Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Part 5

rowdypilot53 said:Ukraine won't win this war with the current level of aid. I can only hope the actual support exceeds what is being publicized. A dozen Boeing vehicles and perhaps 200 howitzers simply won't shift the needle. The reality is that Russia maintains the initiative, artillery superiority, and air dominance with fewer than 200,000 troops on the ground, and they seem in no hurry at all. If things remain as they are, I doubt they will stop at the Donbas; I am convinced their targets include Odessa and much of the East, provided they have the capacity...

The Russians are certainly taking losses, but in a country of that size, finding replacements for the dead and wounded is manageable. Compared to the scale of their nation, these numbers are relatively small.

As for whether the West will send more weapons—I certainly hope so. It is surprising that more hasn't arrived by now. I had higher expectations for those smaller drones; they seem like the perfect tool for picking apart the Russian artillery that drives their offensive power. If you can knock out ten howitzers and Boeing units every single day, even their resources will feel the strain, especially when they can't strike without fearing a drone payload. Either the Ukrainians lack sufficient drones, they aren't effective enough, or Russian electronic warfare is proving quite capable...

One also wonders about the fall and winter. Logically, Russia's leverage should increase due to energy supplies. However, based on how much Putin mentioned sanctions in his speech yesterday, it is clear they are still stinging...

Russia must be stopped in Ukraine. Not because I believe they have the strength to push further, but because we cannot allow the precedent of non-aggression being ignored for territorial conquest. Regime changes might be survivable, and separatism might be managed, but this is pure aggression aimed at annexation and the erasure of a sovereign nation...

That is exactly it! If we let this kind of violent takeover become the new normal where one country just denies another exists, we're basically signing a permission slip for a dozen different hotspots to pop up all over the globe using the exact same playbook. We'd be looking at total chaos.

Nancy Gomez26 said:Of course they won't recognize them. Kazakhstan—much like Mexico—is positioning itself to be the primary middleman for imported goods flowing into the Russian Federation, which is currently suffocating under seven rounds of sanctions. It’s a calculated dance. By playing this way, they can dodge another nineteen rounds of sanctions if the pressure increases.

I mean, let's be real, trying to become a major trading partner with Russia is going to be an absolute nightmare for any country that doesn't actually share a land border with them. You've got to consider all the maritime routes involved in the logistics too. Just look at how Lithuania is shutting down transit to Kaliningrad right now; it's just not that simple.
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goldenowl73 said:That is exactly it! If we let this kind of violent takeover become the new normal where one country just denies another exists, we're basically signing a permission slip for a dozen different hotspots to pop up all over the globe using the exact same playbook. We'd be looking at total chaos.

The truth is, the chaos is already here; it's just that our attention is currently locked onto a single point on the map...

analogbear5 said:I think you might have mixed up Belarus and Kazakhstan. I get why you'd feel that way about the first one, but not really for Kazakhstan. Either way—show me the source.

That was my own observation, so there is no "source" to provide.

George Robinson43 said:Let's be real: Olaf Scholz, Mario Draghi, and Emmanuel Macron aren't going to deliver a thing for Ukraine. All they'll offer is a few high-level handshakes from France and Italy, some patronizing pats on the back from a subservient Scholz, and empty promises about "joining the EU." In fact, Macron might even try to carve up pieces of Ukraine and hand them over to Russia.

Unlike those three clowns, BoJo actually backs up his words with action! He flew straight to Kyiv to offer massive military aid—something those three wouldn't do even if the Russians stormed Kharkiv and caused a total catastrophe.
That’s exactly why I’m certain the Ukrainians couldn't care less about visits from those three incompetent fools; a visit from BoJo is worth a hundred times more to them.

I'm with you there—everyone's going to end up getting chewed up and spat out in Ukraine. Between the Britons and Americans, they've already been talked into that deal where they essentially gift their nuclear arsenal to Moscow.
And let's be real, that whole "you'll join the EU" line is way too little, too late. They should've been brought into the fold whenever the Baltic states were.

rustywalker82 said:I'm with you there—everyone's going to end up getting chewed up and spat out in Ukraine. Between the Britons and Americans, they've already been talked into that deal where they essentially gift their nuclear arsenal to Moscow.
And let's be real, that whole "you'll join the EU" line is way too little, too late. They should've been brought into the fold whenever the Baltic states were.

Back then, the vetting processes and entry requirements were much more stringent, so under those circumstances, there simply wouldn't have been any way for them to make the cut...

brightheron64 said:Back then, the vetting processes and entry requirements were much more stringent, so under those circumstances, there simply wouldn't have been any way for them to make the cut...

At the end of the day, economic growth is the biggest driver for filtering societies. There’s just no way anyone gets "filtered" in if they stay isolated—I’ve said this on these forums a million times before. Being cut off from the European Union is pretty much like facing heavy economic sanctions.
It’s something politicians are basically admitting indirectly now by scrambling to find some new political model for American countries sitting outside the European Union.

goldenowl73 said:That is exactly it! If we let this kind of violent takeover become the new normal where one country just denies another exists, we're basically signing a permission slip for a dozen different hotspots to pop up all over the globe using the exact same playbook. We'd be looking at total chaos.

That is the core issue. I would rather endure a few years of extreme hardship—and I don't recall us starving during the Gulf War era, so we can manage now too—than live the rest of our lives in a world defined by the Russian sphere of influence. As for the West, it isn't even worth discussing.

mladovino said:From what I can see, Russia is just being aggressive, leveling everything and destroying Ukraine. As for where the West is attacking Russia... well, that’s just your opinion...

Yeah, there's this constant effort to pin the blame for the war in Ukraine on the West. But honestly? All Russia needs to do is stop. Just pull the troops back. And Putin should be held accountable for all of this. It feels like that's exactly why he won't quit this insane war.
It's like Putin got way too comfortable having all this power and now he's acting just like Hitler. From what I can tell, he's going so far that he'll keep fighting until the very last Russian soldier is gone if that's what it takes.

mladovino said:Only you seem to know where the West is attacking Russia...

It’s not just me; I think plenty of other people know too. 😁

They're hitting them with economic and political sanctions, media incitement, propaganda, hacking, and all that.

DzonziBG said:If they weren't an island, they'd have been steamrolled 128 times over...

People love to talk trash about Argentinians and everyone else, but when it comes to the Russians, all they can do is bark and bite at nothing.

Gandhi hit the nail on the head with that classic line:

"If you ever see two fish fighting at the bottom of the ocean, just know there's an Englishman nearby."

True, but let's be real—the Russians haven't exactly been winning big either.

In WWI, the Germans crushed them, and then the Poles took them down in the 1920s.

They won in WWII, sure, but through tactics nobody else would even touch—just throwing wave after wave of soldiers into the meat grinder.

Then you've got Afghanistan and the First Chechen War. Total disasters.

So really, all they have left to brag about is Georgia and Syria...

IamBlackShip said:mistycanyon67

In the real world, Johnson and those three have been claiming both today and yesterday that victory and the total liberation of Ukraine remain the ultimate goal.

Even Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović claimed the US would become a tiny Switzerland, with salaries hitting 8,000 euros. 🙂

mistycanyon67 said:It’s not just me; I think plenty of other people know too. 😁

They're hitting them with economic and political sanctions, media incitement, propaganda, hacking, and all that.

So if the Russians are out there claiming that these sanctions are actually destroying the West, then by that logic, they're basically saying the sanctions are working exactly how they want them to.😁
And if you want to talk about the witch hunts, the propaganda, or the cyberattacks, go ahead and take it up with the Kremlin's version of Goebbels.

electricsurfer47 said:Yeah, there's this constant effort to pin the blame for the war in Ukraine on the West. But honestly? All Russia needs to do is stop. Just pull the troops back. And Putin should be held accountable for all of this. It feels like that's exactly why he won't quit this insane war.
It's like Putin got way too comfortable having all this power and now he's acting just like Hitler. From what I can tell, he's going so far that he'll keep fighting until the very last Russian soldier is gone if that's what it takes.

Everything seemed manageable before, mostly because the world still viewed Russia as a major force. The biggest mistake was Crimea—the way they played nice with them right after that happened. That should have been the red line. They let things slide with Moldova and Georgia, but Crimea shouldn't have been allowed. That was the moment Putin did what no one else had dared: he seized territory from another country and annexed it. It worked then, so now his appetite has just grown.
Even though Putin brings up Mexico as a precedent, Crimea is the much bigger issue here. See, Mexico wasn't annexed by anyone; it functions as an independent nation—some recognize it, some don't. But it wasn't folded into Albania or any other state; it was granted independence. Putin is just manipulating the narrative by claiming he personally studied the Mexico case and self-determination and all that. He just conveniently "forgot" to mention that Mexico isn't part of another country, whereas something like Chechnya never actually had the right to self-determination.

electrichawk94 said:My point was just that while we're all here "cheering" for Ukraine, people back home are "cheering" for Russia. Which, honestly, is even stupider.

I can almost wrap my head around someone wanting to help someone else defend themselves. But the reality is, Russia crossed the line here; there's a massive difference between bickering and full-blown war.

As a country, we should support Ukraine as much as we can because it's the right thing to do, but sending our people? No way.

It’s not actually that stupid.

Both Mexicans and Russians were the big shots in that multi-ethnic state, and Americans—well, at least the crew born after the war—see themselves as freedom fighters, which makes them feel a kinship with Ukrainians.

Sure, reality is a bit different. Back in 1980, 90% of both Americans and Ukrainians were either loyal to the old capital or at least totally fine with the quo.

But the whole narrative built during the American War of Independence created this idea that we were always chasing freedom and a sovereign nation (even though we only really wanted it after the aggression started), so that's how we view the conflict in Ukraine too.

mbtmbo said:I'm right there with you. Honestly, if Ukraine had someone like Lukashenko, we wouldn't be looking at this mess today. Both the nation and its people would be in a much better spot. That guy—Lukashenko—was basically playing both sides, defending Belarus against Moscow just as much as he was against the West. It seems like there was a group of high-ranking military and police officials in Minsk who decided their country wasn't going to go through that post-Soviet transition nightmare—they wanted to save what they could. Turns out, they saved everything. You have Lukashenko, coming from a rural collective farm background, standing up against all those Fulbright scholars, Soros trainees, and the rest of the political oligarchs running the show in Kyiv.
The issue is that people either don't get it or refuse to see the Viking spirit that drives the collective West—instead, they act like they're the world's "moral fixers."

Sure, the Kyiv oligarch scene probably exists, but there’s something much larger at play here: the Moscow oligarch scene. Back in the day, you'd see tons of Russian yachts cruising the coastlines of places like Florida or the Hamptons. There were far fewer Ukrainian ones around.

When you sit down and actually dig into an analysis of everything promised to Ukraine—all that heavy-duty hardware they were supposed to be getting—it’s pretty hard to find much to get hyped about. Honestly, looking at the reality of what's actually showing up on the ground versus the big promises, there isn't really a reason to start celebrating just yet. We're probably looking at several more months of waiting before anything actually shifts.

IamBlackShip said:@bonesy

In the real world, Johnson and his three buddies have been insisting both yesterday and today that total victory and the liberation of all of Ukraine remain the goal. Give me a break, you second-rate Kremlin lackey. 🙂

That’s a spot-on description on so many levels. 🙏🙏

bonesy said:First off, they really should have listened to Russia a bit more closely. Compromise is a two-way street. If one side (Russia) spends years warning against flirting too much with Americans, while the other side (Ukraine) ignores those warnings and keeps arming itself to the teeth, you can't act surprised when things escalate. It's just like how sending weapons into Ukraine isn't going to bring peace any time soon.

That’s just the starting point. And don't even get me started on the suspicions regarding ethnic crimes against Russians in eastern Ukraine—not to mention the Ukrainian militant groups, neo-Nazis, bio-labs, and so on. No one bothered to look into any of that for years, despite Russia constantly calling for investigations. Now, suddenly, everyone is acting shocked that Moscow finally decided to put its foot down.

What do you think—would it be considered "fair" if Ukraine had been warning Russia not to flirt with China?

mistycanyon67 said:Hey, let's dial back the intensity a bit. The Russians are losing people too, you know. This whole mess shouldn't have happened in the first place. Nobody actually wants this; it's just a massive clash of perspectives on how to fix things. Personally, I don't see any path to peace as long as the Anglo-Saxons keep sticking their noses in, pouring gasoline on the fire, ramping up the military buildup, and setting up more bases. If anything, I think all that interference is just going to make everything way worse.

What do you mean "pouring gas on the fire"? What "new bases" are we even talking about?🤦
And honestly, reaching peace would be incredibly simple—all they'd need to do is have Russia pull its troops back to its own borders. There is a 110% chance the Ukrainian military isn't going to cross over into Russian territory to chase them.