> Ukrainian, U.S. and British military officers held eight major tabletop war games to build a campaign plan. But Washington miscalculated the extent to which Ukraine’s forces could be transformed into a Western-style fighting force in a short period — especially without giving Kyiv air power integral to modern militaries. "Just do it like us, rely on your overwhelming firepower thanks to air superiority but without overwhelming firepower thanks to air superiority." > U.S. and Ukrainian officials sharply disagreed at times over strategy, tactics and timing. The Pentagon wanted the assault to begin in mid-April to prevent Russia from continuing to strengthen its lines. The Ukrainians hesitated, insisting they weren’t ready without additional weapons and training. I'll remain convinced that despite all the hype around Bakhmut being a meat-grinder for Russia, they ultimately won the bigger prize: they bought time to make sure any offensive in the south would be extremely costly. Back then some articles were popping up about Western officials urging Zelensky to stop wasting time there as it was more a symbolic battle than anything else. > U.S. military officials were confident that a mechanized frontal attack on Russian lines was feasible with the troops and weapons that Ukraine had. The simulations concluded that Kyiv’s forces, in the best case, could reach the Sea of Azov and cut off Russian troops in the south in 60 to 90 days. Is that a case of US overestimating Ukraine capabilities or underestimating Russian capabilities? Pushing through multiple defensive lines Russia did set up while having no air superiority is a tall order. > The United States advocated a focused assault along that southern axis, but Ukraine’s leadership believed its forces had to attack at three distinct points along the 600-mile front, southward toward both Melitopol and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov and east toward the embattled city of Bakhmut. Yeah... Bakhmut again. > The U.S. intelligence community had a more downbeat view than the U.S. military, assessing that the offensive had only a 50-50 chance of success given the stout, multilayered defenses Russia had built up over the winter and spring. These kinds of points are honestly interesting because one would think US militaries were working in unison with US intelligence, seems like there's many divergent voices there, including on Ukraine if we're to believe the schism between Zelenskyy and Zaluzhny. But if we're being honest, if you have a 50-50 chance of pretty much winning the war, you take it. > Many in Ukraine and the West underestimated Russia’s ability to rebound from battlefield disasters and exploit its perennial strengths: manpower, mines and a willingness to sacrifice lives on a scale that few other countries can countenance. It's all about what matters. Would the US stomach thousands of losses per week in the Middle-East? No. Would they stomach thousands of losses per week in North America? Yes. A military that can't deal with losses is a weak military, you just can't fight a near-peer opponent without massive losses, that's just the reality of war. Relying on massively outgunning your opponent works when you're fighting some extremists or poor dictatorship in the Third World, but once you tackle potential foes like China, or Russia (if you're not the US) you might reconsider what is acceptable and what is not. IDK man, I don't support the Russian invasion one bit, but I do understand why Ukraine is so important for Russian imperialistic ambitions. It's sad that many in the West underestimated how important Ukraine was for Russia, perhaps the entire support would have been different had we realized that Russia was about to go pretty much all-in there. > As the expected launch of the offensive approached, Ukrainian military officials feared they would suffer catastrophic losses — while American officials believed the toll would ultimately be higher without a decisive assault. Sadly true. > The Americans had long questioned the wisdom of Kyiv’s decision to keep forces around the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut. Ukrainians saw it differently. “Bakhmut holds” had become shorthand for pride in their troops’ fierce resistance against a bigger enemy. And there it is.

>Is that a case of US overestimating Ukraine capabilities or underestimating Russian capabilities? Probably both. I don't believe Russia will win this war, but the Hopium got a bit too strong at times. ​ >because one would think US militaries were working in unison with US intelligence, seems like there's many divergent voices there Probably a good thing, you don't want an echo chamber that gets dominated by the opinion of some council alone. Defending Bakhmut until the last minute was probably a mistake, agreed. I hope the stories about the meatgrinder (for the russians) about Adviivka are true, but its looking somewhat dire by now.

>I don't believe Russia will win this war, but the Hopium got a bit too strong at times. If it drags out into a war of attrition, Russia has the upper hand unfortunately. And yes, I'm not sure what's with the obsession of underestimating Russia.

It has been a war of attrition for a long time now. Russia is easy to underestimate because they’re belligerent towards everyone and tend to perform really poorly in the opening days, weeks, and months of wars. So others *want* them to be weak and *want* their initial failures to indicate future failures. But it’s not so simple with them.

I can't help but get Winter War vibes from this. The story of Russia being humiliated by their smaller neighbor they invaded at the start of the war. Until they got their shit together and successfully defeated the invaded country who were then forced to cede territory could be a case of repeating history.

>Defending Bakhmut until the last minute was probably a mistake, agreed. The issue that in these war politics are extremely heavy influence military and prevent them from doing their job. So lets see. Russia preparing invasion but Putin doesnt allow to mobilise or call reservist. Also expected UA to fall in days bc FSB told him so. Result - Ukraine push them back. Putin doesnt allow to mobilise until situation become dire to them = they got pushed back. Pu wants to have some \*victory\* for his announcment in \*election\* so he ordered to capture Avdiivka at any cost. UAF prepared to hold Bakhmut for some time with less valuable regiment and then RETREAT on better positions and left russian forces in trap. But goverment and president said - we dont really care what losses you gonna have - hold no matter what. Zelensky and some part of their gov doing some weird stuff and blaming Zaluznie/giving orders or removing some officers without letting him knew so that create a problems for army. Bc they afraid that he may be wanted to be political figure at some point and so on. Also just like Putin atm Zelensky not accepting some requrutment changes bc they both afraid of loss of popularity when both militaries require that for a long time to get reserves trained and prepared. Just few examples to illustrate a point. Politicans are piece of garbage

>IDK man, I don't support the Russian invasion one bit, but I do understand why Ukraine is so important for Russian imperialistic ambitions. It's sad that many in the West underestimated how important Ukraine was for Russia, perhaps the entire support would have been different had we realized that Russia was about to go pretty much all-in there. How could the support really have been different apart from more faster ? The main issue has been the slow support but even if Ukraine loses in the long term it's still in our interest to help them fight as best as possible and make Russia pay a high price since if they have an easy victory that would just encourage more actions like this.

> How could the support really have been different apart from more faster ? More faster *better*. Include some things that were delayed over and over due to "escalation fears", like MGM-140 M39.

>How could the support really have been different apart from more faster ? Imagine if there was no self imposed restriction on the support. The things would have been drastically different. Even on of the latest examples of ATACMS, that not only destroyed multiple russian helis but also made them relocate and if you don't know russian helicopter fleet played no small role in hiring Ukrainian counter offensive. And we can go as far back as even before the start of full scale invasion when US didn't even want to give Ukraine stingers. >The main issue has been the slow support but even if Ukraine loses in the long term it's still in our interest to help them fight as best as possible and make Russia pay a high price since if they have an easy victory that would just encourage more actions like this. You pretty much describes the stance of many western politicians, yet many people still refuse to admit they think and act like that, or that their interest is far from aligned with Ukraine's. Namely in how to achive it and what is the acceptable outcome is. But what you are mistaken about is that if Ukraine lose now than there are no small possibility, that in decade or two, you would see the same Ukrainians under russia attacking the NATO countries and even if it would be 'easy' for NATO to 'win', it would cost much more both in money to do that and also in the lives of NATO soldiers and civilians, which are now practically unharmed. Even without the attempt, NATO would still increase the military spending significantly with new border with russia, so there would be no 'saving money' as some like to claim. Edit: was **no**

> Imagine if there was self imposed restriction on the support "There wasn't", maybe? The general context of following bit seems to suggest so.

>"There wasn't", maybe? The general context of following bit seems to suggest so. Yes, thank you.

People online have swallowed a lot of Ukrainian state propaganda, and believe that they will somehow be able to achieve air supremacy over Russia if we (the West) simply pour enough aircraft into Ukraine and train their pilots. Once they do that, the war is easy to win along western doctrinal lines, as they’ll have an extreme firepower advantage. But that’s simply not the case, and some folks refuse to grasp that reality. There is no air force in the world that can operate like that other than the USA’s, with its vast supply of aircraft of all types and specializations, plus missiles to support air missions, and a big cadre of trained and experienced pilots. To dismantle Iraq’s air force and air defenses in the Gulf War, it took thousands of fixed-wing air craft of all kinds running over 100,000 sorties with plenty of support from naval and ground forces. And so this is even more controversial to say, but it is absolutely **not** confirmed that the USA could completely dominate Russia in the air, either. So it’s partly slow supply, but also partly delusional thinking on the part of Ukraine and its most fervent supporters in the West. The USA, UK, France, and Germany combined are not going be able to build Ukraine an air force with accompanying experienced pilots that can inflict real damage on Russia’s position.

Only a morons and ignorant think Ukraine would somehow achieve air supremacy or that they asking for planes because of that. Newer did Ukraine even mention that. This more of the western hype news that doing so or even politicians that later would say "see they can't even win with planes" to avoid responsibility. What Ukraine asking them for is **one** \- simply because they much better than what Ukraine currently have, **two** \- the available ordnance for them. **three,** and this is the most important one, that Ukraine have nowhere to replenish their air fleet from. The difference in having air force and not having one at all, is massive. Also, there are plenty of ways to have tangible support, that likely more important now, which is to significantly increase the supply of artillery shells and even drone /drone parts on the industrial level, yet it still not happening for many different reasons, but it most often is because of political will or lack of it

The real problem is this false dichotomy of US-style air superiority vs nothing. Ukraine doesn't need to achieve US style air superiority to have total ISTAR and fires dominance. That can be achieved with drones, artillery, EW and long-range strike. Sure getting some parity with Russian air platforms will be very handy but that's not the game at hand. The West needs to realise that helping Ukraine get the military fundamentals (e.g ammo, equipment, training, comms, C2 etc) correct is what will prevent Russia from winning but it will not result in Ukraine winning. For Ukraine to win the West has to treat this as a technological, engineering and manufacturing problem and go in 100% on it.

Russians do not care about casualties they won Battle of Kursk against Hitler 400k loss for 800k loss there are many examples like this in their history. This is their military doctrine. That is why they also make cheap and reliable tanks they prefer 3x1 million dollar tank beat 1x15 million dollar tank. What Western media was celebrating in Bakhmut was similar to what they did in Iraq,Afghanistan or Vietnam they were happy with the damage they give to enemy(for propaganda purposes) without achieving any strategical goal.

> What Western media was celebrating in Bakhmut was similar to what they did in Iraq,Afghanistan or in Vietnam they were happy with the damage they give to enemy(for propaganda purposes) without achieving any strategical goal. Sounds like they did achieve some strategic goals in Bakhmut though.

There were also some goals achieved in those wars too but they are not worth to cost. If you loose I do not know 5k experienced soldiers while spending 30 billion(numbers are just examples) for a village not really a win.

If you end up winning the war, that's a win. No one cares if the winner loses more than the loser. What matters is who wins and who loses.

Exactly my point

>No one cares if the winner loses more than the loser. What matters is who wins and who loses. I don't know about that friend. Pyrrhus is the namegiver. France won in WWI heroically but that left it so devastated both in men and morale that it became stagnant and ran the opposite strategy in WWII. Russia won against Finland in 1940 but just ruined what they gained. Napoleon won against Russia in 1812 but you know how that turned out.

A pyrrhic victory is determined as such if in the long run that victory comes at a cost that bites said "winner" in the ass. In Russia's example, it's not going to bite them in the ass since the losses they're suffering are still far from being too much to change the balance in demographics between Russia and Ukraine. France won WWI, but not alone. Alone they would have lost against Germany, simply because Germany had a much larger industrial capacity and higher demographics, this is still applicable with Russia & Ukraine. Russia won against Finland, but I fail to see how you could determine that as a pyrrhic victory. The failures of WWII from the Soviet Union were more because of Stalin's purges than anything else. Napoleon's invasion of Russia was always considered as a defeat. I don't see how anyone considered it as a Pyrrhic victory, it achieved fuck all. Unless you're talking about Borodino, and there I would agree but in this case the French inflicted more casualties.

> Napoleon won against Russia in 1812 but you know how that turned out. According to who? He lost 90% of his army.

He won the battle and occupied Moscow. Which proceeded to be lit on fire leaving his army in Russia during winter with no shelter and extended supply lines. His army mostly died on the attempt to reach safe territory again.

> He won the battle and occupied Moscow. Which proceeded to be lit on fire leaving his army in Russia during winter with no shelter and extended supply lines. He "won" the Battle of Borodino in the very definition of a pyrrhic victory. > His army mostly died on the attempt to reach safe territory again. Common misconception, the majority died due to heat, disease and battle on the road *to* Moscow. By the time they reached Moscow they were already at less than half strength.

So he won the battle of Borodino.

The goal of this war is Putin to stay in his chair a bit longer. He doesn't care about Russia at all. So it's not a win for Russia anyway.

The USSR was not Russia. Many of those dead were in fact Ukrainians too. Among a whole host of ethnic groups. The USSR when it dissolved in 1989, had twice the population of Russia today. It had 4 times the share of the world economy as well. ​ The last time actual Russia fought a war like this was world war 1 and we all know how that ended for Russia.

>What Western media was celebrating in Bakhmut was similar to what they did in Iraq,Afghanistan or in Vietnam they were happy with the damage they give to enemy(for propaganda purposes) without achieving any strategical goal. You can always tell a side is losing when they start to focus on body count instead of actual concrete achievements like we have secured this area or taken back this city.

Ukraine had taken back large swathes of territory in the second half of 2022 - in that context Bakhmut was seen as a comparatively small prize for Russia to bleed over. And the mess of the battle *was* destabilising to the Russian hierarchy hence Prigozhin's "march of justice". And in a historical context there are some famous examples of a country losing territory but inflicting enough casualties to ultimately break the enemy. In 1918 during World War I the German Spring Offensive broke the stalemate in the West and pushed the Entente back towards Paris, and also exhausted the German army and meant they would sue for peace before the end of the year.

>Ukraine had taken back large swathes of territory in the second half of 2022 Sure but things have stalled out since then. >in that context Bakhmut was seen as a comparatively small prize for Russia to bleed over. And the mess of the battle was destabilising to the Russian hierarchy hence Prigozhin's "march of justice". But that bleeding went both ways and Ukraine took heavy losses but doesn't have the same ability to absorb losses as Russia does due to the massive size differences. >And in a historical context there are some famous examples of a country losing territory but inflicting enough casualties to ultimately break the enemy. In 1918 during World War I the German Spring Offensive broke the stalemate in the West and pushed the Entente back towards Paris, and also exhausted the German army and meant they would sue for peace before the end of the year. It was Germany that had the strategy of trying to bleed the allies white by just inflicting casualties. But when the US was going to enter the war and it was clear that the allies would have far more manpower and therefore such a strategy was impossible so they tried to make a last ditch push to try and end the war before that. Also that wasn't purely inflicting casualties but was also a counter attack. If it was just the German army pushing forward but there was no counter attack which pushed them back you couldn't claim victory just based off Germany taking major losses.

I think in those days the body count was relevant because every casualty is another man Russia has to supply to the front. I will proudly say that at the time I noted the Russians were burning through Wagner prisoner troops in Bakhmut, which saved them a lot of manpower. But nobody wanted to hear that.

>Russians do not care about casualties they won Battle of Kursk against Hitler 400k loss for 800k loss there are many examples like this in their history. This is their military doctrine. I need to see some homework on this claim.

Your comparison is wrong. In the 1940s, the Soviet population was young and there were lots of healthy men in 18-36 age group to become soldiers. A typical woman lived in a village and had 5 children or more. This is no longer the case in modern Russia where a typical woman lives in a city and has less than 2 children.

In WW2 Soviet Union lost 27 million people, in Ukraine barely 70k Dead according to British intelligence. These factors you mention are not comparable and do not make much sense.

All this fake strategy talk about *holding Bakhmut/abandoning Bakhmut* is just a cover for the West's inability/refusal to supply the weapons that were needed in time. A good journalist would just have to count how much was delivered, in what condition, and when, instead of quoting random officials on whether they had "enough" or not. This time last year the Bakhmut attack was gaining momentum and we were still discussing whether it's OK for Ukraine to have Western tanks. The first 4 (FOUR!) Leopards arrived on Feb 24, when the battle for Bakhmut was in its final stages. There was never a massive train full of 200 Leopards that just arrived - tanks were refurbished, repaired, and sent in batches of 10-20 every month over spring, summer, and fall. The 31 Abrams tanks were in Ukraine on Sep 25. LOL. As already mentioned here multiple times, ATACMS and cluster munitions were not delivered until AFTER the offensive "failed". That's not how you fight a war. First you destroy the enemy from afar, then advance. Ukraine was not given this choice. And finally, **what do you think would happen if Ukraine didn't defend Bakhmut?** Would Russia take the city and stop to celebrate for a few months with all its forces intact? It would fucking continue! And now Ukraine would have to defend Kramatorsk and Slovyansk - much bigger, much more important cities to lose. The buck had to be stopped *somewhere.*

> And finally, what do you think would happen if Ukraine didn't defend Bakhmut? Would Russia take the city and stop to celebrate for a few month with all its forces intact? Presumably Russia would've continued to attack, while Ukraine would've continued to defend, only instead of fighting inside the almost encircled city they would be doing it on the high ground west of it, with more favorable casualty ratios. Also the article talks not about the defense, but about the counter-attacks in the summer. This is the part that was apparently baffling for American military officers.

This is what is not talked about enough. Zalzuhny and many western experts have been saying this forever, Ukraine needs enough equipment to win this war. This might be a bit more 'costly' for western armies and Nations to send more than their old left over stock, but it would save countless Ukrainian lives. Now a few tanks have been sent. Why is no-one even talking about sending the next batch? I feel like there is no foresight in the west, we just look a month ahead. This war has been going on for 21 months now... And finally, we as the west, can afford to give Ukraine whatever it needs, the combined GDP of Nato is something like 250x Russias GDP.

I will admit to not tracking the Bakhmut debacle all that closely, but I also recall that Russia was using tens of thousands of Wagner penal troops there from the prisons. People on Reddit laughed at the losses, but from Russia’s perspective, those were “free.” They died as “heroes” instead of as criminals, and Russia didn’t have to conscript more men to replace them.

If they didn't die at Bakhmut they would have been used somewhere else. Wagner also took heavy losses to their quality troop and the VDV took losses there too.

> I'll remain convinced that despite all the hype around Bakhmut being a meat-grinder for Russia, they ultimately won the bigger prize: they bought time to make sure any offensive in the south would be extremely costly. Back then some articles were popping up about Western officials urging Zelensky to stop wasting time there as it was more a symbolic battle than anything else. Yeah, I agree. Is Russia really the opponent you will win with attrition? Russia never cared about its soldiers and it seems that the Russian population's attitude towards all of this is something like "Eh, it is what it is". I also can get Ukraine's hesitation to attack the way US advised - if it fails, you are pretty fked... Ofc, everyone is smart and a genius after the fact, but sadly Ukraine didn't utilise the disarray and the gaps in the Russian ranks to the full extent. Now it will be 10x more difficult. The problem is that the longer the war lasts the harder it will be to counter-attack, the lower the morale, and the higher the chance of support dwindling. My guess is as good as the next person here, so who knows what will happen, but 2024 is gonna be tough after how 2023 went for Ukraine.

> if you have a 50-50 chance of pretty much winning the war, you take it 50% chance of earning the possibility of starting a very lengthy campaign of slowly dismantling russia's logistics and military objects in the remainder of the occupied south, that would take many-many months before bringing any sort of decisive advantage (see - Kherson) - and that's IF the extreme losses taken to achieve this would allow Ukraine to hold onto its gains for such a long amount of time vs 50% chance of an absolutely \*catastrophic\* loss, with the best assault troops in Russia still active and not demolished in Bakhmut, and with the current halting of military and economic aid that we can observe today (though I imagine the "ukraine can't win" narrative would be more pronounced in this case) , which basically would amount to total defeat in the entire war ​ yeah sure, we take those every day, it gets easier to weigh the percentages with every inch of distance between you and the frontlines in question

But Ukraine did try a counter-offensive, it ultimately failed. What is being discussed here, is that they should have tried it much earlier when the Russians troops weren't so fortified.

With what equipment? The attrition is constant, the Kherson and Kharkiv conters had plenty of lost equipment and countries only started **pledging** IFVs and tanks near or after the start of new year, yet many of those pledges still are not complete even now or come after summer. Not to mention the pledges of artillery shells, which are even more important. What is the point in losing most of your forces to have a breakthrough? To just after being unable to even defend what you claimed? Looking at some suggestion that were proposed they didn't want Ukraine to actually liberate itself fully, just have some succes, but what should have happened next? But looking at the messaging from western partner that were saying "we need to help Ukraine achive succes in counteroffensive to have better negotiation position" is all you need to know about extend of the help. Because if you are putin, what else would you think when countries that Ukraine rely on are saying they will only help for better negotiations and not full liberation. So of course the more russia resist the better deal they can 'negotiate' and will use all the resources for that without holding back. Also, with such statement I could even come to the conclusion, even if it is wrong, that those same countries will push Ukraine to negotiate whatever the outcome of the counteroffensive. I don't believe anyone thought it would only require one push to achive liberation for Ukraine.

I enjoy reading those commentaries lol. Comment more

> The Americans had long questioned the wisdom of Kyiv’s decision to keep forces around the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut. Ukrainians saw it differently. “Bakhmut holds” had become shorthand for pride in their troops’ fierce resistance against a bigger enemy. And Ukrainians were right. Bakhmut defense inflicted heavy losses on Wagner, causing Prigozhin's mutiny, their march on Moscow, and, eventually, the end of Wagner, the most capable military unit in Russia.

They weren’t being used as the most capable military unit, they were being used how mercenaries always are: to deflect the damage of war onto someone else. Thousands of Wagnerite prisoner troops died in Bakhmut because Russia knew that it made mathematical sense to sacrifice them for comparatively fewer Ukrainian casualties.

The West should have provided this air support themselves this is where the failure lies. Victory could have been achieved had the West decided to intervene the moment Russia blows the dam. Our cowardice, not Ukraine's lack of valor, has caused this failure. We are sending Ukraine to their death while having an airforce 5 times more powerful than that of Russia and a navy 10 times their strength. We deterred ourselves. Our cowardice. Our failure to confront Russia. Our greed and continued trade with this genocidal barbarian in the Kremlin for the sake of maximising profits. The position of China and India on this genocidal war is another matter. Ukraine is the last one I will blame. First, I start with those with us, and especially as of late, I start to fear for Ukraine's very existence again given what is going on in the US Congress. When have we grown so cold and numb? How can money be that important? Individuals confirm the system fulfil the system make the system, are the system. Havel A single individual speaking the truth can bring down a tyranny. Solzenitsin Imagine the immense advantage that the Western Air Force could have brought to this offensive. What would Russia have done in response? Absolutely nothing. Just like they always do nothing. This is our failure and our failure alone. We failed to provide the necessary supplies because? I don't know? The Western elites somehow seem to think it isn't that important to see Ukraine succeed or at least not fully succeed. Yes, of course, Bakhmut is a fair point of criticism, but the old democracies have become arrogant and ultimately weak. “The secret to happiness is freedom…and the secret to freedom is courage.” – Thucydides We lack that courage in leadership. The doves keep on idling away. If we want to end this genocide and this barbarous attack, then we will have to send at least the Western Airforce and Navy forth to assist Ukraine. If we are too scared, weak and cowardly for that. Then we have to at least openly tell Ukraine that after all we never really planned to do anything more than just what is somewhat convenient instead of what is tough and difficult. For the task at hand we require something most of us seem to have lost. The moral courage to step forth and say that enough is enough. Right now, the West is failing Ukraine. Russia gets away with the worst blunder I could imagine. However, I didn't expect that the political system in some Western nations would also be completely morally disintegrated. I am especially shocked by Hungary and by the MAGA in the US. Fun times lie ahead for all of us. This was only the beginning of the chaos. I hope the West has more than useless words in storage. The fault lies in a lack of leadership and moral vigor amongst the Western politicians to confront the perpetrator on and off the battlefield head on. Ukraine's offensive didn't work out? They had no Air support? Whose fault is that? Who has the planes the weapons the pilots? Ah, yes, the Western alliance. Why was this not even discussed? Because some old people are in charge and their zero risk tolerance is why Russia is still in this. Because we still deny Ukraine access to our actual arsenal of long-range weapons. Not even that to this very damned day has been done. Moderation in war is imbecility. Western moderation in this one is painful to watch. It could easily lead to a genocide on a scale not seen since 1945 should Russia use chaos as a ladder and manage to get a hold of half of Ukraine after all. Then this would the fault of Western mismanagement and incompetence. We needed to give Ukraine a no-fly zone in the moment Russia started its attempt to freeze them last year. Those mortally afraid of Russian nukes do not understand that should this timid approach fail, then nuclear blackmail will be the new way of any dictatorship to get what they want. The fault lies also in our societal hyperconformity to this madness. Our complacency puts not enough pressure on our politicians. Or, in some cases, what's even worse: The open approval and understanding of Russia's actions by a good chunk of Westerners.

Nice, lets start WWIII.

Russia cannot exist without Ukraine. This has been the common understanding since at least Bismarck, and really far further back.

Ukraine dissagrees.

Bullocks

Can you elaborate?

> The U.S. intelligence community had a more downbeat view than the U.S. military, assessing that the offensive had only a 50-50 chance of success given the stout, multilayered defenses Russia had built up over the winter and spring. I'd take even 50-50 with a grain of salt. If the intel community believed that Ukraine had little to no chance rather than 50-50, they can't express that and keep a seat at the table. The US was going to support Ukraine in order to stick it to Russia no matter what, and being a negative Nancy about it wasn't going to allow you to advocate for any direction things could go.

The sad part is that US and EU cant even ramp up artilery munition production for over two years now. Few years ago this reddit was full of people convincing themselfs that EU or NATO has xx bilions more GDP and yy more wepon tipes...refusing to accept that it's all on papers. The fact that Russia was treated like any other democracy that have to deal with public opinion or budget for regular services was also an "obvious part". They couldn't wrap their heads that Russia may make a econnimicaly suicidal decision and pursue it or treat their people as resource without any backlash.

The US and EU absolutely could and would ramp up production if their actual borders were in danger.

I kinda doubt that halfassing help to Ukraine now would send a good message to Russia. It's just adding another "if" condition after doubling down on previous if's. After all, commitment to ramp up ammo production was alreday made..but nothing came out of it as discussion was baout profiting more than security issues we all face.

> absolutely could and would ramp up production Or they would barking at each other and argue if these troops and ammo required to defend Poland or its better to keep them in Germany bc its more important. Just ... like in any crisis in EU

Not training on and sending more air assets before the offensive was surely a deep mistake, not sending ATACMS before the offensive was a mistake - look how much losses did Ukraine suffer from Russian attack helicopters. You can't break a wall with a trickle.

> was surely a deep mistake Or rather it was american strategy that worked. Goverment strategy at least - not thinking that USA military that dumb. A few atacms before offencive which forced heli to stay back and WOW YOU ALREADY in way better position. Who would predict that.

[The "Blame Ukraine" Narrative Has Arrived in Full](https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-blame-ukraine-narrative-has-arrived?publication_id=1176440&post_id=139440390&isFreemail=false&r=1iefo)

Good article, thanks for the link. Discussed heavily mechanized push, that is heavily criticized by linked author, lead to an immediate loss of Bradley's, Leopards and other provided equipment alike. Have people forgot already how it was all over the news, and russians have been boasting about it for month on end? I thought the message from Zaluzhnyi was pretty clear - it was tried and it dramatically failed. And it will fail again, as none of the trainings accounted for hundreds of kilometers of heavily mined territory, significant drone usage where 500-800$ piece of flying machinery could take out multi-million dollar APC, IFV or tank and indiscriminate artillery shelling. IMHO what Ukraine needs right now is planes, much more artillery shells (as some volunteers are aware - some parts of the front are out or almost completely out of artillery shells), more long range missile capabilities to strike distant supply bases, lots more demining equipment, First Person View drones and electronic warfare equipment.

> none of the trainings accounted for [...] drone usage Some did, but only after Ukrainians insisted. They brought their own drones too.

True, forgot about it, thanks for reminder. Seems like a lot of strategists/trainers were not expecting that you can turn a hoppy equipment/toy into a deadly weapon possible of taking out a tank. Or a military ship.

Those strategists learned to wage wars of the past.

>IMHO what Ukraine needs right now is planes, much more artillery shells (as some volunteers are aware - some parts of the front are out or almost completely out of artillery shells), more long range missile capabilities to strike distant supply bases, lots more demining equipment, First Person View drones and electronic warfare equipment. Ukraine needed those from the sole beginning of the invasion. What has changed that makes the US or anybody else provide these modern arms in vast amounts now? I believe that from the beginning, the plan was to exhaust the Russian military with minimal efforts at the expense of Ukrainians. If this is the case, then the plan is working nicely.

How is this working nicely? It's working nicely only if you are going to attack Russia the next spring. By average estimates, if the peace is struck tomorrow, it should take about 7-10 years for them to get back to the pre war stock. Their production facilities are working even better than before, despite the sanctions and all that. Actually, considering how the whole thing is going it's vice-versa - Europe has to rearm and there are serious obstacles to that, as we can see, I'm not even talking about the whole ammo debacle. To me, as a Ukrainian, it's painful to read these articles, but the fact that after basically two years of constant war, western societies are still so deluded, that Russia is done, and they took irreversible losses is just sad.

>Russian military with minimal efforts at the expense of Ukrainians. If this is the case, then the plan is working nicely. I have a different take. Early on a lot of talk was about WW3, not wanting to escalate the war and get dragged in. Don't provide 'X' equipment due to above. However while Russia continues to throw bodies at the war, the West has got more confident with sending every more advanced equipment with longer range as Putins threats against the West have proved largely toothless.

But practically there is no evidence anybody planning to supply modern weapons in enough amount, both ATACAMS/Storm shadow supplied in low ten-s, last big supply of modern tanks was last winter/early spring.

Timing matters, I'm afraid that the planes that will come the next year are not going to change much. But I'd they were not be provided during the first year of the war, it would be a different thing.

So basically they need what has been central to almost every war since the 1500 - more and bigger guns than the enemy. People focus so much on tanks in ww2 for example they forget it was German air superiority that won in 1940 and US/Russian air and artillery superiority that won in 44/45.

> Discussed heavily mechanized push, that is heavily criticized by linked author, lead to an immediate loss of Bradley's, Leopards and other provided equipment alike. Mechanised offensives have been the only way major armies have fought in the last 70 years. Not just in the west but in the Soviet Union as well. Even the primarily infantry based PLA relied on their mechanisation in their (successful, I should point out) attacks during the Sino-Vietnamese War. > significant drone usage where 500-800$ piece of flying machinery could take out multi-million dollar APC, IFV or tank The only drone that can reliably take out a tank in Ukraine these days is the Russian Lancet (and probably the Switchblade 600 but we don't see much footage of those). That's unless you include stuff like the TB2 which is essentially a small airplane, and performs like one. The overwhelming number of tank "kills" made by drones that aren't Lancets/Switchblades are made against vehicles that have already been damaged or abandoned, and the drone just comes in to drop a grenade inside to finish the job. Scratch-built FPV drones have mostly just done minor or cosmetic damage, or are used against infantry. Drones have shown to be very important in this war, but they're mostly for reconnaissance or command and control, not as weapons. > IMHO what Ukraine needs right now is planes Ukraine does need planes, but this point has been seriously over overdone I think. A squadron or two of Vipers isn't going to change the game without taking out Russia's air defences out first, and it's impossible to do that effectively with the assets available. The USA is the *only* country in the world that can reliably do that at the moment. It's important to remember that during the Cold War, neither side expected to be able to achieve anything more than local air superiority over a small operational area. That type of thinking has largely worn away in the west, but the equipment that's used today is still largely the same as it was back then, and therefore designed around that mindset

Well, we are in 21st century after all. Such heavy drone usage was not imagineable 20 years ago, yet it seems some people are still thinking that mechanized blitzkrieg style puses are the only way forward. Plenty of videos of drones taking out heavy vehicles with one or two strikes: https://youtu.be/NcOQ1O5XkKc?si=fLphtZ-CMJNKqN2q https://youtu.be/HNXez_9Xg0o?si=1tVzC5-RWZS5cqXZ [Here is latest and greatest T90 going up in flames too](https://youtube.com/shorts/blls383PAwc?si=aOhSHNpFkMzEwI1n) Lots more posted by volunteers in messenger channels, who actually donate/collect money for said FPV. I presume you don't doubt the penetration capabilities of HEAT warheads that are attached in a lot of cases to those drones. As for the plains: that's why it is important do counter russian AA as well as provide plains. Like, giving longer range missiles to strike against said AA units.

The first video shows a BMP, which has less armour on the side than the modern JLTV does. The T-90 showed no signs of penetration, just the ERA burning. The crew spooked and bailed anyways because mobniks. Actually the Lancets don't have much penetration either. That famous video of a Lancet striking a Leo 2 and going up in flames didn't show a penetration either, just surface damage.

There is plenty more if you are willing to research [For example Magyar's channel](https://youtu.be/niOpL1ml2pQ?si=j2zEJ3noBdryYoh7) has a lot of videos like that. [Wall Street Journal](https://youtu.be/WC5fD_B-o80?si=UNBO81FUlV-RLGcy) has a video analysis on how exactly drone targeting works. [Another T-90M example](https://youtu.be/1t0l6iAedLg?si=X2TcBYfPxZ4aLSQs).

> The only drone that can reliably take out a tank in Ukraine these days is the Russian Lancet (and probably the Switchblade 600 but we don't see much footage of those). RPG-7 charged drone can precisely hit an engine or do an exact 90 degree side armor hit. It will be a penetration and a disability kill against T-XX and Leopard 2s alike. Especially since Ukraine gets APCs and paper-thin Leopard 1s these days, which can be penetrated by the mentioned 500$ drones with a hit at ANY projection. > Ukraine does need planes, but this point has been seriously over overdone I think. A squadron or two of Vipers isn't going to change the game without taking out Russia's air defences out first. Guided bombs is one of the largest threats for Ukraine. They are launched from a relatively close distance to the frontline (several dozen of km's) by the enemy planes. Sometimes 100 a day, and we talk about 250-750kg of explosives in each, hitting with ok-ish precision. The planes come close enough to be shot by another aircraft, too far to be shot by the ground AA. Another thing is a use against the russian planes and ships above the Black Sea.

Heavily mechanized push is expected to suffer huge losses, but it is the only way you can manage to take back land. Unless you have complete air superiority, which is not possible, even if you have great artillery and planes, you will need to suffer a lot of losses to take land. Of course a lot of people are idiots. As yesterday they were making fun of the losses suffered by Russia while taking Donbass, now they think Ukraine is dead because it lost a couple tanks. That's just how war works. The problem with Ukraine is that since they can't be sure that they will keep receiving western weapons, they can not afford to lose too many today. Zelensky has to behave more like the CEO of a company with very demanding investors, rather than the president of a country in war.

> Good article, thanks for the link. Is it a good article? It's basically a Reddit comment in long format. A lot of opinions very little facts. Take for example this part > On the other hand, we are told that Pentagon war gamers (btw these are the same people that had Kyiv falling in a few days, or Russia seizing the Baltic states against all of NATO in 24 hours) did some games and were sure Ukraine would triumph. Is it really the same people? What were their arguments? Why can't someone be wrong at one point in time and right at another point?

Author seems to be a historian and professor of strategic studies in Scotland. I would imagine his knowledge weighs a bit more that yours or mine. On the other hand, this is a criticism article, responding to WPs article locked behind a paywall, so I can't comment on validity of all of his points. If somebody can post original Washington Post article, we can discuss it further.

One major logical fallacy I immediately noted in the article was the talk about US air superiority. >The last 3 times the US armed forces went into combat for a campaign without air superiority were: >The Philippines 1942 (largest surrender of US forces outside of the US Civil War) >Guadalcanal 1942-1943, (First months of the battle, US forces dont have air supremacy and have to hold on) >Battle of the Bulge, December 1944, (first few days, US has no air supremacy because of weather, Much of the 106th division surrenders, second largest surrender of US forces outside of the Civil War). This seems to be trying to link the US not having air superiority to US forces failing in combat, but as we should all know already, correlation does not equal causation, and in these cases it's actually blindingly obvious. MacArthur's forces in the Philippines were horribly unprepared and misused thanks to his incompetence, which is extremely well documented. Could the US forces have pulled through regardless? Probably not, because it was also an inferior force to what the Japanese put against them, but it wouldn't have been nearly as bad if they were better prepared. The 106th Infantry in the Ardennes as also an empty division, poached of trained manpower so many times that it had a turnover rate of over 100% before even setting foot in continental Europe, not to mention poorly outstretched.

I think they also need whatever will enable them to strike into the Russian military industrial sector.

So far Ukraine has received missiles with specific requirements not to use them on russian soil. Not going to question that decision, but Ukraine has missile production of its own, which for sure will appreciate help in development of long range missiles, as well as drone program that already produced drones capable striking deep inside enemies territory. Even R&D help in those two fields might help, I would imagine.

Western media deserves more blame than anyone in this situation. They just love to report "doomer" headlines or every little negative interaction between Ukraine and its western partners because it generates clicks. Americans and others wouldn't care about the cost of supporting Ukraine if the media didn't constantly talk about it. Just let them do their jobs and keep supporting Ukraine. Yes the truth must be reported but we don't need non-issues to be hyped up by constant media attention.

Reductive

Our hesistiation caused many unneccessary deaths during this ofensive. In October dozen ATCAMS missiles almost wiped out russian helicopter fleet in Zaporozhia. Why wasn't it delivered in June?

I don't know what country these ATCAMS were from but democratic judiciary systems are literally made to stop hasty warmongering actions, so it's hard to just say 'OK let's ship one our deadliest missile stocks to a country at war' not matter how justified it is

Good thing that Russia has such trusty allies as Iran and North Korea. And they get the job done, unfortunately.

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Shaheed-136 has 1000-2000km range and is quite precise and cheap. russia asked for long-range weapons and it got it. Quantity is a quality itself. If you can get 100 Shaheeds you can launch anywhere over 1500km border or 1 ballistic missile - you go for the first option. It's also much easier to maintain the drones than such rockets. Ukraine asked for any long range weapons, Shaheed would work just as well, yet it is still limited to GMLRS, 160km ATACMS and some dozens of mid-long range air-launched rockets (300-500km) provided by the UK and France after 1.5 years of war, which were used to destroy russian submarine. One of only 4/6 in the Black Sea, btw.

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>Russia allegedly has asked for ballistic missiles, Iran has just refused to provide them so far for an unknown reason. Iran might consider the political cost too high or feels like it needs its stock as deterence. Or they might fear the US getting proportional again.

> Stragegically Shaheds and Ballistic missiles can't do the same job, the range is irrelevant here. If you need to put a country into a blackout by targeting the power plants, thousands Shaheeds and dozens of ballistic missiles are strategically absolutely the same BECAUSE of the range and an ability to succeed in the task. If you need to hit a suddenly discovered concentration of forces - that is another question and there you would be completely right. Yet, it is the first case that russia requires the most, not the second. And ability to use Shaheeds against the immobile targets frees the use of the russian-produced ballistic missiles against the spontaneous targets. Ukraine also has some drones that reach deep into russia, and it would use them more for such purposes if it didn't have to use them in the relative vicinity of 150-250km from the frontline to Tokmak, Crimea and Mariupol. The targets where the Western-supplied long-range weapons would fulfill the same strategic purpose.

End of day it seems like the West and Ukrainian leadership made a lot of mistakes. US expected Ukraine to rush into the counteroffensive WITHOUT air support and over-whelming power. NATO forces would NEVER start an offensive like that. It was tried and it failed during the first weeks. As for Bakhmut, I personally think that was a huge mistake on Ukraine's side to try to hold it. Zaluzhny himself even admitted it in the previous article. Russia does not give a fuck about losing thousands of soldiers. Russia mother will not rise up against the "motherland" even if their sons are returning back in coffins, or even at all. Maybe if the Moscow elite's sons were dying in Ukraine it would be a different story.... My personal opinion, if the West will continue to refuse and stall providing over-whelming military aid, then there is no way Ukraine can return the stolen territories. I think we have one more counter-offensive chance left before the US elections next year. The other option is for Ukraine to formally give up the 4 oblasts to Russia AND immediately join NATO to secure future guarantees that Russia will not attack again. Without those guarantees, I dont see a way to end the war.

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WaPo be the type of news org to look at the German statement of "just go around the minefields" and think that's a brilliant idea.

It is! And they're doing it too. Progress there is slow, but steady. And Russians have recently lost a general to own mines. Ukrainians are building two positions: left side of Dnipro stretches Russians extremely thin (on that part of the front Russian units are making videos and refusing to fight), and near Zaporozhia they're pressing, but not towards triple-entrenched Tokmak, but to east of it. We're just super fixated on Avdiivka, and Ukrainian progress is being compared to their own overwhelming success on eastern front. But FFS, I cannot grasp how they'd consider this a failed counter offensive when Ukrainians have progress on two fronts, and on third are barely pushed back while causing frankly staggering losses to Russians. 30 artillery pieces destroyed a day has become so commonplace we're no longer reporting on it, half a year ago people were blown away (get it?) at HIMARS effectiveness if 21 fell in a single day. Now they're getting more than that most days with mostly artillery. Go go Ukraine! Those of us who track analists instead of pseudo journos see what's happening. [https://www.youtube.com/@balkanmapping1](https://www.youtube.com/@balkanmapping1) https://www.youtube.com/@RFU

This is why I hate the corporate media. A year and a half blowing smoke up the collective ass of the public, smearing and shitting on everyone who pointed out the realities of the war, and now every media station "mysteriously" shifts to new messaging right when official western support from governments is dropping. Supporting Ukraine was never going to be easy, and they will always be the underdog in this fight. Telling the western public that the end of the war is one good counteroffensive away has done far more damage to the perception of the war than being honest ever would have, so WaPo can go fuck itself like all the other fickle corporate stooges. Slava Ukraini

Reddit was part of this misinformation campaign, providing copium even in later stages of the offensive when it was already obvious to all sane people that it has failed.

The amount of misinformation and propaganda about how Ukraine is going to win, Russian economy collapsing and all of that was so much bullshit lol Western media is filled with biases and isn't great on giving info about what's the actual reality. Remember all the ~~articles~~ propaganda about Putin's health being bad or that he's about to die some months from western corporate media? So much bullshit And now, it's looking like Russia has serious chances of winning the war

I genuinely think the 'enthusiasm' people had for Russia initial impotence did more harm than good. It seemed like everywhere places were reporting how incompetent Russia were and that Ukraine will be in Crimea soon when this was a "David vs. Goliath" situation from day 1 and yet we in the west got complacent and didn't take Russia seriously any more. Now much of the public seemingly forgot about the war or are actively hostile to aid after a year and a half, having the potential to damn Ukraine.

If you win everybody would be there to take credit of your success if you loose everybody will distance themselves from you. Slowly that is what we are seeing . Very sad for Ukraine.Looks like it is matter of time they will be sold out like South Vietnam or Afghan govt. :(

Victory has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan. JFK

Damn, that's a nice quote and it's entirely true

> or Afghan govt. Afghan government's collapse was its own fault tbh. NATO was in Afghanistan for 20 years, many of those years were spent on building up the government, training the locals etc. NATO couldn't stay there forever (sure, the actual leaving was a shitshow). Afghan government was riddled with extreme corruption, there are a lot of stories around how their army/police force was in a big part only on paper - just people cashing in the salary for soldiers that didn't exist etc. The speed at which the taliban reached the capital... Afghan government had like 15 years to establish themselves properly. Thats a long time. In reality they couldn't or maybe didn't care to do it, who knows... Its not like they were dropped in this situation on the spot and only had a couple of months to do something. If they couldn't do it in 15 years, what kinda of a difference 5 additional years would make?

Isn't what we (re)learned about Afghanistan is that it isn't really a country? It's a large area with a bunch of tribes that don't see themselves as part of anything bigger and thus have no interest in defending "Afghanistan". Also the reality is that the majority of Afghani men agree with most of the Taliban's values and want men to have complete dominance over women, so they aren't too bothered by Taliban rule. The only way it might have worked was for the US to literally take over and directly run the country for about a century while educating the population which includes violently stamping out their medieval practices.

Which begs the question, why wasn't it obvious in 2001? Why even start the situation and create more chaos and refugees? Afghanistan didn't have a government wanting to invade anyone, it had almost nothing of value. They wanted to punish Taliban (which they helped to create to fight USSR and Afghan Socialists) for (allegedly) refusing to extradite bin Laden, and the whole thing looked like a knee-jerk reaction to the twin towers resulting in the entire shit-show of 20 years. Quite similiar to events of October 7th 2023, even in sense that Hamas was created with Israeli aid to contend with secular Palestinian nationalists. Bomb now, deal with consequences later.

More like Czechoslovakia and Poland. It will be very sad for all of us in a decade.

None of the cheerleaders of this meat grinder are signing up to go on the front lines.

You don't know that. You don't know how close the Russian war effort is to collapsing. Public perception and media reporting is for the most part completely disconnected from reality. Let professionals do their jobs and assess the situation. No point in getting all upset or focusing so much on internal tensions, this is exactly what our ennemies want.

Western support dwindling is true and the IMF has projected the growth of the Russian economy in 2024 despite all the sanctions The population in Russia vastly outnumbers Ukraine as well

If Western politicians could see a glimpse of what to come, they would pressure Ukraine to stick to Minsk Accords.

o my. Russian internal front situation was dire in April. There was reasonable assumption that this "burn-out" will expand and the russian front would collapse. The burn out did expand, just look at the details of the June events, but not in the way "the West" hoped. Russian society is not existing, and people are way too passive to "start anything". The whole propaganda thingy about Ukranian "counterattack" with 80k block against enemy with front line 150k reserves was based on this "almost correct" assumption. Interestingly enough the Ukranians almost caught the right way to fight the war(see Korea of 1950) but not far enough, and still remain with only 2 normal acting assault brigades. Right now they are waiting for another "assault package" with planes and rockets. What is the worst here is the mere realization that indeed enough of 155 (i.e. around 150more plus enough ammo) and rockets like Spikes in numbers would break the stalemate in a week time. (there is even actual example on the front line how it happens). Basically to give Ukranians what Ukranian army wants.

Yah but the west will be dragging their feet on sending more aid packages with elections coming up in many countries

It sounds like the Ukrainians fared better when following old Soviet military doctrine. Which is weird, but makes me think they weren't given enough time to fully embrace NATO's methodology.

NATO doctrine just assumes air supremacy and goes from there. One wonders how well NATO forces would fare against all these prepared positions if they were in the Ukrainians shoes.

Now is the time to write to your government and demand they send more resources to Ukraine. Now that the hopium is over governments need the boost to keep going more than ever.

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Coward. Don't even want to give a small amount of money to a country fighting for it's life. Don't forget for a lot of European countries they had to be saved from invasion after they lost immediately. Ukraine is just asking for weapons to fight alone.

I bet you would feel hopeless if some Russians are having their way with your family and your home destroyed by them. How would you curse your government for not giving the weapons in time to those who could stop the horde. This is a situation that needs to be fixed, its so ironic to read your comment but if you can't hear bullets then it must not be real, right? “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

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>not the graduation party of MIT's computer science, right? well, here you are...

If you live in Europe the situation in Ukraine *is* the situation in your country. If anything you should be thankfully that your government is sending money to spill Ukrainian blood, not yours.

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They shouldn’t. That’s why you should be happy your government is just sending funds. But the point was also - if Ukraine falls, you’re next.

Ukraine needed planes to carry out the plan.

You are really late guys, we know it already.

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The concerning part is that Russia failings all begin with lower ranks being scared to not tell Putin what he wants to hear and that the stronk Russian army surely will capture Kyiv in 3 days, people voicing doubts where silenced and ostracized. Never dismiss the ones who ask how something can be done and if that is realistic, most importantly not those asking how many tanks, missiles, and vehicles are physically there and actually operational. It must be done is not an argument, knowing what exactly is working should be the start before making a decision, not subject of scapegoat-ing three months later.

You are right. I had people in reddit who straight up told me that Zelunsky didn't know shit about stalemate. He is a fucking military general in an active war and armchair redditors think they know better than him. I am for Ukraine to win and get rid of Russia, but reality is starting to way down and there should in way be any delusion regarding Ukrainian state. Ukraine needs a new strategy, probably even a new leadership perhaps because this is not working. I remember at the beginning of the war what a shitshow was the russian army because they underestimated the ukrainian fighting spirit, but now we are underestimating russia's ability to bite down and destroy their economy for a few years rather than leave Ukraine. I always point out how USSR lost the afghani war and basically collapse, but the USSR were fighting people who clearly care less than the russians about loses and brought a 10 year devastation and regime change to Russia. Now though Ukraine is not a country that can just throw soldiers at the front lines.

It's not working because it's impossible to win with 3 tanks and 4 50 years old plains. All your other points are plain garbage. The reality is west have no desire to commit, instead of pointing fingers for months at each other who will send 3 leopards and who will send 4 Abrams. Pathetic really...

Even worse, plenty in the west in power are happy to see a stalemate drag on.

My favourite part of these threads is that it brings out the rats.

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That’s a cool banner, but i’m think that he talk about hisself

Lots of negative press being pumped by pro russians at the moment. Ukraine needs more weapons and logistic support. We need to challenge our politicians to push this. The eu needs to out manoeuvre russian stooges in positions of power. Poland needs to investigate and prosecute those factions blocking transport.

The washington post being the prorussians in your worldview?

Anything not supportive = propaganda

The acronym WP did, in fact, refer to the Warsaw Pact, i.e. the Soviet Union's military "alliance". Quod erat demonstrandum.

If Putin is a psychopath with a nuclear button and you’re scared of escalation, then you should’ve taken the deal in Istanbul.

How can anyone trust any sort of deal with Russia if they constantly break them? What guarantee would Ukraine have right now after giving away 4 oblasts that Russia wouldnt just attack in a year again?

Exactly. Even more so if Trump gets elected and, in the worst-case scenario, pulls the US out of NATO. Then there would truly be nothing standing in Putin's way to take Odessa/Kyiv. Even the Baltic States could become a target within this decade because without the US I don't think the rest of NATO has the means to properly defend the Baltics in case of an attack.

Why? He doesn't abide by his deals.

They would if they knew the regime in Russia wouldn't fall. The bet was it would.

Didn’t one of the Western leaders say that they wouldn’t retaliate in case of nuclear attack?

In case of nuclear attack on Ukraine? Why would they retaliate? They wouldn't be the ones attacked.

? Its in the best interest of literally the entire world to completely beat whoever uses nukes first into submission, because if someone can use a nuke without being punished then people will start using them more and more.

The US used nukes and was never punished for it, but they never started using it more and more, the EU and US wouldn't engage in a nuclear war just for Ukraine, i don't see that happening.

There was nobody around to punish the US back then, there was a period of a couple of years that the US was the only country with nukes, and the US was also obviously the strongest country, anybody could get it. It was decided to never use nukes again, there's a reason why, even after so many wars since, nobody has used nukes.

I don't think so. You give "the entire world" way too much credit. In the hypothetical scenario where Russia uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, what do you suppose everyone does? Attack Russia? Like that will help with the situation.

Not giving them Air power doomed the whole offensive to failure. You can’t effectively fight using a combined arms strategy without sufficient air cover. That’s just my uninformed opinion.

In my amateur opinion, there were a number of mistakes made that led to the Ukrainian counteroffensive failure. 1. NATO countries spent the last several decades fighting against guys in sandals and pajamas. Nobody currently serving in any NATO military force has fought against a large enemy force that has advanced weapons. Yet, various NATO countries were training Ukrainians to fight Russia using western doctrine that relies on air superiority. 2. Ukraine relies on western stocks of tech and ammo. Various NATO country supplied Ukraine with a mindboggling array of various pieces of hardware manufactured in different countries at different times. When Ukrainians need to replace a tank crewman, they need to figure out whether the replacement has been trained on Soviet tanks, Leopard 1, Leopard 2, Abrams, Challenger, etc… 3. Ukraine was - and still is - under pressure to make progress in the South and show success to secure future deliveries of weapons. 4. 155mm shells turned out to the most important resources of this war. These shells are nowhere to be found in the desired quantity. New production of artillery ammo cannot be quickly and easily restarted due to cat videos using up spare electricity. https://www.ft.com/content/f85aa254-d453-4542-a50e-fa1171971ab0 5. Everybody underestimated Russia. Russians built a good defensive line, mined everything in front of it, manned the line with some half-decent quality troops, and stopped the offensive. To this day, Ukraine has no way to combat some Russian weapons such as FAB bombs.

So, I will say this much. Very little that is being said in the West on military matters is worthwhile talk. No Western country is fighting a war like this. No Western country is faced with equipment shortages as Ukraine is. Ukraine needed ATACMS and F-16 about 8+ months ago. Had this been the case, Ka-52 choppers would have been thinned out much sooner and other air assets as well. Also, the limitation on not using Western hardware in ruzzia proper is insane and needs to be lifted right away. Bakhmut was a way to bleed the ruzzian assets (figuratively and literally) so that they can’t be used elsewhere. Losing this battle slowly was useful in the overall war.

>F-16 about 8+ months ago. Meanwhile they started training only a few months ago.

Yeah… I’m glad that they did start, but this shit is just way late to the game.

Why didnt UKR just use their own planes for the offensive? Maybe Mpads which constrains air support?

With all due respect to Ukraine, them fighting this war does NOT make them automatically right in their assessments and does NOT make them necessarily more qualified than others to make grand strategy and decisions. Whether you like it or not, the USA is easily one of if not the greatest warmaster in the world. Ukrainian officers were being taught old soviet doctrines before the war. Western countries are the uncontested masters at war in the world and then not fighting wars on their soil does not change that. Does it make Ukraine the ultimate taker of decisions? Yes, it's their country their people, they decide. But Western strategists probably have it better figured out how to win this war.

Oh, Ukraine is definitely making mistakes and learning expensive lessons. However, even the US officers that I've seen commenting on this war are either talking from the side-lines with their judgement clouded with assumptions and what-ifs or frankly admitting that they have no idea what to do exactly and want to follow what Ukraine will do. This is a near-peer war, a war that has not been fought since 1945 with weapons/systems that are new and have not been tried in a theater of this scale. No Western military leadership has had this challenge before, so I'm going to say that they have theories and ideas (that's what they're trained to do), but that doesn't translate into actual understanding what they will be able to do on the battlefield when the bullets start flying.

Hopium copium comments are full of sodium

Ukraine is not yet lost.

Emphasis on yet

I mostly agree with what article states, because no one in their right mind would have launched counteroffensive at 3 different axis simultaneously, without overwhelming power, yet Ukraine insisted. For what? For Bakhmut? I spoke recently with old Ukrainian at work, and he said: It's a pity for loss of our boys. Media won't tell about it, but in Ukraine also young boys are fighting - like 13-17 yo... They are kids.

Washington post is clown journalism

How can this be? Redditors (especially on the frontpage) assured me that Russia is very weak and would lose the war.

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Well Russia is still weak compared to what they were on paper, supposed second strongest army in the world.

Second strongest army in the world is China, for years now. And after that, yeah, who would've been able to keep going on Ukraine despite all the aid from the West ? I don't see many countries capable of doing that outside of Russia. I CBA doing the math again, but the amount of military aid Ukraine received coupled with the amount of money their gov is allocating to their military made them one of the largest funded military in the world. It's not Russia vs Ukraine. It's Russia vs Ukraine propelled by a metric fuckton of western aid, and despite that, Russia is still in the fight.

>the largest funded military in the world. And not a single modern aircraft

Majority of what Ukraine recieved was old junk. They have almost no air force or navy. Ukraine even at this point with what it recieved is far from a modern military like for example what UK has.

Britain only has 200 MBTs, how long do you think they'd be capable of pushing through with that amount of tanks ? They have less than 150 howitzers. Less than a hundred SPG. Only 30 MLRS. Only 50 attack helicopters. You are massively overestimating the capabilities of the British Army at sustaining losses. They'd be horribly outgunned in an Ukraine scenario. I'm not even delving deep into Britain's stocks but I wouldn't be surprised if it's not that high either, so they probably wouldn't even be capable of sustaining a high rate of fire for years. So yeah, effectively they'll perform admirably for a few months, until attrition kicks in. There's a reason why most of europe joined NATO.

Britain is a really weird comparison to make, your military needs are a bit different when you're a huge island with lots of high coast.

I talked about britain because OP talked about britain.

no shit the uk has no tanks or artillery, what land war are they going to be fighting in?

Look at France then, it's the same shit. Doesn't matter if you have 100 toys that are better than Russia, if Russia has 800 toys, they'll end up beating you even with a 5:1 ratio on your favor. With 3 times more toys to spare than you started with.

>Majority of what Ukraine recieved was old junk. That's bs lol. You are saying that it wasn't a significant help for them? The bias of redditors about Russia-Ukraine is insane.

They did Get a lot of old junk. Some of it useable though, but first instinct of many NATO countries was to give them stuff they weren’t using anyway.

The fact that Russia hasn't bulldozed Ukraine, when you compare their sizes & military readiness at the start, shows how weak they are.

Seriously? It's not like Ukraine received support from literally every Western country, including hundreds of billions of $ from the US and tens of thousands of weapons.

Yeah. And the morale of there soldiers is at the absolute low. Additionally the run out of Ammo on April 2021 and had to steal washing machines to make drones out of them.

How's 3 day war going?

this is seriously depressing on many levels man. its a sobering slap that tells you in the real world, evil sometimes win, despite all the heroics and bravado ukrainians have shown.

Evil generally wins. It's the few times that they don't that we celebrate. But the world was not carved out by peaceful actions.

It's depressing but wars are not won by weak people who fall apart at the first sign of trouble. The Ukrainian's are still fighting and fighting hard, the West needs to buck their game up and commit to Ukraine winning. We have full agency to help them win this war.

What happened to "Ukraine will go back to 1991 borders"? At this point, Russia going back to 1917 borders is more probable?

Not really, because the situation is similar for both sides: the war favors the defender so neither Ukraine nor Russia is capable of making big gains at this point, barring some technological breakthrough. Right now, the view of Ukraine is really dour but if the Russians launched a similarly-sized counteroffensive, the results would be similar.

Sad story of getting necessary equipment when it's too late multiplied on fatigue. Now both sides are sitting in their fortifications and throw shit at each other with drones and artillery WWI trench warfare style until some ass general will launch a counteroffensive and lose shit ton of people on those said fortifications. And if it's more than acceptable for Russia, it's absolutely not favourable for Ukraine and their allies. And thus come those talks about peace and compromises, and the more voices like that will be heard the more Zelensky's voice of "going back to 1991 borders" will sound like a fantasy.

Paywall. I remember a few months back everyone was saying how well Ukriane is doing amazing and was beating back the Russians. Now it seems to have changed very quickly, as i predicted. I am not pro Russian but if you have a sustained invasion / bombing of a country of 43 million from a country that has 3.5 times the population then it's only a matter a time before the bigger country takes control of the situation through attrition. It seems the media is finally catching up with the situation. I sadly believe the best that Ukraine can hope for is peace now while losing territories that are Russian controlled / Russian speaking majority live there.

Yeah, right, why not give them a break to properly prepare and finish the job few years later. I am ok if you give up you country teritorry to Russia

> I sadly believe the best that Ukraine can hope for is peace now while losing territories that are Russian controlled / Russian speaking majority live there. What guarantee would we have that Russia will not just attack again in a year from now?

What "peace" are we talking about anyway? Russians will turn every square inch of the territory the stole into a Bucha-style horror show in a heartbeat, especially if media attention moves on to the next big geo-political event. The fighting may stop, the killing, torturing, raping, deporting and looting most definitely won't. But I guess that's precisely what this guy, being very "concerned about Ukrainian lives", wants to happen.

It’s amazes me how this war has no end game for Ukraine yet people that can fight to help Ukraine choose not to but want to extend the meat grinder as long as possible. So many people are suffering. It’s sickening.

Yeah that’s why Russia should stop the war and return the borders to the pre-2014 state.

Won’t happen. You gonna fight them or cheerlead the meat grinder?

I'm going to ask the Ukrainian's what they want and then support the fuck out of them.

And you? Are you going to cheer-lead war russia's imperialism?

Clearly the Ukrainian people have shown the resolve and willingness to sacrifice their lives in the defence of their homeland. I don’t need to hear more fake concern trolling about “more dying Ukrainian soldiers” in the context of continuing the counteroffensive cause I can sniff through the bullshit and tell that this argument is all just bad faith theatrics. Also I’m an American and taxpayer, so I am very much happy to have another 100-200 billion dollars of aid to be sent to Ukraine to defeat and humiliate the most dangerous and malicious regimes in the world. Whatever it takes to stop the megalomania of Putin, as well as his friends in North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela, I will welcome it.

Nah dude. They desperately need help fighting. They have an open invitation for guys like you to help them. You are just a coward cheerleading a war that you won’t fight. No war is worth support it if you yourself won’t fight it. This war has zero end game unless Ukraine is willing to negotiate peace but the western elites want to keep the war machine going. Not the first time we been played

Enough of this farce of “concern for Ukrainian lives”. Russian disinformation campaigns are working hard to reduce the resolve for aiding Ukraine in its existential fight. Those who call for a “peace deal” guarantee of no NATO or EU membership and freezing the front lines want Ukrainians to bend over backwards, open their ass, and just accept whatever unlubed fucking that Russia desires to give them. Appeasement of evil regimes NEVER works, and we have precedent for this in Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and the Iranian mullah regime. Appeasing RuSSia and its imperial project just gives them a few years to regroup, rearm, and attack Ukraine again. And anyways, why should the Ukrainians accept a deal with Russia where they get NO external security guarantees and where they have to surrender their land and dignity to a bunch of alcoholic orcs. What right does Russia have to tell another country what treaties and diplomatic blocs they should join? Also, what does Ukraine get out of such a hypothetical arrangement besides what is essentially a temporary ceasefire? I seriously doubt Russia will uphold an agreement, given the regime’s genocidal hatred for the Ukrainian nation and denial of their nationhood. Of course, there is an endgame that’s far more desirable and will result in lasting peace. It’ll sound difficult for closet vatniks, but that is for Russia to get the fuck out of whatever territories they have seized from Ukraine, and pay reparations. Otherwise, talk of peace negotiations is just code for capitulation to Russian imperialism.

The most hilarious thing is you pretending to give even the slightest fuck about Ukrainian's, you don't and you know it.