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Is Ukraine Winning the War Against Russia?
I have been reading recent posts on social media claiming that Ukraine is recapturing dozens of square miles of territory from Russia, Russian troops are taking heavy casualties, and many Russian troops are cut off from supply lines.
It seems that the western nations are pouring weapons into the Ukraine military, which has outperformed expectations in using these weapons to their advantage. It’s starting to look like Russia’s military is not the second best military in the world, but rather the second best military in Ukraine.
One doesn’t want to read too much into these social media reports of Ukraine’s success. Who knows what is really going on over there? But former General of the US Army in Europe, Ben Hodges, says that Ukraine will recapture Crimea in a year. He seems to have backed off his earlier prediction that Ukraine would retake all of the territory it lost after February 22, 2022, by the end of summer (which would be right about now, it would seem).
Still, I bet that if Putin had known how badly this invasion would go and how unified the liberal-democratic world would be in supporting Ukraine, he would not have ordered the invasion of Ukraine. This shows how wars can start based on miscalculation, the underestimating of the opposition. In any case, we will have to watch over the next month or so to see if Ukraine is able to keep this counter-attack going.
Published in General
How many non-NATO countries didn’t they invade since the end of the Cold War?
There’s a correlation but is there a causation? Statistics are funny things . . .
Putin and his proxies have been pretty overt in their neo-imperial ambitions. Do a little searching starting with ‘novo rossiya’. I think that plan is on hold just now.
Estonia. Lithuania. Moldova. North Macedonia. etc. Yes, an attack on one is an attack on all of us.
***Start with the porcupine strategy***
Putin lost his mind right around 2003 because of some reason like maybe we were provoking him. Did that need to happen?
I believe the reason was that Ukraine’s government was even more corrupt than it is now, and NATO doesn’t want another Turkey as a member.
Well, no kidding.
You may not think so, but I think it’s a huge risk to put those tiny countries in it. There were better options before they did that.
Who do you think would win a head-to-head competition for the amount of corruption; Ukraine or the state of Illinois?
We might need to guard against getting to sniffy about corruption. The Euros might not let us stay in the club anymore.
Putin didn’t lose his mind. Putin misjudged how vigorous the Ukrainian response would be and Putin also misjudged how vigorous the response would be from Europe and North America.
Putin made a huge strategic mistake and who knows how long it will take for Russia to recover.
Seriously, I am all for that, but I don’t think anybody around here understands all of the dynamics involved. I don’t think we have any good news about it right now. They were horrible before, and we didn’t come up with any strategy to work around it or work with it in trying to keep Russia out. They didn’t take some obvious simple steps. I don’t think any of those guys know what they’re doing and everybody pays. If you have any specific questions about my view just ask.
It looks like Russian soldiers are surrendering in large numbers in Izyum right now.
You are not reading what I said properly. What I’m saying is he got very hostile to the United States around 2003. That is just a fact. That is all I’m saying. I tend to think the West blew it.
If Putin has screwed himself I’m all for it, but I don’t think Biden or any of those guys know what they are doing. The timing of the assistance was terrible, I think largely because they thought they didn’t stand a chance.
Ukraine has the most corruption per GDP output of any country on the planet. It has something to do with being very poor and overlaying the natural gas business over it. Plus the crappy government. I read an article about it. I think they were distinguishing it from something like Nigeria or places where average citizens are more involved and affected.
Even a corrupt country has a right not to be invaded by Putin’s thugs, right?
Some people never got over Red Dawn.
My only point is it has to be dealt with forthrightly for a net positive. You can’t show me any reporting that I’m going to trust anymore than any other reporting about this. This is not an ordinary situation that we typically deal with regarding corruption.
Then you see all of this reporting about how bad Zelenskyy is in reality. Nobody knows what the truth is other than I think Biden and the EU are idiots.
So, Putin’s military is getting killed in a corrupt country rather than a non-corrupt country. Congrats, Putin.
Believe me, I want to believe in my fellow man and try to help everybody, but look around and look at history. Nobody can help Central America. Nobody can help Mexico. Nobody can help South America. Look at the ‘Stans. The UN said that Mongolia was one of the most honest countries and then they all went to hell. China is pure evil mafia and none of our ruling class saw it coming.
Some cultures are complete crap and it’s even worse if they have a bad constitution. Then they whine about Hungry being racist.
Should Putin be discouraged as much as possible? Of course. I don’t have any faith in these idiots to do that, and that’s the problem.
I hope the REPORTED good trends hold, but you are not any more persuasive or informative about this when I hear other views. I see plenty of stuff on Twitter as well. I don’t know how people have a great big opinion about all of this.
The West likes printing money, socialism, and finance. We’ve done too much of that and Russia has the real stuff that the world needs to survive. Good luck to the West because they are going to need it.
Who thinks that Anthony Blinken knows what he’s doing? There was just some reporting this week on how corrupt he is. Some lobbyist thing.
Who do you like in all of that state department stuff? The people I follow hate all of them.
Russia has natural resources. So does Saudi Arabia. So does Venezuela. So does Iran.
None of that means that Ukraine isn’t going to continue to kill Russian soldiers.
Just because I don’t like Anthony Blinken doesn’t mean I can’t support Putin getting punished for his ill-conceived invasion of Ukraine.
When my brother was posted to Cameroon, he told me the country had been named the second-most corrupt in the world. When informed of this, a spokesman for the government said that they would have been named most corrupt, but the country that beat them bribed the people who set the criteria.
So what is your plan? Does the Federal Reserve print up a bunch of money to keep Germany alive until we finish them off? I’d say right now the situation is a lot more complicated than you are making it. Look in at this thread.
Neither one of us knows if those guys know what they are doing. We don’t know what is going to happen. Personally I think they were shorted resources early on.
LOL that is good. The whole planet is just crap. It really is.
This was a long time ago. A guy from Puerto Rico called in to the Chris Plante show. He was just merciless on Latino culture AT THE COUNTRY LEVEL. It was one of the longest calls I have ever heard. He traced it back to Spain. Those countries are all based on extraction and slavery, not how we started out which was basically production and protestant religion. I feel so sorry for those people in Puerto Rico. Nothing but corruption, hurricanes, and earthquakes. It’s just like Africa: everybody that is smart and honest gets the hell out.
Costa Rica, Panama, and the Cayman Islands are probably OK. The rest of it is totally incorrigible.
Russian nationalists are now turning on Putin, suggesting Putin is Jewish and in a secret alliance with Zelenskyy.
How many oligarchs that criticized him a little bit –FOR SOME REASON– fell to their death off of balconies?
If Putin’s security gets penetrated I’m all for it, but good luck.
OH LOOK THE STATE CONTROLLED MEDIA HAS THE GOOD NEWS!
I trust Lee Smith and Darren Beattie and they don’t trust any of that stuff that I’ve been talking about.
There is something to be said for not trusting anything you hear or read.
Inflation will be hidden (temporarily) by cranking up the printing press to pay people not to complain about inflation.
The Constitution cannot function as intended when the media is obviously statist and four tech companies control the public square. Too many Republicans are ignorant and idealistic about this. I find it distasteful, but that is the right way to think about it.
I hate having to listen to Lee Smith and Darren Beattie. You just can’t believe it’s that bad, but I don’t see how you make an argument against what they say. Give these guys money, somehow.