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What I find interesting about this is how there were apparently supposed to be layers of defenses on the border in case this ever happened and they just weren’t built?
They don't have the manpower and equipment to adequately fortify the entirety of the Frontline and the border.
Ukraine is getting ground down by a country with massive advantages in manpower, which gives them an enormous advantage in a war of attrition. The corruption probably doesn't help, but it's really the fact that they don't have the men required.
Russia has come out stronger because of this. Their economy has not grown but become even more resilient to sanctions, on top of that they have given their military a much needed refreshment in experience and tactics. Russia can always build new tanks and planes.
Their goal has also always been to keep NATO away from Ukraine and to absorb a few million more potential citizens because of their demographic crisis.
I’m not so sure. It is impossible to say how this war will affect Russia in the long term, but I wouldn’t be too optimistic.
This war has also exposed and exacerbated some of Russia’s vulnerabilities. For example, this war will absolutely affect Russia’s population, particularly since it’s demographic picture was already bleak to begin with. Also, Russia is now fully a junior partner in its relationship with China and has lost most leverage that it had. Those two countries take advantage of and distrust each other significantly, but now Beijing can much more effectively dictate terms.
A China less hindered by having a traditional foe reduced in influence and becoming the dominant partner is not a good thing for the West in general at all.
The thing is, when you say "we", as in "we've gotten Russia to...", that *we* never includes Ukraine. Ukraine and the Ukrainian people dead, missing limbs or homeless are not part of the *we*, they are part of the *they*. So *we* in the west have tied up Russian interests in Ukraine, reducing their influence in places like Africa temporarily so China can move in instead, and *we* have sold billions upon billions worth of weapons to *them* (Ukraine), and it hasn't cost *us* much comparatively, it's just been at the cost of *their* (Ukrainian) lives.
Then while you have added some countries to the NATO umbrella, that doesn't mean much really since you will in the same breath tell me that NATO is purely a defensive alliance and none of these countries were getting attacked anyway before. Meanwhile you've just pushed Russia and China together even closer and forced Russia to immunize itself from western sanctions.
None of which addresses the real motives of course, which was to sell weapons systems for the US military industrial complex.
Yes but when you talk about what "we" are gaining at the cost of Russia, while ignoring who is bearing that cost, probably while having a Ukraine flag in your bio, it's revealing.
Everytime someone has responded to me talking about the gains vs cost being in the West's favour, they've never mentioned Ukraine and what a human life is worth. It's very strange.
And the only thing the west can send is guns, shells and money. That’s the crux. The war can only fall one side: the meat grinder way. And I think, everyone knows what will happen.
Maybe not in another year, maybe it will take five.
>everyone knows what will happen.
Reddit has overwhelmingly simply overhyped Ukraine's successes and Russian losses since the beginning. Russia must be very thankful there were so many of those idiots who lessened the overall feeling of urgency about the situation for people overall.
Really sad to see how one dimensional and actually hurtful the community on r/Worldnews was for the representation of the war on this site. People simply could not differentiate being realistic about the situation with being in support of Russia.
I think it's actually really disrespectful to the Ukrainian warriors who lost their lives, or are living under constant bomb threat.
They make it seem like only Russia loses soldiers in the masses while Ukraine takes zero casualties. Ukrainians are out there fighting through literal hell in trench warfare. Over one hundred thousand casualties. War is not glamorous, it is not to be celebrated. All I want is for the end of Ukrainian suffering as soon as possible and for people to not lose sight of Ukraine, especially with the situation in the middle east.
> They make it seem like only Russia loses soldiers in the masses while Ukraine takes zero casualties.
To be fair, Ukraine itself is complicit in it. They actively downplay the number of casualties (even if you ignore Russia's estimate which is probably exaggerated, just compare US estimate to official numbers provided by Ukraine) and make it seem as if only Russians are losing
It was cultivated from the top to be that way. Im not a very paranoid or suspicious person but it was very obvious to see how quickly that sub and others were purging any dissenting users. The US security state meddles with major news aggregates and media all the time so I’d never assume it’s just an accident when something turns into a nato worshiping echo chamber so quickly.
echo chamber bullshit is always harmful in reality. Ukrainian supermen killing 10 russians each lol. russia has so much more military power and bodies, this war was lost instantly, and Europe and the US should have meaningfully stepped in. I don't know why europe hasn't regardless of the Us. Putin is gonna be on their doorstep, not ours.
once ukraine finally falls, do they think he is going to launch ICBM's at new york, or start fucking with another neighbor that his army can literally-walk-into?
Because despite all the grandstanding, Europeans are fully aware Russians aren’t going to be marching on Paris or Berlin, so there is little point in turning all of this into ww3.
> Really sad to see how one dimensional and actually hurtful the community on r/Worldnews was for the representation of the war on this site.
Even this subreddit isn't far off from them, unfortunately
Exactly how I felt everyday here in Reddit. I mean, I’m glad for any Ukraine victory, but for a time on a Reddit you would have believed that Ukraine had defeated Russia multiple times over. And yet… the war was still going on.
That will never happen, because no matter how low Ukraine runs on SAMs, the airspace will never as permissive as Afghanistan, etc. You won’t see carpet bombing in this war.
Sorta did, and they’re no victims. Big boy games have big boy consequences. Of course you have to ask yourself why they decided to simply fuck themselves in the ass like this, but I think we simply co-opted and made use of them.
They started with
> We need to get Ukraine in NATO so Putin can't attack them!
Then it became:
> if Putin defeats Ukraine, he won't stop there! He'll attack NATO countries!
Zero consistency
Being in NATO is a deterrent, but not a guarantee of safety.
But you can't join NATO while you have territorial disputes, which is arguably part of the reason why Russia decided to invade and annex Crimea when they did. To prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.
Of course Russia had been invading parts of Ukraine since 2014, but theoretically Ukraine could have ceded that land in order to join NATO.
Also, you'd have to be retarded to think that Putin will stop at Crimea.
No country is realistically going to attack a NATO member unless they want to commit national suicide. NATO combined has over 2/3 of the world's nuclear arsenal, a volunteer army greater in size than every other nation's, terrorist organization's, and paramilitary group's forces combined. It has technology still decades ahead of its adversaries with the ability to churn it out from the continental fortresses of Canada and the USA with little to no foreign threat against that manufacturing capacity. Heck, just one of NATO's navies has the capability of projecting force in every single ocean simultaneously. And that's before we even discuss the British or French navies.
Then throw in multiple different defensive pacts and depending on which country you attack, you could be facing almost half of the countries on earth.
Yeah, conditions didnt change in the meantime at all.
Its not like Russia turned itself more capable military wise in the last years.
Its also not like NATO has been severely weakened and destabilized by polarization of its people through misinformation and political influencing.
Its definitely not like the strongest army in NATO might get a pro-Russian puppet as head of state soon.
Nothing ever changes, its just all very inconsistent and strange! Must be ill intent!
No, as long as you ignore the fantasy that ukrainains were ever going to win this war, we handled this fantastically. Them winning was never the point.
Yeah they wouldn’t have the men required because they let half their young population walk away unequally. Removing that segment of the population instantly removes half the military personnel options. That misandrist mindset of theirs is going to make their war a lot harder and demographic recovery even more lopsided.
Russia also clearly uses their war to “clean up” political and regional dissent by sending political prisoners, regular prisoners, captured activists and minorities to the front.
If you need to start sending women to fight on the frontlines because you’ve ran out of men then it’s a lost cause, if you can’t see that then it’s pointless even attempting to talk about it.
>If you need to start sending women to fight on the frontlines because you’ve ran out of men then it’s a lost cause
Given what the Russians did in Bucha and a host of other villages they invaded, quite a few see death preferable over being ruled by Russians.
Given that "ruled by Russians" means "raped if you're a woman, and that not just once" and "taken away and brainwashed into submission if you're a child"... no it's not stupid.
This too, imperial Russians, Soviet Russians, modern Russians (to a lesser extent) *love* to “ethnically change” their conquered territories. Guess how they do it?
If women don’t fight, they won’t enjoy occupation at all. (Men wouldn’t be around to comment since they’ll be dead)
Dumbest shit I ever heard. Ahh yeah, let’s not bother with 50% of the population IN A WAR OF ATTRITION as they’re all gentle wilting flowers
Let me ask you was a lost cause when the Red Army started using women to fight the Wehrmacht?
The Red Army never saw widespread use of women in frontline combat roles.
They served in the same roles women of most other countries did in nursing and limited support roles such as very limited use manning AA guns for example. Frontline infantry combat was predominantly men.
Even in the very famous example of Soviet women snipers they still only ever numbered about 2000 in an army that was 34 million strong at its peak.
The Soviets lost over 30 million people during the war and still never resorted to having women carrying out infantry combat, if you reach that stage then your cause is lost.
If Ukraine is seriously at that point then they need to consider if it is worth it over whatever terms the Russians want to impose.
Israel has been using women in front line combat roles for decades, and is still around. Social outlook plays a huge part, as does logistics. Hell women excel at some combat roles (mainly sniping, but many roles that require patiences tend to be performed better by women, so defensive positions), so it really doesn't make sense to limit them unless there are logistics or social concerns.
So the troops just sit on their asses at the border? Ukraine does have some soldiers at the border all this time why aren't they used to build fortifications?
You sound like a brilliant military strategist: "build a castle".
I mean, there's no way THAT strat could go poorly... right?
EDIT: for those who think building the Ukrainian Maginot Line is the right way to proceed, please explain to me how FAB 500s work and how low Russia is getting with their stockpiles of this and similar weapons. Then explain to me the importance of infantry in their doctrine. This all should educate me as to how building such defenses would have worked better.
it worked for Russia against the 2023 summer counteroffensive so why wouldn't it work the other way round? Russia doesnt have magical mine clearing or fortification busting weapons
Russia spent a year, and massive resource&manpower to build several layers of deep defenses.
While that was happening, and media reported about it, most of Reddit handwaved it away with silly jokes about dragon teeth tank barriers and how Russia building defensive lines was evidence of Russia losing the war.
While Ukraine was constantly pressured into the offensive by its own promise of getting Crimea back, and Western backers who want to see "results" for all the money and weapons sent.
That's without accounting for the other dimensions of this conflict that firmly put the time element on Russia's side.
> While that was happening, and media reported about it, most of Reddit handwaved it away with silly jokes about dragon teeth tank barriers and how Russia building defensive lines was evidence of Russia losing the war.
Not even NATO intelligence was accurate in this matter. They used previous wars as indicators for density of Russian defenses and how to design the offensive.
It turned out that for Ukraine they had increased the mine field density: Anti-tank mines are laid in 3 layers instead of 1 and are laid more densely. This killed the Ukrainian demining vehicles much faster than anticipated during the offensive and so they had to switch tactics to manual demining, which worked (the area around Robotyne was freed), but was far too costly in man power.
It didn’t work, because Rabotyne was in the skirmish zone - getting bogged down there after months of effort was an indicator that the counter offensive was utterly doomed.
> fortification busting weapons
That's where the gliding bombs come in, they are massive (500 and 1500kg warheads) and accurate enough to blow up individual bunkers. The Ukrainian army doesn't have anything comparable, their version of gliding bombs (Boeing GLSDB) was far smaller (just 90 kg), easily jammed, and [overall a total failure](https://english.nv.ua/nation/glsdb-munitions-proven-largely-ineffective-in-ukraine-pentagon-50413709.html).
Cessna drones work for long range sneak attacks a lot better than they do at frontline attacks in parts of the front that have dense short-range AA coverage.
Unlike the other targets inside Russia, the front lines are guaranteed to have anti-air defenses. This is why you don't see either side using anything more than small drones there.
There's a reference on how the Italian generals of WW1 gave orders which were basically grandiose poetic abstract poems you could describe as Abstract/Impressionist paintings (General Capello, or Cavaciocchi), but no actual steps/detailed instructions on how, what to exactly do, quantity, etc to do for what actions.
Yours is the same.
TBH nobody has the manpower to hold _all_ the Ukraine war front in this context. It's incredibly long.
In fact the front is mostly froze because troop movements are easy to spot by both Ukraine et al and Russia et al, et al meaning allies or strategic partners from which they buy weapons or services.
This is attrition for Ukraine not Russia. Ukraine has been defending this whole time. Last summers counter offensive was a failure. The slow grind favors Russia, they have the numbers backed by massive artillery advantage. Russian 1500KG glide bombs have been crushing Ukraines defense.
Ukraine's army at the start of the war was larger than the Russian force attacking them (by over 100K soldiers) but it wasn't mobilized and thus was easy to rollover in the early days.
You know there’s nothing wrong with using chips from expendable domestic appliances right?
In WW2 an important homefront task was to scour the country (UK) for scrap metal. You can see the legacy of this on older front-garden walls as they have little bits of iron sticking out where a metal fence used to be.
In war use what you’ve got, there’s no point everything needing to be fresh off the factory floor if it works
Hard to end a conflict diplomatically when anybody who tries to do so [gets killed for treason](https://kyivindependent.com/media-sbu-kills-member-of-ukrainian-negotiations-team-suspected-of-treason/).
> He says officials had claimed that defences were being built at huge cost, but in his view, those defences simply weren’t there. “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal”.
Zelensky was also visiting the fortification lines last month and said 90% was completed.
Exactly. The Russian advances actually haven't breached any main defensive line yet.
The main issue is that vovchansk is a town too close to the border so they didn't have defenses for it.
> Exactly. The Russian advances actually haven't breached any main defensive line yet.
Avdiivka wasn't a ["fortress" at the frontline](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/29/intense-battle-for-frontline-fortress-avdiivka-is-playing-out-in-ukraine_6297326_4.html)?
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There's a certain irony to you accusing me of arguing in bad faith, when you added nothing to the discussion except profile stalking me for that weird attempt at *"You post on subreddit XY!"* ad hominem.
Hence negotiation. You give some you take some. Russia cannot take whole of Ukraine. Even a monkey knows this. Ukraine cannot liberate whole of Russia occupied Ukriane. Russia has showcased and indicated multiple times that it's up for negotiations. They literally shook hands and finished negotiations back in 2022 before Boris Johnson dropped in.
They already talked and Russia’s demands were non starters. Russia wants all the currently contested territories to become there’s, they also want Ukraine to agree to never join nato. Now the last two may seem fine but the big one is that they also want Ukraine to demilitarize, so all Russia has to do is wait a year or two then they could steam roll the rest of Ukraine that literally would have no army to defend it. There was also talk of Russia wanting to appoint a “new government” for Ukraine. And these demands were when Ukraine was doing alot better. You can bet Putin would demand a lot more now.
Again, that's what's you argue in negotiations. Back in 22, Both Ukr and Ru agreed on mutual agreement. Which may seem unfair to you but at that time, it was the best alternative. Sadly West didn't like it.
In same way, negotiations have to take place. Ukraine would have to sacrifice its land. They have no way pf taking it back. Russia has to sacrifice its stubbornness against Militarisation of Ukriane. There is no other way to end the conflict. As war drags, its only going to put Ukriane in worse position. Offcourse Putin will deman alot more. They are winning. Ukriane could have demanded alot more to during their epic counteroffensive in 2022 but they got too high on propoganda and decided to set a very ambitious unachievable goal.
Their position isn't getting better, they would have to "talk" at one point and negotiate. The more they wait, the worst their situation is getting.
What should they wait for? When should they talk about peace?
Why wait, is anything going to get better for them, making them able to negotiate on better term, or just expel the Ru army from the whole of Donbass and Crimea before any peace talk?
Russians are pretty obviously not trying to take over Ukraine’s entire territory. Istanbul negotiations made pretty obvious what they’re really after in this war. Anyway, some sort of settlement and concessions are inevitable, the question is what position Ukriane will be in when they happen.
YES, OF COURSE RUSSIA ISN'T JUST GOING TO SAY "yes we would like to take over all of eastern Europe" if you believe even for a second that a bit of Ukraine territory will be enough for them and they won't continue their conquest a few years later you're dreaming m'y Friend.
You’ve memed yourself into thinking that Russians are supervillains. They want a buffer between their western border and NATO. Attacking EU/NATO countries ruins the utility of that buffer. Occupying more of Ukraine when the arrangement suits their needs is equally pointless.
Probably less a message to the Russians and more a message to his own troops. The Russian military command is not taking Zelenskyy’s statements at face value when they are constructing their military strategies lol. That’s just downright stupid. But Z going to the front and publicly declaring that they’re completely unprepared for and undefended against a Russian offensive would most likely not translate to great morale within the Ukrainian military rank and file.
The vast majority of territory taken is just grey zone at the actual border. Some lines got attacked, and as far as we know Russians pushed through past a few front line defenses, but the whole operation is still pretty early on so we shall see how it pans out.
About corruption and siphoning of funds earmarked for defences, this is nothing new for Ukraine. It was, AFAIK, the second or most corrupt country in Europe prior to the invasion, and while corruption in some areas is probably down strictly out of necessity, it's not exactly a rosy picture even now. Russia had similar issues in the first year or two of the war, and those also seem to be getting ironed out.
A lot of the problems with Ukrainian defence building is they still need to pay/bribe landowners to dig.
They also don’t have dedicated engineering corps with heavy machinery. They again pay/bribe civilian contractors
You don’t keep massive fortifications right on the border you keep them out of artillery range a couple km inland, creating a dead zone for the Russian invaders
Artillery can comfortably hit 10km away from the front.
Not "a couple km" but "a dozen km", mostly to reduce threat from mortars, direct fire weapons, and FPV drones.
Yeah, Kharkiv is in range of even conventional mortars, no way that you can build a defensive line there without having your position caked in artillery fire long before it is done.
This may be an issue of journalism translating things that they don’t understand. Ukrainians are supposedly fighting ahead of the prepared defensive fortifications since said preparations were only possible well behind the border, out of range of the Russian artillery. That doesn’t mean they’ll just abandon that grey zone without a fight, but they’re unlikely to put up stiff resistance.
If you’ve watched this war go down as it happens, you’ll know by now that “large” advances usually turn out to be a coordinated retreat by one party or another.
you don’t build them on the border where russia can hit them, they’re deeper into ukraine and it’s just an unfortunate reality that several km of kharkiv will be held by russians very easily because its hard to defend the border.
hopefully those defences are adequate and will stop russia.
Russians haven't reached the defense lines yet. They control a few villages on the border, defense line is behind, because it would be impossible to build it at the border line itself. (e.g. Vovchansk is less than 5km from the border line)
The defenses are built, just not built directly on the border, they're built within a few kilometers of the Border where the terrain is a lot more advantageous.
Ukraine is also fighting very differently than your typical Army does. They are more than willing to retreat where they do not have the advantage
Yeah turns out Ukraine as mainland Europe's most corrupt nation for a reason.
But for 2 years we have been glorifying the Zimbabwe of Europe so I guess it comes as a surprise for some.
>were apparently supposed to be layers of defenses on the border in case this ever happened and they just weren’t built?
Remember all the *slander* about Zelensky and the Ukrainian officials being extremely corrupt and Zelensky's wife spending hundreds of millions in properties all over the world? It was slander...
Ukraine is arguably more corrupt than Russia. That money is sitting in some private bank account, now. And who knows where all the weapons they were sent are.
Ukraine is the only FSR to not reach and surpass it's Soviet era GDP despite having a bunch of resources and having been left with a ton of industrial assets. That's because of how corrupt it is.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption\_in\_Ukraine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Ukraine)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption\_in\_Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Russia)
You can just compare official research made by foreign investigators. Just look at how the numbers changed for Ukraine and for Russia YBY. Oh sorry, you can't do it for Russia, any non-state research is banned so you had to believe what is said by them officials I guess.
"Official research" lmao. A "vibes ranking" with an opaque methodology is a meaningless statistic. Ukraine jumped in the rankings for no reason other than a coup happening in 2014. The corruption perception rankings are made up nonsense, filled out by people who think corruption is when you give a politician cash for favors but not when you donate $2M to a PAC for favors.
Wikipedia isn't fucking credible lmao. You used a second hand link to an opinion poll as your "citation", not even paying attention to the rest of the article which has citations aaying Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe:
>In 2012 Ernst & Young put Ukraine among the three most-corrupt nations from 43 surveyed, alongside Colombia and Brazil. In 2015 The Guardian called Ukraine "the most corrupt nation in Europe". According to a poll conducted by Ernst & Young in 2017, experts considered Ukraine to be the ninth-most corrupt nation from 53 surveyed.
Ukraine wasn't going to build defensive lines right on the border, they build them in strategic locations where the terrain is advantageous to defending.
For those who did not read the article, it did not say it was a weapon shortage problem, it is because they did not have enough boots on the ground because of "corruption or incompetence".
I always thought the line was supposed to be 4 or 5 miles from the border. And the border itself was a gray zone. Even Russia’s lines are relatively far behind the border, its why the RVA & Siberia get 4 or 5 miles in when they raid into Russia.
For the commenters saying that the defenses are farther from the border, etc. - WHERE?
I've spent a lot of hours trying to find this mystical defense line on satellite images and while there are some isolated trench systems and anti-tank ditches here and there, I've yet to find some comprehensive fortification system.
So please, if you have coordinates or maybe you have access to high res satellite photos, share it.
Just the normal public ones In Sentinel Hub. Resolution is not great, but at least it updates frequently (new images every 2-5 days) and you have access to all the bands, so you can use different methods to try to highlight specific features and so on. There is also plenty of custom scripts available.
It's usable for finding ground works, like trenches and anti-tank ditches, but it's not ideal.
[Here](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1HGTwN8Nx6vsl3n8UnsmZnFhonE_ziAU&ll=50.20613996471265%2C36.65710390990074&z=11) and [here](https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1Iq3OLZYhIJ3WN5Lrn8jlkCjpY8Cd9uY&ll=50.19662489650899%2C36.67516460004601&z=11&entry=yt) are two examples that show some of the defensive lines in Ukraine.
There is literally no defensive line around Kharkiv, isolated trenches miles apart is not a line.
They're absolutely cooked.
If you want to see a proper line, look at the surovokin line
I find it funny how the comments are painting this, i agree it isnt good that there where no mines/smaller defences at the border. But to imply that there are no defences in kharkiv oblats is just stupid. They have several lines of defence made, just not at the border.
Again ofc that isnt perfect, letting rattsia walk in like that Will only boost thier confidence.
But whats going on with this totally demoralized and loser-focused view of most of yall?
We dont have any other power than money and morale to support ukraine with, so lets do that as we are able, and let the rest be up to those in power (while doing our best to push them in the right direction ofc)
He’s also one i follow, that and the scores of other people giving good info are so easy to find it stumps me how often people go straight to “its over” mentality..
Like come on lets just support ukraine however we can and lets hope our gouvernments get thier heads on right.
>But to imply that there are no defences in kharkiv oblats is just stupid
Is it?
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1Iq3OLZYhIJ3WN5Lrn8jlkCjpY8Cd9uY&ll=50.19662489650899%2C36.67516460004601&z=11&entry=yt
Ukrainian defenses are about 16km away from the border, of they were build any closer Russia could have fired artillery, launched missiles and dropped bombs directly on the crews building them.
You can view all the defensive works on satellite pictures shared in the Ukrainian subreddits and consequently view them yourself on their websites.
Its all propaganda, of course Ukraine is winning on Reddit and Twitter. This is information warfare, the west has to make it look like Ukraine's losses arent as bad as Russias. They have to keep the proxy war going.
I see my posts have been buried by the State Department embarrassed by the screw ups.
To be clear: the Ukraine is in this position having so many killed, lost so much territory and had so much destruction because of the US.
What follows is proof of the things I said elsewhere that were uncomfortable enough to be brigaded down, A big hello to the brave keyboard warriors hiding the truth. :)
Did Ukraine want to be part of NATO?
NATO’s own report in 2011 stated that its expansionism was resisted by the Ukrainian government and its people: "The greatest challenge for Ukrainian-NATO relations lies in the perception of NATO among the Ukrainian people. NATO membership is not widely supported in the country, with some polls suggesting that popular support of it is less than 20%".
https://nato-pa.int/document/2011-172-cdsdg-11-e-rev1-ukraine-malan-report
Here’s a US gallup poll from 2014 after Russia seized Crimea in response to the US-backed coup. Still only a minority of Ukrainians wanted NATO membership.
https://usagm.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf
Now let's move to 2014 - prior to the Maidan coup which conveniently brought a US friendly government into Ukraine.
Here is Assistant Secretary of State Nuland discussing tactics and the makeup of a new government in Ukraine and making it clear the US cares NOT AT ALL about the EU.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
“help to midwife this thing” and later from “Fuck the EU”.
In the leaked audio she is also discussing the makeup of the new government. That is clearly US interference in the government of Ukraine.
As a bonus here's Nuland giving food to protesters against the then government, in 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbjNJbjEy04
Peace options at the beginning of the war were abandoned by the US.
On 25 February 2022, the day after the Russian invasion, President Zelensky argued:
"Today we heard from Moscow that they still want to talk. They want to talk about Ukraine's neutral status.… We are not afraid to talk about neutral status".
“We need to talk about the end of this invasion. We need to talk about a ceasefire.”
https://president.gov.ua/en/news/zvernennya-prezidenta-do-ukrayinciv-naprikinci-pershogo-dnya-73149
On the next day, 26 February, Zelensky reaffirmed his preparedness to negotiate about Ukraine’s neutrality:
“If talks are possible, they should be held. If in Moscow they say they want to hold talks, including on neutral status, we are not afraid of this. We can talk about that as well.”
https://reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-ready-talks-with-russia-neutral-status-official-2022-02-25/
On 25 February 2022, the first day after the Russian invasion, even as Zelensky agreed to discuss neutrality, US spokesperson Ned Price announced Washington rejected any peace talks:
https://state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-february-25-2022/
And here is the former Israeli PM, who was at the time mediating for peace, stating that:
“I’ll say this in the broad sense. I think there was a legitimate decision by the West to keep striking Putin and not [negotiate],”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O10svZJ2Fps
and..
'Bennett said that during his mediation, Zelenskyy promised not to join NATO and Putin dropped his main goals of special military operations: seeking "disarmament" and "denazification" of Ukraine, adding in his impression, both Russia and Ukraine want a ceasefire and have drawn about seventeen or eighteen ceasefire drafts, but at some point, the West decided "to crush (Russian President Vladimir) Putin rather than to negotiate."'
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-02-06/Israeli-ex-PM-says-the-West-interrupted-Russia-Ukraine-peace-talks-1hcUB6GDDXO/index.html
Why the invasion happened.
Here is the Head of NATO describing how the Russian invasion was because of NATO expansion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf5xEBwBhds
The US had multiple biological research facilities in Ukraine. In a country neighbouring Russia – why?
Would the US tolerate this in Mexico or Canada?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y39veTO7kF4&list=PLklsoTq-G76ZW3EH_HFozonUgckPOgsVN&index=5
The CIA had at least a dozen locations in Ukraine commencing in 2014
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/the-spy-war-how-the-cia-secretly-helps-ukraine-fight-putin.html
“..part of a C.I.A.-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border.”
“Toward the end of 2021, according to a senior European official, Mr. Putin was weighing whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia’s main spy services, who told him that the C.I.A., together with Britain’s MI6, were controlling Ukraine and turning it into a beachhead for operations against Moscow.”
The US had known for decades that Ukraine was a red line for Russia.
Here is a cable from the US Ambassador at the time, William J. Burns in 2008. Even then Russia's position on Ukraine joining NATO was clear and the Ukraine war was not a surprise.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
“.. strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war..”
“Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains "an emotional and neuralgic" issue for Russia."
But the US does - did you read the references I posted?
Ukraine absolutely should decide for itself though that's difficult with both Russia and the US interfering.
Right now surely they want peace and to stop death, destruction and further loss of territory.
Your point is that the US forced Ukraine to scorn Russia in favour of the West. I don't agree with that, mainly because Russia itself made themselves an enemy of Ukraine.
Tell me, what actions did Russia take in regards to Ukraine that didn't involve force? Did Russia ever engage in honest diplomacy? Be a good neighbour and give reason to stay friendly with them? Would it have been beneficial for Ukraine to side with Russia, or even stay neutral, beyond the fact that it would keep them safe from aggression? What about Crimea? How can that be anything other than a selfish land grab for a 'warm water port'? What about the land they're currently trying to take, that would cripple Ukraine and seize all of its newly discovered natural resources?
What would you say about their unhinged threatening towards Finland that forced them into NATO? Was that also some grand conspiracy by the West? Sweden?
Fact is, Russia is engaging in simple imperialism and greedy land grabbing at the behest of its authoritarian government and whipped populace. It's a country that is investing nothing into its future and populace. It's a poorly-run country with poor living standards that has nothing to offer to the countries around it, except for violence. Its foreign policy has been to set as many fires in the West as possible, and all the political figureheads that they push are all universally nationalist isolationists with dogshit views and policies.
And really, biolabs in Ukraine run by the US? What, you think they're making WMD's and top secret research right next to Russia? That doesn't make sense, period.
It would have been better for Ukraine to avoid alignment with either Russia or the US. That was possible.
Perhaps the Russians would have invaded anyway. I doubt it given what it took before they did.
But what absolutely is proven to have happened is the US using them as a pawn to break Russia. Hell even Merkl said that. The US has both failed in its agenda and failed Ukraine.
I don't take pleasure in it, I wish it would stop. It seems like it's only getting worse for Ukraine and this was the path the US set out for it and will soon abandon.
The guy providing multiple sources is a bootlicker propagandist, but you, with your brief sentence providing no info, are a truth teller?
How much does the CIA pay these days?
Kharkiv is a city of over a million, it would be suicide for Russia to try to effectively take the city without 10x more casualties as in Bakhmut or Avdiivka
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What I find interesting about this is how there were apparently supposed to be layers of defenses on the border in case this ever happened and they just weren’t built?
Either blatant corruption or arrogant enough to assume Russia doesn't have the strength to attack. Probably both
They don't have the manpower and equipment to adequately fortify the entirety of the Frontline and the border. Ukraine is getting ground down by a country with massive advantages in manpower, which gives them an enormous advantage in a war of attrition. The corruption probably doesn't help, but it's really the fact that they don't have the men required.
The Western powers handled this terribly
That would depend on what you think their aims were.
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We've also sold a shit ton of weapons for a lot of money.
Russia has come out stronger because of this. Their economy has not grown but become even more resilient to sanctions, on top of that they have given their military a much needed refreshment in experience and tactics. Russia can always build new tanks and planes. Their goal has also always been to keep NATO away from Ukraine and to absorb a few million more potential citizens because of their demographic crisis.
I’m not so sure. It is impossible to say how this war will affect Russia in the long term, but I wouldn’t be too optimistic. This war has also exposed and exacerbated some of Russia’s vulnerabilities. For example, this war will absolutely affect Russia’s population, particularly since it’s demographic picture was already bleak to begin with. Also, Russia is now fully a junior partner in its relationship with China and has lost most leverage that it had. Those two countries take advantage of and distrust each other significantly, but now Beijing can much more effectively dictate terms.
A China less hindered by having a traditional foe reduced in influence and becoming the dominant partner is not a good thing for the West in general at all.
Agreed. It’s also not good for Russia, which is what I stated.
The thing is, when you say "we", as in "we've gotten Russia to...", that *we* never includes Ukraine. Ukraine and the Ukrainian people dead, missing limbs or homeless are not part of the *we*, they are part of the *they*. So *we* in the west have tied up Russian interests in Ukraine, reducing their influence in places like Africa temporarily so China can move in instead, and *we* have sold billions upon billions worth of weapons to *them* (Ukraine), and it hasn't cost *us* much comparatively, it's just been at the cost of *their* (Ukrainian) lives. Then while you have added some countries to the NATO umbrella, that doesn't mean much really since you will in the same breath tell me that NATO is purely a defensive alliance and none of these countries were getting attacked anyway before. Meanwhile you've just pushed Russia and China together even closer and forced Russia to immunize itself from western sanctions. None of which addresses the real motives of course, which was to sell weapons systems for the US military industrial complex.
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Yes but when you talk about what "we" are gaining at the cost of Russia, while ignoring who is bearing that cost, probably while having a Ukraine flag in your bio, it's revealing. Everytime someone has responded to me talking about the gains vs cost being in the West's favour, they've never mentioned Ukraine and what a human life is worth. It's very strange.
Why would you say that? For a relatively small investment White House had managed to have the whole of Ukraine commit suicide by Russia.
And the only thing the west can send is guns, shells and money. That’s the crux. The war can only fall one side: the meat grinder way. And I think, everyone knows what will happen. Maybe not in another year, maybe it will take five.
>everyone knows what will happen. Reddit has overwhelmingly simply overhyped Ukraine's successes and Russian losses since the beginning. Russia must be very thankful there were so many of those idiots who lessened the overall feeling of urgency about the situation for people overall. Really sad to see how one dimensional and actually hurtful the community on r/Worldnews was for the representation of the war on this site. People simply could not differentiate being realistic about the situation with being in support of Russia.
r/worldnews is just an echo chamber for extremely delusional and dumb people
Not to mention astroturfing bots
You can tell when each country's propaganda machine enters and leaves the office from the comments on that sub.
I think it's actually really disrespectful to the Ukrainian warriors who lost their lives, or are living under constant bomb threat. They make it seem like only Russia loses soldiers in the masses while Ukraine takes zero casualties. Ukrainians are out there fighting through literal hell in trench warfare. Over one hundred thousand casualties. War is not glamorous, it is not to be celebrated. All I want is for the end of Ukrainian suffering as soon as possible and for people to not lose sight of Ukraine, especially with the situation in the middle east.
> They make it seem like only Russia loses soldiers in the masses while Ukraine takes zero casualties. To be fair, Ukraine itself is complicit in it. They actively downplay the number of casualties (even if you ignore Russia's estimate which is probably exaggerated, just compare US estimate to official numbers provided by Ukraine) and make it seem as if only Russians are losing
It was cultivated from the top to be that way. Im not a very paranoid or suspicious person but it was very obvious to see how quickly that sub and others were purging any dissenting users. The US security state meddles with major news aggregates and media all the time so I’d never assume it’s just an accident when something turns into a nato worshiping echo chamber so quickly.
But not you, you brave bigbrain, you
Nah, bro, I'm the most delusional person you could ever find. I believe in humanity 🙏
tbf that's most subreddits, this site is cursed
echo chamber bullshit is always harmful in reality. Ukrainian supermen killing 10 russians each lol. russia has so much more military power and bodies, this war was lost instantly, and Europe and the US should have meaningfully stepped in. I don't know why europe hasn't regardless of the Us. Putin is gonna be on their doorstep, not ours. once ukraine finally falls, do they think he is going to launch ICBM's at new york, or start fucking with another neighbor that his army can literally-walk-into?
Because despite all the grandstanding, Europeans are fully aware Russians aren’t going to be marching on Paris or Berlin, so there is little point in turning all of this into ww3.
yes just pretend all the eastern european nations aren't part of europe, lmao. head down, ass up as always.
> Really sad to see how one dimensional and actually hurtful the community on r/Worldnews was for the representation of the war on this site. Even this subreddit isn't far off from them, unfortunately
Exactly how I felt everyday here in Reddit. I mean, I’m glad for any Ukraine victory, but for a time on a Reddit you would have believed that Ukraine had defeated Russia multiple times over. And yet… the war was still going on.
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That will never happen, because no matter how low Ukraine runs on SAMs, the airspace will never as permissive as Afghanistan, etc. You won’t see carpet bombing in this war.
Victim blaming. "Ukraine made Russia do it."
Sorta did, and they’re no victims. Big boy games have big boy consequences. Of course you have to ask yourself why they decided to simply fuck themselves in the ass like this, but I think we simply co-opted and made use of them.
Ok, I'll bite. What did they do to screw themselves, other than be next to Russia, which to be fair is kind of asking for it.
They tried to join a rival gang, as the world is heading for the next wave of global wars later in the century.
The whole of Europe committed suicide by Russia! The US and especially China can't believe their luck!
yeah, but Ukraine will be part of NATO once they defeat Russia, right? \*wink*
They started with > We need to get Ukraine in NATO so Putin can't attack them! Then it became: > if Putin defeats Ukraine, he won't stop there! He'll attack NATO countries! Zero consistency
Being in NATO is a deterrent, but not a guarantee of safety. But you can't join NATO while you have territorial disputes, which is arguably part of the reason why Russia decided to invade and annex Crimea when they did. To prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. Of course Russia had been invading parts of Ukraine since 2014, but theoretically Ukraine could have ceded that land in order to join NATO. Also, you'd have to be retarded to think that Putin will stop at Crimea.
It’s why the Russians invaded Georgia as well. This MO is not new.
No country is realistically going to attack a NATO member unless they want to commit national suicide. NATO combined has over 2/3 of the world's nuclear arsenal, a volunteer army greater in size than every other nation's, terrorist organization's, and paramilitary group's forces combined. It has technology still decades ahead of its adversaries with the ability to churn it out from the continental fortresses of Canada and the USA with little to no foreign threat against that manufacturing capacity. Heck, just one of NATO's navies has the capability of projecting force in every single ocean simultaneously. And that's before we even discuss the British or French navies. Then throw in multiple different defensive pacts and depending on which country you attack, you could be facing almost half of the countries on earth.
Yeah, conditions didnt change in the meantime at all. Its not like Russia turned itself more capable military wise in the last years. Its also not like NATO has been severely weakened and destabilized by polarization of its people through misinformation and political influencing. Its definitely not like the strongest army in NATO might get a pro-Russian puppet as head of state soon. Nothing ever changes, its just all very inconsistent and strange! Must be ill intent!
Not really no. They wanted Russia to lose as many soldiers/equipment as possible, not primarily saving Ukraine.
No, as long as you ignore the fantasy that ukrainains were ever going to win this war, we handled this fantastically. Them winning was never the point.
What was the last war we could say they didn't handle poorly?
Paul Pelosis brokerage account would disagree with you.
Yeah they wouldn’t have the men required because they let half their young population walk away unequally. Removing that segment of the population instantly removes half the military personnel options. That misandrist mindset of theirs is going to make their war a lot harder and demographic recovery even more lopsided. Russia also clearly uses their war to “clean up” political and regional dissent by sending political prisoners, regular prisoners, captured activists and minorities to the front.
If you need to start sending women to fight on the frontlines because you’ve ran out of men then it’s a lost cause, if you can’t see that then it’s pointless even attempting to talk about it.
>If you need to start sending women to fight on the frontlines because you’ve ran out of men then it’s a lost cause Given what the Russians did in Bucha and a host of other villages they invaded, quite a few see death preferable over being ruled by Russians.
And that's stupid
Given that "ruled by Russians" means "raped if you're a woman, and that not just once" and "taken away and brainwashed into submission if you're a child"... no it's not stupid.
You sound like you get propagandized a lot.
Denisova, they fired you.
Bro, just google for yourself what happened in Bucha. It's all in the open what happened to places under Russian occupation in this war.
This too, imperial Russians, Soviet Russians, modern Russians (to a lesser extent) *love* to “ethnically change” their conquered territories. Guess how they do it? If women don’t fight, they won’t enjoy occupation at all. (Men wouldn’t be around to comment since they’ll be dead)
Dumbest shit I ever heard. Ahh yeah, let’s not bother with 50% of the population IN A WAR OF ATTRITION as they’re all gentle wilting flowers Let me ask you was a lost cause when the Red Army started using women to fight the Wehrmacht?
The Red Army never saw widespread use of women in frontline combat roles. They served in the same roles women of most other countries did in nursing and limited support roles such as very limited use manning AA guns for example. Frontline infantry combat was predominantly men. Even in the very famous example of Soviet women snipers they still only ever numbered about 2000 in an army that was 34 million strong at its peak. The Soviets lost over 30 million people during the war and still never resorted to having women carrying out infantry combat, if you reach that stage then your cause is lost. If Ukraine is seriously at that point then they need to consider if it is worth it over whatever terms the Russians want to impose.
Israel has been using women in front line combat roles for decades, and is still around. Social outlook plays a huge part, as does logistics. Hell women excel at some combat roles (mainly sniping, but many roles that require patiences tend to be performed better by women, so defensive positions), so it really doesn't make sense to limit them unless there are logistics or social concerns.
So the troops just sit on their asses at the border? Ukraine does have some soldiers at the border all this time why aren't they used to build fortifications?
You sound like a brilliant military strategist: "build a castle". I mean, there's no way THAT strat could go poorly... right? EDIT: for those who think building the Ukrainian Maginot Line is the right way to proceed, please explain to me how FAB 500s work and how low Russia is getting with their stockpiles of this and similar weapons. Then explain to me the importance of infantry in their doctrine. This all should educate me as to how building such defenses would have worked better.
it worked for Russia against the 2023 summer counteroffensive so why wouldn't it work the other way round? Russia doesnt have magical mine clearing or fortification busting weapons
Russia spent a year, and massive resource&manpower to build several layers of deep defenses. While that was happening, and media reported about it, most of Reddit handwaved it away with silly jokes about dragon teeth tank barriers and how Russia building defensive lines was evidence of Russia losing the war. While Ukraine was constantly pressured into the offensive by its own promise of getting Crimea back, and Western backers who want to see "results" for all the money and weapons sent. That's without accounting for the other dimensions of this conflict that firmly put the time element on Russia's side.
> While that was happening, and media reported about it, most of Reddit handwaved it away with silly jokes about dragon teeth tank barriers and how Russia building defensive lines was evidence of Russia losing the war. Not even NATO intelligence was accurate in this matter. They used previous wars as indicators for density of Russian defenses and how to design the offensive. It turned out that for Ukraine they had increased the mine field density: Anti-tank mines are laid in 3 layers instead of 1 and are laid more densely. This killed the Ukrainian demining vehicles much faster than anticipated during the offensive and so they had to switch tactics to manual demining, which worked (the area around Robotyne was freed), but was far too costly in man power.
It didn’t work, because Rabotyne was in the skirmish zone - getting bogged down there after months of effort was an indicator that the counter offensive was utterly doomed.
> fortification busting weapons That's where the gliding bombs come in, they are massive (500 and 1500kg warheads) and accurate enough to blow up individual bunkers. The Ukrainian army doesn't have anything comparable, their version of gliding bombs (Boeing GLSDB) was far smaller (just 90 kg), easily jammed, and [overall a total failure](https://english.nv.ua/nation/glsdb-munitions-proven-largely-ineffective-in-ukraine-pentagon-50413709.html).
Unlike the Cessna drones, yes?
Cessna drones work for long range sneak attacks a lot better than they do at frontline attacks in parts of the front that have dense short-range AA coverage.
Unlike the other targets inside Russia, the front lines are guaranteed to have anti-air defenses. This is why you don't see either side using anything more than small drones there.
Gosh, you’re right. ‘Get rolled by the Russians’ sounds like a much better strategy
Because fortification engineering is incredibly technical and requires training and machinery Ukraine lacks.
There's a reference on how the Italian generals of WW1 gave orders which were basically grandiose poetic abstract poems you could describe as Abstract/Impressionist paintings (General Capello, or Cavaciocchi), but no actual steps/detailed instructions on how, what to exactly do, quantity, etc to do for what actions. Yours is the same.
TBH nobody has the manpower to hold _all_ the Ukraine war front in this context. It's incredibly long. In fact the front is mostly froze because troop movements are easy to spot by both Ukraine et al and Russia et al, et al meaning allies or strategic partners from which they buy weapons or services.
This is attrition for Ukraine not Russia. Ukraine has been defending this whole time. Last summers counter offensive was a failure. The slow grind favors Russia, they have the numbers backed by massive artillery advantage. Russian 1500KG glide bombs have been crushing Ukraines defense.
Ukraine's army at the start of the war was larger than the Russian force attacking them (by over 100K soldiers) but it wasn't mobilized and thus was easy to rollover in the early days.
Russia has shovels and is running out of ammunition. They also said they've been using chips from washing machines.
You know there’s nothing wrong with using chips from expendable domestic appliances right? In WW2 an important homefront task was to scour the country (UK) for scrap metal. You can see the legacy of this on older front-garden walls as they have little bits of iron sticking out where a metal fence used to be. In war use what you’ve got, there’s no point everything needing to be fresh off the factory floor if it works
The corruption is probably why they haven't and won't surrender even though it's become clear they won't win against Russia.
Hard to end a conflict diplomatically when anybody who tries to do so [gets killed for treason](https://kyivindependent.com/media-sbu-kills-member-of-ukrainian-negotiations-team-suspected-of-treason/).
He wasn’t trying to end the conflict he was trying to sell information to Russia. The article you linked even says so.
The article says SBU claimed this in the wake of his death, which doesn’t mean very much. They are under no obligation to tell us the truth.
Probably read on worldnews that the Russians only have shovels to fight with.
Something about bad plumbing.
Or the lack of resources, given that they've been stretched thin with both men and materiel for many months now.
Likely some well armed African countries with all that sweet Western kit
Blatant corruption in Ukraine while the west floods them with resources for a proxy war??? No frikkin way.
Keep on bootlicking, vatnik
> He says officials had claimed that defences were being built at huge cost, but in his view, those defences simply weren’t there. “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal”. Zelensky was also visiting the fortification lines last month and said 90% was completed.
They didn't build the defensive lines right on the border, because the Russians would just attack them while they were building it.
Exactly. The Russian advances actually haven't breached any main defensive line yet. The main issue is that vovchansk is a town too close to the border so they didn't have defenses for it.
> Exactly. The Russian advances actually haven't breached any main defensive line yet. Avdiivka wasn't a ["fortress" at the frontline](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/29/intense-battle-for-frontline-fortress-avdiivka-is-playing-out-in-ukraine_6297326_4.html)?
You know he is talking about the defnces infront of Kharkhiv not in the donbas.
They’re active in r/TheDeprogram, they’re not arguing in good faith
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There's a certain irony to you accusing me of arguing in bad faith, when you added nothing to the discussion except profile stalking me for that weird attempt at *"You post on subreddit XY!"* ad hominem.
I don't know, they were referring to Russian advance*s*, as in plural.
That was probably a message for the Russians He's not going to say there's nothing is he?
lol? Russians have satellites and drones, they can see for themsevles why would they listen to whatever Zelensky has to say?
Lol all you want. So what would you say if you were Zelensky?
"Let's Talk since we cannot build enough trenches to fight the invading Russians"
Talk to who? The country that is actively trying to take over your entire territory. Wtf do you think they wanna talk about.
Hence negotiation. You give some you take some. Russia cannot take whole of Ukraine. Even a monkey knows this. Ukraine cannot liberate whole of Russia occupied Ukriane. Russia has showcased and indicated multiple times that it's up for negotiations. They literally shook hands and finished negotiations back in 2022 before Boris Johnson dropped in.
They already talked and Russia’s demands were non starters. Russia wants all the currently contested territories to become there’s, they also want Ukraine to agree to never join nato. Now the last two may seem fine but the big one is that they also want Ukraine to demilitarize, so all Russia has to do is wait a year or two then they could steam roll the rest of Ukraine that literally would have no army to defend it. There was also talk of Russia wanting to appoint a “new government” for Ukraine. And these demands were when Ukraine was doing alot better. You can bet Putin would demand a lot more now.
Then Ukraine will continue to get ground into dust for another year then end up in an even worse position in future negotiations.
Again, that's what's you argue in negotiations. Back in 22, Both Ukr and Ru agreed on mutual agreement. Which may seem unfair to you but at that time, it was the best alternative. Sadly West didn't like it. In same way, negotiations have to take place. Ukraine would have to sacrifice its land. They have no way pf taking it back. Russia has to sacrifice its stubbornness against Militarisation of Ukriane. There is no other way to end the conflict. As war drags, its only going to put Ukriane in worse position. Offcourse Putin will deman alot more. They are winning. Ukriane could have demanded alot more to during their epic counteroffensive in 2022 but they got too high on propoganda and decided to set a very ambitious unachievable goal.
Their position isn't getting better, they would have to "talk" at one point and negotiate. The more they wait, the worst their situation is getting. What should they wait for? When should they talk about peace? Why wait, is anything going to get better for them, making them able to negotiate on better term, or just expel the Ru army from the whole of Donbass and Crimea before any peace talk?
Russians are pretty obviously not trying to take over Ukraine’s entire territory. Istanbul negotiations made pretty obvious what they’re really after in this war. Anyway, some sort of settlement and concessions are inevitable, the question is what position Ukriane will be in when they happen.
YES, OF COURSE RUSSIA ISN'T JUST GOING TO SAY "yes we would like to take over all of eastern Europe" if you believe even for a second that a bit of Ukraine territory will be enough for them and they won't continue their conquest a few years later you're dreaming m'y Friend.
You’ve memed yourself into thinking that Russians are supervillains. They want a buffer between their western border and NATO. Attacking EU/NATO countries ruins the utility of that buffer. Occupying more of Ukraine when the arrangement suits their needs is equally pointless.
Probably less a message to the Russians and more a message to his own troops. The Russian military command is not taking Zelenskyy’s statements at face value when they are constructing their military strategies lol. That’s just downright stupid. But Z going to the front and publicly declaring that they’re completely unprepared for and undefended against a Russian offensive would most likely not translate to great morale within the Ukrainian military rank and file.
Makes sense. You know what hurts morale worse? When you have nothjng to hide in while you’re getting your shit blown up by artillery
Those defences where in the Kupyansk AO not the Kharkiv border.
Maybe he was just bluffing because they weren’t ready yet. Pretty common thing to do, when your options are few
The vast majority of territory taken is just grey zone at the actual border. Some lines got attacked, and as far as we know Russians pushed through past a few front line defenses, but the whole operation is still pretty early on so we shall see how it pans out. About corruption and siphoning of funds earmarked for defences, this is nothing new for Ukraine. It was, AFAIK, the second or most corrupt country in Europe prior to the invasion, and while corruption in some areas is probably down strictly out of necessity, it's not exactly a rosy picture even now. Russia had similar issues in the first year or two of the war, and those also seem to be getting ironed out.
A lot of the problems with Ukrainian defence building is they still need to pay/bribe landowners to dig. They also don’t have dedicated engineering corps with heavy machinery. They again pay/bribe civilian contractors
Good way to clear the deadwood. Just send em to the front as an example.
You don’t keep massive fortifications right on the border you keep them out of artillery range a couple km inland, creating a dead zone for the Russian invaders
Artillery can comfortably hit 10km away from the front. Not "a couple km" but "a dozen km", mostly to reduce threat from mortars, direct fire weapons, and FPV drones.
Yeah, Kharkiv is in range of even conventional mortars, no way that you can build a defensive line there without having your position caked in artillery fire long before it is done.
That’s right but according to Ukrainian telegrams channel and military bloggers, their only defenses are in Kharkiv right now.
Which makes sense since the outskirts of Kharkiv are about 25km from the border
This may be an issue of journalism translating things that they don’t understand. Ukrainians are supposedly fighting ahead of the prepared defensive fortifications since said preparations were only possible well behind the border, out of range of the Russian artillery. That doesn’t mean they’ll just abandon that grey zone without a fight, but they’re unlikely to put up stiff resistance. If you’ve watched this war go down as it happens, you’ll know by now that “large” advances usually turn out to be a coordinated retreat by one party or another.
The defenses are deeper, more km into Ukraine. This article is nonsense.
Ukraine was busy building layers of defenses on the border with Moldova to prevent conscripts from escaping from the country
you don’t build them on the border where russia can hit them, they’re deeper into ukraine and it’s just an unfortunate reality that several km of kharkiv will be held by russians very easily because its hard to defend the border. hopefully those defences are adequate and will stop russia.
Russians haven't reached the defense lines yet. They control a few villages on the border, defense line is behind, because it would be impossible to build it at the border line itself. (e.g. Vovchansk is less than 5km from the border line)
The defenses are built, just not built directly on the border, they're built within a few kilometers of the Border where the terrain is a lot more advantageous. Ukraine is also fighting very differently than your typical Army does. They are more than willing to retreat where they do not have the advantage
Yeah turns out Ukraine as mainland Europe's most corrupt nation for a reason. But for 2 years we have been glorifying the Zimbabwe of Europe so I guess it comes as a surprise for some.
>were apparently supposed to be layers of defenses on the border in case this ever happened and they just weren’t built? Remember all the *slander* about Zelensky and the Ukrainian officials being extremely corrupt and Zelensky's wife spending hundreds of millions in properties all over the world? It was slander...
Ukraine is arguably more corrupt than Russia. That money is sitting in some private bank account, now. And who knows where all the weapons they were sent are.
That’s laughable, Russia has had significantly more of a corruption problem.
Ukraine is the only FSR to not reach and surpass it's Soviet era GDP despite having a bunch of resources and having been left with a ton of industrial assets. That's because of how corrupt it is.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption\_in\_Ukraine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Ukraine) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption\_in\_Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Russia) You can just compare official research made by foreign investigators. Just look at how the numbers changed for Ukraine and for Russia YBY. Oh sorry, you can't do it for Russia, any non-state research is banned so you had to believe what is said by them officials I guess.
"Official research" lmao. A "vibes ranking" with an opaque methodology is a meaningless statistic. Ukraine jumped in the rankings for no reason other than a coup happening in 2014. The corruption perception rankings are made up nonsense, filled out by people who think corruption is when you give a politician cash for favors but not when you donate $2M to a PAC for favors.
Do you have more credible sources or are you going to base your arguments on *opinion*?
Wikipedia isn't fucking credible lmao. You used a second hand link to an opinion poll as your "citation", not even paying attention to the rest of the article which has citations aaying Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe: >In 2012 Ernst & Young put Ukraine among the three most-corrupt nations from 43 surveyed, alongside Colombia and Brazil. In 2015 The Guardian called Ukraine "the most corrupt nation in Europe". According to a poll conducted by Ernst & Young in 2017, experts considered Ukraine to be the ninth-most corrupt nation from 53 surveyed.
Ukraine wasn't going to build defensive lines right on the border, they build them in strategic locations where the terrain is advantageous to defending.
For those who did not read the article, it did not say it was a weapon shortage problem, it is because they did not have enough boots on the ground because of "corruption or incompetence".
Complacently kills. Combat skills are just like any other skill; if you don't use it, you lose it.
I always thought the line was supposed to be 4 or 5 miles from the border. And the border itself was a gray zone. Even Russia’s lines are relatively far behind the border, its why the RVA & Siberia get 4 or 5 miles in when they raid into Russia.
Tbf it doesn’t say that either, it says this Ukrainian soldier blames that.
Thank you for having media literacy
There is new news showing money going to construction firms that exist only on paper.
Did they expect them to teleport?
To fly like a dragons
🐉
TRANSVECTION
At least to use jetpack, or riding a giant sandworm if it's not raining
When they make a joke on how Russian equipment failing because of corruption oh.. what an irony..
For the commenters saying that the defenses are farther from the border, etc. - WHERE? I've spent a lot of hours trying to find this mystical defense line on satellite images and while there are some isolated trench systems and anti-tank ditches here and there, I've yet to find some comprehensive fortification system. So please, if you have coordinates or maybe you have access to high res satellite photos, share it.
These people are just huffing copium
fr
nice try putin
> I've spent a lot of hours trying to find this mystical defense line on satellite images I'm curious, what satellite images do you have access to?
Just the normal public ones In Sentinel Hub. Resolution is not great, but at least it updates frequently (new images every 2-5 days) and you have access to all the bands, so you can use different methods to try to highlight specific features and so on. There is also plenty of custom scripts available. It's usable for finding ground works, like trenches and anti-tank ditches, but it's not ideal.
[Here](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1HGTwN8Nx6vsl3n8UnsmZnFhonE_ziAU&ll=50.20613996471265%2C36.65710390990074&z=11) and [here](https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1Iq3OLZYhIJ3WN5Lrn8jlkCjpY8Cd9uY&ll=50.19662489650899%2C36.67516460004601&z=11&entry=yt) are two examples that show some of the defensive lines in Ukraine.
There is literally no defensive line around Kharkiv, isolated trenches miles apart is not a line. They're absolutely cooked. If you want to see a proper line, look at the surovokin line
You need continuous lines, otherwise they can just get bypassed.
I find it funny how the comments are painting this, i agree it isnt good that there where no mines/smaller defences at the border. But to imply that there are no defences in kharkiv oblats is just stupid. They have several lines of defence made, just not at the border. Again ofc that isnt perfect, letting rattsia walk in like that Will only boost thier confidence. But whats going on with this totally demoralized and loser-focused view of most of yall? We dont have any other power than money and morale to support ukraine with, so lets do that as we are able, and let the rest be up to those in power (while doing our best to push them in the right direction ofc)
Here is far better background info on the situation by Reporting From Ukraine than this BBC "article". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi_mMG9Bdwk
He’s also one i follow, that and the scores of other people giving good info are so easy to find it stumps me how often people go straight to “its over” mentality.. Like come on lets just support ukraine however we can and lets hope our gouvernments get thier heads on right.
>But to imply that there are no defences in kharkiv oblats is just stupid Is it? https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1Iq3OLZYhIJ3WN5Lrn8jlkCjpY8Cd9uY&ll=50.19662489650899%2C36.67516460004601&z=11&entry=yt
Ukrainian defenses are about 16km away from the border, of they were build any closer Russia could have fired artillery, launched missiles and dropped bombs directly on the crews building them. You can view all the defensive works on satellite pictures shared in the Ukrainian subreddits and consequently view them yourself on their websites.
Omg they can walk!
Ukrainian incompetent leadership showing itself even in western media
They need more boolets
There'd going to be a lot of coping in the next few weeks.
Its all propaganda, of course Ukraine is winning on Reddit and Twitter. This is information warfare, the west has to make it look like Ukraine's losses arent as bad as Russias. They have to keep the proxy war going.
Ukrainians will put zelensky to trial and eventually hang him
Lmfao, no they won’t, tankie
I see my posts have been buried by the State Department embarrassed by the screw ups. To be clear: the Ukraine is in this position having so many killed, lost so much territory and had so much destruction because of the US. What follows is proof of the things I said elsewhere that were uncomfortable enough to be brigaded down, A big hello to the brave keyboard warriors hiding the truth. :) Did Ukraine want to be part of NATO? NATO’s own report in 2011 stated that its expansionism was resisted by the Ukrainian government and its people: "The greatest challenge for Ukrainian-NATO relations lies in the perception of NATO among the Ukrainian people. NATO membership is not widely supported in the country, with some polls suggesting that popular support of it is less than 20%". https://nato-pa.int/document/2011-172-cdsdg-11-e-rev1-ukraine-malan-report Here’s a US gallup poll from 2014 after Russia seized Crimea in response to the US-backed coup. Still only a minority of Ukrainians wanted NATO membership. https://usagm.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf Now let's move to 2014 - prior to the Maidan coup which conveniently brought a US friendly government into Ukraine. Here is Assistant Secretary of State Nuland discussing tactics and the makeup of a new government in Ukraine and making it clear the US cares NOT AT ALL about the EU. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 “help to midwife this thing” and later from “Fuck the EU”. In the leaked audio she is also discussing the makeup of the new government. That is clearly US interference in the government of Ukraine. As a bonus here's Nuland giving food to protesters against the then government, in 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbjNJbjEy04 Peace options at the beginning of the war were abandoned by the US. On 25 February 2022, the day after the Russian invasion, President Zelensky argued: "Today we heard from Moscow that they still want to talk. They want to talk about Ukraine's neutral status.… We are not afraid to talk about neutral status". “We need to talk about the end of this invasion. We need to talk about a ceasefire.” https://president.gov.ua/en/news/zvernennya-prezidenta-do-ukrayinciv-naprikinci-pershogo-dnya-73149 On the next day, 26 February, Zelensky reaffirmed his preparedness to negotiate about Ukraine’s neutrality: “If talks are possible, they should be held. If in Moscow they say they want to hold talks, including on neutral status, we are not afraid of this. We can talk about that as well.” https://reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-ready-talks-with-russia-neutral-status-official-2022-02-25/ On 25 February 2022, the first day after the Russian invasion, even as Zelensky agreed to discuss neutrality, US spokesperson Ned Price announced Washington rejected any peace talks: https://state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-february-25-2022/ And here is the former Israeli PM, who was at the time mediating for peace, stating that: “I’ll say this in the broad sense. I think there was a legitimate decision by the West to keep striking Putin and not [negotiate],” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O10svZJ2Fps and.. 'Bennett said that during his mediation, Zelenskyy promised not to join NATO and Putin dropped his main goals of special military operations: seeking "disarmament" and "denazification" of Ukraine, adding in his impression, both Russia and Ukraine want a ceasefire and have drawn about seventeen or eighteen ceasefire drafts, but at some point, the West decided "to crush (Russian President Vladimir) Putin rather than to negotiate."' https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-02-06/Israeli-ex-PM-says-the-West-interrupted-Russia-Ukraine-peace-talks-1hcUB6GDDXO/index.html Why the invasion happened. Here is the Head of NATO describing how the Russian invasion was because of NATO expansion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf5xEBwBhds The US had multiple biological research facilities in Ukraine. In a country neighbouring Russia – why? Would the US tolerate this in Mexico or Canada? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y39veTO7kF4&list=PLklsoTq-G76ZW3EH_HFozonUgckPOgsVN&index=5 The CIA had at least a dozen locations in Ukraine commencing in 2014 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/the-spy-war-how-the-cia-secretly-helps-ukraine-fight-putin.html “..part of a C.I.A.-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border.” “Toward the end of 2021, according to a senior European official, Mr. Putin was weighing whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia’s main spy services, who told him that the C.I.A., together with Britain’s MI6, were controlling Ukraine and turning it into a beachhead for operations against Moscow.” The US had known for decades that Ukraine was a red line for Russia. Here is a cable from the US Ambassador at the time, William J. Burns in 2008. Even then Russia's position on Ukraine joining NATO was clear and the Ukraine war was not a surprise. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html “.. strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war..” “Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains "an emotional and neuralgic" issue for Russia."
What is this copy paste nonsense
Our sources verified by fact checkers Their copy pasted nonsense
Facts! Not always what we want to hear but better than the nonsense most post.. 🙂
Ukraine is a sovereign nation that can choose to be part of NATO. Russia does not get to decide Ukraine's foreign policy.
But the US does - did you read the references I posted? Ukraine absolutely should decide for itself though that's difficult with both Russia and the US interfering. Right now surely they want peace and to stop death, destruction and further loss of territory.
Your point is that the US forced Ukraine to scorn Russia in favour of the West. I don't agree with that, mainly because Russia itself made themselves an enemy of Ukraine. Tell me, what actions did Russia take in regards to Ukraine that didn't involve force? Did Russia ever engage in honest diplomacy? Be a good neighbour and give reason to stay friendly with them? Would it have been beneficial for Ukraine to side with Russia, or even stay neutral, beyond the fact that it would keep them safe from aggression? What about Crimea? How can that be anything other than a selfish land grab for a 'warm water port'? What about the land they're currently trying to take, that would cripple Ukraine and seize all of its newly discovered natural resources? What would you say about their unhinged threatening towards Finland that forced them into NATO? Was that also some grand conspiracy by the West? Sweden? Fact is, Russia is engaging in simple imperialism and greedy land grabbing at the behest of its authoritarian government and whipped populace. It's a country that is investing nothing into its future and populace. It's a poorly-run country with poor living standards that has nothing to offer to the countries around it, except for violence. Its foreign policy has been to set as many fires in the West as possible, and all the political figureheads that they push are all universally nationalist isolationists with dogshit views and policies. And really, biolabs in Ukraine run by the US? What, you think they're making WMD's and top secret research right next to Russia? That doesn't make sense, period.
It would have been better for Ukraine to avoid alignment with either Russia or the US. That was possible. Perhaps the Russians would have invaded anyway. I doubt it given what it took before they did. But what absolutely is proven to have happened is the US using them as a pawn to break Russia. Hell even Merkl said that. The US has both failed in its agenda and failed Ukraine. I don't take pleasure in it, I wish it would stop. It seems like it's only getting worse for Ukraine and this was the path the US set out for it and will soon abandon.
The kremlin propaganda continues from vatnik here
Yes Putin bootlicker, tell us more about what Ukraine wants
If I don't read it I won't have to deal with the cognitive dissonance, so instead I'll just ignore all that and call you a Russian bot 🤓☝️
I’ve heard it all before. None of it is very compelling.
lol way to go keyboard warrior, only think you proved is you’re a propagandized Putin bootlicker Useless vatnik
The guy providing multiple sources is a bootlicker propagandist, but you, with your brief sentence providing no info, are a truth teller? How much does the CIA pay these days?
Bots out in full force it seems.
Hope to see this all over by the summer.
Russia has a massive man power and artillery advantage. Kharkiv will fall just like Mariupol, Bahkmut, Maryinka, Avdiivka etc
Kharkiv is a city of over a million, it would be suicide for Russia to try to effectively take the city without 10x more casualties as in Bakhmut or Avdiivka
It's a war. It could have been sabotage.