Europe War in Ukraine - Thread 4 - thread rules updated

[Gethelred]

Hey all,

Seeing as multiple people seem to have forgotten, abuse is against the rules of BF. Continuous, page long attacks directed at a single poster in this thread will result in threadbans for a week from this point; doing so again once you have returned will make the bans permanent and will be escalated to infractions.

This thread still has misinformation rules, and occasionally you will be asked to demonstrate a claim you have made by moderation. If you cannot, you will be offered the opportunity to amend the post to reflect that it's opinion, to remove the post, or you will be threadbanned and infracted for sharing misinformation.

Addendum: from this point, use of any variant of the word 'orc' to describe combatants, politicians or russians in general will be deleted and the poster will receive a warning. If the behaviour continues, it will be escalated. Consider this fair warning.

Finally: If I see the word Nazi or Hitler being flung around, there had better have a good faith basis as to how it's applicable to the Russian invasion - as in, video/photographic evidence of POW camps designed to remove another ethnic group - or to the current Ukrainian army. If this does not occur, you will be threadbanned for posting off topic

This is a sensitive area, and I understand that this makes for fairly incensed conversation sometimes. This does not mean the rules do not apply, whether to a poster positing a Pro-Ukraine stance or a poster positing an alternative view.

Behave, people.

 

[Rotayjay]

Continued from thread 3:

Europe - War in Ukraine - Thread 3

www.bigfooty.com

---

While we've been watching China and Taiwan looking for the next war, it is looking increasingly likely that Vladimir Putin's Russia will invade Ukraine. Will that happen and what would that mean for Ukrainians, the world and Australia?

I think Russia will invade, Biden will wag his finger and say tsk tsk. Then the EU and US impose sanctions and Putin installs a puppet government in Ukraine. That's just me eyeballing the situation without analysing it or being a geopolitics expert.

I just can't see America going to war over an Eastern European country that is not a traditional ally like Australia or France. If they do go to war, all us men of military age would be liable for conscription. There may be nuclear war in the extreme (and extremely unlikely) scenario, and in that case you can kiss your arse goodbye.

 

[Zidane98]

Transalation: We are losing our war in Ukraine and could you please help us. We will support you invading Taiwan in exchange.

Yours truly,


Adolf Putin.

 

[Zidane98]

Surely Vlad can paint this as a win for Russia:

 

[Smeg Head]

 

[awaremind]

I guess you will be joining the Russian foreign legion soon to support Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine or will you remain a keyboard warrior in Australia?

I think being a true patriot of Australia involves questioning the choices of our government and allies, whatever the media or extremists like you guys in his thread think. So here is the bbc transcript of the leaked Nuland call. Sycophant.

Transcript of leaked US Ukraine call - BBC News

A transcript of the alleged conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt discussing the crisis in Ukraine.

www.bbc.com

 

[awaremind]

Take that statement to the Israel thread (where it is of relevance)

I got censored out of that thread , for saying tongue in cheek “ just kill them all” cos it sounded like the Zionists were fine with that, even saying to expect at least 50 000 dead, against a nation that doesn’t even have an army.

 

[Crankyhawk]

I got censored out of that thread , for saying tongue in cheek “ just kill them all” cos it sounded like the Zionists were fine with that, even saying to expect at least 50 000 dead, against a nation that doesn’t even have an army.

Oh yeah same thing happened to me (though was able to explain it as a frustration with both sides and so then could return to the thread)

 

[awaremind]

Oh yeah same thing happened to me (though was able to explain it as a frustration with both sides and so then could return to the thread)

I didn’t try that, but tbh I feel like everybody is so set in their opinions I’m not going to change any minds in that thread, and waste my energy and disrupt my emotions. I hate how the Russia Ukraine conflict is playing out, it’s lose lose lose lose, for all parties involved except perhaps some oligarchs on both sides, and China!

 

[awaremind]

Oh yeah same thing happened to me (though was able to explain it as a frustration with both sides and so then could return to the thread)

If you pay close attention to my commentary, I think you will find my predictions since 2014 have been consistently way more accurate.

 

[Zidane98]

I didn’t try that, but tbh I feel like everybody is so set in their opinions I’m not going to change any minds in that thread, and waste my energy and disrupt my emotions. I hate how the Russia Ukraine conflict is playing out, it’s lose lose lose lose, for all parties involved except perhaps some oligarchs on both sides, and China!

The thing is Putin is convinced that Ukraine is a personal possession of the Russian Empire and is happy to genocide Ukrainians into submission.

He could withdraw tomorrow and end the war. Accept that Ukraine won't be a puppet state any longer. It would end pain & suffering on both sides.

But he won't because he's a USSR era deluded fascist. Either someone needs to step up in Russia and remove him or he needs to be defeated. The last thing Europe needs is appeasement like it tried with Hitler.

End result is Russia being turned into a shithole.

 

[awaremind]

The thing is Putin is convinced that Ukraine is a personal possession of the Russian Empire and is happy to genocide Ukrainians into submission.

He could withdraw tomorrow and end the war. Accept that Ukraine won't be a puppet state any longer. It would end pain & suffering on both sides.

But he won't because he's a USSR era deluded fascist. Either someone needs to step up in Russia and remove him or he needs to be defeated. The last thing Europe needs is appeasement like it tried with Hitler.

End result is Russia being turned into a shithole.

It’s too late for that, sadly. China won’t let Russia lose, surely you understand that? It’s called balance of power politics, and Britain and other colonialist powers were masters at it, look up how Cortez defeated the mexica …. They are happy to drain both Russia and the west.

 

[Crankyhawk]

I didn’t try that, but tbh I feel like everybody is so set in their opinions I’m not going to change any minds in that thread, and waste my energy and disrupt my emotions. I hate how the Russia Ukraine conflict is playing out, it’s lose lose lose lose, for all parties involved except perhaps some oligarchs on both sides, and China!

Have to honest that I don’t mind china getting benefit as they aren’t the ones waging a war, hopefully they can connect being not at war = improving world reputation and influence

 

[awaremind]

Have to honest that I don’t mind china getting benefit as they aren’t the ones waging a war, hopefully they can connect being not at war = improving world reputation and influence

That’s an interesting way to look at it and I feel like that’s a perspective that will become more popular into the future.

However some people have vested interests in war- those who make the weapons , and those who do the loans to supply said weapons. “ War is a racket”

I sincerely wish it wasn’t so.

 

[Rayzorwire]

Transalation: We are losing our war in Ukraine and could you please help us.

The way the Biden administration has cemented Russia and China's ties will more than likely be seen decades from now as the most decisive factor in the now rapid decline of the American empire.

As to Russia losing, well, it's simply not.

Not even if you play the 'lets invent what Putin said his aims were and change it every few months to suit ourselves' game to its hardest.

But let's see how the West thinks the war is actually going.

Of course, these days, to do that you need to become quite skilled at reading between the lines of serious academic papers and you seldom bother with the newspapers...

Some relevant excerpts from NATO member Estonia's recent intelligence paper Setting Transatlantic Defence up for Success: A Military Strategy for Ukraine's Victory and Russia's Defeat:

https://kaitseministeerium.ee/sites/default/files/setting_transatlantic_defence_up_for_success_0.pdf

Most NATO Allies have significantly depleted their already small conventional military stockpiles and capabilities by donating their equipment to Ukraine. The Allies also have a very limited industrial base that is unfit for meeting the security challenges of the 21st century and unable to reconstitute these capabilities unless defence investments are substantially and urgently increased.
…
If undisrupted, Russia has the capacity to train approximately 130,000 troops every six months into cohered units and formations available for launching operations. Additional troops can be mobilised and pushed into Ukraine as untrained replacements, but these do not provide effective combat power.

Just to be clear, this is a NATO member confirming that Russia will soon be able to fully combat ready train 26 brigades every 6 months. Ukraine was barely able to assemble 9 brigades for the much vaunted counter-offensive, to put those troop numbers into stark perspective.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is currently battling in the Rada to allow 'mildly disabled' Ukrainian men to be sent to the front, with Zelensky not quite able to overcome the human rights objections of enough parliamentarians. Numerous other articles freely available talk of how so many Ukrainian men simply don't go out anymore for fear of being press ganged to the front with not enough training and no hope.

Bloodied and exhausted: Ukraine’s effort to mobilize more troops hits trouble

Kyiv needs more men for the battlefield, but must also balance concerns about the economy, taxes and fairness.

www.politico.eu

The average age of the Ukrainian men fighting is 47. At what point do they say 'enough!' after two years at it with no rotations while the Russians freely rotate in and out?

The young and wealthy enough to pay the bribes males have fled and they're not going home anytime soon - and why would they?

But back to Estonian NATO intelligence on how badly Russia is 'losing' - because it really is a failed state compared to not-at-all-delusional Europe:


Efforts to increase European production have been stymied by each European state pursuing separate – and relatively small – orders from industry. The business case presented by these orders does not justify defence manufacturers increasing production capacity, because there is no clarity on the scale of orders over time. European Allies and Member States therefore should work together to consolidate orders into larger and longer term contracts that would justify investment in production capacity in the defence industrial base.
…

So NATO countries haven't even started getting serious in any way about ramping up their productive capacity (despite fearing Putin invading them so much? )...meanwhile:


Russia’s total production and recovery of artillery ammunition will reach 3.5 million units in 2023, representing a more than three- fold increase from the previous year’s production. In 2024, production and recovery will increase further and would likely reach up to 4.5 million units. This volume significantly exceeds the amount of artillery ammunition available to Ukraine. If the Ramstein coalition is unable to ensure the sufficient increase in ammunition production and supply to Ukraine as a matter of urgency, Russia’s advantage in the use of artillery ammunition and thus in the war will increase.
...
Russia has significantly expanded the production of various long-range strike systems. This includes stockpiling approximately 1500 Shahed one-way-attack UAVs, now produced in Russia, alongside cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and aero-ballistic missiles21. In October 2022, it was producing approximately 40 such systems per month. A year later it is now producing approximately 100. Production could reach 200 strike systems per month over 2024.


None of that sound like 'losing' to me, or a 'shattered economy' on the verge of collapse (FWIW, Russia overtook Germany as the world's 5th largest economy last year and continues to steadily grow despite sanctions):

Germany on the other hand, on account of having to pay so much more for US energy than it did Russian to fuel its mighty industrial machine, is now in free-fall de-industrialisation mode as its corporations move to the US where energy is a quarter the price:





As the old saying goes - the real purpose of NATO is America in, Russia out, Germany down. So NATO is actually functioning precisely as the US intended (in an economic sense at least!).

But back to the main topic at hand, let's look at a couple of recent Western newspaper articles to get a feel of how troops on the front line are doing:

Ukraine war: Soldier tells BBC of front-line 'hell'

A Ukrainian soldier on the east side of the Dnipro river tells the BBC about life on the front line.

www.bbc.com

"Every day we sat in the forest taking incoming fire. We were trapped - the roads and paths are all riddled with mines. The Russians cannot control everything, and we use it. But their drones are constantly buzzing in the air, ready to strike as soon as they see movement.

"Supplies were the weakest link. The Russians monitored our supply lines, so it became more difficult - there was a real lack of drinking water, despite our deliveries by boat and drone.

"We paid for a lot of our own kit - buying generators, power banks and warm clothes ourselves. Now the frosts are coming, things will only get worse - the real situation is being hushed up, so no-one will change anything.

"No-one knows the goals. Many believe that the command simply abandoned us. The guys believe that our presence had more political than military significance. But we just did our job and didn't get into strategy."


That's not coming from RT or Sputnik, it's the BBC, belatedly reporting a tiny slice of reality. It's also quite probably the beginning of the BBC and Empire more generally throwing Zelensky (or a specific Ukrainian commander) under a very large, slow moving bus. Why else choose to report what is in bold?

How about a little from The Times:

Surrounded and low on ammo, the elite troops out to spoil Putin’s New Year

One of Ukraine’s finest brigades has been sent to defend the key city of Avdiivka. Without more gear their chances are dwindling, they tell Maxim Tucker

www.thetimes.co.uk

“It’s a shitty situation,” Sausage said. The shell shortage forces soldiers like Sergeant Taras “Fizruk”, a 31-year-old mortar gunner, also from the 2nd Battalion, to make impossible life and death decisions.

“We had ten times more ammunition over summer, and better quality,” he said. “American rounds come in batches of almost identical weights, which makes it easier to correct fire, with very few duds. Now we have shells from all over the world with different qualities and we only get 15 for three days. Last week we got a batch full of duds.”

Instead of firing on Russians as soon as they come within range, they have to wait to be sure they are heading for their positions, and only hit large groups.

“We should be controlling our sector from 4km away, so we can kill a few hundred Russian soldiers before they get to our infantry and we only take a few wounded,” he said. “But without ammunition we can’t. When it’s two or three soldiers I’m not shooting any more, only when it’s a critical situation, say ten guys close to our infantry, we will work.


So in summary, Russia is single-handedly out-producing the West by a considerable margin when it comes to raw hardware and more importantly, despatchable ammunition. It is training vastly more troops to a far higher level than Ukraine can maintain (any attempt to even assemble, let alone train meaningful numbers of troops within Ukraine gets promptly bombed and NATO countries have limited spare capacity) and can according to NATO intelligence, continue doing so for years to come.

Meanwhile, the incredibly brave, amazingly adaptive, still so motivated despite everything Ukrainian soldiers are getting thrown under one bus after another with absolutely no hope of things improving.

Fables about Russia losing and an endless continuation of the Information War do nothing to end the ACTUAL war and bring about the beginning of some sort of peace process.

Perhaps if Westerners better understand Ukraine's realistic short, medium and long term prospects, that process might come about faster and less people will die.

That's what I'd like to see.

 

[Rayzorwire]

Perhaps most alarming of all for Ukraine and its future, the recent article straight from the maw of the Military Industrial Complex itself - Kagan and his ISW. And yes, he is just gaming certain scenarios, but look at the information above and judge for yourself which scenario is most realistic:

Institute for the Study of War

The United States has a much higher stake in Russia's war on Ukraine than most people think. A Russian conquest of all of Ukraine is by no means impossible if the United States cuts off all military assistance and Europe follows suit. Such an outcome

www.understandingwar.org

Institute for the Study of War

Allowing Russia to win its war in Ukraine would be a self-imposed strategic defeat for the United States. The United States would face the risk of a larger and costlier war in Europe. The United States would face the worst threat from Russia since the

www.understandingwar.org

A victorious Russian army at the end of this war will be combat experienced and considerably larger than the pre-2022 Russian land forces. The Russian economy will gradually recover as sanctions inevitably erode and Moscow develops ways to circumvent or mitigate those that remain. Over time it will replace its equipment and rebuild its coherence, drawing on a wealth of hard-won experience fighting mechanized warfare. It will bring with it advanced air defense systems that only American stealth aircraft—badly needed to deter and confront China—can reliably penetrate.
…
To deter and defend against a renewed Russian threat following a full Russian victory in Ukraine the United States will have to deploy to Eastern Europe a sizable portion of its ground forces. The United States will have to station in Europe a large number of stealth aircraft. Building and maintaining those aircraft is intrinsically expensive, but challenges in manufacturing them rapidly will likely force the United States to make a terrible choice between keeping enough in Asia to defend Taiwan and its other Asian allies and deterring or defeating a Russian attack on a NATO ally. The entire undertaking will cost a fortune, and the cost will last as long as the Russian threat continues—potentially indefinitely.
…

The Russians have expanded their army’s structure to fight the war and have indicated their intention of retaining the larger structure after the war.[5] They could readily station three full armies (the 18th Combined Arms Army and the 25th Combined Arms Army newly created for this war and the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army) on the borders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.[6]
…
They could move divisions that had been stationed on the eastern Ukrainian borders into Ukraine itself as reserves for the front-line divisions. The Kremlin has made great strides in its long-term project to gain control of the Belarusian military, and victory in Ukraine would likely get it the rest of the way.[8] The Russians would thus likely deploy either permanently or in a nominally rotational way an airborne division (three regiments) and a mechanized infantry division (likely three regiments) in southwestern and northern Belarus as well.

They would be able to threaten a short-notice mechanized offensive against one or several NATO states with at least 8 divisions (21 mechanized or tank regiments and brigades and three airborne regiments), backed by significant reserves including the 1st Guards Tank Army, which would be reconstituted around Moscow and was always intended to be the premier strike force against NATO. They could make such an attack and still threaten the Baltic States and Finland with the forces already present there and reinforcements they have announced they intend to station along the Finnish borders.[9] Russian ground forces would be covered by a dense air defense network of S-300, S-400, and S-500 long range anti-air and anti-missile systems with overlapping coverage of the entire front.

NATO would be unable to defend against such an attack with the forces currently in Europe. The United States would need to move large numbers of American soldiers to the entire eastern NATO border from the Baltic to the Black Sea to deter Russian adventurism and be prepared to defeat a Russian attack. The United States would also need to commit a significant proportion of its fleet of stealth aircraft permanently to Europe. NATO defense strategy relies on air superiority not merely to protect NATO troops from enemy attack but also to use air power to offset smaller NATO ground forces and limited stocks of NATO artillery. The United States would have to keep large numbers of stealth aircraft available in Europe to penetrate and destroy Russian air defense systems—and keep the Russians from re-establishing effective air defense—so that non-stealthy aircraft and cruise missiles can reach their targets. The requirement to commit a significant stealth aircraft fleet to Europe could badly degrade America’s ability to respond effectively to Chinese aggression against Taiwan since all Taiwan scenarios rely heavily on the same stealth aircraft that would be needed to defend Europe.
…
The cost of these defensive measures would be astronomical and would likely be accompanied by a period of very high risk when US forces were not adequately prepared or postured to handle either Russia or China, let alone both together.
…
Altering America’s will is no small thing. America is an idea. America is a choice. America is a belief in the value of action. US domestic resilience and global power come in no small part from people and countries choosing the United States and from Americans preserving their agency to act with intent. An adversary learning how to alter these realities is an existential threat — especially when ideas are that adversary’s core weapon.


Even after saying all the above about Russia's increasingly formidable military capacity, what is apparently to be most feared, is Russia's ideas.

And, of course, he's right.

 

[Millky95]

The average age of the Ukrainian men fighting is 47. At what point do they say 'enough!' after two years at it with no rotations while the Russians freely rotate in and out?

They don't because the alternative is the loss of their nation

So in summary, Russia is single-handedly out-producing the West by a considerable margin when it comes to raw hardware and more importantly, despatchable ammunition. It is training vastly more troops to a far higher level than Ukraine can maintain (any attempt to even assemble, let alone train meaningful numbers of troops within Ukraine gets promptly bombed and NATO countries have limited spare capacity) and can according to NATO intelligence, continue doing so for years to come.

Russia is in a war time economy though, the West isn't. So of course Russia can out-produce the West. Russia also has a massive population advantage over Ukraine. Everyone knows that. Which is why Ukraine needs better and more advanced weapons. Everyone knows that which is why it is frustrating Ukraine hasn't been given those things

 

[CD Xbow]

Another 517 Ukrainian children have been repatriated from Russia to the Ukraine. The article states over 19,000 have been taken by those fun loving, humane and peaceful Russians.

Ukraine returns another 517 children illegally deported by Russia, some speak to Davos working group

Ukraine has repatriated 517 unlawfully deported children, as well as 2,828 adults, of which only 150 were civilians, Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets announced at the Peace Formula meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

news.yahoo.com

I found this article allegedly quoting Russian children's commissioner and part time war criminal Maria Lvova-Belova.

More Than 700,000 Ukrainian Children Taken To Russia Since Full-Scale War Started, Official Says

Russian children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova has said that more than 700,000 Ukrainian children have been taken from Ukraine to Russia since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

www.rferl.org

Allegedly she said that more than 700,000 Ukrainian children have been taken from Ukraine to Russia since the start of the invasion but most of these were accompanied by a parent. I haven't been able to find her talking about numbers of unaccompanied/abducted children.

 

[Zidane98]

The way the Biden administration has cemented Russia and China's ties will more than likely be seen decades from now as the most decisive factor in the now rapid decline of the American empire.

As to Russia losing, well, it's simply not.

Not even if you play the 'lets invent what Putin said his aims were and change it every few months to suit ourselves' game to its hardest.

But let's see how the West thinks the war is actually going.

Of course, these days, to do that you need to become quite skilled at reading between the lines of serious academic papers and you seldom bother with the newspapers...

Some relevant excerpts from NATO member Estonia's recent intelligence paper Setting Transatlantic Defence up for Success: A Military Strategy for Ukraine's Victory and Russia's Defeat:

https://kaitseministeerium.ee/sites/default/files/setting_transatlantic_defence_up_for_success_0.pdf

Most NATO Allies have significantly depleted their already small conventional military stockpiles and capabilities by donating their equipment to Ukraine. The Allies also have a very limited industrial base that is unfit for meeting the security challenges of the 21st century and unable to reconstitute these capabilities unless defence investments are substantially and urgently increased.
…
If undisrupted, Russia has the capacity to train approximately 130,000 troops every six months into cohered units and formations available for launching operations. Additional troops can be mobilised and pushed into Ukraine as untrained replacements, but these do not provide effective combat power.

Just to be clear, this is a NATO member confirming that Russia will soon be able to fully combat ready train 26 brigades every 6 months. Ukraine was barely able to assemble 9 brigades for the much vaunted counter-offensive, to put those troop numbers into stark perspective.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is currently battling in the Rada to allow 'mildly disabled' Ukrainian men to be sent to the front, with Zelensky not quite able to overcome the human rights objections of enough parliamentarians. Numerous other articles freely available talk of how so many Ukrainian men simply don't go out anymore for fear of being press ganged to the front with not enough training and no hope.

Bloodied and exhausted: Ukraine’s effort to mobilize more troops hits trouble

Kyiv needs more men for the battlefield, but must also balance concerns about the economy, taxes and fairness.

www.politico.eu

The average age of the Ukrainian men fighting is 47. At what point do they say 'enough!' after two years at it with no rotations while the Russians freely rotate in and out?

The young and wealthy enough to pay the bribes males have fled and they're not going home anytime soon - and why would they?

But back to Estonian NATO intelligence on how badly Russia is 'losing' - because it really is a failed state compared to not-at-all-delusional Europe:


Efforts to increase European production have been stymied by each European state pursuing separate – and relatively small – orders from industry. The business case presented by these orders does not justify defence manufacturers increasing production capacity, because there is no clarity on the scale of orders over time. European Allies and Member States therefore should work together to consolidate orders into larger and longer term contracts that would justify investment in production capacity in the defence industrial base.
…

So NATO countries haven't even started getting serious in any way about ramping up their productive capacity (despite fearing Putin invading them so much? )...meanwhile:


Russia’s total production and recovery of artillery ammunition will reach 3.5 million units in 2023, representing a more than three- fold increase from the previous year’s production. In 2024, production and recovery will increase further and would likely reach up to 4.5 million units. This volume significantly exceeds the amount of artillery ammunition available to Ukraine. If the Ramstein coalition is unable to ensure the sufficient increase in ammunition production and supply to Ukraine as a matter of urgency, Russia’s advantage in the use of artillery ammunition and thus in the war will increase.
...
Russia has significantly expanded the production of various long-range strike systems. This includes stockpiling approximately 1500 Shahed one-way-attack UAVs, now produced in Russia, alongside cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and aero-ballistic missiles21. In October 2022, it was producing approximately 40 such systems per month. A year later it is now producing approximately 100. Production could reach 200 strike systems per month over 2024.


None of that sound like 'losing' to me, or a 'shattered economy' on the verge of collapse (FWIW, Russia overtook Germany as the world's 5th largest economy last year and continues to steadily grow despite sanctions):

Germany on the other hand, on account of having to pay so much more for US energy than it did Russian to fuel its mighty industrial machine, is now in free-fall de-industrialisation mode as its corporations move to the US where energy is a quarter the price:

View attachment 1887089
View attachment 1887090


As the old saying goes - the real purpose of NATO is America in, Russia out, Germany down. So NATO is actually functioning precisely as the US intended (in an economic sense at least!).

But back to the main topic at hand, let's look at a couple of recent Western newspaper articles to get a feel of how troops on the front line are doing:

Ukraine war: Soldier tells BBC of front-line 'hell'

A Ukrainian soldier on the east side of the Dnipro river tells the BBC about life on the front line.

www.bbc.com

"Every day we sat in the forest taking incoming fire. We were trapped - the roads and paths are all riddled with mines. The Russians cannot control everything, and we use it. But their drones are constantly buzzing in the air, ready to strike as soon as they see movement.

"Supplies were the weakest link. The Russians monitored our supply lines, so it became more difficult - there was a real lack of drinking water, despite our deliveries by boat and drone.

"We paid for a lot of our own kit - buying generators, power banks and warm clothes ourselves. Now the frosts are coming, things will only get worse - the real situation is being hushed up, so no-one will change anything.

"No-one knows the goals. Many believe that the command simply abandoned us. The guys believe that our presence had more political than military significance. But we just did our job and didn't get into strategy."


That's not coming from RT or Sputnik, it's the BBC, belatedly reporting a tiny slice of reality. It's also quite probably the beginning of the BBC and Empire more generally throwing Zelensky (or a specific Ukrainian commander) under a very large, slow moving bus. Why else choose to report what is in bold?

How about a little from The Times:

Surrounded and low on ammo, the elite troops out to spoil Putin’s New Year

One of Ukraine’s finest brigades has been sent to defend the key city of Avdiivka. Without more gear their chances are dwindling, they tell Maxim Tucker

www.thetimes.co.uk

“It’s a shitty situation,” Sausage said. The shell shortage forces soldiers like Sergeant Taras “Fizruk”, a 31-year-old mortar gunner, also from the 2nd Battalion, to make impossible life and death decisions.

“We had ten times more ammunition over summer, and better quality,” he said. “American rounds come in batches of almost identical weights, which makes it easier to correct fire, with very few duds. Now we have shells from all over the world with different qualities and we only get 15 for three days. Last week we got a batch full of duds.”

Instead of firing on Russians as soon as they come within range, they have to wait to be sure they are heading for their positions, and only hit large groups.

“We should be controlling our sector from 4km away, so we can kill a few hundred Russian soldiers before they get to our infantry and we only take a few wounded,” he said. “But without ammunition we can’t. When it’s two or three soldiers I’m not shooting any more, only when it’s a critical situation, say ten guys close to our infantry, we will work.


So in summary, Russia is single-handedly out-producing the West by a considerable margin when it comes to raw hardware and more importantly, despatchable ammunition. It is training vastly more troops to a far higher level than Ukraine can maintain (any attempt to even assemble, let alone train meaningful numbers of troops within Ukraine gets promptly bombed and NATO countries have limited spare capacity) and can according to NATO intelligence, continue doing so for years to come.

Meanwhile, the incredibly brave, amazingly adaptive, still so motivated despite everything Ukrainian soldiers are getting thrown under one bus after another with absolutely no hope of things improving.

Fables about Russia losing and an endless continuation of the Information War do nothing to end the ACTUAL war and bring about the beginning of some sort of peace process.

Perhaps if Westerners better understand Ukraine's realistic short, medium and long term prospects, that process might come about faster and less people will die.

That's what I'd like to see.

What an absolute pack of lies.

Russia are begging North Korea for ammunition

Russia cannot maintain heating for their citizens due to sanctions.

Russia's natural resources income has been obliterated due to Putin being a rampaging Nazi.

Russia is a pariah state that can barely keep commercial aviation going and had to literally resort to stealing aircraft to do sanctioned by the state.

Russia is much worse off as a nation now than prior to both the initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and subsequent failed attempt to invade & take over Ukraine. In every metric. And that's down to an unsustainable Ukranian invasion.

Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe. Stopping a fascist imperialistic invader is in the interests of the worldwide community.

Russia's already lost the war from how much damage Putin has done to it. The only question now is how much damage he will do to Russia before he gives up or is assassinated by someone in Russia that wants to save the nation.

 

[Cap]

Transalation: We are losing our war in Ukraine and could you please help us. We will support you invading Taiwan in exchange.

Yours truly,


Adolf Putin.

What would they give China? Dead bodies to use as sandbags ?

 

[Rayzorwire]

They don't because the alternative is the loss of their nation

That's perfectly understandable if it's the only option, but is it?

First, Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany agreed under both Minsk treaties that the Donetsk and Luhansk would remain part of Ukraine, but not be subject to the repressions on Russian language and culture like the rest of Ukraine was post-Maidan (repressions which BTW, if still in law, would by themselves prevent admission into the EU, which is very much FOR multi-lingual integration).

Abiding by either of those treaties is looking like it would have been a smart option for Ukraine at this point.

The next time territory was discussed was at the peace talks in March of '22.

By this stage Donestk and Luhansk were under Russia's protective umbrella (something the Russian citizenry had been screaming at Putin to happen for eight long and bloody years) and there was no option for them to remain part of Ukraine, but Russia was not looking to take any more territory, as they clearly stated in their offer of peace.

Again, it was Ukraine who decided to reject the offer, ostensibly because they wanted the Donbass and all of Crimea back as well and were encouraged by their Western allies to think they could achieve it.

Now here we are.

In yet another chapter of a ridiculously futile, centuries long battle to deprive Russia of its only warm water port (Crimea) and balkanise their territory into more manageable factions.

Crimea is existential for Russia and always will be. Sooner or later, the rest of the world will have to accept that and Ukraine should have long ago.

Crimea was intended to be an independent Oblast after the fall of the Soviet Union and that's what everyone agreed on - a fitting compromise between Russia's existentiial need for its port, and Ukraine being 'given' Crimea by Kruschev for reasons literally nobody I'm aware of can give solid, factual reason for - a mystery that died with him apparently (there are no shortage of competing theories, of course).

That compromise was broken when Ukraine invaded Crimea, removed its leader at gunpoint (any of this sounding familiar!) and absorbed it 'back' into Ukrainian territory - while leaving Russian naval assets alone:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea_(1992–1995)

I think even now, with a change of Ukrainian leadership and finally some good faith from the West, Putin would again state his conditions around Ukraine nor becoming a NATO armed military threat again (wherever NATO goes, their 'defensive' missile systems - which are just as capable of offensively firing nukes like the one in Poland 100km from the Russian border) and he would harp on those type of guarantees, but territorially, he'd sacrifice what he could gain for peace and a chance at conciliation with both Ukraine and the wider West.

We're probably well past that point being possible, but there's not a lot else realistic to hope for.

Russia is in a war time economy though, the West isn't.

For Ukraine's sake, to fulfill their commitments, the West needed to either put itself on a war production footing from day one, or make a hell of a lot more effort to broker peace. Now Russia is eating everyone's lunch.

So of course Russia can out-produce the West. Russia also has a massive population advantage over Ukraine. Everyone knows that. Which is why Ukraine needs better and more advanced weapons. Everyone knows that which is why it is frustrating Ukraine hasn't been given those things

Check out my quoted Kogan ISW post above - in the real world - as opposed to the world of journalistic fantasy - the only aircraft that can penetrate Russia's defence systems is stealth aircraft. The much touted F-16's - just as one example - are a couple of generations below what Russia has (let alone what they're working on) and crucially, their air intake is from underneath.

Which means - like so many Western weapons involved in this conflict - that unles they operate under ideal conditions (we're talking a runway where it picks up not even a tiny pebble or it shreds the engine) it's pretty much useless.

And there are no Ukrainian pilots to fly them.

Slight oversights?

And while Russia has a massive population and economic advantage over Ukraine, Russia itself is dwarfed by Western advantages in these areas, so if the West had ever been serious about actually helping Ukraine win, they would have been out-producing Russia by now, wouldn't they?

 

[awaremind]

What would they give China? Dead bodies to use as sandbags ?

My gosh the level of discussion is sad from you.

 

[awaremind]

That's perfectly understandable if it's the only option, but is it?

First, Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany agreed under both Minsk treaties that the Donetsk and Luhansk would remain part of Ukraine, but not be subject to the repressions on Russian language and culture like the rest of Ukraine was post-Maidan (repressions which BTW, if still in law, would by themselves prevent admission into the EU, which is very much FOR multi-lingual integration).

Abiding by either of those treaties is looking like it would have been a smart option for Ukraine at this point.

The next time territory was discussed was at the peace talks in March of '22.

By this stage Donestk and Luhansk were under Russia's protective umbrella (something the Russian citizenry had been screaming at Putin to happen for eight long and bloody years) and there was no option for them to remain part of Ukraine, but Russia was not looking to take any more territory, as they clearly stated in their offer of peace.

Again, it was Ukraine who decided to reject the offer, ostensibly because they wanted the Donbass and all of Crimea back as well and were encouraged by their Western allies to think they could achieve it.

Now here we are.

In yet another chapter of a ridiculously futile, centuries long battle to deprive Russia of its only warm water port (Crimea) and balkanise their territory into more manageable factions.

Crimea is existential for Russia and always will be. Sooner or later, the rest of the world will have to accept that and Ukraine should have long ago.

Crimea was intended to be an independent Oblast after the fall of the Soviet Union and that's what everyone agreed on - a fitting compromise between Russia's existentiial need for its port, and Ukraine being 'given' Crimea by Kruschev for reasons literally nobody I'm aware of can give solid, factual reason for - a mystery that died with him apparently (there are no shortage of competing theories, of course).

That compromise was broken when Ukraine invaded Crimea, removed its leader at gunpoint (any of this sounding familiar!) and absorbed it 'back' into Ukrainian territory - while leaving Russian naval assets alone:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea_(1992–1995)

I think even now, with a change of Ukrainian leadership and finally some good faith from the West, Putin would again state his conditions around Ukraine nor becoming a NATO armed military threat again (wherever NATO goes, their 'defensive' missile systems - which are just as capable of offensively firing nukes like the one in Poland 100km from the Russian border) and he would harp on those type of guarantees, but territorially, he'd sacrifice what he could gain for peace and a chance at conciliation with both Ukraine and the wider West.

We're probably well past that point being possible, but there's not a lot else realistic to hope for.





For Ukraine's sake, to fulfill their commitments, the West needed to either put itself on a war production footing from day one, or make a hell of a lot more effort to broker peace. Now Russia is eating everyone's lunch.




Check out my quoted Kogan ISW post above - in the real world - as opposed to the world of journalistic fantasy - the only aircraft that can penetrate Russia's defence systems is stealth aircraft. The much touted F-16's - just as one example - are a couple of generations below what Russia has (let alone what they're working on) and crucially, their air intake is from underneath.

Which means - like so many Western weapons involved in this conflict - that unles they operate under ideal conditions (we're talking a runway where it picks up not even a tiny pebble or it shreds the engine) it's pretty much useless.

And there are no Ukrainian pilots to fly them.

Slight oversights?

And while Russia has a massive population and economic advantage over Ukraine, Russia itself is dwarfed by Western advantages in these areas, so if the West had ever been serious about actually helping Ukraine win, they would have been out-producing Russia by now, wouldn't they?

Our economies are already screwed from the disasterous response to covid, and our political system has been utterly corrupted by operatives like Epstein, there’s niether the public goodwill nor the space in our finances to do so on a level that would make a sign if any difference now !

 

[Rayzorwire]

What an absolute pack of lies.

Russia are begging North Korea for ammunition

Russia cannot maintain heating for their citizens due to sanctions.

Russia's natural resources income has been obliterated due to Putin being a rampaging Nazi.

I'll leave readers to observe how my post is full of links to factual, impeccably sourced information, while you've provided zero evidence to back yours up.

After that they can jump on the Israel thread, read your thoughts there and ask themselves if your moral compass and information sources are worth accepting at face value, without a shred of evidence.

 

[Smeg Head]

Russia are also speeding up their demographic collapse. Something that was underway even before the war.