I guess if you include the territory that was very briefly held when Russia was making a push into Kyev, that’s true, but the lines in the East have held pretty steady since the early days of the war.
Short of bringing US-style air superiority to play there, I can’t see that they’ll gain much in the near term.
I think the play needs to be a stalemate/slow advance until Putin dies. His successor will either accelerate or withdraw imo. Can’t bleed resources like that forever and remain in power, Putin is grandfathered in but the new guy won’t be. Unfortunately Putin could die tomorrow or in ten years. Hopefully it’s sooner than later.
Ukraine definitely has political stability and morale as good advantages. They’re also continually getting additional military support as time goes on.
True, Russia has run out of prisoners, Wagner is gone, Chechens are disengaging, Belarus is s clear “no”, and the rest of the population is unwilling and getting restless.
The Kremlin is too scared to even call it a war, let alone try widespread mobilization. They saw how Prigozhin waltz into Rostov-On-Don and act like a celebrity.
We constantly hear that Russia has personnel issues, but I have yet to see any actual evidence of that being the case. Seems like Russian army grew significantly over the past year with the call up of reservists and a whole bunch of volunteers signing up on contract. Russia has a far bigger population and could call up a huge number of people if they needed to.
Even if that was the case it’s the same for Ukraine who have less troops suffering from poor training and equipment shortages while forced to attack well defended positions.
Nah, I check sources like WSJ, The Economist, and The Telegraph, all rabidly pro Ukrainian. You’re right thought that there’s no point having a discussion with someone like you
Out of curiosity, what exactly are you expecting to happen when Putin dies exactly? Do you realize that Putin is basically a moderate in Russia at this point. You think somebody like Kadyrov or Medvedev is going to have a more moderate policy?
The hardest part of the counteroffensive is the first part, they're pushing into the most heavily defended and fortified territory held by Russia. It will obviously be slow going, until eventually they break through and progress will happen more rapidly after that.
That was never going to happen. The lines have to strongly defended. But it is no assurance of defeat. It only increases the expense and time to recover. And once Ukrainians have some air force capabilities their combined arms offensive capabilities will be much greater.
This uhh. This is just nonsense right? I’m not aware of Ukraine having broken any of the defensive first lines let alone past any of the dragon’s teeth lines. There’s 2 more lines beyond those. Getting past these lines is necessary before getting even 10%, let alone 50%.
Or are they talking about something that happened much earlier? That’s really confusing too because anyone that’s been watching the map trackers knows nothing close to 50% ever happened. Certainly some pushback several months ago but hardly 50% ???
Aight so like 15-20% and he’s referring to something that happened ages ago then. I thought it was kinda weird, I guess they’re not happy about how the current counteroffensive is going either and this kind of statement helps generate headlines that stop people’s support dropping whether it’s actually true or not.
I needed to ask because I wasn’t really sure if I’d just missed something incredibly major somehow.
I mean looking at this video - which is 4 months old now, too - I am eyeballing it but kinda seems like yeah, it could be 40%+? So now it’s 50% maybe, sure.
Huh I guess you can get kinda close to 40% ? I suppose most of us aren’t including the north east withdrawal because it’s largely seen as a distraction and not really a “front” that actually happened, and Kyiv feels like it happened 10 years ago now. It makes sense that Blinken would include the stuff most people wouldn’t think of as having been Ukraine “taking it back” because the bigger number looks good in media.
Lmfao " Kyiv was a feint" do you really believe that? Dude they lost so many VDV the BBC did a piece on it. To say it was just a distraction is bullshit Russian propaganda. They attacked, failed, then retreated and reinforced the areas they were more successful.
Nah I’m not talking about Kyiv. The north east was hardly any troops, no supply, just empty roads that were taken with no resistance. And then they withdrew with no resistance too after the Kyiv attack failed. My point being that it’s hardly worth considering it as having been “taken” in the first place, and most don’t. The Kyiv part itself is fair to bring up, just easy to forget given how long ago it was.
Anyway people should be more concerned about the new russian offensive getting hyped up. A lot of rumours stirring around that look similar to the rumours before Bahkmut right now.
No resistance? They sieged Chernihiv from February 25-March 31.
You count Bakhmut as a Russian victory? Nobody won Bakhmut, Russian expended a massive ammout of manpower and resources for nothing. The front didn’t change in any meaningful way, hell the fact they are struggled so much to reclaim a town they captured in 2014 should tell you how bad things are for Russia. Seriously dude they drafted 300,000 and still the only way they made progress was by throwing prisoners at it.
Also spoiler alert they have been on the offensive this entire time. The only competent people have been removed from power. The one to order defensive lines made and mines laid backed Pringlez. Pringlez is also gone now so yeah I don’t really see this offensive playing out any way.
I didn’t say anything about victories. I couldn’t give a shit about who is winning or losing I would prefer the fighting to stop immediately it’s all a waste of lives and the destruction of families.
I don’t think we should be counting Pringlez as gone, Wagner are training Belarus troops I’m not convinced that he isn’t involved in that given that he moved to Belarus.~
What I’m talking about is the 100k troops and 1k tanks that have been built up for the new Russian push. We might see a big arrow offensive again instead of this attrition stuff that has been going on. It’s all speculation obviously but the telegrams feel a lot like they did before Bahkmut when the rumours were circling that it was going to be next, this makes me think that this is actually going to happen fairly soon. But hey I’ve been wrong before so ehhh
Bit annoying that just having any kind of conversation here gets you downvoted for apparently no reason at all. Weird userbase in this comm, doesn’t happen anywhere else on lemmy.
What false things have I said? The troop build up they’ve been doing has been well known for a long time now, like literally months they’ve been doing this buildup for. Many are talking about it, both pro-russian and pro-ukrainian.
It’s like some of you aren’t actually paying any attention to anything other than ABC/Reuters/CNN. These outlets are useless for speculation content you have to go elsewhere for it.
What are the potential targets of the build-up? Just advancing the line after Ukraine has exhausted a lot of it’s force on its counteroffensive? Or would there be a option between a few cities? Maybe cities that sit in the middle of several supply routes?
Looks like it’s Svatova with a push that looks intended to go towards the Kupyansk direction to me but it’s hard to tell, a big push could change quickly depending on level of resistance and any encirclements that might happen. Assuming they actually broke the line in some way. The Russian attempt to do a big offensive could go as badly as the Ukrainian one, I wouldn’t rule that out with the cluster munitions which could easily slow them down.
I remember reading a Mearsheimer article about the problem with offensives. Whoever defends, traditionally has a 3:1 advantage by virtue of staying still. But in a war like this, that can change from day to day or month to month. So while Ukraine doesn’t seem to be doing much of significance in its counter-offensive, I agree that Russia will have a hard time when it goes on the offensive again.
Still, the problem for Ukraine seems to be its size in comparison tp Russia. Going by the same article, Russia has a 5:1 to 10:1 artillery advantage and a 2:1 casualty rate in its favour. The longer the war, the greater Russia’s advantage, and every offensive and counter-offensive contributes to that advantage. What is 2:1 today will become 3:1, 4:1, etc, as the toll will always be worse for Ukraine, unless something drastic changes, which would come as a surprise if it happens.
As you say elsewhere, it’s all just a massive waste of lives. The sooner the decision-makers realise that and negotiate for peace, the better.
I wouldn’t rule that out with the cluster munitions which could easily slow them down.
Can’t say that would enjoy walking into that kind of maelstrom.
I don’t think size is an issue. You need to think of the war as Ukraine supplying the bodies and the entirety of nato supplying the combined weapons, funding, manufacturing, strategy, intelligence and planning. Ukraine has the bodies necessary to make numerical advantages moot.
I suspect that negotiations won’t come until after this christmas, going into the string of upcoming elections.
The sooner the decision-makers realise that and negotiate for peace, the better.
To decision makers it’s not though, this is the problem. They’re all perfectly happy to sacrifice all these lives, the US warmongers are happy to sacrifice any foreign lives against their adversaries while the Ukrainian bourgeoisie have used the war as cover for some of the most brutal right wing crackdowns I’ve ever seen, complete banning of all left parties, shutdown of media, and the complete and total rollback of 100% of workers rights. They have created a state that allows for absolute maximum exploitation of the people with no left opposition. The ruling class see this as a great win for them, the true-believers of the ideological fascists probably genuinely care about the borders of the nation but the bourgeoisie couldn’t give a fuck. So this leaves it up to the US really when to end the war by allowing negotiations, since its only the west propping up Ukraine that allows it to continue it will always lie in their hands to decide. I suspect that will come with a combination of elections (both US, Ukraine and several in Europe) and them wanting to switch their attention to China.
Can’t say that would enjoy walking into that kind of maelstrom.
It’s an easy way to make progress slow. Just cover the land in deadly munitions. Nevermind the fact that for the next 50 years 98% of the deaths they cause will be civilians :/
Update, movement happening. Maybe not a push to Kupyansk? Borove and Kruhlyakivka look like other possibilities to me. Could be the entire front moves and all of these happen but I suspect it would be one at a time.
There are always evacuations offered by the russians but there’s also always plenty of civilians that do not leave. Either due to age, inability or stubbornness “this is my home”. My understanding is that the Ukrainian side tends not to do this, and has some pretty bad habits of camping out near local civilian populations as a method of deterring missile/artillery fire against their armour. Major civilian buildings like schools and rec centres usually get turned into small bases or supply centres since they’re not being used for anything else when on the front line of a war.
If the rumours are true that Ukraine only has 1 line of defence here then things will move very quickly following a breakthrough like this. But I don’t think anyone really has reliable information on what the trench/defensive lines look like for Ukraine. The Russian defensive lines being 3 layers with shark teeth in between on the other hand is very well understood.
Real shame about the civilians. I can understand the will not to leave one’s home. But imagine just waiting on the edge of a battle not knowing whether the next missile will accidentally land in your flat. Traumatic. I wonder if people’s mind’s protect them by just zoning out the reality of it all.
Strange that the Ukrainians would only have one line. To my knowledge the Soviets learned this tactic fighting the Nazis. I’d have thought the Ukrainian military would not make the same mistakes as the early WWII Soviet army. If they do only have one line, it suggests that resources and reserves are in a dire condition. If Ukraine can only manage one line of defence, it would suggest that the war can’t last much longer, though—and it will be ‘easy’ for Russia to isolate troops and starve them out; and the sooner this shit ends, the better.
I think the concern is less the missiles and more the artillery, which can be fairly inaccurate at times when the wrong numbers get punched in.
To my knowledge the ukrainian doctrine has not changed much at all and still has the soviet structure. They really didn’t have a military to speak of until 2014 happened too, which is why they had the fascist militias fighting the front of the war vs the separatists for so long. Nato have been changing their structure and tactics through external training of specific batallions but I’m not sure we have much idea of whether those are performing any better. Given how poorly the ukrainian offensive went I’m leaning towards nato tactics and structure being completely unprepared for an artillery war and trench battle of this kind. It’s closer to ww1 than anything with heavily dug in lines that spend most of their time looking out at a no man’s land.
I don’t think Russia taking more land will end it. Russia will continue this war until they take Odessa and Mykolaiv to landlock Ukraine. At that point it loses all sovereignty as it will have to negotiate for port usage to export grain. So to be honest unless negotiations open up between the US and RU I expect this to last 1-2 more years at the current pace, especially if every major city takes as long as Bakhmut.
There is a 0% chance Russia has “thousands of functioning tanks” that mysteriously weren’t deemed necessary during their worldwide embarrassment of logistics last year.
I didn’t say thousands. I said a thousand. It’s actually estimated closer to 900 in this buildup along with the 100k troops but that’s neither here nor there really. Maybe if you actually bothered to read or watch anything I send you then you would know this? The issue here is that you’re unwilling to take onboard any information unless it comes from your little circle of neoliberal media sources, which are always late, and always doing an incredibly repetitive narrative that really doesn’t serve to learn or understand much at all. This leaves you completely unaware of what is actually happening.
It’s less that I don’t believe you (or can’t click links) and more that I doubt, severely, Russia’s ability to employ said armor to any degree of effectiveness.
The effectiveness of the armour entirely depends on how many Javelins Ukraine have left in my opinion. These were causing the bulk of Russian losses. The way this has been dragged on and delayed and delayed and delayed could imply that the Russians have been aiming to deplete the supplies and munitions that the Ukrainians have in order to make an offensive viable. The west doesn’t really have much left of this shit to give them either without taking it literally out of the hands of active units. Western manufacturing is not keeping up with the rate at which things are getting used.
I’m not ruling out that their offensive will go as badly as the Ukrainian one. It really depends on what they have left, how many weapons supply dumps the Russians have been managing to destroy with those regular missile attacks, etc etc.
deplete the supplies and munitions that the Ukrainians have in order to make an offensive
Dude this started out with Ukrainians making molotovs. Now they are getting shipments of Bradleys and multiple types of tanks. The west is capable of sustaining Ukraines ammo needs for a while. The US has already went from producing 14k shells a month to 24 with the goal of 85k a month by 2028. That’s just the US, now factor in all the European countries doing the same.
You need to stop listening to whatever sources you are reading.
Fair warning Mercouris is a tory fuckhead. However I suspect that will appeal to a neoliberal like yourself. He’s also a london barrister working in constitutional law and human rights.
With that said, you do seem like a Nick Clegg kinda person. He runs meta as Zuckerberg’s equal these days lmao. Lib dems.
and wavering battle lines do not an offensive make. Can’t hold territory if you can’t resupply.
Yeah that’s fair. But what’s happening is the biggest movement we’ve seen in months, and the numbers flying around (build has been since february) are fine. Like I’ve said elsewhere though I also think it’s possible this offensive will get bogged down in cluster bombs. We shall see.
At least we’re not in the “you’re talking bullshit” headspace now. You at least understand I’m not just making shit up.
He’s a bigger warmonger, a bigger strikebreaker, doesn’t want universal free at point of service healthcare, starts more wars, and keeps more children in cages. Although with our new prison boat they’re certainly trying to catch up.
I’m fairly confident Biden would be fine if I was shot for climbing on a weapons factory roof and smashing the building up, that or guantanamo’d. We do it on the regular and far from getting shot we don’t even get prosecuted. Been doing it to Elbit factories that make weapons for Israel for over a year and a half now without a single prosecution.
I think a fairly good litmus test for “who is further right” is to check which one of them would disappear me to a blacksite for being an effective leftist, and that isn’t the tories I’m afraid mate. America has marched incredibly far right. It has no left, not electorally anyway, local wins excluded.
Is it crazy if we’ve permanently shut down 3 factories and an office? It’s been working and will continue until every single Israeli weapons factory in Britain is gone.
This is since the invasion began, counting from Russia’s deepest gains into Ukrainian territory. So, this is everything that Ukraine has managed to do against the world’s second largest military. While currently there haven’t been any spectacular gains, the Ukraine has been steadily grinding the land back from the invaders and combined the amount now adds up to 50% retaken.
Meaning the job is half done, but also half finished.
This boundless optimism is so strange. Using something that was so long ago now for propaganda in the present is super misleading. Until we see a breakthrough of the defensive lines, literally just 1 layer of a line would be a good start let alone all 3 layers I can’t really agree with anyone that thinks much is going to happen from the ukrainian side. If/when that does happen I’d be happy to reassess.
Not really. It’s an overall view of the progress to date. The liberation of Ukrainian territory is an continuous and ongoing process and it’s half done. The only super misleading part has been thinking that Russia would give up on its latest bout of imperialism so quickly. America is going to keep supplying Ukraine with weapons because by doing so they are absolutely wrecking their #1 enemy on the cheap.
Russia is fucked. Even if they beat Ukraine their invasion has caused NATO to expand its direct contact with Russia from over 1000km. Russian threw away decades of goodwill and cause economic cooperation with the West to completely die out. Russia was on the verge of being Europe’s OPEC and all of that potential to make their nation better has been utterly lost.
No one is going to trust Russia for at least another full generation.
Mate I don’t know why you’ve said half this shit. I talked about none of that. It’s like you’re talking at me rather than with me. US weapons? Who said anything about america? It’s like you’re reading off a script instead of actually responding to what I’ve said. I’m glad that you’re really excited to see loads of people die but like, actually talk to me instead of soapboxing.
Maybe. It’s a bizarre response that hardly has anything to do with what I was saying, I just assumed it was someone that really wanted to say all these things that we’ve heard from neoliberals and the media like a billion times already. Like, ok?
The job is not at all half finished. There is a massive difference between taking back territory Russia strategically chose to withdraw from following their failure to advance further and taking back territory they have claimed as an integral part of their nation and will fight tooth and nail to defend.
American commenting from across the pond, but it this looks like an attempt to give rhetorical cover to further immigration restrictions specifically targeted at North Africa, expanding their policies through the cooperation of other EU members.
Italy may need immigrants, but from what I've seen thus far, her government only wants those are who are white and straight.
They never seem to end this sentence with “so we’re spending the money to be able to process all legal applications as fast as possible and creating a new legal immigration pathway for good people fleeing hard circumstances”
I love boosting good news, especially given the enormous amount of Russian disinformation surrounding the "failure" and "slow going" of the offensive.
It was never going to be quick, or easy, and I think that the extraordinary successes of earlier Ukrainian counter-offensives set expectations higher than the reality on the ground.
But in the balance, Ukraine went from having half its territory captured by the 2nd strongest army in the world to knocking them back on their knees and retaking half of what was lost in the space of less than two years. That's an incredible success in the face of overwhelming odds, even with NATO and EU support. One only has to look at the Russian takeovers in Eastern Europe after WWII to get a sense of how unique it is that Ukraine was able to not only resist, but drive back the invaders.
From California and all Americans who support freedom, Слава Україні!
It also ignores war aren’t always won by taking and holding territory: many are won by simply outlasting the enemy’s willingness or ability to maintain the conflict.
Russia took quite a bit of territory in the northern parts early on, which Ukraine have since taken back. They’ve also taken some ground back that was lost a few years ago from the east.
As long as there are capitalists around to parasitize off people there will be fascists to protect them from people doing something about it. That’s their one trick… and that’s why it’s still working.
Lmfao I knew I recognised that name from somewhere…
However your link is weird for me, had to copy the text and paste it to view. Otherwise it just comes up as https://<myinstance>/post/url. Maybe because your original federated post was deleted or something?
Kbin is weird and janky with its federation to lemmy.
It's a combination of failed education and the social network hype. People here don't recognize manipulative writings from independent news anymore. The social networks additionally stir people up with their dumbed down political shows, populism and lies.
“We all know the reasons but I’m not allowed to say it” is a well known dogwhistle meaning “It’s the immigrants and the evil elites not only ignoring these very real problems but actively trying to replace us all with easier to manipulate stupid foreigners”. And of course they are right with the second part… saying that bullshit out loud will indeed earn them insults and being called right-wing nutjobs.
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