know. And that’s the most certain answer you could get and that is not a bad thing. For those who tend to forget, we still have the fog of war shrouding our vision. We don’t know what will happen in many months to come. Hindsight only tends to be 20/20 after an event.
However, I think the two major considerations for this year is 1. Ukraine had been effective in interdicting Russian logistical lines and sent the Russian Black Sea fleet reeling away from Crimea. Those are Ukrainian strategic gains that are often forgotten and not seen by the mainstream as important, who see ground combat as more important. 2. Though on the other side, the Russian support for Putin is still strong and either they support the war or ambivalent. In this case, Putin won the hearts and minds of Russians to either support or turn a blind eye to the conflict. Propaganda war is as important as military one to convince enough of the public to support it.
Edit:grammar
You probably shouldn’t be getting your news from randos on the internet. Literally anyone can post here.
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As others have said, it’s a war of attrition. There’s no end in sight. As it stands, we can only speculate on who is winning. Russia have so far failed to make any significant gains, and Ukraine have so far failed to push the Russians out.
It’s a bit like the stalemates of trench warfare in WW1. Something will have to give eventually.
It’s like the trenches of WWI combined with the forever wars the US fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congratulations Russia, you’ve saddled yourself with a decades long conflict potentially and lost the geopolitical purpose of invading Ukraine within months since Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership.
Ukraine eventually would have invaded Russian lands under a pretense that Russia had attacked first.
Western media would have covered for this. How exactly could Russia have avoided this war of Western aggression?
Sweden and Finland were part of the EU defense clause. They were already defacto NATO members. Sweden even was constantly aggressive towards russia before the Ukraine war.
Now the Americans can openly build their bases. The welfare states of these two nations will certainly decline as well. The presence of american bases, curiously leads to the same economic policies each time.
Or, the fighting will eventually stop and the current status quo will remain permanent. It’s hard to tell.
That’s probably the only outcome that will never happen. Russia will re-attack again (as seen 2008, 2014, etc etc).
The war is largely in a stalemate at the moment. Odds are, if this continues for years longer, Russia will eventually win just by virtue of having more people to send to die for the country, but if it comes to that, Russia will suffer far moreso than they already are.
This is exhibit “A” of how the U.S. fights it’s proxy wars.
They could provide enough support to kick the shit out of Russia.
But, the World politics doesn’t fit that twisted & ridiculous narrative.
I’m not a conspiracy type. However, it makes ZERO sense to me that the U.S. hasn’t provided everything possible to push Russia out.
IMO: actual full U.S. support pushing the limits of “war”, would end this insanity in short order.
Didn’t see you reply but typed something very similar. We train the Ukraine army for combined arm warfare then we don’t supply them the combined arms. It’s like we want it to drag out.
I don’t think either side will be able to decisively beat the other, but that’s not how these things usually end anyway.
Actually, I think it’s pretty funny in a sad sort of way that Americans don’t get how this is going to go. It’s really obvious that Ukraine doesn’t need to win, they just need to keep fighting until Russia goes home. Western aid isn’t even really making much of a difference in the eventual outcome of the war, it’s just reducing the damage that Russia is doing to Ukraine and bring that inevitable end closer faster. We’ve seen over, and over, and over again that once a group of people actually make up their minds to resist, there is nothing that can stop them. Even if the aggressor can bring overwhelming military superiority they will eventually give up and go home, and Russia can’t even do that.
The question isn’t who will win. The question is how many war crimes will Putin commit before admitting he lost this war in the second week.
