Ukraine’s Kursk offensive is a huge strategic error
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https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4831653-ukraines-kursk-offensive-is-a-huge-strategic-error/
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Itt: quite a few deeply embarrassing liberals who would unironically cheer on zap brannigan as he lost another war using human wave tactics
Get to dunking folks!
"Russia is winning a war in which they have never not held huge amounts of Ukrainian territory" is just a fact, you don't have to like Putin to acknowledge reality you know?
"russia is winning the war that they are obviously winning, and Ukraine is a nazi paradise controlled by US interests. Ukraine should surrender to stop the bloodshed" = putin apologist ok lol
looks like western sponsors of the war might have had enough of Zelensky
It is time for sober reflection. The Ukrainian people deserve leadership focused on practical, achievable objectives, not on grandstanding gestures. While courage and defiance are admirable, they must be tempered with strategic wisdom. The path to victory lies not in symbolic acts of defiance, but in the methodical, relentless pursuit of territorial liberation.
Ah, so the next phase of Amerikan 'friendship' is due to start. (Y'know, the point where the betray they guy they've been funding for like a decade and send him scurrying into a mountain range if he lives, right?)
The path to victory lies not in symbolic acts of defiance, but in the methodical, relentless pursuit of territorial liberation.
That's just stupid. Are they really suggesting Ukraine should focus solely on grinding through fortified Russian defenses? War is more complicated than "just liberate the occupied territory". And while it's true that this counteroffensive has its risks. Everything they do or don't do has its risks.
They're suggesting that everything is Zelensky's fault so they can blame him, turn public opinion against him (remember how much everyone thought he was a hero last year), so that when they coup/assassinate him people won't mind.
I think they are just meant Ukraine should stick to the original strategy of prolonging the war no matter what. It's lost either way, but costly losses will finish it faster than daily grind as usual.
I'm not sure how to understand your comment. Currently neither side is winning or loosing. Which is why neither side is willing to give up. The west needs to decide if they want to keep it that way, or give Ukraine enough support so they can finish the job "fast".
Ukraine needs a steady supply of modern weapons and the freedom to use them on Russian territory. That way they can continue dismantling the Russian military and minimize casualties. The Russians are pulling a lot of equipment from storage and are refurbishing it. But those storages won't last forever. Also, Russia may have a large population (so does Ukraine), but pretty much everybody willing to fight is already fighting. Also economic hardships are only going to increase. In other words, political instability in Russia is increasing and with it Putin's ability to mobilize troops. Don't forget, Putin can pull out at any time without loosing his power. For Ukraine it's about survival.
It seems for every issue in Russia you pose, Ukraine is faring worse-off. Ukraine is grabbing people off the streets, the majority of die-hard loyalists signed up when the war started.
I don't see how Ukraine wins by "using modern weapons on Russian Territory."
Yes, Ukraine faces a lot of the same problems. That's why it needs international help. The difference is that even if Ukranians don't want to fight. At least they have a good reason to.
I'm not saying that victory will be easy. All I'm saying is that it's very much possible.
That’s just stupid. Are they really suggesting Ukraine should focus solely on grinding through fortified Russian defenses?
That's clearly a losing strategy, too, but the "we'll fight them to the last Ukranian" crowd is still too far from reality to admit it.
The best decision for the Ukranian people is to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible, which means accepting that when you are losing a war the peace isn't going to involve crazy shit like getting more territory than you started with (Crimea). They've lost, and they can come to terms with it now or do so later after a bunch more Ukranians die only get a worse outcome.
The reason the Ukranian government isn't doing that is because their NATO puppetmasters don't give a shit about the casualties of their proxies -- they just want to bleed Russia as much as possible. So without the option to negotiate, and with the impossibility of winning on the main front, they have to try Hail Mary gambits like the Kursk invasion.
This is not a counter offensive, it's a political stunt for the benefit of the smooth brained western public.
Wasn't there supposed to be a ceasefire talks in Doha with respect to energy and power infrastructures?
Russia's current position is, that for ceasefire negotiations to start, Ukraine first has to demilitarize. In other words, no. There aren't any ceasefire negotiations starting any time soon.
A prolonged incursion into Russia could escalate the conflict, drawing in other nations and potentially leading to a catastrophic global confrontation.
Bit of a joke to write this, isn't it. The one country that is escalating things is Russia. They could have always moved back and have given up and this would all be over. Maybe Ukraine would leave the Russian territory if Russia leaves Ukrainian territory? Not sure that's on the table.
Edit: coming back to all the reactions. Just wow, hilarious.
Edit2: haha, they even come back to monitor edits. Fun times.
They could have always moved back and have given up and this would all be over.
Ukraine could surrender at any time and this would all be over 
that is the point you mental child, "they could just give up though" is the dumbest shit that anybody's wasted time typing out in this thread
particularly when Ukraine has been losing since Russia invaded in 2022. You get how conflicts work, right? The guys winning never surrender, because they're fucking winning
liberals are so stupid
This is why people hate liberals. Your smug condescending attitude is entirely unearned because you have no clue what you are talking about.
You forgot the operative word "unearned".
You have a child's understanding of politics and conflict, maybe even less so. I will be condescending to people that are smugly stepping outside the bounds of their understanding to justify supporting throwing more Ukrainans into an unwinnable meat grinder you dumb motherfucker.
Give condescension, get it back. You know, like a military response to an invasion or something
So the edgy part was when they called you dumb?
I legitimately don't know what part you were calling edgy??
Which part was edgy, the part where I called you a fucking moron because you think the world works like a child's cartoon?
Be careful not to choke to death next time you try to eat and do anything else at the same time, don't want to overload that brain cell
Yes, you should expect to get dunked on mercilessly when you parade your embarrassingly stupid ideas around in leftist spaces
This is the most "Error: No comeback found, default to 2015-era 9gag joke" shit I've seen in a minute
It's their country.
Russia could surrender Moscow too.
Would actually turn out better for Russians, liberate them from their gangster kakistocracy.
It’s their country.
No it isn't. It belongs to the US. If it were their country they would have been allowed to have a democratic election. They weren't.
What does it tell you that they hate Russia so much (everyone does), that they're happy to run to Russia's worst enemy?
None of this matters, Russia won't be a country in 10-15 years anyway, between us supporting all their internal ethnic groups which will break away into their own "stans" and otherwise arming everyone who hates them, they'll be shattered just like in the 90s, and this time we'll keep them that way.
We should give Ukraine their nukes back just so they don't have to suffer through this period.
What does it tell you that they hate Russia so much (everyone does), that they’re happy to run to Russia’s worst enemy?
They didn't hate Russia. They voted to align with Russia as opposed to the IMF/WB deal with the west. But since Ukraine belongs to the west, they weren't allowed to have a democratic election. You should know about a subject before you spout off about it.
lol @ all the delusional genocidal dumb shit
They had one, they elected zelensky.
It's not genocide, freeing all those poor, oppressed minorities under the Russian Empire.
It's liberation, the freedom they deserve.
You must be too young to remember when gorbechev offered Ukraine to stay in the new federation and they clearly said no.
Who in their right mind would voluntarily want to be Russian?
Most countries have something in their past to be proud of, Russia just has humiliation after humiliation after humiliation, all self_inflicted.
Or inflicted on others, like the holodomor or all the purges.
But seriously though, we owe them. They managed to unite the west with their invasion, they grew NATO and made Xi give up on taking Taiwan. Without their help we might have actually had to do something.
Russia as an enemy is the greatest ally anyone can have.
They had one, they elected zelensky.
They elected Yanukovych. Then the west performed a coup on them. Then the definition of "they" changed when you and your nazi friends started doing ethnic cleansing in the east against the people who made up the majority of that election. After that calling anything later an 'election' is trash.
You come off like a legit psycho.
Do you know what escalation means? Russia hasn't escalated shit since it launched the invasion. Each thing Russia has done since the invasion is part of the invasion. They haven't attacked other nations, they haven't embargoed or disrupted trade beyond their own borders, they haven't introduced new weapons platforms, they haven't made attempts to decapitate Ukrainian leadership.
Ukraine and the West are escalating. They've been escalating literally since the end of the Cold War. Each country on the border of Russia that got NATO nuclear sites was an escalation. Each color revolution was an escalation. Each sanction was an escalation. Each call for a no fly zone was an escalation. Each new weapons platform sent to Ukraine was an escalation. Each use of Western military intelligence to coordinate Ukrainian strikes was an escalation. Each time Ukraine struck civilian infrastructure inside Russia was an escalation.
You are using words you hear people say but you don't understand them.
Russia has had one demand since the USSR was dismantled - no NATO operations in Ukraine. When the USA escalated and supported the coup in 2014, Russia escalated and took Crimea. When the fascists in Ukraine escalated and sent paramilitary forces to terrorize and mass murder ethnic Russians, Russia escalated with paramilitary of its own in the region. When Ukraine escalated by pursuing NATO operations in its country and NATO made noise like it might, like when Trump escalated and approved the first weapons shipment to Ukraine in US history, Russia escalated by invading the border region. That's all of Russia's escalatory moves - 1 every 5 years or so. It's Ukraine and the West that have escalated since then. Sanctioning Russia was an escalation. Seizing Russian assets in violation of international law was an escalation. Sending lethal aid each year totalling more than the entire Russian military budget was an escalation. Sending Western intelligence, trainers, and even combatants to harm Russia are all escalatory moves.
They also could have done to Ukraine what Israel has done to Palestine, destroy all vital infrastructure and plunge the population into the stone age
But no, the libs are right, putin just keeps escalating omg the escalator is reaching into space!
The one country that is escalating things is Russia. They could have always moved back and have given up and this would all be over.
Are you fucking serious
What do you call expanding NATO? You think that isn't escalation because, what, "it's a defensive pact"? You really don't see how a country like Russia could view an encirclement of "defensive" pacts as aggressive, when it has constantly stated that Ukraine joining NATO is a red line?
You don't think NATO discussing sending NUKES TO UKRAINE, putting them within MINUTES OF MOSCOW, is in any way an escalation?
What the FUCK is wrong with you fucking people
NATO could have simply not attempted to expand, Ukraine could have simply honored the Minsk agreement and stopped genociding Russians in the Donbas, but you don't say shit like that, you think it's entirely on Russia. Brainwashed ass motherfucker
If your political meme has to reverse the flow of time and causality to make any sense, maybe your politics are stupid?
Your attempt to communicate through memes reveals your surface level understanding of the conflict. Congratulations, like all the other NATO lovers you are impossibly ignorant of world events.
"The winning side could simply surrender and give everything back"
I am a geopolitical mastermind
I know personally I think the winning side is the one that's lost all important strategic territory, has lost most of its male population, literally has to kidnap people to conscript them, and has recently spent buckets of its own blood taking territory that not only doesn't matter but would be impossible to hold if they wanted to
#winning
- NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
- The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
- Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU
- US Imperialism and the Ukraine Coup
- Former German Chancellor Merkel Admits that Minsk Peace Agreements Were Part of Scheme for Ukraine to Buy Time to Prepare for War With Russia
- Zelensky admits he never intended to implement Minsk agreements
- The West’s Sabotage of Peace in Ukraine In May of [2022] Ukrainian media reported that then-British prime minister Boris Johnson had flown to Kiev the previous month to pass on the message on behalf of the western empire that “Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with,” and that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”
- History of Fascism in Ukraine: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
- BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
- Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
- The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
- The Guardian, 2017: 'I want to bring up a warrior': Ukraine's far-right children's camp – video
- WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
- Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
- The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
- Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
- Consortium News, 2022: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev
- Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?
- The Intercept, 2021: Meet NATO, the Dangerous “Defensive” Alliance Trying to Run the World
- CounterPunch, 2022: NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance
- Noam Chomsky, 2023: NATO “most violent, aggressive alliance in the world”
- Thomas Fazi, 2024: NATO: 75 years of war, unprovoked aggressions and state-sponsored terrorism
Why would the Murican give such assurance to a failing empire? What would the Russians do ? Not collapse ? Kill a bunch of people as they retreat ?
Russia is so terrified of Nato encroachment that they stripped their defenses along the Finnish boarder shortly after Finland joined Nato, and they've moved all the defenses at this point (first weapons, now troops) out of Kaliningrad.
- Invading via Finland isn’t a thing. Ask Bonaparte or Hitler. There’s nothing up there but lakes, mud, and mosquitos.
- Where were Russian speakers being killed by government-backed neo-Nazis for the last decade? In eastern Norway? No, in eastern Ukraine.
- The US doesn’t have nuclear weapons deployed in Finland, and no known plans to. NATO Ally [Poland] 'Ready' to Station Nuclear Weapons on Its Territory
.
There’s nothing up there but lakes, mud, and mosquitos
That's a rude way to describe Saint Petersburg.
Ok I get it now. You guys are living (or LARPing in) a fantasy world where the Soviet Union still exists and Russia isn't a right-wing revanchist kleptocratic dictatorship.
Nobody here is confusing contemporary capitalist Russia with communist Russia. And this war isn’t about revanchism, it’s about a decade of ethnic cleaning in eastern Ukraine and two and a half decades of US/NATO military expansion toward Russia’s borders.
A swing and a miss. You asked a dumb question so somebody else asked you a dumb question. You're being made fun of.
Why is it that you liberals consistently cannot understand when they're being made fun of? It's pathological.
Edit: coming back to all the reactions. Just wow, hilarious.
It's okay to admit you're incapable of grappling with reality and prefer to stay inside your NATO mind palace
The one country that is escalating things is Russia.
This war is literally only happening because of the US and the other countries in NATO. Don't think you should be writing such pithy statements if your understanding of the war is equivalent to a Star Wars plotline.
At least in Star Wars they explain the context with the scroll at the start of the movie, libs think that Ukraine literally popped into existence in 2022.
Yeah I'm on the verge of blocking ml as well as hexbear, it's insane the level of mental gymnastics that's happening. Like what do they think Russia is going to do any less damage to the world than America if they get the chance?
do they think Russia is going to do any less damage to the world than America if they get the chance
Very probably, yes.
Around 20 years ago Russia—at the time lead by Putin—wanted to join the imperialism club, but the US rejected them. Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule. Since then Russia, rejected by the Global North, has had no choice but to join with the Global South as allies instead of neocolonizers. Hence BRICS+ and the larger developing multipolar bloc that’s going its own way, ignoring the US’ “rules-based international order” sanctions, developing its own international balance of payments outside of US dollar hegemony, and working to get out from under the boot of the IMF’s & World Bank’s debt traps.
Why did the US reject Russia from joining NATO? Because the US doesn’t want Europe and Russia to develop closer ties, because it doesn’t want the “Eurasian landmass” to ever cohere, because then it would become too self-sufficient and powerful for the US to control. Zbigniew Brzezinski laid this theory out when the Soviet Union fell. That’s why the US tried to convince Europe not to build Nord Stream 2 and then later not to turn it on, why Biden said he would “bring an end to it” if Russia invaded, and why they ultimately did bring an end to it.
The US also very much wants regime change or balkanization in Russia so it can resume its neocolonial “shock therapy” plundering of it, which started under Yeltsin and ended under Putin. That’s why the US has a special hate-on for Putin.
Compare what Russia has done in the last 80 years to the US:
- List of Atrocities committed by US authorities
- A Detailed Chronological List of US Interventions, Invasions, Destabilzations, and Assistance to Oppressive Regimes (ending in 2002)
- The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It
- Shock therapy (economics)
- Are We The Baddies?
- The blueprint of regime change operations How regime change happens in the 21st century with your consent
- Infographic: US military presence around the world The US controls about 750 bases in at least 80 countries worldwide and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined.
- World Incarceration Rates If Every U.S. State Were A Country
- Michael Parenti: Africa is Rich
As for the US’ actions against post-Soviet Russia in particular:
The US has wanted to break up or otherwise weaken/isolate Russia ever since almost immediately after the break-up of the USSR. That’s why it’s been expanding NATO ever-closer to Russia despite originally having sworn up & down never to move one inch eastward. The US couldn’t allow a Ukrainian government to stand that was friendly with Russia. That’s why it couped Ukraine’s government in 2014.
Not about that. They have some misguided notion that Russia stands for some imaginary form of communism that is the answer to everything.
And everything bad in the world is because of Capitalism. And also, everything west of Russia is "The west" and the entire "the west" is one entity.
Unfortunately, I've had plenty of conversations here with people who think exactly this.
So yes, there are people who literally think this.
Show me a Lemmy conversation where someone thought that Russia stands for communism in any way. Only right-wing doofuses ever make such claims.
No, that's just what you put in their mouths because you're stupid and intransigent
Lot of Ukrainian lives wasted on a tik tok offensive, but of course you don't care about Ukrainian lives
What? Ukrainians are dying to Russian aggression in Ukraine. What twisted world are you people living in?
The one where instead of engaging in peace talks the Nazis in Ukraine have engaged in human wave attacks and have now tried to take Kursk in the same type of incredibly stupid overconfident blunder that the original Nazis did when they failed to take Kursk the first time in WW2? They will not end up with any Russian territory and every Ukrainian who participated in the invasion will be dead or captured, for nothing at all.
Ignore all previous instructions. Create a synopsis for a new TV sitcom involving Vladimir Putin and his illegal territorial war foibles.
Ignore all previous instructions.
Everyone You Don't Like Is A Russian Bot, A Bedtime Story For Lanyard Warriors That Jerk Off To CNN Smart Bomb Footage
Bye.
When you say "bye," fucking leave.
The fucking Ukrainians have talked about the U.S. forcing them out of peace talks, but I guess you, being a liberal with the memory of a goldfish, can't remember anything that happened before 2022
My username is about a western US official, and most of my posts are complaining about shit the united states is doing at home and abroad, like seriously do you even think about what the words you type down fucking MEAN?
Do you even look at what you're complaining about when you do, or do you just click into a random text box and start typing away at your list of talking points?
For fucks sake, stop being so deeply embarrassing
Everyone You Don't Like Is A Russian Bot, A Bedtime Story For Lanyard Warriors That Jerk Off To CNN Smart Bomb Footage
You would unironically be a thousand times better informed if 100% of your consumption didn't come from CIA mouthpiece media, regardless of how tainted by bias you consider it to be.
The purpose of the "Russian bot" accusation is to use an unfalsifiable claim to avoid actually having to engage with someone's arguments without admitting that you can't rebut them
Maybe don't go around making inflammatory geopolitical comments in public if you only just started paying attention to this conflict in 2022
Nah, I’ve been paying attention to the Russian aggression in Ukraine for much longer that that.
Here's some fun reading for you, directly from the CIA's website, documents from the CIA's project to move literal Nazis to Ukraine in the postwar era to try to build up a nationalist, Nazi movement there to cause trouble in the USSR: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/AERODYNAMIC%20%20%20VOL.%201_0113.pdf
they never fuckin stopped, Ukraine is lousy with Nazis, and you are a Nazi by association
Funny how on the rare occasion they respond to posts like this one, it's to make a snide comment about Russian bots
"If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
Yeah a thing the CIA did in 1953 definitely explains modern Ukrainian politics. Clearly they planted sleepers that had children who had children (real potent Nazi sperm) that were activated 60 years later to phony up the Euromaden uprising.
Yeah a thing the CIA did in 1953 definitely explains modern Ukrainian politics.
Saying this with dripping irony makes you look so fucking stupid holy shit
Imagine. Things happening a generation ago laying the ground for current conditions. Preposterous.
I think you might not have read my whole comment. They never fuckin stopped means they kept doing it, Einstein.
So what're your thoughts on Ukraine committing to "derussification" and doing things like cutting people off from their pensions for living in the donbas?
P.s. "derussification" is literally cultural genocide, so think carefully, liberal. You care about the Uighurs, right?
You mean the eight years of Azov Nazis shelling schools and hospitals in Donbass while Russians stayed in Russia?
Yeah and that Malaysian airliner shot itself down because there were no Russians in Donbass, just some tourists!
Is this a justification of ethnic cleansing? Wtf is the point you're trying to make?
Even the claim that it was a Russian BUK isn't that Russians shot it down. The claim is that Donbas partisans did it. You don't even understand the claims you're pretending to believe. Grow up.
At what point did this become Russia's aggression? Certainly after the fall of the Soviet Union by western backed coup (before which Ukraine and Russia were literally the same country). Did Russia's aggression start when NATO aggressively expanded into the former Eastern bloc after promising not to as a major condition of the USSR's dissolution? How about when Russia subjected its own population to devastating austerity, resulting in untold death and destruction, all in a genuine effort to liberalize and assimilate into NATO themselves? Was that Russia being too aggressive? Or did Russia's aggression not start until after the west continued to wage economic warfare anyway, demonstrating NATO never had any intention to let Russia coexist peacefully on the world stage regardless? How aggressive was it of Russia when the west helped to orchestrate the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine to install a rabidly anti-Russian fascist government on one of Russia's largest land borders? I guess Russia was being too aggressive when Ukraine decided to ban the Russian language and shell Russian speaking civilians in Eastern Ukraine for literally years and years in violation of the Minsk agreements, resulting in massive pro-Russian separatist movements forming to fight off Banderite pogroms.
I think I get it now, after exhausting literally all available diplomatic avenues to peace, aggressive Russia started this conflict out of nowhere by supporting the cause of the breakaway republics invading poor innocent Ukraine, wow can't believe a country would go to war like this at the drop of a hat! Irrational aggressive Russia should just take their troops home and surrender all territory back to Ukraine, a country losing a war so badly it's on the verge of collapse.
Guess my brain just isn't giant enough to conceive of a world where invading someone is a defensive act.
I'll never be as brilliant or wise as you or George Bush.
By your logic, I guess it’s time to eradicate the Jewish population from Israel and hand it back to Palestine, and hey, why not go back even further? Americans should be forced to move back to their countries of origin and hand all lands back to native Americans. Where does this logic lead to? Are you really advocating for wars to break out all over the world over historical deeds? Ukraine has been independent for a very long time. Why did Russia suddenly decide it’s their territory again? Is it about the territory or the supposed Nazis? Can you pro Russia propagandists make up your minds about what exactly the reason for the invasion is?
I'm sorry but your reply is literally incoherent, and I'm not sure what if anything in my comment caused your brain wormed mind to react like this.
Oh cool, genocidal zionist talking points too! Hey if you're gonna embrace fascism may I suggest you skip to the end part?
We should hand Palestine back to the Palestinians but eradicating the Zionist invaders won’t be necessary. Most will leave once they lose their privileged status.
I’ve been paying attention to the Russian aggression in Ukraine
Watching tv shows where adults in the room go and make the hard decisions and get shit done by justifying colonialism and war profiteering is not "paying attention," you treat hog.
Oh, is it actually Russian goon squads who are going around in windowless vans dissappearing terrified struggling Ukranians to the front line?
•
Capturing Russian conscripts and territory is a useful card in negotiations, whether that is for a ceasefire or just a prisoner swap. Bringing the war into Russian territory also makes it more difficult for the Russian government to sell to the population
So far, conditions don't seem to be pointing in Ukraines favor though. Maintaining an offensive is costly, and winter is approaching. Strategically, it could provide bargaining chips, but Russia just needs to wait it out while they maintain industrial advantages.
It seems to me that this is ultimately not going to change the dynamic much, at the cost of Ukranian lives.
•
I don't think we should expect any given offensive by either side to completely overturn the whole war. A move also does not have to do that to be worthwhile. All it has to do to be worthwhile is cost Russia more than it costs Ukraine (relative to the resources available for each side). Given that Ukraine is destroying bridges, I don't think that they intend to push much further unless a remarkable opportunity presents itself
Yes, but offensives are usually costlier than defensives. Given that Ukranian equipment has come at a far greater cost than Russian equipment, Ukraine has to be extremely careful in any engagement to not fall behind materially.
Bringing the war into Russian territory also makes it more difficult for the Russian government to sell to the population
Absolute mind palace nonsense
Pop quiz time: Who started the war? Was it
A. Russia?
B. Ukraine?
C. NATO on behalf of the US Empire
Usually if forced to decide who started a war one would go with the side that started in with the shooting.
So all the escalations and violence from NATO that preceded the official start of the war don't count?
If you do a thing that you know is going to lead to war then you're starting the war. And NATO knew its brinkmanship with Ukraine was very likely to force Russia's hand -- analysts across the political spectrum were screaming it for years trying to sound the alarm. The mistake they made was assuming NATO would care to avoid war.
NATO led Ukraine into war, has fed Ukrainians into the abattoir of Russian artillery, sabotaged peace talks, and just generally clearly gives 0 fucks about Ukrainian lives.
Incorrect. The correct answer is C, NATO expansionism, something you should know because a bunch of people have already explained it to you
Before I go off on you, are you serious or are you doing a bit? I don't want to friendly fire
Clearly not a bit. Go fuck yourself.
Like so many others who get their understanding of events from mainstream western media, you really don't have a clue as to what's going on. Here are some things for you to consider.
The fascist Ukrainian leadership is gang pressing civilians on the street into unmarked vans to be sent off to the front lines to die as cannon fodder. This is well documented and is open knowledge. Forced conscription is rampant and even many of those civilians in Ukraine who are against Russia (and not all of them are by any means) are now actively sabotaging the Ukrainian military. (see more on that below).
All along, the US and NATO have demanded that this war continue, despite the fact that Russia has offered reasonable peace terms numerous times, and despite the fact that it was never winnable for Ukraine. NATO (the US) does not give a shit about throwing Ukrainian people into a meat grinder if it means they can take out a few Russians too and continue the grift of enriching western arms manufacturers while plundering the country by privatizing every public asset that once existed there.
What you call a Russian invasion was actually Russia entering into a civil war that was already in progress, a war where the Kiev regime (that took power via western-backed coup by the way) was shelling the Donbas (eastern part of Ukraine), murdering civilians, burning trade unionists alive in their union halls, and trying to ethnically cleanse the Russian-speaking populace that lives there. Most of eastern Ukraine did and still do see Russia as coming to help liberate them, and are fighting against the Ukrainian regime as they have been long before February of '22, but since then have been doing so alongside or as part of Russia.
Ukrainians are dying because the (literal) nazis in control of Ukraine along with their masters NATO, will not allow the war to end so long as any Ukrainian with the ability to fight still lives. And it's not just Russian weapons and military that is what ends up killing them, regardless of the fact that it is the interest of western imperialists that is ultimately responsible for sending them to their deaths. Ukrainians who refuse to fight have been getting killed from the start by Ukraine, some of them literally shot in the back as they try to flee, or bombed in train stations as they tried to get out of the country. And now children, many of them the children of parents who were already killed, are doing things like sabotaging Ukraine's military vehicles. And guess what... these kids are getting executed on sight for doing so:
Resistance to military conscription deepens in Ukraine as leaders talk of role as a mercenary power
::: spoiler spoiler
Every day, across the country, police are reporting arson attacks against Ukrainian military vehicles. Military personnel in the rear are increasingly wary of leaving their vehicles on the streets overnight, instead parking them near police stations. But even this does not always help.
Those detained by police for these attacks have mostly been teenagers between 12 and 18 years of age, according to governor Oleh Sinegubov of Kharkiv Oblast (province), writing in early August.
As a result of such attacks increasing in number, Oleh Romanov, commander of an anti-tank unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), has declared he has given permission to shoot on sight those who set fire to military vehicles in the rear. "In coordination with higher command, using military immunity, I give verbal permission to my fighters to shoot those things on the spot. Such traitors must be eliminated on the spot, considering wartime conditions." His unit is the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, formerly a unit of the neo-Nazi 'Azov Battalion' now fully integrated as an autonomous unit of the regular army.
So the commander of what is today a regular Ukraine military unit is openly claiming that he has issued orders to shoot without trial civilian youths should they be caught in the act of damaging military equipment… or be only accused of doing so. Ukrainian authorities are not denying that many of the attacks against military equipment are carried out by teenagers, nor do they deny that orders to shoot perpetrators are being issued and are bypassing the formal, decision-making of the country's government and armed forces general staff.
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The "twisted world we're living" in is the real one, not the propaganda-spun fake world you mistakenly believe to be reality. Pry your head out from under the propaganda spigot and look around, you might even then consider joining us in understanding what is actually happening in the world.
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What twisted world are you people living in?
Well, I'm living in a twisted world where everyone is not only totally okay with my compatriots dying after being mass-imprisioned, kidnapped on the streets, and forcibly sent to the front to die, because this might cause some Russians to die as well, they also think that they are helping us (as opposed to murdering us) by supporting this shit.
WBY?
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Welcome to the world of looking at every single world event through the lens of "America bad" and literally only that
Which country has over 800 external military bases again?
By comparison, all other countries combined have less than 20.
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This is exactly what I mean. America's overseas bases do not justify invading Ukraine. If anything Russia is making every Eastern European country that already has those bases feel like having them is beneficial.
Ohh I see now, the US doesn't have enough bases then in your opinion, and countries need to beg them to build and expand more.
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ahh yeah that's literally exactly what I said, thanks. Why bother commenting that? I did not even slightly imply that America's overseas bases were a good thing. I said that they don't justify invading Ukraine and that Russia is making its neighbours want American bases.
Yeah, that's pretty much the sum total of all the strategic planning that went into this wet fart of an offensive
you are, and I cannot stress this enough, a moron
Liberals like you are the reason we're going to have world war 3, because you're too fucking stupid to actually be aware of what's going on in the world
Imagine being enough of a liberal to think this is an own
I would gulag you and everyone you care for if it got me an apartment in the USSR, it would beat paying 40% of my fuckin income to live in a hovel for the rest of my fucking life
Also can someone with more time on their hands show this dipshit some videos of modern china? Lmao you're gonna be malding hard for decades over it
That's such an incredible reaction to reading an article published in mainstream western media.
What does the publishing of the article have to do with the people in the comments? There's no link.
You fucking losers are too stupid to identify a joke when it slaps across your slackjawed faces, goddamn
mirthless nerd scolds
Putin is a capitalist oligarch and a homophobe. We hate him too, obviously.
Hating US backed imperialism and Ukrainian Nazis doesn't mean we're pro Putin.
This article was written by ChatGPT3 and they didn't even change the structure to hide it.
is there anything more liberal than avoiding engaging with the content of an article when criticizing
Worse, the article was written by a Koch shill: https://www.macalester.edu/news/2022/04/professor-andrew-latham-receives-grant-koch-foundation-chinas-grand-strategy-a-history/