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.
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I think the fact that Kyiv didn’t fall within hours like everybody thought it would, and the morale/inspiration/call to action effect of “I need ammunition, not a ride,” shouldn’t be taken lightly either.
I agree. Ukraine did a great job in preparing for an inevitable invasion. Zelensky is the reason the preparations succeeded.
This seems mostly right, but I want to add a few points.
The first is that the Ukrainians won’t stop fighting if the west stops supporting them. They may suffer some severe defeats and the nature of the war may shift to being more of a guerrilla insurgency, but they won’t stop fighting.
The second is that even if the US withdraws support, it’s not likely that European nations will necessarily follow, and between Germany and the UK and France, the Europeans can easily continue to support Ukraine at or above current levels.
My final point is that Ukraine actually is making slow progress in pushing back the Russians, it’s just not going anywhere near as fast as anyone would like.
I also really dislike the term “stalemate” because it implies a static state of affairs as in a chess game where there are only so many pieces and moves, when in fact war is much different in the sense that additional pieces and moves can and probably will be added to the equation.
But the EU countries also dont want Ukraine to decisively push the Russians out. The longer the war goes, the more Russia will weaken itself, being less of a threat in the long run.
Also Germany is a puppet of the US, when it comes to military decisions. They will do what the US tells them to do and if Trump tells them to kiss Putins ass they will do that. They already did that before without the US telling them.
This post is pure and unadulterated bullshit.
Germany didn’t go to Iraq with the US.
Germany will never stop supporting Ukraine.
You are full of shit.
Then why did Germany hesitate to promise equipment and unserselivered on its promises?
Also Germany did nit put boots on the ground in Iraq, which would be unconstitutional anyways, but it did provide extensive support to the US. US army bases in Germany were integral to the logistics and control of the US invasion. Germany did everything it could to support the Iraq invasion within its own legal limits.
Before swinging big accusations, maybe consider judging politics by actions instead of words
I was wondering if you could provide something to back this up since these are rather sweeping claims.
The only thing I can think of that comes close is Dugin’s writings but I have never seen anything that could suggest that his ideas are widely accepted or adopted as the state’s doctrines.
Timothy Snyder makes a pretty convincing case for it in “The Road to Unfreedom.” It was published in 2018 so probably written in 2016 and 2017 at the latest, and it looks ridiculously prescient now.
Can you help me towards some starting points in the book where he explains this? Here are some digital copies of the book in case you don’t have one at hand: http://libgen.is/search.php?req=the+road+to+unfreedom&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def
I agree with what you said and appreciate the insight. Thanks for writing it.
I think part of it from Russia’s side is definitely an attempt to rebuild Stalin’s buffer to the west, but there are echoes of the appeasement that took place before WW2. Crimea was quick and done.
Then, it’s a repeat years later in an attempt to grab more. Thing is, since then there was a lot of election tampering in the form of misinformation and it continues as an attempt to turn Americans against each other. Russia is waging war via the Internet and it’s working.
I think the US government is unable to control it because there is no direct control of social media companies, and social media companies are ineffective. Their interests are purely financial and to truly be effective, it would require significant investment.
The US is instead providing just enough support, but I think it’s purposely done. What happens if they were to provide double? Ukraine pushes Russia back to the border and then what? They continue forward? That’s WW3. Even if they stop at the border, Putin may be forced to stop and may lose power. Then you’re dealing with a potentially worse successor who wants to destroy at all costs…again a dangerous unknown.
They’re doing it this way on purpose to bleed Russia slowly over time. Russia expected to drive a 40 mile column into the capital and finish fast. A long war is not sustainable for Russia economically and the population isn’t interested either (as shown by the huge expatriation that took place when conscription was announced).
If enough western countries continue to provide arms, it will damage Russia for a long time to come.
I think that even with 100% top down control trying to stop the misinformation campaigns, it would still be extremely hard to control it. I always think of the fact there’s drug trade in prisons. If people can smuggle drugs into a prison, they can figure out a way to act as agent provocateurs in online discussions. People just aren’t controllable like that, no matter how much power you have.
However I think Russia’s cultural attacks are backfiring, just as our strategy of draining them through war attrition is backfiring. In both cases, the target is adapting. Russia’s army is getting stronger, and America’s citizenry is getting better at maintaining important conversations in the midst of attempted derailments.
Like, it’s easy to hijack a ship in times of peace. But you go after a ship in that same lane 10 years later, now that ship is bristling with weaponry and everyone on board is some kind of piracy veteran.
A long campaign of small attacks makes the target stronger. It’s so foolish on both parties’ parts to think you can whittle a living thing down the same way you whittle down a dead stick. A living thing being whittled gets more and more formidable the longer you harass it.