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Ukraine Is Winning: Status
Russia’s offensive on Kyiv has failed utterly, and I expect they will be back over the border within a few days. The dead left behind (including many Russian soldiers) number well into the thousands. All the so-called “experts” who kept insisting that Russia was winning…. is a little humble pie in order?
The war will shift to the East and perhaps the South. I think Ukraine, with fewer fronts, will probably do pretty well, but the war zone will be entirely obliterated.
There is now lots of data suggesting Putin has thyroid cancer, and has had it since at least 2014. Which might help explain some of his decision making. And if the story spreads, it increases the chances of Russia folding for one reason or another.
Published in General
The war was always in the south and the east. The troops outside Kiev were there to freeze Kiev and western troops in place. Ukraine has just busted two of its generals as traitors.
Yeah. Right.
I’m curious; what does “Yeah. Right.” mean as a comment? Are you agreeing, or disagreeing?
Well, I hope it’s true, but I’m not so sanguine.
Could be they’re getting their butts kicked. Could be they’re re-grouping with some covering fire. Could be the announcement that they will concentrate on the East is misinformation.
Could be a lot of things. Time will tell.
And this is why I am not in charge.
I assumed Russia would never really invade.
Then when they did invade, I figured they would roll right through and be threatening Poland in a week.
Everything I knew about the Russian army I learned from Tom Clancy….
It means, who the hell knows. Those rumors have been around forever. So he’s not kicking the bucket anytime soon. It’s like Putin is crazy. Putin is losing his mind. . . . Trash.
Ukraine still doesn’t seem to have the military capability to retake lost territory, so it might be better described as a stalemate. The best case scenario is likely partition, which is what Russia probably really wanted in the first place, so “winning” is almost certainly too strong a word.
Hope I’m wrong.
I’m in a family with boatloads of thyroid issues – including cancer. It is one of the most treatable cancers there is, so I’m not terribly optimistic that it will take him down.
UH huh. Sure. The Russians sent that 40 mile long convoy into the area with a huge percentage of their fighting forces as a faint. Yup. Totally.
Face it. The Russians expected a 72 walkover when they could install their puppet Yanukovich in the “real” government of Ukraine and they failed utterly. Now they are stuck in a meat grinder and the Ukrainians are busy fertilizing sunflowers with the corpses of the рускі суки. Putler has made a major mistake.
I also assumed they wouldn’t invade. They didn’t have enough troops. They weren’t capable of fielding enough troops because of the size of their military and the number massed on their border. Russia is a huge country with numerous tense borders. Their reserve system is a joke.
I didn’t think they would roll right over Ukraine. Why? Ukraine is fighting for their homeland.
I first went to the Soviet Union back when I was a teenager. I was on a camping trip, so I wasn’t staying in hotels with other westerners. My Russian then was ok. My German is fluent. More than enough to get by. Had to go out to buy food, cook food, etc. as well as go to some restaurants, etc. The people camping were eastern Europeans and Russians. The eastern Europeans spoke German almost to a person. Nothing in the Soviet Union worked. In the mornings, you would see people out in front of apartment blocks brushing their teeth, and sponge bathing. They didn’t have running water in the apartment blocks. Go into the food stores, and there was no selection. You bought what they had. And to buy it, you had to stand in three lines – one to pick stuff out, one to pay for the food, and one to pick up what you bought. I spent a month in the Soviet Union. I never had any fear of these people. As I said, nothing worked and they didn’t have an idea of how things should work. At the same time, I really liked Russians. They just had a crappy system.
Things are much better now. Because the government is much smaller. But their government doesn’t work any better than it did in the olden days.
Problem for Ukraine is, they’ve got the same crappy government that doesn’t know its head from its a**.
Believe your beloved Ukrainian propaganda all you want. I don’t.
Funny. Because Ukraine is in fact recovering territory.
Here is one of the cancer stories. It looks quite reasonable – worth a read.
So I guess the question is one of falsifiability. For those of you who have thought that Russia was winning… what data would make you admit you were wrong? If not defeat at Kyiv, is it withdrawal from the South? Sumy? Karkhiv? Or will you hold out until Russia has withdrawn totally?
It’s not a win for Ukraine if Russia retains more territory than it had prior to February 24, though it may very well qualify as a pyrrhic victory for Russia considering the cost they’re paying for the territory.
It is a win for the world if Russia’s military is basically wrecked. That is why Poland and Czechia, etc. are pouring in assets – they get to fight Russia on someone else’s land.
The cost to Russia is enormous. Their economy is the size of Italy’s. Here are documented losses from photo evidence as of right now of significant vehicles lost:
Ukraine – 657, of which: destroyed: 284, damaged: 18, abandoned: 37, captured: 318
Russia – 2244, of which: destroyed: 1143, damaged: 41, abandoned: 233, captured: 827
It is a win for Ukraine that they have forged an identity as an independent nation. They have made history, and this war is something they will be proud of for a long time to come.
Even if they lose a chunk of the East… Ukraine wins. Russia and Putin are so messed up now. What Western bank or finance group or company is going to take a risk investing in Russia? And if some are, the terms will have enormous risks factored in.
I have been watching the Ukraine War every day for a couple of hours since it started. Today was the best day so far. The Military 101 Website and map states at the 40 second point,
“5 weeks ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. After initial gains, their progress rapidly slowed. Now, every day for the past week Ukraine has retaken more territory than it’s lost.”
Glory Halleluiah!
The Balkan Mapping website shows rapid loss of territory in the last 24 hours.
The tide has turned. With the U.S. and our NATO allies (especially those who were behind the Iron Curtain) providing the weapons, the Ukrainians are kicking the Russians out of Ukraine.
I asked this on a different thread, but I’ll ask here as well: are there any semi-reliable numbers for Ukrainian military casualties? If so, what are they both raw numbers and percentage of forces?
I see estimates in the news from intelligence agencies about the estimated Russian casualties, but almost nothing about the casualties Ukraine has taken. Almost as if no one is interested in reporting those.
It does if they have to occupy it in order to control it. They have to maintain logistical contact with the forces that are furthest out, or pull them back.
It seems to me that losing a significant percentage of one’s territory is a novel form of victory. Including Crimea, Russia currently controls significantly more of Ukraine’s territory than Germany lost in the Treaty of Versailles.
There are no numbers shared. The Ukrainians figured it would not help their PR efforts, and I think history has shown that was a good call.
In theory, at least, the Russians have limited numbers to fight (the lie that conscripts are not sent continues to be told). Ukrainians are “all in” which means the number of people willing to fight is large, and they are already there. So the Russian losses seem to matter more in terms of predicting what happens next.
Here’s the argument: before the war, most people thought Ukraine would fold. Doing better than expectations is a form of victory.
But even more important is the fact that Ukraine has become a nation in this war in a way that outsiders did not expect. A nation was born in this war. That is most surely a victory. Especially because a people is not defined merely by its real estate, but by its state of mind. See: Jews.
Fair enough. Though I’m reminded of Lincoln’s supposed quote after the defeat at Fredericksburg: “Gentlemen, 7 more such defeats and we will have won.”
iWe, I don’t put any stock in *anybody’s* numbers, but your principle is A-OK. Look it’s not for me to “fight to the last Ukrainian” (English figure of speech), but at the same time I privately hope that Russia has got its private parts caught in a very public wringer. The geometry of this situation is awful for everybody except the Russians — unless the Ukrainians can rebuff Putler. In which case things look very different.
It’s easy to get caught up in doom and excitement, and obviously there are layers of deception everywhere. Still, there are facts on the ground, and “Vegas odds” keep getting better.
It would certainly explain a lot about his decision-making of late, though that could also simply be a combination of sensing weakness and feeling emboldened by a lack of serious repercussions for previous acts of aggression.
That article is lame. Thyroid cancer is quickly fixed by removal. Show me the guy is taking a ton of pills and I might believe it, but 35 visits from a surgeon in a resort town is silly. His endocrinologist would see him in Moscow.
So then there is an opportunity for a win-win. Ukraine gets the moral victory of only loosing 25% of its territory and Russia gets to end the civil war in the Donbas and Crimea.
And now, all the rest of their neighbors (with the exception of Belarus) are going to increase their defense spending. Those same neighbors will be poring over the tactics employed by the Ukes with an eye to improving upon them.
Expect all railroad lines on the axis of advance to be ripped up worse than Sherman did across Georgia. Every bridge gets blown. Every secondary road in the roadnet gets mines or worse. Trucks, especially fuel trucks will be only second to surface-to-air units in terms of priority. The Russians aren’t rolling into Poland like they did in ’39.
As far as Belarus goes, Lukashenko is probably slightly less admired by his own general staff than a beer fart at a bridal shower.
See also, The United States of America.