Who's winning the war in Ukraine?

Rozz , 6 months ago

To add to what a lot of people said, it seems that Ukraine is doing better, but Russia has more people / convicts / anti-fascists to (arrest then) throw at the other side. When the support for Ukraine dries up is a key question too.

Kuori , 6 months ago

if by “doing better” you mean conscripting women and children then yeah, ukraine is kicking ass

someguy3 , 6 months ago

Well Russia holds a good amount of Ukrainian land. The fighting is essentially a stalemate. Russia may have “won” that land.

No one may win any more sizable land moves. For future fighting we’ll have to see. Ukraine relies on Western support because Russia is a bigger economy and bigger population. We’ll have to see how Western support continues and how the Russian economy proceeds with sanctions.

yogthos , 6 months ago

The whole stalemate narrative is pure nonsense. Russia has a much bigger army at this point and its military production is outpacing what the west is able to provide by a wide margin. Ukraine is now conscripting children, women, and the elderly because they lost most of their existing army over the past six months trying to break through Russian defences. Russia is now on the offensive all across the front and rapidly taking territory already. Now that the mud season is over, it’s almost certain that we’ll see a big offensive against a depleted and demoralized army. Hence why Stoltenberg is now saying to expect bad news from Ukraine politico.eu/…/nato-boss-jens-stoltenberg-warns-of…

someguy3 , 6 months ago

Wars develop in phases," Stoltenberg said in an interview Saturday with German broadcaster ARD. “We have to support Ukraine in both good and bad times,” he said.

"We should also be prepared for bad news,” Stoltenberg added, without being more specific.

The front lines have moved little in recent months despite Kyiv’s counteroffensive during the summer. But the Ukrainians have used cruise missiles to push back the Russian fleet in the Black Sea and have caused damage deep in Russian territory

Your link does not carry the tone you had.

yogthos , 6 months ago

If you still don’t understand why Stoltenberg says to prepare for bad news you will soon.

someguy3 , 6 months ago

“also” and “prepare” in the context of the article sounds very much like prepare for anything, good or bad. Not the tone you had, It may come to pass, it may not, it may go back and forth (you know, phases). The absolute certainty with which you speak is not presented in your link. (Is this where you spam links? Well, cheers.)

yogthos , 6 months ago

I mean if you just expect Stoltenberg to just come out and say Ukraine lost after him prancing for a year and a half telling us how Ukraine is wining, don’t know what else to tell you. Seems that some people aren’t capable of critical thought and can’t accept reality until it hits them in the face. cheers.

TheMechanic , 6 months ago

There has been some good answers, but I’m not entirely satisfied with the details, so I will add my own response.

Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.

Russia sees the former Soviet Union countries as property of the Rus people, and NATO involvement as outsider influence in affairs that do not concern them.

Globally, the world values stability more than they value justice or peace. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, it came after several other invasions of other former Soviet countries. There was little global response on any occasion.

Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.

This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability. Gas, oil and grain were traded openly with Russia and Ukraine and a war upset the market right when the world was trying to stabilise markets rocked by inflation, pandemic recovery and suppy chain problems.

The result was many countries around the world pledging military support. This was always older generation materiel which essentially costs those countries to maintain. It was the global equivalent of giving a homeless man the doggy bag you didn’t want anyway.

Why did they do this? They wanted Russia to pull back, return to its 2014 lines and go back to stability so that global markets could resume. So they gave Ukraine just enough to defend itself, but not enough to win.

Why did they do this? Because the world wants stability more than peace. Of the pledges of materiel, almost none has actually come to fruition. About 1/4 of the armor promised has arrived that was promised. Ukraine continues to beg for alms (or in this case arms), and they do amazing things with the little they are given.

Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win. They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence. It does not in this case as the World is only just coming to terms that Russia will not stop just for stability.

Putin will cease to be leader if he pulls back. The Russian leader would be seen as weak, and the Russian culture loves a Tsar. Putin believes in luck and will continue the sunk cost in the hope that some outside factor or random event will go in his favor.

The West is already getting bored and tired of a war they aren’t even fighting. There is a possibility that pro-Russian Republicans could regain office or power in the US. All Putin has to do is hold and eventually the West will even start telling Ukraine to capitulate to them.

Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn’t really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.

This current grinding stalemate is a direct result of world policy. The world supplies Ukraine with just enough so they don’t lose, but not enough that they can win. In the meantime, the arms dealers are circling like sharks. India and China are cashing in on filling global supply gaps and taking advantage of Russias need for materiel frozen by sanctions. The hope would be that world leaders realise before it’s too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.

yogthos , 6 months ago

Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.

Except that now we have Ukrainian chief negotiator having come out and openly admitted that Russia and Ukraine were on a verge of making a deal back in last March before Boris Johnson sabotaged it. The only reason this was is still going on is because the west couldn’t accept peace and decided to cynically push Ukraine into further conflict.

The result was many countries around the world pledging military support.

What actually happened was that NATO countries wanted to break and balkanize Russia, which was openly said by lots of western officials. The west made a mistake thinking that they could easily break Russian economy using sanctions while using Ukraine as a proxy without having to put NATO boots on the ground. Now we’re seeing this massively backfire with western economies going into a recession while Russian economy is now growing.

Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win.

They literally can’t, and even NATO officials now admit that the west lacks industrial capacity to keep up with Russia even in basic things such as shell production.

They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence.

This is not a problem that can be fixed by throwing money at it. This requires building factories, training workers, creating supply chains and so on. These things simply can’t be done overnight. All throwing money at the problem does is raise prices as anybody with even a modicum of economic knowledge could’ve predicted

In October, NATO’s senior military officer, Adm. Rob Bauer, said that the price for one 155mm shell had risen from 2,000 euros ($2,171) at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion to 8,000 euros ($8,489.60).

Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn’t really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.

How to say you’re a racist without saying you’re a racist.

The hope would be that world leaders realise before it’s too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.

There was never any scenario in which Ukraine could win and it’s absolutely incredible that western propaganda machine managed to convince so many people of this insane fantasy. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians lost their lives in a NATO proxy war with Russia, and Ukraine will likely cease to exist as a functioning state at the end of all this. All for the insatiable need for NATO expansion. Stoltenberg finally let the cat out of the bag and told us that this was the real reason for the war:

The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.

Tar_alcaran , 6 months ago

Except that now we have Ukrainian chief negotiator having come out and openly admitted that Russia and Ukraine were on a verge of making a deal back in last March before Boris Johnson sabotaged it.

Source? Because the only “deal” I can find is basically a surrender of Crimea and the Donbas in 2022.

Now we’re seeing this massively backfire with western economies going into a recession while Russian economy is now growing.

Again, source? Sure, this is true if you look at single numbers, but there are huge difference between Europe shifting away from over a decade of quantitative easing and into repair mode, and Russia who is nationalizing businesses left and right and forcing companies to sell them foreign currencies at a discount to prop up the ruble. The need for foreign capital is so massive, due to capital flight, you can land 15% interest in Russia right now.

The three things propping up the Russian economy are the high oil price, China and massive government intervention.

even NATO officials now admit that the west lacks industrial capacity to keep up with Russia even in basic things such as shell production.

Because lobbing shells at eachother is Soviet doctrine, not NATO. NATO doctrine is to bomb the everloving shit out of someone with massive air superiority. If NATO decided to send 200 F35s to Ukraine, there would be no need to more 155mm shells.

And because it’s not doctrine, nobody really wants to build more artillery factories that will sell great now, and get mothballed in 5 years. If Russia steps into NATO territory, those factories will sprout like mushrooms, but it’s simply a bad business decision to do so now.

He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe

And tell me, when a dictator known for annexing other countries demands appeasement, how effective has that been historically? I don’t even need Czechoslovakia for this example, although it’s a classic. Did Russia stop after, say, two Chechen wars, Georgia, Abkhazia?

“There wouldn’t have been a war if putin got what he wanted without one” is a shit take

lhotze , 6 months ago

Funny how you request sources to one argument but swallow the other without question and provide none for your counter arguments.

yogthos , 6 months ago

Source? Because the only “deal” I can find is basically a surrender of Crimea and the Donbas in 2022.

aaronmate.net/…/ukraines-top-negotiator-confirms

Again, source?

• bloomberg.com/…/russia-s-war-economy-sees-key-sec…
• cnbc.com/…/euro-zone-enters-recession-after-germa…
• bloomberg.com/…/finland-s-economy-shrinks-most-si…
• euronews.com/…/german-economy-shrinks-as-househol…

Europe is in deep shit because it got cut off from cheap pipeline gas. Plain and simple. Now, Europe is forced to buy LNG on the spot market at an order of magnitude higher price, and a large chunk of this LNG still comes from Russia. The only difference is that now it’s sold through middlemen at even higher markup. German industry is no longer competitive with China, and it’s now shutting down

• latimes.com/…/germany-budget-crisis-worlds-worst-…
• theguardian.com/…/why-germanys-once-miracle-econo…

The three things propping up the Russian economy are the high oil price, China and massive government intervention.

Russian factory activity grew at fastest pace in over six years in September. This should not be a surprise to anyone because western companies left a void that’s now being filled domestically

reuters.com/…/russian-factory-activity-grows-fast…

On the other hand, US manufacturing output actually shrank to lowest in three years

bloomberg.com/…/us-manufacturing-activity-shrinks…

Because lobbing shells at eachother is Soviet doctrine, not NATO. NATO doctrine is to bomb the everloving shit out of someone with massive air superiority. If NATO decided to send 200 F35s to Ukraine, there would be no need to more 155mm shells.

Because lobbing shells is what actually works. Vast majority of casualties in the war come from artillery fire. That’s the reality. All the magic NATO wunderwaffe failed to make any visible impact in the conflict. IF NATO decided to send 200 F35s to Ukraine, they would just be shot down by Russian air defence. Also, the fact that you think F35s would make any difference in this kind of war shows your profound lack of understanding of the subject you’re attempting to debate here.

And because it’s not doctrine, nobody really wants to build more artillery factories that will sell great now, and get mothballed in 5 years.

NATO isn’t building artillery factories because NATO shipped all its industry overseas and isn’t capable for producing the basics that any army needs.

And tell me, when a dictator known for annexing other countries demands appeasement, how effective has that been historically? I

Once again you show deep and profound ignorance of the subject you’re opining on. To help you get a bit of an understanding, let’s take a look at a few slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and a proponent of US global hegemony. First, here’s the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/9881f4d9-5023-4c4a-8379-779cc4776e1e.png

here’s how the election in 2004 went:

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/f081fe2a-a9fe-473b-99bc-162d4c405ae4.png

this is the 2010 election:

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/1471241b-e5ee-4eec-8465-10708deb1726.png

As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/0dc6494d-a490-44a5-9038-c6c6e1e22709.png

Ukraine is clearly not some homogeneous blob, but a large country with complex cultural and ethnic situations.

In fact, what we see in Ukraine is directly modelled on what NATO did in Yugoslavia where NATO recognized breakaway regions and then had them invite NATO to help break up Yugoslavia. Russia recognized LPR and DPR and then had them invite Russia to help. So, if you want to know how that works out then you can look at modern Serbia and the breakway regions.

“There wouldn’t have been a war if putin got what he wanted without one” is a shit take

There wouldn’t be a war if NATO just got to do what it wanted is the only shit take here.

TheSanSabaSongbird , 6 months ago

This is quite the work of fiction you’ve written here. I wouldn’t even know where to start with all of your lies.

yogthos , 6 months ago

Literally provided sources, but you keep on living in your fantasy wonderland buddy.

grue , 6 months ago

This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability.

I think the fact that Kyiv didn’t fall within hours like everybody thought it would, and the morale/inspiration/call to action effect of “I need ammunition, not a ride,” shouldn’t be taken lightly either.

TheMechanic , 6 months ago

I agree. Ukraine did a great job in preparing for an inevitable invasion. Zelensky is the reason the preparations succeeded.

Tylerdurdon , 6 months ago

I agree with what you said and appreciate the insight. Thanks for writing it.

I think part of it from Russia’s side is definitely an attempt to rebuild Stalin’s buffer to the west, but there are echoes of the appeasement that took place before WW2. Crimea was quick and done.

Then, it’s a repeat years later in an attempt to grab more. Thing is, since then there was a lot of election tampering in the form of misinformation and it continues as an attempt to turn Americans against each other. Russia is waging war via the Internet and it’s working.

I think the US government is unable to control it because there is no direct control of social media companies, and social media companies are ineffective. Their interests are purely financial and to truly be effective, it would require significant investment.

The US is instead providing just enough support, but I think it’s purposely done. What happens if they were to provide double? Ukraine pushes Russia back to the border and then what? They continue forward? That’s WW3. Even if they stop at the border, Putin may be forced to stop and may lose power. Then you’re dealing with a potentially worse successor who wants to destroy at all costs…again a dangerous unknown.

They’re doing it this way on purpose to bleed Russia slowly over time. Russia expected to drive a 40 mile column into the capital and finish fast. A long war is not sustainable for Russia economically and the population isn’t interested either (as shown by the huge expatriation that took place when conscription was announced).

If enough western countries continue to provide arms, it will damage Russia for a long time to come.

ksynwa , 6 months ago

Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.

I was wondering if you could provide something to back this up since these are rather sweeping claims.

The only thing I can think of that comes close is Dugin’s writings but I have never seen anything that could suggest that his ideas are widely accepted or adopted as the state’s doctrines.

TheSanSabaSongbird , 6 months ago

Timothy Snyder makes a pretty convincing case for it in “The Road to Unfreedom.” It was published in 2018 so probably written in 2016 and 2017 at the latest, and it looks ridiculously prescient now.

ksynwa , 6 months ago

Can you help me towards some starting points in the book where he explains this? Here are some digital copies of the book in case you don’t have one at hand: libgen.is/search.php?req=the+road+to+unfreedom&lg…

TheSanSabaSongbird , 6 months ago

This seems mostly right, but I want to add a few points.

The first is that the Ukrainians won’t stop fighting if the west stops supporting them. They may suffer some severe defeats and the nature of the war may shift to being more of a guerrilla insurgency, but they won’t stop fighting.

The second is that even if the US withdraws support, it’s not likely that European nations will necessarily follow, and between Germany and the UK and France, the Europeans can easily continue to support Ukraine at or above current levels.

My final point is that Ukraine actually is making slow progress in pushing back the Russians, it’s just not going anywhere near as fast as anyone would like.

I also really dislike the term “stalemate” because it implies a static state of affairs as in a chess game where there are only so many pieces and moves, when in fact war is much different in the sense that additional pieces and moves can and probably will be added to the equation.

tryptaminev , 6 months ago

But the EU countries also dont want Ukraine to decisively push the Russians out. The longer the war goes, the more Russia will weaken itself, being less of a threat in the long run.

Also Germany is a puppet of the US, when it comes to military decisions. They will do what the US tells them to do and if Trump tells them to kiss Putins ass they will do that. They already did that before without the US telling them.

toastus , 6 months ago

This post is pure and unadulterated bullshit.

Germany didn’t go to Iraq with the US.
Germany will never stop supporting Ukraine.

You are full of shit.

tryptaminev , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Then why did Germany hesitate to promise equipment and unserselivered on its promises?

Also Germany did nit put boots on the ground in Iraq, which would be unconstitutional anyways, but it did provide extensive support to the US. US army bases in Germany were integral to the logistics and control of the US invasion. Germany did everything it could to support the Iraq invasion within its own legal limits.

Before swinging big accusations, maybe consider judging politics by actions instead of words

yogthos , 6 months ago

examples of Russia weakening itself

• reuters.com/…/russian-factory-activity-grows-fast…
• bloomberg.com/…/russia-s-war-economy-sees-key-sec…

perhaps you were thinking of the US?

• bloomberg.com/…/us-manufacturing-activity-shrinks…

bigkahuna1986 , 6 months ago

The US Military Industrial Complex of course.

Subject6051 OP , 6 months ago

100%! I think most people would agree with you there.

doublejay1999 , 6 months ago

Unlike everyone here, I have no idea.

wintermute_oregon , 6 months ago

Right now I am hearing ever louder calls of Russia winning, those have existed forever, but they seem to have grown louder now, so I was wondering what you thought about it.

Where are you hearing that? I have not heard that Russia is taking a pounding and so is Ukraine.

Right now, it’s a stalemate.

It is a war of attrition at this point and if it drags out long enough, Russia wins because they have more people to throw at the war.

I do not think the F-16 is going to make a large difference in the war. People who never served are the ones thinking it’ll change the war.

The question is how long can the Russian soldiers hold out? I do believe once Ukraine breaks through the lines will collapse quickly but they’ve yet to break through.

I do think NATO has done a disservice in training the Ukrainian military to fight a combined arms fight but then not supplying them with the weapons to fight a combined arms fight.

I personally think Ukraine will win but it is going to be a long fight.

jaidyn999 , 6 months ago

Given that it is essentially a proxy war between the US and Russia, its quite possible the war could end without either side actually “winning”.

Obviously the US will continue to support the war for as long as possible, and if that means turning ukraine to ash and destroying the economies of western europe, well that is a price they are willing to pay.

There are still shortages in Russia and if the gas and electricty shortages continue through winter that could be devastating in Russia. It wouldn’t take that much to tip the country into chaos, what the response of the Russian govt to Ukraine would be - possibly using their really large missiles that can wipe out a whole village - is completely unknown.

We don’'t really understand the mentality of the Ukraine govt. The fact that many western weapons seem to go missing before they reach the front and the coincidence of the Azerbaijan getting a pile of muntions just after deliveries to Ukraine may indicate that the aims of the Ukraine govt may not totally align with those of western europe.

Tarte , 6 months ago

The fact that many western weapons seem to go missing before they reach the front and the coincidence of the Azerbaijan getting a pile of muntions just after deliveries to Ukraine may indicate that the aims of the Ukraine govt may not totally align with those of western europe.

Or it might indicate that you‘re somewhat gullible and consume too much propaganda.

Ilovethebomb , 6 months ago

Define “winning”.

Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.

Subject6051 OP , 6 months ago

Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.

Really? I was hearing the opposite all this while. PS: Slowly and very painfully, fuck, I wish there was an end to this war and we could return to status quo!

Ilovethebomb , 6 months ago

I was hearing the opposite all this while.

From where? There are multiple, reasonably reputable maps available that show the lines, and regardless of who the map makers support, they have to be accurate because of how easily they can be proven wrong if they make false claims.

Besides, much like Vietnam, or the many wars in Afghanistan, victory won’t happen on the battlefield, it will happen when the invader finally gets tired of paying the price of war.

Subject6051 OP , 6 months ago

From where?

Indian media mainly, I haven’t explored out of the Indian media bubble though.

Ilovethebomb , 6 months ago

Interesting. I know they’ve historically been close to Russia, I didn’t realise they still had so much support.

Waker , 6 months ago

India is absolutely leaning (hard) towards Russia. They probably never bought gas/oil and fertiliser so cheap.

GammaGames , 6 months ago

I watch this channel for daily updates: youtube.com/

It obviously leans pretty heavily pro-Ukrainian, but it seems to do the daily updates accurately enough from the times I’ve double checked.

Powerpoint , 6 months ago

You might be stuck in an alt right algorithm.

bionicjoey , 6 months ago

Or possibly a tankie one

Omega_Haxors , 6 months ago

Tankie is to liberals as woke is to conservatives but y’all aren’t ready for that conversation

fruitycoder , 6 months ago

Tankie seems more targeted then woke. Woke is everything left of Reagan sometimes.

Tankie is, at it’s most general, anyone supporting authoritarian measures for “left” wing reasons.

Omega_Haxors , 6 months ago

As if. I seen someone call JT tankie in that famous Hasan clip.

It’s literally just “you’re to the left of me and I don’t like it”

fruitycoder , 6 months ago

Jt does support statist solutions. I mean so do I so yeah he’s not a tankie to me, but for some anarchy is the only acceptable end game.

Again it’s not generally a “too left” thing, but “too authoritarian” thing.

Omega_Haxors , 6 months ago

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️

lurch , 6 months ago

From euronews news bulletins I know Ukraine has crossed the dnipro and cleared a stable bridge head to get more troops to that russian occupied side. Also they said that nuklear reactor the russians occupied, near the front, is in danger again, because it has been cut off from electricity and had to run gasoline generators to cool it.

This shows ukraine is advancing slowly.

ErC , 6 months ago

Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground

That doesn’t seem right. In 2023 they actually lost more ground than they gained. At least that was the situation until this september, but i don’t think there where significant developments in the last 2 months.

wewbull , 6 months ago

The numbers are so small, it’s not an argument worth having. What is certainly true is that Russia is sending wave upon wave of men to their death against Ukrainian defences. All for very little gain. Russia lost more people in November than any month so far in this conflict, and any month during Afghanistan. The numbers are horrific. Putin has just ordered another round of drafting, and they were scraping the barrel last time.

yogthos , 6 months ago

Could you point to where Ukraine is actually gaining ground. Last I checked, Russia gained more ground than Ukraine in the past six months.

wewbull , 6 months ago

South of Orikhiv: deepstatemap.live/en#9/47.5023/35.8704

South of the Dneipro River deepstatemap.live/en#9/46.6589/32.7036

South of Bakhmut deepstatemap.live/en#10/48.4939/37.9399

There’s not a lot of recent movement from either side. The Russians are dug in, and the conditions are awful. Still, Russia are losing men at horrific rates, higher than at any point upto now.

yogthos , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

If you look at liveuamap which is a pro western source, it’s pretty clearly that Russia is on the offensive all across the front liveuamap.com

Meanwhile, NYT has a helpful chart showing territorial changes over the summer archive.ph/U3BzJ

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/f90cd2ef-9577-4f03-8bf1-e1f2003805d3.png

Russian army is currently routing Ukrainians in Avdiivka as we speak, and this a large city that had population over 30 thousand before the war. This also happens to be the part of Ukraine’s only fortified line.

reuters.com/…/whats-stake-russias-assault-avdiivk…

The Russians are dug in, and the conditions are awful. Still, Russia are losing men at horrific rates, higher than at any point upto now.

That’s weird, because the only actual western source that shows any methodology puts total Russian casualties at 38 thousand, meanwhile even western sources now admit that Ukrainian casualties are now at well over a 100 thousand

en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng

Oh and here’s how things are going south of Dnieper www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67565508

"The entire river crossing is under constant fire. I’ve seen boats with my comrades on board just disappear into the water after being hit, lost forever to the Dnipro river.

"We must carry everything with us - generators, fuel and food. When you’re setting up a bridgehead you need a lot of everything, but supplies weren’t planned for this area.

"We thought after we made it there the enemy would flee and then we could calmly transport everything we needed, but it didn’t turn out that way.

“When we arrived on the [eastern] bank, the enemy were waiting. Russians we managed to capture said their forces were tipped off about our landing so when we got there, they knew exactly where to find us. They threw everything at us - artillery, mortars and flame thrower systems. I thought I’d never get out.”

Seems like things along the other parts of the front are going about the same archive.ph/…/ukraine-counteroffensive-stalled-rus…

• Seventy percent of troops in one of the brigades leading the counteroffensive, and equipped with the newest Western weapons, entered battle with no combat experience.
• Ukraine’s setbacks on the battlefield led to rifts with the United States over how best to cut through deep Russian defenses.
• The commander of U.S. forces in Europe couldn’t get in touch with Ukraine’s top commander for weeks in the early part of the campaign amid tension over the American’s second-guessing of battlefield decisions.
• Each side blamed the other for mistakes or miscalculations. U.S. military officials concluded that Ukraine had fallen short in basic military tactics, including the use of ground reconnaissance to understand the density of minefields. Ukrainian officials said the Americans didn’t seem to comprehend how attack drones and other technology had transformed the battlefield.
• In all, Ukraine has retaken only about 200 square miles of territory, at a cost of thousands of dead and wounded and billions in Western military aid in 2023 alone.

Sounds like Ukraine is doing pretty great there.

remotelove , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Russian army is currently routing Ukrainians in Avdiivka as we speak

Not hardly. Russian sources keep misreporting this battle. The coke plant is a great example: How many times has it been “taken”? Was capturing it once not enough? That kind of location doesn’t switch hands on a whim, btw.

The troop movements by Russia into that city are horrendous. The sheer numbers of soldiers that get turned into paste while charging into useless locations already zeroed by artillery is just weird.

A proven fact of war is that attackers are always at a disadvantage. Troop losses will be generally be much higher for any side that goes on the offense. The number 38k is just mind boggling low for the length of time it takes for Russia to take a city, especially against western weapons.

If 38k losses for Russia were actually a thing, there would be no need to increase their army size. Medvedev stated that Russia was able to recruit an additional 420k soldiers. That number is probably only about 100k, because Russia has their own numbering system for a lot of things.

Wagner alone lost ~10k prisoner conscripts in Bakhmut. Depending on the weather, or whatever, Wagner existed, or they never existed. Those numbers don’t count as Russians, I guess.

If you want a much better source of evil western fake data and propaganda, use the ISW. They also confirmed a NATO statement about Russia being at the 300k loss mark. understandingwar.org/…/ukraine-conflict-updates

Normally, I would say that 300k is likely over-inflated as well. However, just looking at how attacks are conducted by Russia makes that number believable.

yogthos , 6 months ago

Not hardly. Russian sources keep misreporting this battle. The coke plant is a great example: How many times has it been “taken”? Was capturing it once not enough? That kind of location doesn’t switch hands on a whim, btw.

Even Ukrainian sources admit this now. Given that Ukraine spent six month trying to take a place called Piatykhatky which literally translates into five huts, the fact that Russia is now close to taking a city that used to have 30k people before the war, and has been heavily fortified shows which side is making actual progress.

The troop movements by Russia into that city are horrendous. The sheer numbers of soldiers that get turned into paste while charging into useless locations already zeroed by artillery is just weird.

Ah yes, bazillion Russians killed, asiatic hordes, and orc meat wave tactics. We’ve heard all that. By this point Russia must’ve lost like a 100 million people already.

A proven fact of war is that attackers are always at a disadvantage.

People keep regurgitating this, but that only applies to equal armies where the defender actually has weapons and troops to match. Russia massively outguns Ukraine, and vast majority of losses in this war are to artillery fire. If you actually wanted to understand what’s going on, you could read this explanation from Mearsheimer that’s well sourced.

The reality is that Russia enjoys roughly 10x artillery advantage over Ukraine, and that results in far greater casualties on the Ukrainian side. Ukraine has gone through three whole armies already, and they’re now literally mobilizing children, women, and the elderly. Meanwhile, Russia has only done a single mobilization in this whole time.

The number 38k is just mind boggling low for the length of time it takes for Russia to take a city, especially against western weapons.

38k number is total Russian losses since the start of the war.

If you want a much better source of evil western fake data and propaganda, use the ISW.

ISW is not a reliable source by any stretch of imagination. It’s Nuland’s personal propaganda outlet. There is literally zero evidence for Russian losses being anywhere near 300k. BBC and Mediazona are the only western outlets that have a methodology they can show.

remotelove , 6 months ago

Assuming that everything we both are saying is false, the fact remains that Russia hasn’t hardly been able to move the lines at all. You can flash that chart you want with land gains from 2023, but it doesn’t really apply.

Russia is still an attacking force, they are still the invaders and they are locked in a slow stalemate with a much smaller force. Russia does have many more resources, so it must be their choice to have stretched this conflict out for as long as it has been going, for whatever reason. (Without a doubt, you have a long list of counter arguments and media links to the contrary. Even your boy Rybar doesn’t align with what you are saying.)

I respect the work of Mediazona to a degree, but they are open about their inaccuracies. They appear to define “casualties” as only deaths. Of those deaths, they are only counting verified ones from social media, local news and from government sources that aren’t named. If they aren’t counting a casualty in the true definition of a “war casualty”, the numbers are going to be different. (Their own estimates put true numbers of deaths around 55k in July which would put allow for a wider casualty estimate of around 165k casualties. You use the napkin math of 1:3, killed:removed from battle permanently)

“The figures we provide are sourced from publicly available information, including social media posts from family members, local media coverage, and official statements from local authorities. However, these figures represent only a partial account and do not reflect the full extent of the casualties.”

And yeah, it’s the Russian M.O. to use mass instead of quality. It’s their thing. Little value is placed on a single soldier or even an artillery shell. That concept is baked into all of their military hardware designs and strategy.

yogthos , 6 months ago

Russia’s goal hasn’t been to move the lines. Their goal is to grind down Ukrainian army until it collapses. You don’t have to take my word for it, this was the assessment of U.S. Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin retired after 20 years of service, including eight years as an armor officer with four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and 12 years working as a modeling and simulations officer in NATO and U.S. Army concept development and experimentation. This assessment is shared by vast majority of military experts:

www.russiamatters.org/…/whats-ahead-war-ukraine

Russia is still an attacking force, they are still the invaders and they are locked in a slow stalemate with a much smaller force.

That’s a simplistic characterization. The reality is that both sides do their share of attacks. For example, if Russia takes a bit of territory then Ukraine is forced to try and take it back. Ukraine has also conducted a huge offensive over the past six months on a far bigger scale than anything Russia’s done so far, and if attacking is what nets you a lot of losses then this would be the biggest source of casualties over the course of the war.

I don’t really follow Rybar, I haven’t found them to be all that reliable. People like Vershinin, Macgregor, Berletic, and Mearsheimer have been consistently decent at explaining what’s happening, and what they’ve been predicting would happen actually aligns with what we’re seeing. Telegram channels are simply not comparable to actual experts.

55k deaths with 165k wounded is certainly a plausible number in my opinion. However, even with these numbers, Russia clearly has no problems growing the size of the army. Meanwhile, Ukraine has a much smaller population to draw on, and many people fled the country at the start of the war making the situation worse. The fact that Ukraine keeps expanding the mobilization efforts is a strong indicator of serious losses.

Ukraine has three major problems. First is that it’s entirely reliant on the west economically, and support is now dwindling. Second is that Ukraine is also reliant on the west for weapons and ammunition which are running out. Especially problematic given that the west is refocusing it’s support to backing Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Finally, Ukraine is running out of a trained and motivated soldiers needed to hold the army together. Once the professional core is gone, it can’t simply be replaced by people kidnapped off the street and given a few weeks of training.

And yeah, it’s the Russian M.O. to use mass instead of quality.

It’s absolutely not their thing, and it’s just another piece of western mythology. You should read a bit of actual history of WW2 to see this has no basis in reality.

mp3 , 6 months ago

It’s mostly a war of attrition now, whoever can hold the stalemate longer than the other before everything unravels will win.

Rentlar , 6 months ago

I’m not qualified to speak on this. It is however my opinion that in war, nobody wins, but military suppliers make bank.

To answer “who’s winning” can vary based on what “winning” is looks like, or what the goals were. As others have pointed out those goals have changed over time.

For a play by play recap I listen to Denys Davydov… He seems upfront about both Ukranian and Russian victories in his analysis based on various video, image and map reports, even if he supports the Ukraine side.

Tum , 6 months ago

While Denys can often provide good coverage on Ukraine, I suggest avoiding him, as at the outbreak of the situation in Gaza and Israel, he shared many videos of Palestinian kids and women running from artillery under the captions like “watch how the roaches scatter”.

Rentlar , 6 months ago

Well you pose a fair point, but you can also ignore him for matters outside of Ukraine.

Maoo , 6 months ago

Well Ukraine itself is definitely losing. They will probably lose territory to Poland as well if this keeps up and they have sold their country out to capitalists, mostly Americans. Loans, land, industries, etc all to pay for “their” war effort. The common Ukrainian is who suffers the most under this. They will be more exploited (paid less for the value of their labor), see more social programs dismantled, and go into a serious recession/depression that may not lift for decades.

Russia is doing okay. The US is pulling Europe more into its orbit (making them pay more for less from the US while losing a lot of their industry), which is a loss for Russia, but that was the remand endgame of the US anyways. What was surprising, at least to some, was the extent to which Russia could survive and even thrive when subjected to the most significant financial weapons the West has. Overall their economy is certainly in a better place now and a chunk of Ukraine will be theirs and the other chunk will be weak. This is a victory for the ruling class of Russia and its overall geopolitical self-interest.

The US ruling class is making out like bandits as usual, funding its weapons industry, basically a cash injection for the owner class and the only thing the US ever reliably does (threaten its chosen enemies with destruction).

Silverseren , 6 months ago

Sorry, but we really weren't interested in hearing about the warped worldview of tankies in this thread.

Gosplan14_the_Third , 6 months ago

They will probably lose territory to Poland as well if this keeps up

Sigh

No they won’t. It was a fringe position in the Polish far-right before the election and now that the libs have won it’s even less likely to happen.

GivingEuropeASpook , 6 months ago

Also Russia is totally cooking the books/cozying up to China as the lesser power in the relationship

420stalin69 , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

It was a fringe position in the Polish far-right before the election and now that the libs have won it’s even less likely to happen.

The Polish far-right are a dominant political force.

And it’s under the relatively lib coalition that relations have reached their lowest point.

I think if Ukraine comes out of this with borders that roughly resemble the current front lines then they’ll keep Lviv but there’s a real possibility of political collapse in Ukraine, if things get worse and if the currently cooperating power centers turn on each other, and in that collapse scenario it becomes pretty plausible.

probably still less likely to happen than not but it’s definitely plausible and there are multiple plausible-to-likely pathways where you can see the political situation in Ukraine deteriorating to the point of collapse.

I don’t think I buy the current Russian narrative that the military camp are about to coup Zelenskyy but he’s definitely under enormous pressure right now, and even if a coup likely isn’t about to happen you can nonetheless see Zelenskyy and the military camp making political defense lines between each other, and the number of high level aides, spouses, and the like opening boxes that accidentally contained a grenade or suffered an unfortunate food poisoning incident is pretty eyebrow raising.

lntl , 6 months ago

arms manufacturers

ThatFembyWho , 6 months ago

Came here to say this.

winners: arms manufacturers and dealers, “defense” industry, military-industrial complex

losers: soldiers, civilians

Carighan , 6 months ago

Add people like Putin, oligarchs, etc. To losers, add just about everyone else, the climate, any actually important social or economic program as billions of money are burned on an unnecessary pyre for someone’s ego, etc etc etc.

ThatFembyWho , 6 months ago

Is Putin really a winner tho? They almost had a coup. I mean if the war was going amazingly well, but their economy is shit, they’re isolated, and they are in stale mate with an enemy they should dominate…

BakedGoods , 6 months ago

Lots of idiots in this thread. The barbaric eastern threat will be dealt with.

Silverseren , 6 months ago

It's a stalemate, largely. While Russia was massively on the backfoot earlier in the year, they mined massive swaths of eastern Ukraine before partially retreating.

Which makes it unlikely for Russia to actually have any future forward progress, but it also stymies Ukraine from doing the same except extremely slowly. There's still been several victories for Ukraine over the past few months, but they haven't changed the fighting area much.

It's largely a war of attrition to wear down Russia now, who has been having more and more internal issues as time goes on.

Omega_Haxors , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Real answer: Who cares. Since when did your life ever improve because the results of a war?

EDIT: Saying the quiet part out loud. Wars were never for your own comfort, only for your enemy’s blood.

Kissaki , 6 months ago

You think it’s only about improving life?

Subject6051 OP , 6 months ago

If the incentive structure is such that it incentivizes nations invading other sovereign nations, there can be no peace.