Todays news from Reuters says Zelensky describes the situation as “extremely acute”
Zelensiy is quoted saying that Russia is “not just storming our positions, they are methodically destroying the towns and villages around them . The Russian army has no shortage of lethal means”
Zelensky, the great leader, the great optimist-- sounds pretty desperate in that quote. Reading between the lines, it sounds like he is saying "we’re in HUGE trouble now.
He speaks not one word of hope:
None of the usual (inflated?) numbers–the body count of dead Russian soldiers, or list of destroyed Russian positions or ammunition dumps. None of the old canard “Russia is running low on missiles, that’s they they only launched 50 today, instead of 100”
A couple months ago, I posted that I thought Russia would win the war. My reasoning: Russia is suffering zero damage* . Life goes on as usual in Moscow and St. Petersburg, so Russia can continue this war for a decade or more.
I am sad today.
And I am scared for the future of Ukraine, and Europe.
*(other than a lot of dead bodies, of course. But that’s irrelevant. Putin and his Generals don’t care at all about dead bodies, and Russian mothers don’t seem to be complaining, either. There is an unlimited supply of canon fodder…Every year, over a million Russian teenagers finish school and turn 18.
Absolute nonsense. Russia lost this war within the first few days of the invasion. Now it’s just a matter of how much suffering is inflicted and seeing how it will end.
Russia failed to achieved their initial and primary military aim and it’s extremely unlikely they will achieve their revised aims.
Their main strategic aims were to weaken and split NATO and to install a Russia-leaning government in Kyiv - both situations here have been made worse for Russia. Furthermore Russia is more isolated than ever, and its position as a major oil producer has been totally compromised with its economy under severe threat.
There is no possible scenario in which Russia comes out stronger from this episode, excepting for some hail mary situation.
Same for the Abrams. It’s just a matter of getting them there on time with sufficiently trained crews.
No paywall for me. It makes total sense for the smaller countries to push for better arms. The worse Russia gets beat up in Ukraine, the safer the small countries borders are.
This about covers it. Russia met none of it’s goals, had to retreat from land they had just “annexed”, and are killing as many civilians as they can at the expense of their actual war fighting ability.
NATO and other liberal democracies would be all in for such a scenario. Russia would obviously lose, likely within a month, barring the use of nukes. They would have too many fronts to defend. In addition to Ukraine which would have the support of most of mainland Europe, there would be the following.
Kaliningrad exclave front against Poland and Lithuania.
Black Sea front against Turkey.
Northern Baltic front against Latvia and Estonia.
Northwestern front against Finland.
Arctic front against Norway, Sweden, Finland, Canada, and UK.
Far northeast / Siberia front against US from Alaska.
Pacific front against Japan, South Korea, and US. Maybe even Australia and New Zealand.
Possibly nothing. It might just be gloom and doom to motivate the West (“we’re struggling, we need more help right away!”). Similarly his optimism could be read in the same (“we’re doing great! with a little more support we can win this!”). All political leaders in this day and age are very aware of the importance of propaganda and media spin and you use what seems like it might work in the moment.
Wait, you expect me to believe that that German soldier poured a beer, and then refrained from drinking it for a whole thirty seconds?
I doubt anyone of any significance would actually line up with Russia, at this point. China might remain neutral, for the sake of extorting the most profitable trade deal they can get out of Russia, but they don’t want to upset the apple cart as much as an actual alliance would cause. India would be even less likely to actually take a side with Putin. Maybe North Korea, or a couple of small South American countries.
Explosions in Iran tonight. Too early to know exactly what’s happening, but rumors on twitter are that drone factories are being hit. If Israel is doing it to stop the flow of material to Ukraine that would be pretty interesting as they have tried to be fairly neutral so far (lots of ifs here I realize).
What’s in it for anybody to line up with Russia? China and India still want to sell goods to the West and what could Iran possibly want from Russia? Certainly not oil. Weapons? Russia’s busy throwing them at Ukraine.
And those are not bad stats at all. However, it still means that some get through. The question was why Zelensky looked less optimistic than usual, and my take on it is the weariness that comes with having your citizens murdered from the sky on a daily basis.
It may not be sustainable for Russia, but how many civlians will be killed or maimed before they run out? How much infrastcture will be destroyed that will need to be replaced? How demoralized are the citizens themselves, knowing that death can come down on them at any time with little or no warning?
