And here's Putin today comparing himself to Peter the Great and talking about Russia's war with Sweden for the Baltic States in the 18th century and how those "rightfully" belong to Russia. Oh and three of those are now in NATO by the way.
So for those saying Russia would "never" do this and never do that, I just want to know something: Is it hard being so continuously wrong all the time? Do you feel a twinge of self-awareness when you post your latest theory on how this is all NATOs fault and Putin is totally rationale given what has happened with all your prior predictions?
Putin wants to recreate Czarist Russia and will not stop unless he is stopped. Don't believe me? Well listen to your fearless leader. Because that's exactly what he's saying.
And here's Putin today comparing himself to Peter the Great and talking about Russia's war with Sweden for the Baltic States in the 18th century and how those "rightfully" belong to Russia. Oh and three of those are now in NATO by the way.
So for those saying Russia would "never" do this and never do that, I just want to know something: Is it hard being so continuously wrong all the time? Do you feel a twinge of self-awareness when you post your latest theory on how this is all NATOs fault and Putin is totally rationale given what has happened with all your prior predictions?
Putin wants to recreate Czarist Russia and will not stop unless he is stopped. Don't believe me? Well listen to your fearless leader. Because that's exactly what he's saying.
Tucker Carlson: "If at any time in your life you've ever made fun of totalitarian regimes that broadcast lies into the homes of the population that they can't turn off, take a look at that. That's happening right now." pic.twitter.com/9OrAexmUc5
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 10, 2022
Exactly.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
And here's Putin today comparing himself to Peter the Great and talking about Russia's war with Sweden for the Baltic States in the 18th century and how those "rightfully" belong to Russia. Oh and three of those are now in NATO by the way.
So for those saying Russia would "never" do this and never do that, I just want to know something: Is it hard being so continuously wrong all the time? Do you feel a twinge of self-awareness when you post your latest theory on how this is all NATOs fault and Putin is totally rationale given what has happened with all your prior predictions?
Putin wants to recreate Czarist Russia and will not stop unless he is stopped. Don't believe me? Well listen to your fearless leader. Because that's exactly what he's saying.
Emmanuel Macron made a serious misstep over the weekend when he said the west should not humiliate Russia. It weakened the West's unity and therefore position. The west cannot take the position of letting free Ukrainians become subjugated by Russia because it hurts them at home. Show some resolve and sacrifice. Russia needs to be stopped in Ukraine because the next invasion will most likely be Moldova, then a NATO ally, which will trigger direct US intervention and run a cost far higher than what the aide to Ukraine is now.
The fact he is saying it for his own self-aggrandizement and to position himself as the leader of the EU irritates me more. He is selling out Ukraine for his own political ambitions.
That said, he is still a lot better than Marine Le Pen.
And here's Putin today comparing himself to Peter the Great and talking about Russia's war with Sweden for the Baltic States in the 18th century and how those "rightfully" belong to Russia. Oh and three of those are now in NATO by the way.
So for those saying Russia would "never" do this and never do that, I just want to know something: Is it hard being so continuously wrong all the time? Do you feel a twinge of self-awareness when you post your latest theory on how this is all NATOs fault and Putin is totally rationale given what has happened with all your prior predictions?
Putin wants to recreate Czarist Russia and will not stop unless he is stopped. Don't believe me? Well listen to your fearless leader. Because that's exactly what he's saying.
Emmanuel Macron made a serious misstep over the weekend when he said the west should not humiliate Russia. It weakened the West's unity and therefore position. The west cannot take the position of letting free Ukrainians become subjugated by Russia because it hurts them at home. Show some resolve and sacrifice. Russia needs to be stopped in Ukraine because the next invasion will most likely be Moldova, then a NATO ally, which will trigger direct US intervention and run a cost far higher than what the aide to Ukraine is now.
The fact he is saying it for his own self-aggrandizement and to position himself as the leader of the EU irritates me more. He is selling out Ukraine for his own political ambitions.
That said, he is still a lot better than Marine Le Pen.
Not only does it divide the allies, it does the opposite of what he intended (unless he's playing French 4-dimensional chess), namely bringing to Putin's attention that everybody thinks he is thus far being humiliated (which he is).
"Opinion" "It is in the best interests of Ukraine, and the west, to end this war as soon as possible Christopher S Chivvis Ukraine doesn't win this war on the battlefield. It wins by building itself into a prosperous, post-conflict democracy
'Western support for Ukraine has so far been extraordinary, reaching levels that almost no one could have expected just days before the war began. But today's high levels of support will not last forever.' Thu 9 Jun 2022 14.09 BST Hawks in Washington continue to press Joe Biden to get even more deeply involved in the war in Ukraine. They want more military equipment for Kiev and more maximalist military and political objectives, which range from pushing Russia entirely out of Ukraine, to carving up Russia, to the removal of President Putin himself. They're right that Russia should lose the war and that Ukraine should win it. But they're wrong about how to get there.
Ukrainian and Russian forces are now in a slow, grinding war. Both have taken major losses, but Ukrainian casualties have been especially high. In the coming weeks, Russia might consolidate its position in the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine might scrape back a little more territory, or the fighting might come to a halt.
Ukrainian soldiers ride an armoured personnel carrier near Bakhmut 'All hell broke loose': weary soldiers tell of frontline holdout in Ukraine city Read more I am tempted to hope that Ukraine will fight on at least until it retakes its February borders, and perhaps beyond, regaining all the territory it lost back in the 2014 war. But the former intelligence analyst in me sees risks all around. In the best circumstances, regaining significant amounts of territory will almost certainly require a long and protracted fight. Risk of escalation would be ever-present. Costs to America and Europe would mount.
And it would be especially bad for Ukraine. The fact is, Ukraine won't win this war with a drawn-out, exhausting struggle to claw a few more hectares of territory back from Russia. Ukraine's real victory is not on the battlefield, but in its post-conflict rebirth. The sooner that begins, the better.
Ukraine wins by seizing the opportunity, while its still can, to immediately begin a massive, western-funded reconstruction effort that turbo-charges its political and economic integration into Europe, strengthens its security, and speeds it down the path toward a democratic future. Ukraine wins by demonstrating the extraordinary resilience of political and economic liberalism to the world and starting that process as soon as possible, not in five years when the country is destroyed and the world has moved on. Ukraine wins by stopping Russia from extinguishing its independence, which so far has been miraculously preserved, but remained at risk until the fighting stops. Ukraine wins by channeling the national energy that has been generated by the war into a better peace and a stronger, more prosperous nation.
Western support for Ukraine has so far been extraordinary, reaching levels that almost no one could have expected just days before the war began. But today's high levels of support will not last forever. Food and fuel costs worldwide are spiking. Nato has been unified in the first 100 days of the war, but over time divisions will emerge. Ukraine's cause is widely viewed as just today, but the longer the war drags on, the greater the risk that moral clarity will fade.
Ukraine should prefer to spend the goodwill it now enjoys on rebuilding its economy, infrastructure and democracy, instead of on more weapons. Reconstruction is already a massive undertaking, which under the best conditions will take a decade or more and require hundreds of billions of dollars in western aid. The longer the war goes on, the more Ukraine will be destroyed and the more expensive it will get. A protracted war meanwhile increases the risk of deepening corruption and greater centralization and personalization of power in Kiev, both of which plagued Ukraine in the past and work against the overarching goal of strengthening Ukrainian democracy.
To be sure, de facto acceptance of a divided Ukraine, even if not de jure, means a hostile, potentially disruptive Russia on the border. This obviously presents challenges to Ukraine's reconstruction, especially if Russia controls Ukraine's access to the Black Sea. But a Russian presence on Ukraine's border is unavoidable without a coup in Moscow or a broader war; transitioning to reconstruction now presents fewer challenges than an endless war that sees many more cities in Ukraine flattened and millions of its citizens living as refugees abroad.
It will be hard to convince Ukraine's leaders that this is their best option, now that their nation has suffered so grievously at Putin's hands. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is unlikely to see his nation's longer-term interest in a prosperous European future unless the United States and Europe use the influence they have as Ukraine's economic and military lifeline to encourage him to do so.
Accepting a limited victory will also require diplomatic leadership from Washington to overcome resistance in some allied capitals, and from the commentators who badly want revenge on the Kremlin. Indeed, in the zero-sum logic that prevails in many quarters, Ukraine can only win if Russia is dealt a humiliating and decisive blow. Unquestionably, Putin should pay a dear price for the havoc that he has wreaked on Ukraine and the resulting damage to European and global security. Justice also calls for this. But sanctions, diplomatic ostracism, and heavy losses to the Russian military are real costs that will bite more over time. Russia's elites, meanwhile, have had their assets seized and doors slammed in their faces around the world. These costs will afflict Russia and its leadership for years to come.
Perhaps the most famous dictum of strategy is that war ought to be a continuation of policy by other means. Western leaders should thus remember: Ukraine doesn't win this war on the military battlefield. Nor does the west. It wins it when Ukraine becomes a healthy, prosperous democracy. This is already a challenge. A protracted war will not make it any easier.
Christopher S Chivvis is the director of the Carnegie Endowment's Program on American Statecraft and a former US national intelligence officer"
And here's Putin today comparing himself to Peter the Great and talking about Russia's war with Sweden for the Baltic States in the 18th century and how those "rightfully" belong to Russia. Oh and three of those are now in NATO by the way.
So for those saying Russia would "never" do this and never do that, I just want to know something: Is it hard being so continuously wrong all the time? Do you feel a twinge of self-awareness when you post your latest theory on how this is all NATOs fault and Putin is totally rationale given what has happened with all your prior predictions?
Putin wants to recreate Czarist Russia and will not stop unless he is stopped. Don't believe me? Well listen to your fearless leader. Because that's exactly what he's saying.
Emmanuel Macron made a serious misstep over the weekend when he said the west should not humiliate Russia. It weakened the West's unity and therefore position. The west cannot take the position of letting free Ukrainians become subjugated by Russia because it hurts them at home. Show some resolve and sacrifice. Russia needs to be stopped in Ukraine because the next invasion will most likely be Moldova, then a NATO ally, which will trigger direct US intervention and run a cost far higher than what the aide to Ukraine is now.
The fact he is saying it for his own self-aggrandizement and to position himself as the leader of the EU irritates me more. He is selling out Ukraine for his own political ambitions.
That said, he is still a lot better than Marine Le Pen.
Totally bizarre. I thought it first might be a translation issue but that doesn't appear to be the case. I mean what kind of logic is this? We should worry about Putin having his feelings hurt? The guy who has murdered well over 10,000 people because of his egomaniacal pride and vanity? Saying Ukraine shouldn't humiliate him is like saying you should be careful not to bleed all over the nice muggers jacket after he stabs you in the kidney.
"Russia isn't close to victory in Ukraine. But in a notable momentum shift, its forces "appear to be making slow, methodical and bloody progress toward control of eastern Ukraine," the N.Y. Times reports (subscription):
Why it matters: The "heady early days of the war when the Ukrainian underdog held off a deluded and inept aggressor and Mr. Putin's indiscriminate bombardment united the West in outrage have begun to fade."
What's happening: Russia is picking off regional targets, Ukraine is running low on ammo and Western support is "fraying in the face of rising gas prices and galloping inflation," The Times says." Axios
Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside
The United States has also worked collaboratively to improve Ukraine's biological safety, security, and disease surveillance for both human and animal health, providing support to 46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and disease diagnostic sites over the last two decades. The collaborative programs have focused on improving public health and agricultural safety measures at the nexus of nonproliferation.
I was previously told by other posters here this was Russian disinformation based on NYT reporting.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
The United States has also worked collaboratively to improve Ukraine's biological safety, security, and disease surveillance for both human and animal health, providing support to 46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and disease diagnostic sites over the last two decades. The collaborative programs have focused on improving public health and agricultural safety measures at the nexus of nonproliferation.
Oh my God! I'm going to my local hospital next week for a colonoscopy. Now I find out it's a biolab! Maybe it's not to late to cancel!
The United States has also worked collaboratively to improve Ukraine's biological safety, security, and disease surveillance for both human and animal health, providing support to 46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and disease diagnostic sites over the last two decades. The collaborative programs have focused on improving public health and agricultural safety measures at the nexus of nonproliferation.
Oh my God! I'm going to my local hospital next week for a colonoscopy. Now I find out it's a biolab! Maybe it's not to late to cancel.
Not unless you enjoy having anthrax administered through thy rectum.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
The United States has also worked collaboratively to improve Ukraine's biological safety, security, and disease surveillance for both human and animal health, providing support to 46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and disease diagnostic sites over the last two decades. The collaborative programs have focused on improving public health and agricultural safety measures at the nexus of nonproliferation.
Oh my God! I'm going to my local hospital next week for a colonoscopy. Now I find out it's a biolab! Maybe it's not to late to cancel!
Oh yes, what a bombshell. Ukraine has 46 labs studying disease prevention and health. Wow. How amazing. And who exactly ever said this wasn't true? Not to get all "facty " or anything, but Putin claimed that Ukraine has labs developing biological weapons. Not "health facilities." That's why he invaded. Well that and the Nazis and the little green men from the moon or whatever other nonsense he could spoon feed the gullible. This press release of course says the exact opposite. In fact here's the exact language from this "admission."
Quote:
Ukraine has no nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs. On March 11 and 18, 2022, United Nations (UN) High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu similarly stated that the UN is not aware of any biological weapons programs in Ukraine. Those comments were reiterated on May 13, 2022, by the UN Deputy High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
So again the BF2 bot account claiming a "gotcha" is in fact just sharing Russia propaganda. Again. How shocking.
And if 46 "laboratories, health facilities and disease diagnostic sites" equals "anthrax" I suggest you move out of California because I guarantee we have 100 times that number (at least).
The United States has also worked collaboratively to improve Ukraine's biological safety, security, and disease surveillance for both human and animal health, providing support to 46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and disease diagnostic sites over the last two decades. The collaborative programs have focused on improving public health and agricultural safety measures at the nexus of nonproliferation.
Oh my God! I'm going to my local hospital next week for a colonoscopy. Now I find out it's a biolab! Maybe it's not to late to cancel!
Oh yes, what a bombshell. Ukraine has 46 labs studying disease prevention and health. Wow. How amazing. And who exactly ever said this wasn't true? Not to get all "facty " or anything, but Putin claimed that Ukraine has labs developing biological weapons. Not "health facilities." That's why he invaded. Well that and the Nazis and the little green men from the moon or whatever other nonsense he could spoon feed the gullible. This press release of course says the exact opposite. In fact here's the exact language from this "admission."
Quote:
Ukraine has no nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs. On March 11 and 18, 2022, United Nations (UN) High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu similarly stated that the UN is not aware of any biological weapons programs in Ukraine. Those comments were reiterated on May 13, 2022, by the UN Deputy High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
So again the BF2 bot account claiming a "gotcha" is in fact just sharing Russia propaganda. Again. How shocking.
And if 46 "laboratories, health facilities and disease diagnostic sites" equals "anthrax" I suggest you move out of California because I guarantee we have 100 times that number (at least).
Actual Russian propaganda. Traitorous. Russia also said the Luger center in Georgia was making zombies. Tulsi should go to Russia https://t.co/SEEw8MEZB6
The United States has also worked collaboratively to improve Ukraine's biological safety, security, and disease surveillance for both human and animal health, providing support to 46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and disease diagnostic sites over the last two decades. The collaborative programs have focused on improving public health and agricultural safety measures at the nexus of nonproliferation.
Oh my God! I'm going to my local hospital next week for a colonoscopy. Now I find out it's a biolab! Maybe it's not to late to cancel!
Oh yes, what a bombshell. Ukraine has 46 labs studying disease prevention and health. Wow. How amazing. And who exactly ever said this wasn't true? Not to get all "facty " or anything, but Putin claimed that Ukraine has labs developing biological weapons. Not "health facilities." That's why he invaded. Well that and the Nazis and the little green men from the moon or whatever other nonsense he could spoon feed the gullible. This press release of course says the exact opposite. In fact here's the exact language from this "admission."
Quote:
Ukraine has no nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs. On March 11 and 18, 2022, United Nations (UN) High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu similarly stated that the UN is not aware of any biological weapons programs in Ukraine. Those comments were reiterated on May 13, 2022, by the UN Deputy High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
So again the BF2 bot account claiming a "gotcha" is in fact just sharing Russia propaganda. Again. How shocking.
And if 46 "laboratories, health facilities and disease diagnostic sites" equals "anthrax" I suggest you move out of California because I guarantee we have 100 times that number (at least).
In addition to the quote you have from the Fact Sheet, BF2 also missed the subsections (about 2/3 of the document) entitled:
Ukraine Has No Nuclear Weapons Program
Ukraine Has No Biological Weapons Program
Ukraine Has No Chemical Weapons Program
The bolding was from the Fact Sheet. Still, I doubt BF2 even read the Fact Sheet. Wherever he cribbed it from, he probably just scanned it and ran to BI to post it. Who cares if it was true? It said what he wanted to see.
The United States has also worked collaboratively to improve Ukraine's biological safety, security, and disease surveillance for both human and animal health, providing support to 46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and disease diagnostic sites over the last two decades. The collaborative programs have focused on improving public health and agricultural safety measures at the nexus of nonproliferation.
Oh my God! I'm going to my local hospital next week for a colonoscopy. Now I find out it's a biolab! Maybe it's not to late to cancel!
Oh yes, what a bombshell. Ukraine has 46 labs studying disease prevention and health. Wow. How amazing. And who exactly ever said this wasn't true? Not to get all "facty " or anything, but Putin claimed that Ukraine has labs developing biological weapons. Not "health facilities." That's why he invaded. Well that and the Nazis and the little green men from the moon or whatever other nonsense he could spoon feed the gullible. This press release of course says the exact opposite. In fact here's the exact language from this "admission."
Quote:
Ukraine has no nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs. On March 11 and 18, 2022, United Nations (UN) High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu similarly stated that the UN is not aware of any biological weapons programs in Ukraine. Those comments were reiterated on May 13, 2022, by the UN Deputy High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
So again the BF2 bot account claiming a "gotcha" is in fact just sharing Russia propaganda. Again. How shocking.
And if 46 "laboratories, health facilities and disease diagnostic sites" equals "anthrax" I suggest you move out of California because I guarantee we have 100 times that number (at least).
In addition to the quote you have from the Fact Sheet, BF2 also missed the subsections (about 2/3 of the document) entitled:
Ukraine Has No Nuclear Weapons Program
Ukraine Has No Biological Weapons Program
Ukraine Has No Chemical Weapons Program
The bolding was from the Fact Sheet. Still, I doubt BF2 even read the Fact Sheet. Wherever he cribbed it from, he probably just scanned it and ran to BI to post it. Who cares if it was true? It said what he wanted to see.
⚡️The US is working with Ukraine to prevent biological research facilities from falling into the hands of Russians — Nuland pic.twitter.com/dDr9VHQVao
I never claimed there were weapons programs in Ukraine. But it's in the U.S. interests that these "peaceful labs" as the DOD puts it, do not fall into the hands of Russians.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
Nuland has been a part of the Uniparty neocon machine that has completely dominated American foreign policy this century. Her husband is Robert Kagan, founder of the Project of the New American Century, which pretty much run GWB's foreign policy.
Quote:
Unit2Sucks said:
Curious- do you ever go back and look at your old predictions? Because you have a terrible track record. How quickly did you say Russia would defeat Ukraine? Do you remember when you said the weather would dry out in April and Russia's tank divisions would resume their march on Ukraine?
Don''t get me wrong, I love a hot take, but yours are simultaneously confident/absolutist and hysterically inaccurate in hindsight. Perhaps you should just get out of the prediction game?
I am going to take the time here to lay out in detail what has been taking place, and what will happen in the weeks and months to come.
We're starting to see reality catch up with the war propaganda where people were led to believe that Ukraine could militarily defeat Russia with the help of western tech and toys like the Javelin or a smattering of smart NATO artillery like the M777 and the French Cesar. The amount of war propaganda and the shear scale of the fantasies vehiculed was staggering, with tales of Ghost of Kiev ace gunning down dozens of Russian jets, Snake Island warriors fighting till death to protect their lost rocky outpost, 50% of soldiers from the Russian heartland suffering from frostbiten toes in the relatively warm early spring weather of Ukraine, the Riviera of Russia...
In reality, Ukraine never had a chance, like I said above -1980s Nebraska vs Kansas. We're now in the middle of the third quarter, and Nebraska (the Russians in this metaphor), after a slow start in the first half of a road game, have been controlling the trenches, blowing away the Kansas DL, opening up the 3rd qtr with two straight long TD drives, rotating their blackshirt linemen while the injuries are starting to pile up for the Jayhawks' front seven...
Russia has around a 15 to 1 advantage in artillery pieces, and if that wasn't bad enough, Ukraine is close to running out of ammunition, with Russia having about a 40 to 1 advantage in this artillery firefight. Russia has ramped up significantly its hinterland munitions production factories, and is able to sustain its very high current rate of ammo use. They are also producing about 40 Kalibr cruise missiles per day.
There are 3 distinct arenas in this war, the military war, the economic war, and the propaganda war. Russia has been winning the war on the ground since April, dictating the terms of engagement due to the fact that the Ukrainians have limited mobility after having lost over 3/4 of their tanks, armored vehicles, air force and trucks. Contrary to the early war narratives, Russia's MIC is actually pretty efficient, and their US$ and Euro trade proceeds go a long way in terms of churning out military hardware.
Russia has also been winning the economic war, the Ruble having reached 5 year highs vs the US$, they're clearing nearly $1 billion/day in proceeds from oil&gas sales, and that's not even including food exports in markets like wheat where Russia dominates, or metals, fertilizers, lumber etc. Russia is the richest country in the world in terms of resources, this is a country that spans 11 time zones and has just about every mineral resource there is in droves. As well Putin has been preparing for an economic attack on his country, having built up large reserves in gold, currency and having payed off the massive debt left by the Yeltsin years.
Ukraine has been completely dominating the propaganda war. Zelensky, who is an actor by profession, and whose cabinet and inner circle essentially were his TV series production crew, this team has been very skilled at selling the West on Ukraine's chances to win the war, and on the righteousness of his cause and the need to militarily escalate the conflict, when in fact Ukraine never really stood a chance, and this approach was suicidal and destructive for his country.
Zelensky should have saved his country and accepted the Minsk Accord, and more recently, the 3 terms offered by German Chancellor Scholtz in a last ditch effort to stop the war: -Autonomy for the Donbass, region that did not want to be part of a unilingual Ukraine and rebelled against a central govt that forbade the use of their mother tongue, Russian in schools, local media, colleges and administrations -Military neutrality, along the lines that have worked very well for decades for border countries like Austria and Finland, who never joined NATO, maintained neutrality yet thrived economically and politically. -Recognize Crimea as Russian territory, a decision supported by the overwhelming majority of that region's inhabitants who identify as Russians.
Instead of accepting this package, and keeping his country relatively intact, Zelensky's government, emboldened by western guarantees of military support and promises of wonder weapons that were going to blow the ruskies away like Saddam's army, chose to escalate the conflict in the Donbass, which had been raging for over 7 years, with 14,000 mostly russophone deaths.
The results have been entirely predictable, for those observers who aren't emotionally attached to this cause or who aren't tied to the MIC and neocon/neolib DC and Brussels blob, Ukraine is getting wrecked after being led down the primrose path, to paraphrase John Mearsheimer, exactly as he has predicted. Realists like him have been alarmed at this suicidal buildup which started in 2014, and now their fears have materialized.
Ukraine has already lost 1/4 of its territory, and the Russians will take roughly 40-45% of present-day Ukraine, all the predominantly Russian-speaking regions, including Odessa and Kharkiv, basically historic Novorossiya along with parts of Malorussia (NE Ukraine). This area represents about 2/3 of Ukraine's GDP and wheat belt, and all of its coastline.
They will achieve this by the end of the year, continuing to grind away Ukrainian forces, which are currently depleting at a rate of about 1,500 men/day. Most of these poor souls are dying in one-sided artillery duels where Russian forces are mostly beyond their reach. The losses this coming month are going to snowball into a loss of morale and increased desertions and surrenders in the Ukrainian ranks. Already the situation has grown so dire that Ukraine is imposing mandatory conscription of all adult women under 60...
Once again, the real tragedy here is that all of this could have been avoided. You now have around 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers caught in the Donbass cauldron who are being slaughtered in a one-sided artillery war, with Russia also having complete air superiority in that region (which they do not have in western Ukraine).
Ukraine has bet the farm on its extensive and elaborate defensive lines in the Donbass, with layers of fortified bunkers, tunnels and trenches that stretch from the 2021 frontlines to the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, sort of a layered cake Maginot Line that they have built up over 7 years. The Russians have already cracked the top layers with the victories of Izyum, Lyman and Popasna, strategic towns which control the edges and middle layers, and are now threatening the last line of Ukrainian defense, the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, with their forces on the edge of Slovyansk.
Once that line of defense is breached and the Russians are behind it, Chapman is Gone, they will have a clear run to Dnipro and the eastern heartland of Ukraine, their daily advances will be more pronounced (though they won't repeat their early tactical errors of overextending), and they will be able to shift their personnel and artillery to the Mikolayev front, the same way they moved their Mariupol troops up to the Donbass a month ago. They will take Mikolayev and cut off Odessa, and move north on Zaporizhia towards Dnipro.
Most of the NATO observers are aware of these developments on the ground. We will start seeing a shift in the media narrative on the Ukraine war, along the lines of the articles I've posted above.
Nuland has been a part of the Uniparty neocon machine that has completely dominated American foreign policy this century. Her husband is Robert Kagan, founder of the Project of the New American Century, which pretty much run GWB's foreign policy.
Quote:
Unit2Sucks said:
Curious- do you ever go back and look at your old predictions? Because you have a terrible track record. How quickly did you say Russia would defeat Ukraine? Do you remember when you said the weather would dry out in April and Russia's tank divisions would resume their march on Ukraine?
Don''t get me wrong, I love a hot take, but yours are simultaneously confident/absolutist and hysterically inaccurate in hindsight. Perhaps you should just get out of the prediction game?
I am going to take the time here to lay out in detail what has been taking place, and what will happen in the weeks and months to come.
We're starting to see reality catch up with the war propaganda where people were led to believe that Ukraine could militarily defeat Russia with the help of western tech and toys like the Javelin or a smattering of smart NATO artillery like the M777 and the French Cesar. The amount of war propaganda and the shear scale of the fantasies vehiculed was staggering, with tales of Ghost of Kiev ace gunning down dozens of Russian jets, Snake Island warriors fighting till death to protect their lost rocky outpost, 50% of soldiers from the Russian heartland suffering from frostbiten toes in the relatively warm early spring weather of Ukraine, the Riviera of Russia...
In reality, Ukraine never had a chance, like I said above -1980s Nebraska vs Kansas. We're now in the middle of the third quarter, and Nebraska (the Russians in this metaphor), after a slow start in the first half of a road game, have been controlling the trenches, blowing away the Kansas DL, opening up the 3rd qtr with two straight long TD drives, rotating their blackshirt linemen while the injuries are starting to pile up for the Jayhawks' front seven...
Russia has around a 15 to 1 advantage in artillery pieces, and if that wasn't bad enough, Ukraine is close to running out of ammunition, with Russia having about a 40 to 1 advantage in this artillery firefight. Russia has ramped up significantly its hinterland munitions production factories, and is able to sustain its very high current rate of ammo use. They are also producing about 40 Kalibr cruise missiles per day.
There are 3 distinct arenas in this war, the military war, the economic war, and the propaganda war. Russia has been winning the war on the ground since April, dictating the terms of engagement due to the fact that the Ukrainians have limited mobility after having lost over 3/4 of their tanks, armored vehicles, air force and trucks. Contrary to the early war narratives, Russia's MIC is actually pretty efficient, and their US$ and Euro trade proceeds go a long way in terms of churning out military hardware.
Russia has also been winning the economic war, the Ruble having reached 5 year highs vs the US$, they're clearing nearly $1 billion/day in proceeds from oil&gas sales, and that's not even including food exports in markets like wheat where Russia dominates, or metals, fertilizers, lumber etc. Russia is the richest country in the world in terms of resources, this is a country that spans 11 time zones and has just about every mineral resource there is in droves. As well Putin has been preparing for an economic attack on his country, having built up large reserves in gold, currency and having payed off the massive debt left by the Yeltsin years.
Ukraine has been completely dominating the propaganda war. Zelensky, who is an actor by profession, and whose cabinet and inner circle essentially were his TV series production crew, this team has been very skilled at selling the West on Ukraine's chances to win the war, and on the righteousness of his cause and the need to militarily escalate the conflict, when in fact Ukraine never really stood a chance, and this approach was suicidal and destructive for his country.
Zelensky should have saved his country and accepted the Minsk Accord, and more recently, the 3 terms offered by German Chancellor Scholtz in a last ditch effort to stop the war: -Autonomy for the Donbass, region that did not want to be part of a unilingual Ukraine and rebelled against a central govt that forbade the use of their mother tongue, Russian in schools, local media, colleges and administrations -Military neutrality, along the lines that have worked very well for decades for border countries like Austria and Finland, who never joined NATO, maintained neutrality yet thrived economically and politically. -Recognize Crimea as Russian territory, a decision supported by the overwhelming majority of that region's inhabitants who identify as Russians.
Instead of accepting this package, and keeping his country relatively intact, Zelensky's government, emboldened by western guarantees of military support and promises of wonder weapons that were going to blow the ruskies away like Saddam's army, chose to escalate the conflict in the Donbass, which had been raging for over 7 years, with 14,000 mostly russophone deaths.
The results have been entirely predictable, for those observers who aren't emotionally attached to this cause or who aren't tied to the MIC and neocon/neolib DC and Brussels blob, Ukraine is getting wrecked after being led down the primrose path, to paraphrase John Mearsheimer, exactly as he has predicted. Realists like him have been alarmed at this suicidal buildup which started in 2014, and now their fears have materialized.
Ukraine has already lost 1/4 of its territory, and the Russians will take roughly 40-45% of present-day Ukraine, all the predominantly Russian-speaking regions, including Odessa and Kharkiv, basically historic Novorossiya along with parts of Malorussia (NE Ukraine). This area represents about 2/3 of Ukraine's GDP and wheat belt, and all of its coastline.
They will achieve this by the end of the year, continuing to grind away Ukrainian forces, which are currently depleting at a rate of about 1,500 men/day. Most of these poor souls are dying in one-sided artillery duels where Russian forces are mostly beyond their reach. The losses this coming month are going to snowball into a loss of morale and increased desertions and surrenders in the Ukrainian ranks. Already the situation has grown so dire that Ukraine is imposing mandatory conscription of all adult women under 60...
Once again, the real tragedy here is that all of this could have been avoided. You now have around 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers caught in the Donbass cauldron who are being slaughtered in a one-sided artillery war, with Russia also having complete air superiority in that region (which they do not have in western Ukraine).
Ukraine has bet the farm on its extensive and elaborate defensive lines in the Donbass, with layers of fortified bunkers, tunnels and trenches that stretch from the 2021 frontlines to the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, sort of a layered cake Maginot Line that they have built up over 7 years. The Russians have already cracked the top layers with the victories of Izyum, Lyman and Popasna, strategic towns which control the edges and middle layers, and are now threatening the last line of Ukrainian defense, the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, with their forces on the edge of Slovyansk.
Once that line of defense is breached and the Russians are behind it, Chapman is Gone, they will have a clear run to Dnipro and the eastern heartland of Ukraine, their daily advances will be more pronounced (though they won't repeat their early tactical errors of overextending), and they will be able to shift their personnel and artillery to the Mikolayev front, the same way they moved their Mariupol troops up to the Donbass a month ago. They will take Mikolayev and cut off Odessa, and move north on Zaporizhia towards Dnipro.
Most of the NATO observers are aware of these developments on the ground. We will start seeing a shift in the media narrative on the Ukraine war, along the lines of the articles I've posted above.
Ukraine should not try to fight a conventional war against Russia. They can't win that. Instead, grind them down with a guerilla war over the next decade. They can and should win that.
Nuland has been a part of the Uniparty neocon machine that has completely dominated American foreign policy this century. Her husband is Robert Kagan, founder of the Project of the New American Century, which pretty much run GWB's foreign policy.
Quote:
Unit2Sucks said:
Curious- do you ever go back and look at your old predictions? Because you have a terrible track record. How quickly did you say Russia would defeat Ukraine? Do you remember when you said the weather would dry out in April and Russia's tank divisions would resume their march on Ukraine?
Don''t get me wrong, I love a hot take, but yours are simultaneously confident/absolutist and hysterically inaccurate in hindsight. Perhaps you should just get out of the prediction game?
I am going to take the time here to lay out in detail what has been taking place, and what will happen in the weeks and months to come.
We're starting to see reality catch up with the war propaganda where people were led to believe that Ukraine could militarily defeat Russia with the help of western tech and toys like the Javelin or a smattering of smart NATO artillery like the M777 and the French Cesar. The amount of war propaganda and the shear scale of the fantasies vehiculed was staggering, with tales of Ghost of Kiev ace gunning down dozens of Russian jets, Snake Island warriors fighting till death to protect their lost rocky outpost, 50% of soldiers from the Russian heartland suffering from frostbiten toes in the relatively warm early spring weather of Ukraine, the Riviera of Russia...
In reality, Ukraine never had a chance, like I said above -1980s Nebraska vs Kansas. We're now in the middle of the third quarter, and Nebraska (the Russians in this metaphor), after a slow start in the first half of a road game, have been controlling the trenches, blowing away the Kansas DL, opening up the 3rd qtr with two straight long TD drives, rotating their blackshirt linemen while the injuries are starting to pile up for the Jayhawks' front seven...
Russia has around a 15 to 1 advantage in artillery pieces, and if that wasn't bad enough, Ukraine is close to running out of ammunition, with Russia having about a 40 to 1 advantage in this artillery firefight. Russia has ramped up significantly its hinterland munitions production factories, and is able to sustain its very high current rate of ammo use. They are also producing about 40 Kalibr cruise missiles per day.
There are 3 distinct arenas in this war, the military war, the economic war, and the propaganda war. Russia has been winning the war on the ground since April, dictating the terms of engagement due to the fact that the Ukrainians have limited mobility after having lost over 3/4 of their tanks, armored vehicles, air force and trucks. Contrary to the early war narratives, Russia's MIC is actually pretty efficient, and their US$ and Euro trade proceeds go a long way in terms of churning out military hardware.
Russia has also been winning the economic war, the Ruble having reached 5 year highs vs the US$, they're clearing nearly $1 billion/day in proceeds from oil&gas sales, and that's not even including food exports in markets like wheat where Russia dominates, or metals, fertilizers, lumber etc. Russia is the richest country in the world in terms of resources, this is a country that spans 11 time zones and has just about every mineral resource there is in droves. As well Putin has been preparing for an economic attack on his country, having built up large reserves in gold, currency and having payed off the massive debt left by the Yeltsin years.
Ukraine has been completely dominating the propaganda war. Zelensky, who is an actor by profession, and whose cabinet and inner circle essentially were his TV series production crew, this team has been very skilled at selling the West on Ukraine's chances to win the war, and on the righteousness of his cause and the need to militarily escalate the conflict, when in fact Ukraine never really stood a chance, and this approach was suicidal and destructive for his country.
Zelensky should have saved his country and accepted the Minsk Accord, and more recently, the 3 terms offered by German Chancellor Scholtz in a last ditch effort to stop the war: -Autonomy for the Donbass, region that did not want to be part of a unilingual Ukraine and rebelled against a central govt that forbade the use of their mother tongue, Russian in schools, local media, colleges and administrations -Military neutrality, along the lines that have worked very well for decades for border countries like Austria and Finland, who never joined NATO, maintained neutrality yet thrived economically and politically. -Recognize Crimea as Russian territory, a decision supported by the overwhelming majority of that region's inhabitants who identify as Russians.
Instead of accepting this package, and keeping his country relatively intact, Zelensky's government, emboldened by western guarantees of military support and promises of wonder weapons that were going to blow the ruskies away like Saddam's army, chose to escalate the conflict in the Donbass, which had been raging for over 7 years, with 14,000 mostly russophone deaths.
The results have been entirely predictable, for those observers who aren't emotionally attached to this cause or who aren't tied to the MIC and neocon/neolib DC and Brussels blob, Ukraine is getting wrecked after being led down the primrose path, to paraphrase John Mearsheimer, exactly as he has predicted. Realists like him have been alarmed at this suicidal buildup which started in 2014, and now their fears have materialized.
Ukraine has already lost 1/4 of its territory, and the Russians will take roughly 40-45% of present-day Ukraine, all the predominantly Russian-speaking regions, including Odessa and Kharkiv, basically historic Novorossiya along with parts of Malorussia (NE Ukraine). This area represents about 2/3 of Ukraine's GDP and wheat belt, and all of its coastline.
They will achieve this by the end of the year, continuing to grind away Ukrainian forces, which are currently depleting at a rate of about 1,500 men/day. Most of these poor souls are dying in one-sided artillery duels where Russian forces are mostly beyond their reach. The losses this coming month are going to snowball into a loss of morale and increased desertions and surrenders in the Ukrainian ranks. Already the situation has grown so dire that Ukraine is imposing mandatory conscription of all adult women under 60...
Once again, the real tragedy here is that all of this could have been avoided. You now have around 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers caught in the Donbass cauldron who are being slaughtered in a one-sided artillery war, with Russia also having complete air superiority in that region (which they do not have in western Ukraine).
Ukraine has bet the farm on its extensive and elaborate defensive lines in the Donbass, with layers of fortified bunkers, tunnels and trenches that stretch from the 2021 frontlines to the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, sort of a layered cake Maginot Line that they have built up over 7 years. The Russians have already cracked the top layers with the victories of Izyum, Lyman and Popasna, strategic towns which control the edges and middle layers, and are now threatening the last line of Ukrainian defense, the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, with their forces on the edge of Slovyansk.
Once that line of defense is breached and the Russians are behind it, Chapman is Gone, they will have a clear run to Dnipro and the eastern heartland of Ukraine, their daily advances will be more pronounced (though they won't repeat their early tactical errors of overextending), and they will be able to shift their personnel and artillery to the Mikolayev front, the same way they moved their Mariupol troops up to the Donbass a month ago. They will take Mikolayev and cut off Odessa, and move north on Zaporizhia towards Dnipro.
Most of the NATO observers are aware of these developments on the ground. We will start seeing a shift in the media narrative on the Ukraine war, along the lines of the articles I've posted above.
Ukraine should not try to fight a conventional war against Russia. They can't win that. Instead, grind them down with a guerilla ear over the next decade. They can and should win that.
That's just it. Even if Russia actually manages to claim as much territory as Cal88 predicts (and I think we should all know by now to be wary of Cal88 predictions), there's no way they hold it forever with a Ukrainian population who now hates them.
Nuland has been a part of the Uniparty neocon machine that has completely dominated American foreign policy this century. Her husband is Robert Kagan, founder of the Project of the New American Century, which pretty much run GWB's foreign policy.
Quote:
Unit2Sucks said:
Curious- do you ever go back and look at your old predictions? Because you have a terrible track record. How quickly did you say Russia would defeat Ukraine? Do you remember when you said the weather would dry out in April and Russia's tank divisions would resume their march on Ukraine?
Don''t get me wrong, I love a hot take, but yours are simultaneously confident/absolutist and hysterically inaccurate in hindsight. Perhaps you should just get out of the prediction game?
I am going to take the time here to lay out in detail what has been taking place, and what will happen in the weeks and months to come.
We're starting to see reality catch up with the war propaganda where people were led to believe that Ukraine could militarily defeat Russia with the help of western tech and toys like the Javelin or a smattering of smart NATO artillery like the M777 and the French Cesar. The amount of war propaganda and the shear scale of the fantasies vehiculed was staggering, with tales of Ghost of Kiev ace gunning down dozens of Russian jets, Snake Island warriors fighting till death to protect their lost rocky outpost, 50% of soldiers from the Russian heartland suffering from frostbiten toes in the relatively warm early spring weather of Ukraine, the Riviera of Russia...
In reality, Ukraine never had a chance, like I said above -1980s Nebraska vs Kansas. We're now in the middle of the third quarter, and Nebraska (the Russians in this metaphor), after a slow start in the first half of a road game, have been controlling the trenches, blowing away the Kansas DL, opening up the 3rd qtr with two straight long TD drives, rotating their blackshirt linemen while the injuries are starting to pile up for the Jayhawks' front seven...
Russia has around a 15 to 1 advantage in artillery pieces, and if that wasn't bad enough, Ukraine is close to running out of ammunition, with Russia having about a 40 to 1 advantage in this artillery firefight. Russia has ramped up significantly its hinterland munitions production factories, and is able to sustain its very high current rate of ammo use. They are also producing about 40 Kalibr cruise missiles per day.
There are 3 distinct arenas in this war, the military war, the economic war, and the propaganda war. Russia has been winning the war on the ground since April, dictating the terms of engagement due to the fact that the Ukrainians have limited mobility after having lost over 3/4 of their tanks, armored vehicles, air force and trucks. Contrary to the early war narratives, Russia's MIC is actually pretty efficient, and their US$ and Euro trade proceeds go a long way in terms of churning out military hardware.
Russia has also been winning the economic war, the Ruble having reached 5 year highs vs the US$, they're clearing nearly $1 billion/day in proceeds from oil&gas sales, and that's not even including food exports in markets like wheat where Russia dominates, or metals, fertilizers, lumber etc. Russia is the richest country in the world in terms of resources, this is a country that spans 11 time zones and has just about every mineral resource there is in droves. As well Putin has been preparing for an economic attack on his country, having built up large reserves in gold, currency and having payed off the massive debt left by the Yeltsin years.
Ukraine has been completely dominating the propaganda war. Zelensky, who is an actor by profession, and whose cabinet and inner circle essentially were his TV series production crew, this team has been very skilled at selling the West on Ukraine's chances to win the war, and on the righteousness of his cause and the need to militarily escalate the conflict, when in fact Ukraine never really stood a chance, and this approach was suicidal and destructive for his country.
Zelensky should have saved his country and accepted the Minsk Accord, and more recently, the 3 terms offered by German Chancellor Scholtz in a last ditch effort to stop the war: -Autonomy for the Donbass, region that did not want to be part of a unilingual Ukraine and rebelled against a central govt that forbade the use of their mother tongue, Russian in schools, local media, colleges and administrations -Military neutrality, along the lines that have worked very well for decades for border countries like Austria and Finland, who never joined NATO, maintained neutrality yet thrived economically and politically. -Recognize Crimea as Russian territory, a decision supported by the overwhelming majority of that region's inhabitants who identify as Russians.
Instead of accepting this package, and keeping his country relatively intact, Zelensky's government, emboldened by western guarantees of military support and promises of wonder weapons that were going to blow the ruskies away like Saddam's army, chose to escalate the conflict in the Donbass, which had been raging for over 7 years, with 14,000 mostly russophone deaths.
The results have been entirely predictable, for those observers who aren't emotionally attached to this cause or who aren't tied to the MIC and neocon/neolib DC and Brussels blob, Ukraine is getting wrecked after being led down the primrose path, to paraphrase John Mearsheimer, exactly as he has predicted. Realists like him have been alarmed at this suicidal buildup which started in 2014, and now their fears have materialized.
Ukraine has already lost 1/4 of its territory, and the Russians will take roughly 40-45% of present-day Ukraine, all the predominantly Russian-speaking regions, including Odessa and Kharkiv, basically historic Novorossiya along with parts of Malorussia (NE Ukraine). This area represents about 2/3 of Ukraine's GDP and wheat belt, and all of its coastline.
They will achieve this by the end of the year, continuing to grind away Ukrainian forces, which are currently depleting at a rate of about 1,500 men/day. Most of these poor souls are dying in one-sided artillery duels where Russian forces are mostly beyond their reach. The losses this coming month are going to snowball into a loss of morale and increased desertions and surrenders in the Ukrainian ranks. Already the situation has grown so dire that Ukraine is imposing mandatory conscription of all adult women under 60...
Once again, the real tragedy here is that all of this could have been avoided. You now have around 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers caught in the Donbass cauldron who are being slaughtered in a one-sided artillery war, with Russia also having complete air superiority in that region (which they do not have in western Ukraine).
Ukraine has bet the farm on its extensive and elaborate defensive lines in the Donbass, with layers of fortified bunkers, tunnels and trenches that stretch from the 2021 frontlines to the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, sort of a layered cake Maginot Line that they have built up over 7 years. The Russians have already cracked the top layers with the victories of Izyum, Lyman and Popasna, strategic towns which control the edges and middle layers, and are now threatening the last line of Ukrainian defense, the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, with their forces on the edge of Slovyansk.
Once that line of defense is breached and the Russians are behind it, Chapman is Gone, they will have a clear run to Dnipro and the eastern heartland of Ukraine, their daily advances will be more pronounced (though they won't repeat their early tactical errors of overextending), and they will be able to shift their personnel and artillery to the Mikolayev front, the same way they moved their Mariupol troops up to the Donbass a month ago. They will take Mikolayev and cut off Odessa, and move north on Zaporizhia towards Dnipro.
Most of the NATO observers are aware of these developments on the ground. We will start seeing a shift in the media narrative on the Ukraine war, along the lines of the articles I've posted above.
Ukraine should not try to fight a conventional war against Russia. They can't win that. Instead, grind them down with a guerilla war over the next decade. They can and should win that.
Ukraine is and will be an economic basket case. A guerilla war would only isolate them further from Europe as Europe is not going to integrate a country engaged in a civil war and the West will not fund a guerilla war The best thing for Ukraine would be guarantees of sovereignty and a track for some kind of EU partnership or membership
Nuland has been a part of the Uniparty neocon machine that has completely dominated American foreign policy this century. Her husband is Robert Kagan, founder of the Project of the New American Century, which pretty much run GWB's foreign policy.
Quote:
Unit2Sucks said:
Curious- do you ever go back and look at your old predictions? Because you have a terrible track record. How quickly did you say Russia would defeat Ukraine? Do you remember when you said the weather would dry out in April and Russia's tank divisions would resume their march on Ukraine?
Don''t get me wrong, I love a hot take, but yours are simultaneously confident/absolutist and hysterically inaccurate in hindsight. Perhaps you should just get out of the prediction game?
I am going to take the time here to lay out in detail what has been taking place, and what will happen in the weeks and months to come.
We're starting to see reality catch up with the war propaganda where people were led to believe that Ukraine could militarily defeat Russia with the help of western tech and toys like the Javelin or a smattering of smart NATO artillery like the M777 and the French Cesar. The amount of war propaganda and the shear scale of the fantasies vehiculed was staggering, with tales of Ghost of Kiev ace gunning down dozens of Russian jets, Snake Island warriors fighting till death to protect their lost rocky outpost, 50% of soldiers from the Russian heartland suffering from frostbiten toes in the relatively warm early spring weather of Ukraine, the Riviera of Russia...
In reality, Ukraine never had a chance, like I said above -1980s Nebraska vs Kansas. We're now in the middle of the third quarter, and Nebraska (the Russians in this metaphor), after a slow start in the first half of a road game, have been controlling the trenches, blowing away the Kansas DL, opening up the 3rd qtr with two straight long TD drives, rotating their blackshirt linemen while the injuries are starting to pile up for the Jayhawks' front seven...
Russia has around a 15 to 1 advantage in artillery pieces, and if that wasn't bad enough, Ukraine is close to running out of ammunition, with Russia having about a 40 to 1 advantage in this artillery firefight. Russia has ramped up significantly its hinterland munitions production factories, and is able to sustain its very high current rate of ammo use. They are also producing about 40 Kalibr cruise missiles per day.
There are 3 distinct arenas in this war, the military war, the economic war, and the propaganda war. Russia has been winning the war on the ground since April, dictating the terms of engagement due to the fact that the Ukrainians have limited mobility after having lost over 3/4 of their tanks, armored vehicles, air force and trucks. Contrary to the early war narratives, Russia's MIC is actually pretty efficient, and their US$ and Euro trade proceeds go a long way in terms of churning out military hardware.
Russia has also been winning the economic war, the Ruble having reached 5 year highs vs the US$, they're clearing nearly $1 billion/day in proceeds from oil&gas sales, and that's not even including food exports in markets like wheat where Russia dominates, or metals, fertilizers, lumber etc. Russia is the richest country in the world in terms of resources, this is a country that spans 11 time zones and has just about every mineral resource there is in droves. As well Putin has been preparing for an economic attack on his country, having built up large reserves in gold, currency and having payed off the massive debt left by the Yeltsin years.
Ukraine has been completely dominating the propaganda war. Zelensky, who is an actor by profession, and whose cabinet and inner circle essentially were his TV series production crew, this team has been very skilled at selling the West on Ukraine's chances to win the war, and on the righteousness of his cause and the need to militarily escalate the conflict, when in fact Ukraine never really stood a chance, and this approach was suicidal and destructive for his country.
Zelensky should have saved his country and accepted the Minsk Accord, and more recently, the 3 terms offered by German Chancellor Scholtz in a last ditch effort to stop the war: -Autonomy for the Donbass, region that did not want to be part of a unilingual Ukraine and rebelled against a central govt that forbade the use of their mother tongue, Russian in schools, local media, colleges and administrations -Military neutrality, along the lines that have worked very well for decades for border countries like Austria and Finland, who never joined NATO, maintained neutrality yet thrived economically and politically. -Recognize Crimea as Russian territory, a decision supported by the overwhelming majority of that region's inhabitants who identify as Russians.
Instead of accepting this package, and keeping his country relatively intact, Zelensky's government, emboldened by western guarantees of military support and promises of wonder weapons that were going to blow the ruskies away like Saddam's army, chose to escalate the conflict in the Donbass, which had been raging for over 7 years, with 14,000 mostly russophone deaths.
The results have been entirely predictable, for those observers who aren't emotionally attached to this cause or who aren't tied to the MIC and neocon/neolib DC and Brussels blob, Ukraine is getting wrecked after being led down the primrose path, to paraphrase John Mearsheimer, exactly as he has predicted. Realists like him have been alarmed at this suicidal buildup which started in 2014, and now their fears have materialized.
Ukraine has already lost 1/4 of its territory, and the Russians will take roughly 40-45% of present-day Ukraine, all the predominantly Russian-speaking regions, including Odessa and Kharkiv, basically historic Novorossiya along with parts of Malorussia (NE Ukraine). This area represents about 2/3 of Ukraine's GDP and wheat belt, and all of its coastline.
They will achieve this by the end of the year, continuing to grind away Ukrainian forces, which are currently depleting at a rate of about 1,500 men/day. Most of these poor souls are dying in one-sided artillery duels where Russian forces are mostly beyond their reach. The losses this coming month are going to snowball into a loss of morale and increased desertions and surrenders in the Ukrainian ranks. Already the situation has grown so dire that Ukraine is imposing mandatory conscription of all adult women under 60...
Once again, the real tragedy here is that all of this could have been avoided. You now have around 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers caught in the Donbass cauldron who are being slaughtered in a one-sided artillery war, with Russia also having complete air superiority in that region (which they do not have in western Ukraine).
Ukraine has bet the farm on its extensive and elaborate defensive lines in the Donbass, with layers of fortified bunkers, tunnels and trenches that stretch from the 2021 frontlines to the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, sort of a layered cake Maginot Line that they have built up over 7 years. The Russians have already cracked the top layers with the victories of Izyum, Lyman and Popasna, strategic towns which control the edges and middle layers, and are now threatening the last line of Ukrainian defense, the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line, with their forces on the edge of Slovyansk.
Once that line of defense is breached and the Russians are behind it, Chapman is Gone, they will have a clear run to Dnipro and the eastern heartland of Ukraine, their daily advances will be more pronounced (though they won't repeat their early tactical errors of overextending), and they will be able to shift their personnel and artillery to the Mikolayev front, the same way they moved their Mariupol troops up to the Donbass a month ago. They will take Mikolayev and cut off Odessa, and move north on Zaporizhia towards Dnipro.
Most of the NATO observers are aware of these developments on the ground. We will start seeing a shift in the media narrative on the Ukraine war, along the lines of the articles I've posted above.
I'll be honest, I'm tired of going through your bs diatribes line by line and spelling out how wrong each of your conclusions are. I'm on vacation and read through your usual Russia sanctioned crap, therefore will only respond with, 'No'.
Ukraine is independent, they have every right to preserve their territorial integrity and sovereignty. Ukraine deserves to exist. Russia is illegally and immorally stealing another country's land (again). They need to be stopped. The west should do everything they can to stop this russian aggression.
The west should do everything they can to stop this russian aggression.
But they're not, they want the Americans to pay for it.
When you say 'they' who exactly are you talking about?
Germany has increased military spending and donated weapons, the uk donated weapons, Poland donated weapons, czechia donated weapons, france donated weapons, Turkey donated weapons, a lot of countries have donated weapons. They also partook in the sanctions against Russia, which hurt them far more than the usa.
Therefore, when you say 'they' want Americans to pay for it, who is they?
The west should do everything they can to stop this russian aggression.
But they're not, they want the Americans to pay for it.
When you say 'they' who exactly are you talking about?
Germany has increased military spending and donated weapons, the uk donated weapons, Poland donated weapons, czechia donated weapons, france donated weapons, Turkey donated weapons, a lot of countries have donated weapons. They also partook in the sanctions against Russia, which hurt them far more than the usa.
Therefore, when you say 'they' want Americans to pay for it, who is they?
France donated baguettes.
Inside the bags were the instructions: "Eet dem ovair dair edds vees deez bahd boyz! Dare stale! Ard az a roque!"
French baguette donations are going to be an important item going forward, France being one of the major wheat exporters, in a world market that is out of whack due to the Ukraine war. Countries whose masses depend on cheap government-subsidized bread like Egypt or Ethiopia are going to go through a lot of social and economic hardships. the Arab Spring revolution started out in Tunisia and Egypt, partly fuelled by the rise in bread prices due Russia having had a bad crop that season.
France also donated to Ukraine a few dozen Cesar 155mm modern artillery systems, one of the best self-propelled artillery systems in the world. Unfortunately for Ukraine, the quantities were too small to make an impact, and furthermore, the ammunition provided was from old stock that didn't have all the modern features of this system or its top potential range. As well some of the convoys were destroyed on the way to the front, as they have to cross ~500 miles in open roads to get there from the Polish border,
Overall, the NATO arsenal is relatively poorly stocked in artillery and ammo in terms of quantity and cannot significantly change the balance of power in the Donbass artillery duel, at least not before a year or two, well after the outcome of the war is settled. The US/NATO military philosophy relies on air superiority and doesn't have the depth in artillery or tanks to match Russia's ground game. Short of intervening directly with a massive injection of air power and stand-off long-distance cruise missiles, the situation on the ground is not going to change and Russia is going to systematically grind down and dismantle the Ukrainian army. And if NATO did intervene, it would lose a very large number of planes as Russia also has the best anti-access/air denial systems in the world, both in quantity and in quality. A large-scale conventional open conflict between NATO and Russia on its borders would result in massive losses in the two camps, on a scale that will start to look like a world war.
25 million tons of grain are at risk of spoiling in silos at Ukrainian ports due to the Russian blockade. Millions of lives around the world are at risk, especially in East Africa.
Without action, countries like Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia will face famine.
25 million tons of grain are at risk of spoiling in silos at Ukrainian ports due to the Russian blockade. Millions of lives around the world are at risk, especially in East Africa.
Without action, countries like Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia will face famine.
The shelf life of wheat in silos is at least 4 years, so the first premise of this article is wrong.
The second premise, that Russia is blockading Odessa, is also wrong. The main impediment to shipping wheat out of Odessa is the fact that Ukraine has mined that whole area very densely, in order to stave off potential Russian amphibious landing invasions from the sea. The region will have to be demined in order for shipping lanes out of Odessa to be reopened.
Note that the Mariupol port on the eastern side of the Black Sea/Azov has already resumed its shipping activities after the Russians demined the Azov sea.
The shelf life of wheat in silos is at least 4 years, so the first premise of this article is wrong.
Yes, the shelf life of wheat is at least 4 years and actually quite a bit longer. But how confident are we that those silos havent experienced damage and are keeping moisture out as well as insects?
The west should do everything they can to stop this russian aggression.
But they're not, they want the Americans to pay for it.
When you say 'they' who exactly are you talking about?
Germany has increased military spending and donated weapons, the uk donated weapons, Poland donated weapons, czechia donated weapons, france donated weapons, Turkey donated weapons, a lot of countries have donated weapons. They also partook in the sanctions against Russia, which hurt them far more than the usa.
Therefore, when you say 'they' want Americans to pay for it, who is they?
I'm referring to the same countries you were referring to.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
"President Biden on Wednesday said the US will deliver another $1 billion worth of military equipment to Ukraine, including weapons to defend the country's coast."
Total US cost of this war after just under 4 months: $55 billion.
"President Biden on Wednesday said the US will deliver another $1 billion worth of military equipment to Ukraine, including weapons to defend the country's coast."
Total US cost of this war after just under 4 months: $55 billion.
Breaking: The Pope is a Russian asset parroting Kremlin propaganda.
I'm not calling the Pope a russian asset, but I do think its dumb to go to your priest for geopolitical advise. The preparation for church positions generally do not involve analyzing high levels of strategic intelligence or an understanding of diplomacy. The Pope is basically reiterating the stance of one unidentified person. Furthermore, Russia invaded Ukraine to stop the nazis, or at least that is what Putin said to the world.
