People in Britain who think they are governed by fools should take a closer look at the Russian and US presidents. Vladimir Putin is systematically ruining his country. His war of choice in Ukraine is an economic, financial, geopolitical and human calamity for Russia that worsens by the day. For his own murky reasons, Donald Trump, another national menace, offered him a lifeline last week. Yet Putin spurned it. These two fools deserve each other.
On the table in Moscow was a “peace” deal that, broadly speaking, rewarded Russia’s aggression by handing over large chunks of Ukrainian land, compromised Kyiv’s independence and weakened its defences against any future attack. The Trump deal, if forced through, would have split the US and Europe; ruptured Nato, perhaps fatally; reprieved Russia’s pariah economy; and probably toppled Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government.
These are key Russian war aims. But Putin, suffering from neo-imperial fantasies and legacy issues, said “no”. He reckons he can get it all, and more, by fighting on. He has persuaded the idiot Trump that Russia’s victory is inevitable – and that scheming Europeans are the real warmongers. Yet his premise is fundamentally flawed. Hard facts confound him. Almost four years on, he’s still trapped in Donbas mud and ice. And at home, things fall apart.
I’ve been hearing the same since the start of the war - Russia is running out of weapons, economy is collapsing etc. but here we are, Russia still kicking Ukraine’s ass and sending hundreds of drones and plenty of missiles each day. Russia is resilient plus help from NK, China and Iran - I doubt they will collapse anytime soon. But even if they collapse, who will get the helm? Will it be better for Ukraine? World?
Bullshit. They planned to conquer Kiev in 3 days. Here we are almost 4 years later. It’s surprising how weak they are.
And yet, there are pushing forward all over the front. Also take a look who is eager to strike a peace accord even when it comes at heavy price, and who is not interested in it at all.
They are legitimately moving slower than a snail’s pace, and Ukraine is even retaking territory in places. There’s no conceivable way this could be considered to be going well.
Yes, they’re pushing so much all over the front it will take 100 years to conquer Ukraine. Lol.
Lol, who? Donald Trump?
You do realize that the ground lost is most likely forever, unless something really bad happens to Russia which is highly unlikely, right? They don’t need to conquer entire Ukraine.
Hey Moron!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_of_Kherson?wprov=sfti1
They planned for Zelenskyy’s government to collapse. It didn’t. That doesn’t mean they’re unable to carry on the war indefinitely with a major advantage in manpower and war material.
They were already importing arillery shells, and they are out of Soviet reserves.
They won’t collapse, but they will drift even more into the Chinese sphere of influence, while they have already lost their own.
Point is, the West and China can keep Ukrainians and Russians killing each other as long as they don’t stop funding either side, which will then collapse pretty much immediately.
In any case, Russia is pretty much done as a world power, and the only two questions is whether the US and the EU will become independent world players after Trump, and when the killing will actually stop.
It’s a purely political question, because both China and the EU can keep this up forever.
If i was Xi I’d be invading Eastern Russia and annexing Siberia/Kamchatka/Vladivostok and seizing the oil reserves.
Why invade when they can colonise without invasion?
There is no point doing that as long as the Belt and Road takes over old Russian aligned states’ infrastructure and the kids of the Moscow elite start learning Mandarin, both of which is happening.
I expect when climate change melts the permafrost, the companies exploiting Siberia’s riches will be all Chinese. If Russia is luckier than most, they will at least employ Russians for the more menial jobs. As long as they can speak fluent Mandarin.
China wisely prefer s economic domination rather than military. And Russia’s still got nukes.
I don’t think it’s this simple. Russia is primarily relying on China as a buyer for its hydrocarbons. It has a large and developed military industrial complex. Ukraine has had to bootstrap its arms industry since the war started. Russia also imports artillery from North Korea. Europe has historically had a dearth of war material and industry, so Ukraine can’t just order a million shells from Germany or something, although maybe this is where we’re headed. Just because we don’t want Russia to win doesn’t mean they don’t have major military and economic advantages. Ukraine hasn’t gained any territory since the Kursk offensive, which was short lived, and they lose ground slowly every day. While I agree that this can go on indefinitely, I don’t think the sides are evenly matched.
They can’t and have neither. The soviet era equipment is a crumbling pile of junk and if they try to draft more soldiers Putin faces mutiny, something he absolutely doesn’t need right now. Russias economy is in shambles. After 4 years of war.
The best thing they can do is just pretend they are so strong that they can carry on in this war forever. So… just shut the fuck up.
Don’t be rude. We’ve been hearing of “crumbling Soviet equipment” and “Putin facing mutiny” for 4 years. It’s not unreasonable to be frustrated that though Russia has not advanced they also have not retreated and are continuing their war.
The evidence is there though.
What other developed military sends its troops to the front on motorbikes and camels?
Russia is sending its infantry into a grinder, on foot and on the back of animals.
The cupboard is bare, they just refuse to admit it
I’m not saying that Russia is a great military power - but they’ve been sufficiently powerful enough to maintain a position in Ukraine for longer than many people have said they should be able to.
You can laugh at their tactics, their weapons, their troops, etc. But they’re still there. So you might imagine it’s frustrating for people to hear “any day now - they’re gonna crack” without any sense that an actual tide has turned.
“They’re still there”.
Barely, in a country with a military that is tiny in comparison.
I agree, Ukraine might not have enough to remove them. But Russia with a population and military that was significantly larger is still unable to advance. They dont even have air superiority against an airforce that is at best 10% the size of the Russian one.
And yet, they are advancing. And while those tactics seems laughable, guess who is copying them. Yes, Ukraine is (haven’t yet heard of animals, though - but many others laughable tactics like nets over roads, wire cages on tanks and other vehicles, using motorbikes etc. Ukraine does, too)
They’re advancing by a few metres a day. And they’re losing ground in other places. I note how they havent dislodged Ukrainian troops in Kursk.
And yes, the russian tactics are laughable. A “mechanised” army using animals and civilian vehicles to transport troops to the front lines isn’t an army that is winning.
But they are advancing.
So just a few more years to take Kiev? These tactics are brilliant, you’re right.
Yet we didn’t hear it from the beginning. In the beginning we saw the might of the second strongest military of the world ready to crush a smaller country in no time. 100 000s of troops, a fleet of battleships, fighter jets and tanks. We all remember this giant column of thousands and thousands of tanks on the way to Kiev. They’re were untouchable.
Where are they now? Where is the flagship of one of the worlds strongest militaries? Where are the men that first heralded the attack? Where are those untouchable tanks?
I’m generally rude to russian propagandists. What I can’t stand even less are useful idiots. What are you?
Technically the Moskva was the Black Sea Fleet flagship, not the overall flagship of the Russian Navy.
That’s the aircraft carrier Kuznetsov, which can’t even move under its own power, and its air complement couldn’t be replenished since the 80s.
I know, but I thought the details confuse him even more.
No - you’re just an asshole.
And you’re a coward, since you didn’t answered my questions.
This comment strikes me as incredibly out of touch and full of straw men. Nobody was impressed with the Russian military in 2022. That’s why they’ve been waging a hybrid war since before they annexed Crimea. Their economy is the size of Italy’s. Ukraine has a lot of land area for a power like that to conquer, and so it’s been adrawn-out war of attrition and slow gains. You’re asking where they are? Mostly the same place that they started, with half a million casualties and an occupied pile of rubble.
The useful idiots are the people who drag this conflict out, thinking that one side can win. We need a cease fire, the map has to be redrawn, and security guarantees need to be made to both sides regarding the region. Instead we’ll get another half million dead and a frozen conflict in the middle of the most fertile land in Europe. In the meantime we’ll keep hearing about how another 20 F-16s will turn the tide and Putin’s government is on the verge of collapse. And everyone who points out how absurd that is gets called a Russian propagandist.
Oh look, another one. Funny, I think your comment is fundamentally dishonest and contradictory.
That are many words for just saying Ukraine should surrender.
If you‘re so concerned about the people, maybe you should ask your dear leader to stop the war of aggression?
Do you hear yourself? What do you get out of this?
In the first 2 years, we waited for use of armoured vehicles to hit their monthly rate of production. This has largely happened, the reserves of armour that USSR built up have been spent by Russia. Vehicles that still stand in parking lots require deep renovation (slow and costly). So this prediction has largely come true.
In the first 3 years, we waited for Russia’s sovereign wealth fund to empty, ending Putin’s ability to shelter the economy against the cost of war. This now seems to have largely happened, as the central bank is selling reserves of gold. It follows that more appropriate things to sell are scarce.
We also waited for Russia’s inventory of civilian planes and railway locomotives + carriages to degrade due to lack of spare parts. This has not fully come true. Planes fly less, railways transport less, but they smuggle spare parts from third countries.
We have waited for Russia’s oil and gas revenues to fall, and they have fallen, considerably. At current levels, under Ukrainian “sanctions by drone”, Russia has to cut other budget lines to finance the war - and it has cut or frozen other budget lines (social security, health care, education, almost everything - war makes up approximately 40% of the government budget).
We have waited for the wages of soldiers to drop, and for soldiers to understand that inflation will make the money they got worthless. This has only partly happened - several regions have announced that they cannot pay large one-time compensations to people going to war.
We have waited for a crisis in Russia’s economy, and in some sectors there already is a crisis. Purchases of new cars, real estate and agricultural equipment have fallen sharply. Many companies have reduced work weeks (reduced pay), owe employees wages, or cannot service their debts.
If Putin overplays his hand and economy does collapse, this does not automatically mean his replacement. He’s a dictator and has a KGB background, he knows to expect rebellions and can supress them. He knows to expect a coup and may prevent one.
Eventually he’ll be replaced. We can’t influence or predict the personal characteristics of his successor, but whoever replaces him will very surely want to end the war, and doesn’t have to save face while doing that.
However, Levada’s polls - arguably the only polls which could indicate the real state of Russian society - do not indicate the ground shifting yet. They indicate that people are universally tired of the war, but not yet willing to end it by returning land to Ukraine.
For example, the “country is going in the right direction” indicator currently stands at 65%. Surfing on waves of war propaganda, it topped at 75% last year (rising from a low of 48% before the war - explains why Putin needed the war - to secure his own power), but it’s in a downward trend.
So, sadly, propaganda is still working, but it’s not working as well as it used to. In the “battle of the fridge and TV” (for people’s opinion) sadly the TV still prevails.
One thing I learned reading the ISW’s reports (especially around the Wagner coup attempt) is that Putin is apparently a moderate in Russian politics. There are some regional leaders I might honestly prefer Putin to.
If you think of Kadyrov, he’s visibly very unwell. Watched a video of him condemning a Ukrainian drone strike recently. Barely keeps his eyes open and reads like a robot.
Yeah, the Chechen guy.
I don’t wish sickness on folks, but honestly, that’ll help me sleep easier. What he says in public is scary.
What, in your mind, is the attrition/casualty rate per kilometer of advancement by the Russian army?
I don’t think you’re getting information from an impartial news source.
What does that matter? Is Russia efficient? Probably not. Does Russia care about their casualties? Likely not. Are they throwing a ton of manpower and resources at Ukrainians? Yep. Are they advancing? Slowly, but yes, all over the front. If I have impartial news sources, please, show yours where it is shown that Ukraine is pushing Russians out instead. I’ll be more than happy to see those.
Hey Yuri, the latest news is reporting that the ruzzian government, in it’s desperation to raise cash to bomb more civilians, is raising the cost of your vodka by 30% in January. How do you feel about that, Yuri? Your liver will be happy LOL.
Have you ever fought/served in an armed conflict?
The phrase “Russia is kicking Ukraine’s ass.”, to me, comes from someone who is, at best, an AirSoft cosplayer.
It’s hyperbolic propaganda at face value, and doesn’t match up with credible intelligence analysis reporting from news agencies both in and outside of NATO countries. The narrative spun by such hand-waiving talk is that casualty attrition rate per kilometer gained has no bearing on logistic or strategic capability.
Anyone who has been seriously involved with warfare knows that the casualty rates of the supposed 2nd/3rd most capable military in the world are appalling considering the relatively small size of the Ukrainian military. This is an absurd gamble Putin has made. The men lost now will not be there to finally take Kyiv.
On top of that, there’s very little to stop the PLA from rolling his entire South-Eastern flank and putting their giant dick in his puckered asshole. It’s convenient for them for the Russian Federation and NATO to be occupied so they may sell their influence with relative ease, and continue dicking with their other Asian neighbors.
Do you believe that the Ukrainians will just stop fighting after Kyiv has fallen, by the way?
I also don’t take the view that the Russian Federation is “losing”. The Ukrainians are certainly barely managing a desperate struggle for survival; their only hope is international military pressure from other geographic theaters of operations and/or a collapse of Putin’s regime. They must also try to keep engaging the invading forces in a war of maneuver instead of static defense with dwindling man-power and arms.
However, despite all of that, the Orcs are far from “kicking Ukraine’s ass”. If they were, in my opinion, we’d see Russian Federation flags a few kilometers outside of Kyiv, and even more probing of Polish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian, and Finnish airspaces.
I had to say something. The bullshit of “Russia is kicking Ukraine’s ass,” is too strong of an odor to ignore.
Haven’t they been liquidating good reserves just to make ends meet?
They don’t need to push Russia out so long as Russia is losing far more men and equipment. This is a war of attrition and despite being far larger Russia is losing.
Fighting age men and equipment are finite resources.
They might gain ground now but Russia will be unable to hold it, assuming that the EU and US continue to back Ukraine.
No this is the wrong takeaway. Russia is losing more than Ukraine on a day by day basis. But Ukraine is losing the attrition war.
OK, you are speaking like the Ukraine has infinite resources and tactically loosing ground just to deplete Russia. I’m sure that they have the plan to loose strategically important cities just for that.
US continue to back Ukraine? Please, do a reality check. While EU is only backing Ukraine halfheartedly and not even the entire EU.
Yeah, but NO-ONE is backing ruzzia, Boris. Everyone hates you. You just have a few hangers on like India, China and NK who are only there to profit at your expense. These are the best friends money can buy, hey Boris? Ukraine, on the other hand, has many friends who are budgeting to support ruzzia for as long as it takes.
I’d say that ruzzia is going down a toilet, but there aren’t many of those in the motherland, hey Boris? Still, ruzzia will look good in a latrine pit LOL.
You let the mask slip for a second there Sergei.
This is dumb. It’s dependant on the mother tongue how and if a definitive article is being used with Ukraine. In German for example, you say “die Ukraine”, and a natural translation into colloquial English results in the use of “the Ukraine”. This doesn’t mean to be a Sergei.
To a Ukrainian worried about the nation-state’s territorial integrity, that little word “the” might suggest that the speaker does not much care whether Ukraine is an independent state. Like it or not, and intentionally or not, the language a person uses reflects their political positions, including their position on Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.
Wikipedia on the Name of Ukriane
We don’t necessarily disagree, but proclaiming disregard for Ukrainian souvereignty based on the use of a definitive article in an international forum is bad faith conduct. It’s specifically an English thing and a Ukrainian/Russian thing. There are languages that are using the definitve article based on how their languages work and these kind of usages will sometimes transfer into English.
This, again, does not mean what you trying to do, discrediting another user’s opinions or arguments based on an improper use of a foreign language. That is dumb behaviour.
As a german, I had to actively learn to not use “the” in combination with “Ukraine”. It happened because of a confrontation with clever individuals like you, but that really can be done politely hinting at the proper use in the English language and not by shaming the other person.
“The” before a place name is an odd choice, isn’t it? There are really very few places (in English) that have it. “The Hague” being probably the best known. There’s one locally here called “The Dalles”.
Odd that it’s so common in Spanish but not English.
Removed by mod
The US is still sending weapons. Check that reality.
Of course Ukraine doesn’t have infinite resources but they are spending theirs much more wisely.
Russia is already a pathetic shadow of its former self and its only downhill from here. Broke bitches thinking they’ll own Europe hah.
US is selling weapons to European/NATO countries and even that is limited. On the other hand US is appeasing and siding with Putin wherever they can which speaks more than those profit from selling weapons.
Sure they do and at the same time they don’t have enough of those. What is the endgame here? Hoping that Russia collapses somehow before they conquer whatever they are set to?
Hey Sergei, shouldn’t you be digging a fresh latrine pit for Babushka? The old one is full, and the mighty Midget Pootang, needs it to recruit more of you trolls from :)
In English you say ‘losing’, not ‘loosing’. Hope that helps.
I think you’re being abrasive about it, but are making a decent point.
Yes, lots of clickbait exaggerated Russia’s fragility. Some actual analysts underestimated certain aspects of Russia.
And Russia won many geopolitical dice rolls:
And so on.
There are some nasty, ambitious figures in Russian politics apparently “reigned in” by Putin now. If he’s deposed… what happens? Do we get a Russia fractured by warlords armed with Soviet warheads? I’d much rather see it vassalized by China or something.
And yeah, at the end of the day this is the physically largest country on Earth, backed by the most populous, invading a tiny one. Endless war is utterly catastrophic for the Russian people, but (if the US basically withdraws from NATO and Europe keeps being Europe), they are on an extremely slow track to grind down Ukraine and claim the ashes :(
Anyway, you should read ISW’s reports on the war:
https://www.understandingwar.org/
They have a quite grounded take. And from the even before the war started (when forces massed on the border), they’ve been warning that Russia has the political power to grind on. They tried to warn policymakers about the clickbait.
Yeah, they are still able to trade with China (which happens to make everything anyway), and as opposed to most countries, Russia can still draw on a lot of the remaining Soviet infrastructure that was specifically built because Russia needed to be self sufficient during the cold war.
As long as Putin can manage to remain in power Russia can keep this war going.
Yeah, but that means you’ll never find a flushing toilet outside of Moscow or St Pete’s, like ever! The midget dictator Pootang has spent all of ruzzia’s treasure bombing hospitals, and given away any future that you ruzzian peasants might have hoped for. Ruzzians will live in the mud forever. Deservedly.
Not for much longer. While they may have the equipment but they are lacking the most important thing: manpower. They already lost a huge amount of men and they can’t really conscript more since that will just make the collapse come faster. All those men, dead, or fighting are just people that can’t work and pay taxes, can’t start families. It’s a productivity and demographic disaster. It’s unsustainable and you don’t need an economics degree to see it.
Though I suspect the reason Putin is keeping the war going is because he has no choice. He was offered one of the best peace deals by the US and they refused it. Why? Because Putin is scared. Once the war ends a lot of angry men with combat experience are going to return home. And those men will look at how the war was run, how some people were safe while they died in the mud. That’s just a revolution waiting to happen. It has happened before, World War 1 veterans overthrew the Kaiser in Germany and installed the Weimar republic. The 1917 Russian revolution was started by WW1 veterans. Hitler was a WW1 veteran and he tapped into the anger of other veterans to help him gain power early on.
russia is also a war economy, thier lackluster economy prior to war, is pretty much ruined, he has no choice.
This is a problem that Ukraine suffers, not Russia.
What are you talking about? Conscripts aren’t even being used in the Special Military Operation in the first place, even according to the Ukrainians.
Manpower is a bigger issue for Ukraine compared to Russia. Ukraine is at least not doing human wave tactics and doing more to keep their guys alive, but Russia can last longer in that aspect as well.
I do agree that Putin can’t stop the war for anything less than complete victory, otherwise people will start asking questions about why this was necessary as you said.
Neither does the Russians
That’s ALL the ruzzians know how to do, Sergei. 1.2 MILLION dead ruzzians would agree with me, if they could. Obviously, you have access to the internet. Can’t you use those data center resources to do a quick google, to see some of the youtubes? Maybe while your co-workers are out having breakfast vodka… You might enjoy all the ruzzian assaults on motorbikes against fortified positions, it’s quite eye opening. Oh, and btw, bad news, Sergei. The mighty midget Pootang, is raising the cost of vodka by 30% in January. What will you do for breakfast then?
russia still has hordes of undesirables, ethnic russians to draw from. i wonder if he targets the more remote /nomadic tribes in siberia.
According to Ukrainian MoD perhaps. Here are more realistic numbers.
Russia and Ukraine use ATVs and civilian vehicles such as motorbikes for last mile resupply; these vehicles are sometimes used for assaults but that is not their main purpose.
In many cases, assaults are conducted utilizing BMPs and tanks as per standard Russian Motorized Rifle doctrine.
Here is another good example of an assault.
It seems so, indeed.
Ruzzia is a grey, third world toilet, that will be paying reparations forever once they finish losing. Pootin should have just been a latrine pit digger and ruzzia would have been so much better off. Ruzzia will never get back it’s oil/gas customers and nor will the rest of the world want fail ruzzian weaponry any more. That’s the only 2 world markets that ruzzia used to have, and they are gone forever. YOU will be a peasant forever, Yuri !
Worked great against Germany after world war 1.
Russia still has plenty of customers for their exports and they won’t lose any territory after this is over.
Hey Fizz, comrade, have you heard the news??? The mighty midget, Pootang, is raising the cost of vodka by 30% in January !! What will you have for breakfast now that vodka is too expensive? That’s what you get for tolerating a dictator with a tiny penis !
Its so cringe to assume any realistic comment is Russian. Its clear from your comments in this thread you have no idea what’s happening. You must get only feel good stories like the one op posted.
Lol. Only so long as they do not annoy China. ALL of ruzzia’s east is looking shakey, and even if China refrains from taking back what is rightfully theirs, there are a few repressed little republics that don’t want to be part of shitty ruzzia any more. There’s an excellent chance that ruzzia will lose Siberia as a direct result of their military shitiness having been exposed. And I REPEAT: NO-ONE wants shitty ruzzian weapons any more. And, Ukraine will finish peeling off the few countries that keep supporting ruzzian oil exports as they keep sinking more and more of ruzzia’s shadow fleet. Once the ruzzian oil fields shut down, ruzzia won’t have the expertise to start the oil flowing again, for decades. It sucks hard being a ruzzian now, and it will only get worse for you, Yuri ! You will never have plumbed toilets, ever.
Wow what a great person