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.”
Came here to say “Raytheon”.
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.
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The invading Russian forces have basically failed their first goal; to fully take over Ukraine.
Has Russia ever stated that this was their goal?
Yes.
Can you provide proof for this?
Rus*ian official statements are useless and change from day to day. Geopolitically they are trying to secure their vulnerable heartland with geography, this includes invading Ukraine, and most of eastern europe
arms manufacturers
Came here to say this.
winners: arms manufacturers and dealers, “defense” industry, military-industrial complex
losers: soldiers, civilians
Add people like Putin, oligarchs, etc. To losers, add just about everyone else, the climate, any actually important social or economic program as billions of money are burned on an unnecessary pyre for someone’s ego, etc etc etc.
Is Putin really a winner tho? They almost had a coup. I mean if the war was going amazingly well, but their economy is shit, they’re isolated, and they are in stale mate with an enemy they should dominate…
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This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability.
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
Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.
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.
Right now I am hearing ever louder calls of Russia winning
Winning was taking over the county at first. Then it was kherson, and donbass, crimea, and a few others. Now it’s just like 3 areas. If you’re hearing anything about winning it’s because the goal posts are moving.
Youtuber Perun had some good high level takes on the war. It all boils down to Western support will win. As long as support keeps coming from the rest of the world, eventually Russia will run out of material. WW2 was won (not wholly, but in large part) due to the larger economy being on the allies side.
Second on perun, great channel. https://youtube.com/@PerunAU
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During ww2 the involved parties and their allies were in wartime economy. This is the support that ukraine needs. I feel like today, the west is sending the military version of happy meal aid packages, once in a while, when it’s politically convenient. Should we scale up manufacturing for wartime? Let’s procrastinate.
Nah, the amount of aid and material they’re sending is substantial, including modern tanks and artillery, as well as more mundane things like shells, bullets etc.
And they will keep doing it for as long as it takes.
The amount of people fighting back on supporting a sovereign democracy getting attacked by a oligarchical dictatorship is nuts.
Like we did appeasement in the 40s already, it was a bad strategy.
The West would like Ukraine to win, but it’s more important to the West that the war drag on and be a drain on Russia’s resources.
No it’s not. The west has nothing to gain from it dragging on. Nobody wants it to drag on.
It sucks for Ukraine but a Russia tied down in Ukraine has less funds to meddle with the rest of the World.
It drains their military and their economy while Putin must be extra careful against coups. There has been one very famous coup attempt directly related to the war (Wagner Group) and who knows how many other smaller attempts have been stopped preemptively?
Very expensive way to drain Russia. Tbh following trends the best way to drain Russia was the status quo of letting Putin dictate it into obscurity through corruption.
But during the status quo, Putin had his hands free to finance destabilizing extremists, Internet troll armies and wage cyberwarfare on the West.
All while reflecting an image of strength.
They have quite a lot to gain by it. Getting the other side stuck in a quagmire has been the preferred strategy for both sides in US vs. Russia for decades.
They would gain more by cooperation or ignoring.
It’s just that you can’t do that when the other party is actively destructive.
Doesn’t make it a gain in my eyes. Labeling it a gain at least requires a contextualized qualification. So saying the EU is interested in prolonging the conflict is very disingenuous.
EU would have far more to gain ffrom Russia leaving Ukraine. Saying the EU wants to prolong the conflict for gains is disingenuous, at least misleading or ambiguous.
What the West gains is a diminished Russia less inclined to adventure. That’s a big gain.
The most important goal in this situation for the West is to avoid war with Russia. Since Russia has the resources to wage the war for a long time as long as the West doesn’t join it, then whether Ukraine wins is purely a Russian decision.
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.
Ukraine has actually established a bridge head in the south now, so they might eventually start attacking that direction. The water level has long since receded.
Yes. And it is a great victory. But at this pace it would still take a century to get all the territories back, and winter is ahead. I am very hopeful that the beach head will lead to something better, but that still has to happen. Meanwhile, nothing much happened on the grand scale.
Economically, Russia has also been hit hard. NATO has also expanded, which is a blow to Russia.
Yes, but Russia is also supported by Iran and China. And there’s no sign of political collapse in Russia.
I’m not saying Russia is winning. It would take them a millenia to conquer Ukraine at this pace. But I think currently they are only buying time to wait for US election. After that, and depending on whether a breakthrough happen or not before that, peace talk may happen, or not. Time will tell.
It’s a stalemate, largely. While Russia was massively on the backfoot earlier in the year, they mined massive swaths of eastern Ukraine before partially retreating.
Which makes it unlikely for Russia to actually have any future forward progress, but it also stymies Ukraine from doing the same except extremely slowly. There’s still been several victories for Ukraine over the past few months, but they haven’t changed the fighting area much.
It’s largely a war of attrition to wear down Russia now, who has been having more and more internal issues as time goes on.
Define “winning”.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground
That doesn’t seem right. In 2023 they actually lost more ground than they gained. At least that was the situation until this september, but i don’t think there where significant developments in the last 2 months.
The numbers are so small, it’s not an argument worth having. What is certainly true is that Russia is sending wave upon wave of men to their death against Ukrainian defences. All for very little gain. Russia lost more people in November than any month so far in this conflict, and any month during Afghanistan. The numbers are horrific. Putin has just ordered another round of drafting, and they were scraping the barrel last time.
Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.
Really? I was hearing the opposite all this while. PS: Slowly and very painfully, fuck, I wish there was an end to this war and we could return to status quo!
I was hearing the opposite all this while.
From where? There are multiple, reasonably reputable maps available that show the lines, and regardless of who the map makers support, they have to be accurate because of how easily they can be proven wrong if they make false claims.
Besides, much like Vietnam, or the many wars in Afghanistan, victory won’t happen on the battlefield, it will happen when the invader finally gets tired of paying the price of war.
From where?
Indian media mainly, I haven’t explored out of the Indian media bubble though.
Interesting. I know they’ve historically been close to Russia, I didn’t realise they still had so much support.
India is absolutely leaning (hard) towards Russia. They probably never bought gas/oil and fertiliser so cheap.
Indian media isn’t known for it’s, uh, truthfulness
You might be stuck in an alt right algorithm.
Or possibly a tankie one
From euronews news bulletins I know Ukraine has crossed the dnipro and cleared a stable bridge head to get more troops to that russian occupied side. Also they said that nuklear reactor the russians occupied, near the front, is in danger again, because it has been cut off from electricity and had to run gasoline generators to cool it.
This shows ukraine is advancing slowly.
The US Military Industrial Complex of course.
100%! I think most people would agree with you there.
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.
Death is the winner of any war
Don’t forget the defense contractors. People who make and sell weaponry and other war products are always the biggest winners.
Oh, they have nothing against the void. All of them will die.
True. Death is the great equalizer. Nobody gets out of this world alive. Lol
Astronauts might
Russia should have had the conventional phase all finished in a couple months, so by that measure Ukraine. Russia has also lost territory the whole way past the battle of Kiev, so by that measure also Ukraine. Neither look set to win any time soon, so by that measure (which is probably the important one) it’s a stalemate. The big variables now are Western support and Russian political stability as the conflict drags on. Neither side is close to running out of men.
The claims that Russia was winning the whole time come from basically the geopolitical version of flat earthers, who believe exactly the opposite of what everyone else does. Or actual Russian agents, but as far as I can tell that’s rare.
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?
You probably shouldn’t be getting your news from randos on the internet. Literally anyone can post here.
I mean, this isn’t a very important piece of news for me, so, I am just looking at the consensus here.
Unimportant-to-you is fine, but internet consensus is very poor.
Think of a topic you know the most about, and go into an internet space where that topic is heavily discussed by the public at large, instead of other huge fans.
You will very quickly notice how useless internet consensus is.
It’s the same phenomenon that makes fast food chains the most successful restaurants, despite not being the highest quality.
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