Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
I think we’re at a bit of an impasse then. I don’t think it makes sense to bleed men and defectors for morale (because, y’know, people dying is bad for morale), but maybe the Ukrainian propaganda machine is more powerful than I am.
My point is that the West has sat behind the idea that every single new weapon they send to Ukraine will be a GAME CHANGER and lead to the COLLAPSE OF RUSSIAN LINES. Nothing has done so so far, so why should the F-16 be any different? The Patriot was supposed to help Ukraine maintain air superiority. Western tanks were supposed to outclass Russian ones. The Bradley, through it’s rich operational history, was supposed to completely outmaneuver Russian forces. Yet… Nothing.
That’s propaganda used to get the expenditures approved. Nothing is going to be a “game changer” by itself, it’s all a step by step way to replace Ukraine’s soviet-era weapons, with an updated NATO weapons kit.
Once the kit gets completed, we’ll see what happens. For now, each part is proving superior to its Russian counterpart. The Patriot is a defensive system intended to prevent Russia from achieving air superiority, and it’s doing just that.
How well has NATO equipment fared on the front lines? With the exception of HIMARS (which has given Ukraine long-range artillery strike capability that Russia can’t match), what’s all this NATO equipment done?
The Patriot systems are parked far from the front lines in Kiev. The “indestructible” Challenger 2 has lost 14% of their delivered vehicles in barely a few weeks.
Ukraine needs artillery, ammunition, drones, and supplies. These new weapons have done nothing to shift the front lines whatsoever and serve only to distract the population from providing Ukraine with real, tangible military aid.
Stopped Russia from taking over Ukraine.
That is correct, they’re intended to prevent Russian advances, not to support Ukrainian advances.
There is a non-zero risk that if Ukraine was given full offensive support, they’d try to take over Russia… or at least a chunk of it… which would self-justify Russia into using nuclear weapons, something that most people don’t want to see.
Supplies, they’re getting. There is a problem with ammunition though; since Ukraine is using Soviet era weapons, they are non-NATO caliber. Most of the stock of Soviet stuff that Western countries had, they have already shipped to Ukraine. In order to ship more, Ukraine will need to switch to NATO gear, which means basically re-arming the whole country from scratch.
It is no coincidence that Russia would become buddies with China, India, or North Korea, they’re one of the few countries left producing some Soviet-compatible ammunition and gear.
All of this also means a NATO-ification of Ukraine’s armament, which is something very desirable for NATO, and in particular for the main NATO weapons producer: the US.
Has it? Almost all the progress in this war has been made by infantry and artillery. Where exactly do you propose the NATO equipment has helped change that?