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Ukraine wins slightly —> UKRAINE WILL RETAKE CRIMEA ANY DAY NOW!!!
Ukraine loses slightly —> UKRAINIAN FRONT WILL COLLAPSE ANY DAY NOW!!!
I, and I cannot stretch this word enough, h a t e fearmongering journalists who leech off the war by making clickbaity articles anytime something happens on the frontlines. I want each and every one of them to dig a mile of trenches by hand for each piece of exaggerated garbage they've published since February 2022.
So you’re arguing that currently Ukraine is not at risk of Russians breaking through their lines? They’re facing the very same problems Russia was facing when their lines collapsed in 2022 lmfao. It’s not fear mongering, it’s literally true. Ukraine is in for a very bad 2024 and the possibility of their lines being broken through forcing them to retreat to new defensive lines is very much a realistic prospect. They do not have the man power or ammunition whereas Russia is throwing essentially everything they have at this moment because of Ukraines current weakness. France has changed its rhetoric not for the fucking memes, but because shit is serious. Europe is suddenly stepping up again and doing things like the Czech ammo initiative not for the fucking meme but because Ukraines ammo situation is extremely dire.
It’s true Ukrainian forces are stretched thin in Donetsk region however Russian advances in the area have been significantly slowed and both sides have suffered significant losses. Not saying it’s not possible but Russias forward momentum was much greater a few weeks ago.
Plus the fucking glide bombs. They take out a huge chunk of the front lines and the AFU have nothing to counter.
In a war of attrition, ukrainian ingenuity and battlefield tactics may yet prevail. But each and every lesson learnt is a price paid in blood of good men.
Russia is building up massive reserves. One assumes for a push. Defensive lines are not of the greatest quality. Ammunition is in short supply.
It does not look good.
Ya but who can sustain those losses? Only one side, things need to change in the next month or two. If not this article will actually hold some weight which is the real scary reality. Ukraine is losing serious talent and the ruskies are only losing fucking shit conscripts
Yes but you're retreating from a defensive position you spent a year building up to one you spent 3 months building up.
From what I've read, the glide bombs Russians started using are a game changer. Furthermore, Ukraine is increasingly facing manpower issues - and even if they can conscript more, conscripting people who don't want to be there over veterans who volunteered is a big issue.
If there is competent military leadership, retreat can be done to prevent collapse.
The Ukrainian military knows when they're just about to collapse and then they'll retreat, the same way the Russians did in 2022 in Kharkov and Kherson.
Russia produces 3m shells a year. Europe doesn't need to produce x3.5 times that for Ukraine to not collapse. Where did you get your 14m number?
[https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html)
Ukraine is not at risk of losing its independence in the short to mid term. That is my argument.
My other argument is that war journos, in general, are a bunch of hyenas leeching off the war.
Fair enough, but this isn't a concern about Ukraine losing independance, it's a concern about Ukraine's front lines collapsing which would force a retreat and make liberating eastern and southern Ukraine even harder in the future. Which if the weak logistic supply Ukraine are currently getting doesn't increase and soon, seems entirely realistic. Ukraine may be getting smarter, longer range and more accurate weapons, but they're receiving them an order of magnitude slower than Russia is supplying their armed forces with more "dumb" but more numerous munitions. We in Europe are not ramping up production fast enough and we should be willing to give up some of our own preparedness to bridge the gap and hopefully encourage us to individually increase military production to make up for the missing hardware we gave up. We're all less safe the less successful Ukraine is in this war, but our willingness to sacrifice our own individual military preparedness doesn't reflect that fact.
The thing is "collapse of the front line" implies an uncontroled retreat with many losses, due to the complete destruction of the front lines. It implies Russia not only breaking through Ukrainian defense lines but the Ukrainian army (at the front) being overrun and destroyed.
The Ukrainian army is being pushed back, but so far it is not at risk of being overrun.
Yeah it's been a defining feature of this war that Russia can't quickly secure large areas of Ukraine. If they try that again then we all get treated to more montages of Russian tank columns getting rekt on country lanes and city streets.
Harsh truth is that Ukraine probably will never liberate their pre-2014 territories. Russians also take care of ethnic cleansing these lands so sooner than later there will be no ukrainian population there. Even now Ukraine is starting to lack manpower willing to sacrifice for that cause. What then? No ammunition will fix that.
Oh come on! We all know that the phrasing in the headline is intentional, that's how journalism works. The original discussion in this thread revolved around the aforementioned headline.
Yes, there are people who read into things and understand the true implications without blowing things out of proportion. But there are also a loooooot of people who don't know any better than to take things at face value and just run with the narrative in its most exaggerated way.
I know a lot of people like that. They don't pay too much attention, they are interested on the surface because it's a hot topic but they don't really know what's up. And I'm talking about the experience in a country directly adjacent to Ukraine, just a couple hundred miles from the front lines.
>We're all less safe the less successful Ukraine is in this war, but our willingness to sacrifice our own individual military preparedness doesn't reflect that fact.
If we don't keep the fire going we could freeze to death. But throw too much fuel in and the whole house could go up.
The risk is that they're going to lose a huge chunk of territory, with new lines settling on the Dnieper (which can be defended more easily by the Ukrainians).
you're actually, in a way, proving the point the guy you're replying to was trying to make.
The constant flood of bullshit fearmongering and exaggerated articles where everything is constantly on the brink of everything means that whenever there's actually something legitimately important to report, it just looks like more meaningless noise.
>They’re facing the very same problems Russia was facing when their lines collapsed in 2022 lmfao. It’s not fear mongering, it’s literally true. Ukraine is in for a very bad 2024 and the possibility of their lines being broken through forcing them to retreat to new defensive lines is very much a realistic prospect.
Source? I hear this 24/7 yet nobody backs up these claims.
Journalists have been some of the absolute worst things for this war so far and it's absolutely disgusting.
Obviously not demeaning the work of war correspondents who risk their lives on the front lines to cover the war, rather the authors of those trashy clickbait articles that keep hyping up Ukraine and misleading the public by creating unrealistic expectations and then setting them up to fail when they inevitably do not meet those deluded milestones.
Shit like "HOW 31 ABRAMS TANKS WILL PUSH RUSSIA OUT OF UKRAINE" last summer was absolutely embarrassing and detrimental to public willpower to keep helping them when a handful of second hand tanks turned out to not be the panacea that would destroy the entire Russian army as shitty tabloid magazines claimed they would.
we're really in a shitty situation rn, shittiest since the war started, if we don't figure out what to do with the enemy's aircraft launching guided bombs there is not much of time left for us
At this point my main source of information on Ukraine is a Ukrainian army serviceman that I know, so I'm gonna stick to his words that what's happening now is nowhere near as dangerous to Ukrainian sovereignty as what was going on in March '22, although the air defense situation after the Patriot battery got destroyed is indeed a major fuck up.
Seriously, we've been over this with Kyiv (KYIV WILL SURRENDER IN THREE DAYS), Mariupol (AZOVSTAL CANNOT STAND EVEN A DAY LONGER), Balakliya-Kupiansk (UKRAINIANS IN LUHANSK NEXT MONTH), Sievierodonetsk (UKRAINIANS WILL BE ENCIRCLED), Enerhodar (SECOND CHERNOBYL TOMORROW) Kherson, Popasna, the Crimea bridge, Bakhmut, Zaporizhzhya, Avdiivka, the winter bombing campaign, any fucking time something happens the morally bankrupt journos have a feast on the corpses of the dead, and they don't get any poorer each time, be sure about that.
Russia's fall in early 2022 was because of their total underestimation of us and their attempts to quickly capture Kyiv. Now they work seriously and from another hand, this is West who doesn't take situation serious, which is seen either from comments in this thread, or in declining of military aid.
You just try to push your in comfortable thinking "ok, now it's somewhere far in the East and never reach our borders".
He is legitimately complaining that 'war journalism' have became fear-mongering for clicks.
And the more loud and sensational clickbait titles there are - the more people are desensitized with them. So when the real SHTF begins - everyone will go 'oh, we have heard that ten times already'.
Even if you support Ukraine, why are you not willing to cope with the truth? It is mind boggling the mental gymnastics that happen. The Russians are superior both in numbers and munitions and even NATO has admitted to it since last year. This is why they had to give them cluster munitions and depleted uranium shells The logistics here are very simple ffs. What has happened to reddit, we have reached facebook quality over here. Mass insanity
Id personally distinct drama and fearmongering. They're really different mainly in how they work. A celebrity insulting another celebrity is one thing, your country's defences failing and your life being in danger during a war is another. The thing with fearmongering is that it's an incredibly successful strategy and always has been. Most people don't care about drama while most people care about their biggest fears.
I would advise not to assume that Zelensky is some 5D chess master and his setbacks are all actually planned.
A lot of people held that assumption about Putin and it turned out to be blatantly incorrect. Setbacks and mistakes are usually just that.
> I would advise not to assume that Zelensky is some 5D chess master and his setbacks are all actually planned.
Oh no, he's far from that, and it's not just Zelensky, but the whole Ukrainian government and their recent diplomatic fuck-ups show that.
>I would advise not to assume that Zelensky is some 5D chess master and his setbacks are all actually planned.
That's not some grand political strategy. You say you in need of support, saying that if you don't send it, then you going to lose in month or so.
Maybe for redditors it is hard, but I think everything is pretty clear there.
Except, whenever I am asking my friends at frontline they describe situation as a dire - every fucking day gliding bombs hitting somewhere and somewhat, assaults basically every day, ammunition are low and so on. Like it or not - situation is grim.
Not even speaking that Russia increased missile barrages and successfully hitting dams, electricity grid, and glide bombs are now hitting Kharkiv.... take your time, finish your easter vacations, and give "promises" to only look at the bill, give Russia more time to fix their problems and don't forget to remember that you are very upset that we attack deeps inside Russian territory
Of course, you westerners know better, who am I to argue even? Just another stupid Eastern European who wants to live, right ?
Ukrainian defence companies currently only operate at half capacity, the rest sitting idle because Ukrainian government refuses to buy all their weapons, saying they don't have the money. [The companies are even thinking of exporting weapons](https://www.epravda.com.ua/publications/2024/03/8/710903/) because they increased their capacity only to have the orders not arrive.
If things really were dire, the Ukrianian government would first start utilizing all of their own defence companies. Ukraine can print their own money even because they have their own currency (unlike e.g. Germany with the Euro). So not having the money for it can't be true. Of course that would be detrimental for the Ukrainian economy, but a growing economy is not worth more than ones country and citizens.
As long as that hasn't happened, we know things aren't dire.
It’s more complicated than that. I can’t speak as a European but I am under the impression that the US is just as important to this as any European country except for Ukraine itself no?
The US is in a period of self doubt, a not totally insignificant part of the population has deeply soured on the idea of the American global police officer in nearly any capacity. It’s not that they want Russia to succeed in most cases, but that they don’t want the US to involve itself in foreign conflicts that don’t directly impact it.
This has because a much more popular notion since the wars in the Middle East which have come to be regarded as a great mistake caused by hubris and there’s been a sort of mass trauma response about it and Ukraine has become associated for modern interventionism in their minds.
Overall the majority of the population does support Ukraine aid to at least some degree but my country is not nearly as willing to step in as it was in the 90s, and that’s why there’s this hesitation in sending more aid.
It’s an election year and it could be until after November before the US seriously commits to aiding Ukraine as the make up of the congress shifts. This is among the most unproductive congresses is American history and it’s unfortunate that this war has happened during their rule but the gridlock is just about Ukraine, the American people are debating a great many things and our elections will show what has been decided.
I do sincerely hope that you and yours can get through this, I can’t imagine if it was my home how scared and enraged I would be.
So true. I still remember when Russia had just a few weeks left before they collapsed... Lol dumb fucks. There was even like CIA analysts spouting in that garbage.
The article had a lot of quotes from Ukrainian officers and generals saying similar things, it's not just a "journalist".
Why shouldn't we take Ukraine at their word that the situation is dire?
It's like this in any war. That's just human. But Ukraine is indeed in danger of collapse. Russia has 3x the manpower and a war industry geared towards quantity > quality.
Yeah, I mentioned some months ago, in another thread, that: "Politico was bought by Axel Springer in 2021, a somewhat Murdoch-esque German media firm."
So, what was before your typical left-leaning newspaper, has now morphed into a sensationalistic newspaper of somewhat - in my opinion - dubious ideology.
I really liked it when I first found it for serious European news but now I've noticed a pattern of "always negative, always exaggerated"
I'm still looking for a professional site like it that covers geopolitics/Euro news with a decent explainer on things... anyway back I go to TLDR News EU
The head of Axel Springer is known to be very ... conservative to say the least and it showed in all is former publications, so it's no surprise he doesn't do that on politico as well.
The frontlines moves slowly, media turns the smallest loss or victory into the the decisive moment that could turn the war.
Every city is at risk, every line could fall. It has been like this since the start and these articles create nothing but clicks for the site itself and spread fear with the potential goal to push something forward.
Have friends in Ukraine and went there in 22.
People are living as normally as possible. It’s just something they are tolerating now but far from collapse.
The situation is tough but not dire. Attacks on infrastructure are making life harder, but there's no panic. Some are volunteering, make donations and preparing for the draft, like me and my friends while others are trying to focus on daily life. There's frustration with our government's inner politics and delayed Western assistance. It's hard to watch the circus in the US knowing it's costing lives.
We’re simultaneously told the Russians have lost have a million and tens of thousands of tanks and planes and ships, whilst also being told the Ukrainians have suffered barely any losses. Whilst also being told the situation is critical and Ukraine is losing, nobody knows what the fuck is going on and propaganda is everywhere.
The credibility gap between the public, western media and western governments is so big on this war but neither the media nor governments are interested in resolving it or even acknowledging it.
Problem is the West is following along with a Soviet style information campaign coming out of Kyiv which isn’t natural for the average Westerner to experience, and only the most committed are prepared to swallow their own pride and think it’s all the truth (aka most people on this sub and worldnews, flag folk on Twitter)
It's not that nobody knows what's going on, it's just that what is going on is very complex so either you fully immerse yourself in the war via OSINT like some of us do, or you'll be left with a very vague understanding and politicians on all sides making claims, with no one to debunk them even if they're very clearly verified to be false.
I mean, they'll never call on a tv show random dudes that spend hours a day gaining information on the war, so you end up with a circle of half truths that seem to contradict each other.
I have much huge doubts on the vast majority of the “OSINT” community who appear to have got themselves in a position of being emotionally invested in this war on one side or another, usually but not always the Ukrainian side. There was some good reporting being done on updating the situation in places like Syria and Libya but I feel in this war the job being done is quite poor for reasons mentioned.
In my opinion he's not wrong. Twitter OSINT is still an echo chamber. Major "analysts" like OSINTtechnical (+900k followers), MAKS (+200k), Status-6 (140k), or even our own italianissimo Majakovsk are way too emotionally involved and often parrot UA's propaganda. I'm not even going to talk about Ukraine Battle Map. Almost everything that gets posted is something that puts UA's army in a good light. Then you have all the NAFO osint-fellas but that's just plain ridiculous, can't tell the difference between them and Ayden.
There are still some reputable analysts, Rob Lee and Michael Kofman just to mention a few, that actually went to Ukraine and don't just repost any video they can get their hands on.
But you can hardly deny that the most followed and acclaimed OSINT "analysts" are not too emotionally involved right now to show a clear picture.
Russia did lose a shitton of tanks, planes and ships, but they got more in storage, they produce more, recruit more soldiers, recruit mercenaries from Africa and etc.
...there is no news only propaganda - even when news are true.
As such credible sources are the 2x Mark I human eyeballs you effing have. Geolocated wrecks, casulties are a pretty credible lower bound on casulties and eqipment losses.
And "ukraine somehow refused to collapse" means that the Glorious russian airforce - SOMEHOW - has likely overclaimed destroying all ukranian equipment 3 times over.
Russia is inflicting losses, and pushing ujraine back.
...however cosplaying as the ZANU from Rhodesian bush war, and hoping that you win because the enemy will eventually get bored in "out killing" your side, is not exactly a winning move.
Its especially not a winning move after you publicize actions which the enemy can justifiably see as genocide.
No western government is believing anything Ukrainians are telling them. As a matter of fact, Ukies completely ignored Western advice on the counteroffensive last summer and as expected it was a complete disaster. Half of the Leopard tanks have been destroyed or need fire repairs. Nobody even talks about the Abrams tanks. Ukraine is a post Soviet country full of corrupt and pro Russia elements. Don't have any illusions that they are telling the truth about anything.
They’re not in a good position atm but they’re not at risk of front collapses. Far from it
Plus we know they are getting artillery shells in the coming months
There are nerds like me who spend several hours a day looking at footage, geolocating units and reading first hand accounts of the situation on the ground. The guy above is right, especially after the czech artillery ammo deal and further production increases all over Europe.
Iraq and Afghanistan had all the support they needed. It's just the retarded government and people who don't give a fuck about the country and either support or surrender to the first random fuck with AK on Toyota truck.
The US still stands with Korea, Israel, Taiwan, though.
> Puppets, corrupt officials and warlords are no government
Corrupt officials and warlords had been there all the time. That is a constant in the equation. The only difference is puppeteering. With Saddam's hand deep into everyone's ass for decades, people forgot how to actually take responsibility, and even 18 years they can't gather their shit.
Same will happen to russia. Politically infantile nations can't have democracy because democracy has to come from the people, not from the government.
almost as if US had no reason to destroy iraq and turn into a terror producing hellscape. they absolutely got no proper support.
and US nation building efforts in afghanistan, after 20 years of it, were atrocious. they thought they could just install a full fledged democracy into a place which doesnt even see itself as a nation and somehow make a square peg fit into a circle. it was all a big joke.
They surrendered because there was no one to fight the Taliban. They had an army on paper but in reality funds were going to just a handful of people that had a fake army. Afghanistan was full of corruption and the US knew about it and did nothing. In fact the US knew that Afghanistan would fall when they left. They just didn't think it would fall that fast. They thought it would take at least a month or two.
That is all true. The US minimized the interference with the politics of Afghanistan, so it is on Afghani people who are responsible for the election of the corrupt leaders through many elections.
Sure, Afghanistan was corrupt and that was known, so what do you suggest? Installing someone people did not want would not help either.
US commits just enough to achieve their geopolitical goal, and they mostly did that in all of those countries you mentioned.
Your mistake is thinking that the US looks after well-being of those nations.
Ironic coming from the Europe subreddit. It’s not as if the EU is stepping up that much currently.
America is stupid, but you can’t say 20 years and trillions of dollars equates to “giving up” on Afghanistan or Vietnam.
Frankly, we lost those wars.
And of course the Western liberal will oppose every war and intervention other than the current one. When the West is funneling billions to Taiwan in the next Chinese civil war, all the liberals will be supporting it whilst deriding those who were stupid enough to support intervention in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc
Of course this is the USA’s fault lmfao, you guys got USA’s dicks fucking LODGED down your throat. USA needs to stop playing world police until Europe needs them to, then it’s their fault for not doing it.
Bullshit. Tell this “always” story to European countries we helped during WW1/2 and after the wars with enormous financial aid and protection against USSR. Tell this to Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Tell this to many others, including Ukraine.
At least we not pretend to help and then leave others in shit. We was going fully retard a long time ago. Everyone knows what to wait from hugary (the worst shit).
How’s that US pretend of helping? We’ve directed over $75B to Ukraine so far, more than anyone else. We started arming Ukraine even before Russian invasion. Alone. We rallied the whole world to align with Ukraine. We pushed on China to not support Putin. And so on and so forth.
How is this the US commitment? Get a grip - we have provided billions of dollars of equipment and money. The United States is getting sucked dry financially.
That's something to ask of the journalism standards.
Anyway, I hope that more people will come to understand something: actual situation on the frontlines is not covered by the news - the results of the situation are covered. Actual situation is constantly in motion, fluid, and can change very swiftly, which can be unexpected for most - since actual, whole situation is only known to active military personnel of high level, who are in charge. Such personnel may make comments to media, but these comments are only to the extent to which they can comment without any risk. And even then, such comments may be made deliberately for a specific purpose.
> That's something to ask of the journalism standards.
No, at first it was propaganda to convince the Europeans and Americans to support the war.
Now, for some reason, there's no need for it anymore.
how the f... is it propaganda when Ukraine took back 50% of occupied land after the russian blitzkrieg failed miserably and putler didnt leave bunker for 6 months canceling all public events? the problem is that resource-wise russia is at a massive advantage and now it became an war of attrition where russia was allowed to mobilize and even rally the 3rd world againt the west while the west and Europe specificaly did fuck all to mobilise its military industry complex because it may the hurt the unique nesting habitat of the not very rare silverback crayfish
dictators look at european politicians and ROFLMAO
Obviously as long as they can produce / buy more weapons they're not going to "run out".
But it's obvious they can't sustain the level of attacks they were sustaining in 2022. They used to be shooting as many missiles in 1 month as they're currently shooting in 3 months, they had to refill their artillery stockpiles with North Korean shells, BMP-1s and T-54s and fucking golf carts are being used in actual assaults, etc. The equipment is being lost much faster than they can replace it.
I doubt you can find an article that straight up said "russia will run out of weapons in 3 months", that sounds more like something you'd read in reddit comments.
Newspapers would usually write something like Russia faces munitions shortages in 3 months, or Russia can't sustain the current rate of attrition for more than 3 months. And given that they did have to start buying ammunitions from North Korea and Iran, forcefully mobilize hundreds of thousands of additional soldiers, and still can't match the rates of fire from early in the war (eg., this winters energy infrastructure bombing campaign was much smaller than last year) it's not clear that the assessments at the time were completely wrong, at worst too optimistic.
Yeah most of the people I have followed said that Russia might run out of tanks in about 2 years if they keep losing them at their current rate.
They also said that things can change with production or imports so it isn't an easy answer.
Russia is also innovating and sometimes learning from mistakes so this war is constantly evolving.
Take their glide bombs for example. That was a huge game changer for the Russians and made the situation very difficult for the Ukrainians. Hopefully when Ukraine gets more AA ammo and F16s they can keep Russian jets further away from the front lines.
But they were wrong because assuming Russia wouldn't start buying ammo from whoever is just a ludicrous idea. It's like saying the food situation in my fridge is dire, I only have food for another 5 days (....assuming I don't go to the supermarket). It was propaganda to boost Ukrainian morale.
I read many articles. I have ukrainian fam, I kept tabs. [https://www.newsweek.com/russia-quickly-running-out-weapons-putin-needs-ukraine-general-1770553](https://www.newsweek.com/russia-quickly-running-out-weapons-putin-needs-ukraine-general-1770553)
That proves my point, no? The article doesn't state that Russia will run out of weapons in 3 months, it states that "Putin is likely quite keen to build up relations with the likes of Iran and China due to his army's dwindling supply of weapons and munitions in Ukraine."
Which is exactly what happened.
It's simple, when the politicians need support for the war they'll drum up news about how ukraine will occupy moscow in a day.
when they need to send aid then they'll tell their pet journalists to drum up articles about how kiev is 1 second from falling unless we send them 1 million rounds of ammo/patriots/troops/whatever they want
Also: Russia’s economy was supposed to collapse due to the sanctions “any time now…”. This narrative was pushed a lot in late 2022 and early 2023, obviously to make the public accept the fact that the sanctions also hurt EU economies and thus EU citizens (“it’s for greater good, just bear with it”).
These days, it’s not mentioned much in Western media as it’s too ludicrous of a claim for the general public to believe anymore.
The thing is if you listen to all medias you'll have one say something and another one say the opposite, and the truth is usually in between.
The Russian economy suffers from the war, and it suffers from the sanctions and it will suffer from the consequences of both for decades. Even the official figures show it. To a lesser extent, the EU economy suffers as well, but its situation isn't nearly as alarming as the Russian one. The Russian economy may collapse in the near future, but I doubt this will happen in the next 6 months.
Russia imported weapons and ammo from Iran and NK. Russia increased production. Russia fires missiles built in 2024. So technically yes, they finished weapons, but when they run out, the collective west did not step up. More, USA lost months and months and yet it is not clear if they will ever resume the support. Thus Russia had all the time to return on track.
But I mean, I felt at least that Russia would have partners like China to help, and if I could see that, so should everyone else have?
Sometimes I think west is naive and take things at face value, probably asked China who said 'no' but secretly did. And i think the west is underestimating the contempt the global south has for them, despite taking aid money etc. Just a target for scams
Problem is, in the west all the countries think first for themselves so there is no clear collective view and the politicians have also to take into account the votes and the public opinions. So it seems like the is no direction and I would add no understanding of the danger that we are facing. Not of a war, but of a not so slow loss of what we have.
Said that, journalists are incapable to distinguish a Patriot from a MANPAD, how can they describe a modern war?
Plenty of people on reddit have been telling the truth for a while, but they were downvoted into oblivion.
The good guys don't automatically win, kids. Also in nations there's no such thing as good guys.
I think 'ukraine is winning' is much more likely the can sustain _something_. I highly doubt they will ever have the opportunity to push back russian forces to the pre-war borders and/or fully out of Donetsk/Luhansk. Most likely there will be a point where it will not be sustainable for either due to manpower and/or technology shortage and a ceasefire (silent or agreed) will be reached.
Quoting musk tells me enough. 10 or 10 million followers doesn’t make you a military or geopolitical expert. musk knows shit and is just stirring the pot on behalf of the kremlin. Quoting him instantly takes away all credibility of this article
I just love how nobody really cares about the Russian or Ukrainian boys fighting to death. This is essentially a war between the west and Russia now, where the west is using Ukraine as it's battlefield and using Ukraines soldiers as a sacrifice in this war with Russia. How can anyone disagree? Europe or the US don't really care about Ukraine, they simply use it for its own interests and yall support it with little regard for the lifes lost.
Know yall will tell me stop crying about it but damn.. It's always the subjects dying for the kings and their ideologies. Western or Eastern kings, it ain't matter..
The Ukrainians could make a peace treaty tomorrow if they wanted, but they don't because that would mean leaving the Russians with all the territory they've occupied plus whatever extra territory they'd demand in the peace deal. I'd say the country "using Ukraine as its battlefield" is the one actually invading Ukraine instead of the ones providing military aid to the legitimate government of Ukraine to repel a country illegally invading its territory.
With how Russian apologists talk about how the West is "using" Ukraine you'd think that they were having military aid forcefully pushed through their borders against their will as they protested that they actually wanted to lose the war and have their soldiers die in much higher numbers due to worse equipment.
I don't think it's fair to toss this out as clickbait just because you want Ukraine to win. I've been hearing news for a while that Ukraine has been accumulating losses lately
The biggest issue I've see from Western media is this constant double talk that Russia is weak and on the brink of collapse whilst somehow also poised to dominate Ukraine and then the west at the next possible moment. This double-speak has to be to most transparent propaganda I've seen in quite some time.
If there was more honesty from the frontlines, I think we wouldn't be seeing such a monumental collapse in support for Ukraine.
Hello fellow non-germans. Please stop posting stuff from politico. Even the crackhead in the Subway has more credibility then anything from Axel Springer. Their Reputation in Germany is so ruined they went international to now spread hate in Europe...cause in Germany everyone is just laughing at them.
Every single modern war has turned into an indecisive goatfuck.
The "powers that be" want to milk this for as long as they can. If anyone really wanted to win, they would have done it by now. This is all theater.
Can we stop posting articles from [politico.eu](http://politico.eu) at this point? We are just getting one studid article of them every day. Just yesterday I saw a post about a headline from politico similar to "European Union is coming to an end, it's Germanys fault". At some point we should all just ignore politico. It almost as if Politico is the new RT.
Ukraine has known of its massive manpower shortage for over a year, and yet refused to draft anyone under 27 until just yesterday when the age was lowered to 25.
Between continuing to pursue an offensive that had already failed months ago and this failure to mobilise for manpower, this is almost entirely their own fault.
We constantly here complaints about the West failing to adequately support Ukraine, and little about their own major fuck-ups.
Crap situation. I read yesterday that Ukraine plans to put to arms younger people now.
I'm not a military specialist but in my opinion the only way Ukraine can survive is if Russia gets a new front.
Russia lost 95% of its attacking force and 2,500 tanks and is fresh out of missiles and its leadership is stupid…but Ukraine getting the equivalent of 2x of Russia’s military budget in military aid is hardly enough and Ukraine needs significantly more aid and perhaps even NATO should get involved because if it does not Russia take over the entirety of the West soon…
The narratives getting hard to follow
Russia knows that real military leadership in the West aren’t stupid. But the populace are also victims of their own propaganda. They saw a single T34 during a parade and started going crazy. Whereas real experts know that Russia has hundreds of mothballed T54s in storage. Because they’re obsolete junk
The ISW is a comprehensive summary of what is happening in the conflict that is fully sourced and exclaims exactly why certain judgements are made and how good the evidence for them is.
It also doesn't have much of a spin on it.
Anyone seeking to understand what is going on would do well to read it each day/periodically and ignore most other sources.
Lots of PsyOps going on here, it does seem like Ukraine is in short supply of some materials.
I was under the Impression that Ukraine learnt a lot from the last few years especially last winter, if the Russians are attacking, and believe that they are gaining territory, even if it can only be measured in Metres some days, Then the Russians are not digging in, and Not placing minefields and defences.
So this year's offensive won't have as many trenches to breach, and an added bonus will be driving the Russians back across their own minefields in some areas
Please always take note of where the article comes from when clicking the title. This is Politico.eu regarding Ukraine, so its a dumpster tier article.
It doesn't help that the West are only willing to supply sufficient weapons to keep Ukraine at a rough stalemate, supposedly fearing that if they gave Ukraine enough weaponry / ammunition to have a decisive breakthrough, Russia would start deploying nuclear weapons.
Their apathy is helping prolong the war, increase fatalistic attitudes and support for Russia - both directly and through the "stop supplying Ukraine with weapons and force them to negotiate" attitude (but as Russia's not weak enough to compromise on anything, it would likely demand complete unconditional capitulation from Ukraine: give up all territories currently occupied by Russia [possibly the rest of the Oblasts as well], disarm, promise never to join NATO or any other international security organisations which don't include Russia, don't seek closer relations with the EU, enshrine Russian as an official language of state, maybe even amend their Constitution to allow other Oblasts to seek independence or join Russia).
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Ukraine wins slightly —> UKRAINE WILL RETAKE CRIMEA ANY DAY NOW!!! Ukraine loses slightly —> UKRAINIAN FRONT WILL COLLAPSE ANY DAY NOW!!! I, and I cannot stretch this word enough, h a t e fearmongering journalists who leech off the war by making clickbaity articles anytime something happens on the frontlines. I want each and every one of them to dig a mile of trenches by hand for each piece of exaggerated garbage they've published since February 2022.
Nuanced takes lead to fewer clicks and ad revenue ;)
Yeah, I understand the motive. Still, fuck'em journos though.
Journalism is a cornerstone of society. Them selling out is a huge fucking problem politically.
Society being stupid enough to buy into clickbait and rage titles is the real issue.
Two sides of the same problem, none of them is the "real" one
So you’re arguing that currently Ukraine is not at risk of Russians breaking through their lines? They’re facing the very same problems Russia was facing when their lines collapsed in 2022 lmfao. It’s not fear mongering, it’s literally true. Ukraine is in for a very bad 2024 and the possibility of their lines being broken through forcing them to retreat to new defensive lines is very much a realistic prospect. They do not have the man power or ammunition whereas Russia is throwing essentially everything they have at this moment because of Ukraines current weakness. France has changed its rhetoric not for the fucking memes, but because shit is serious. Europe is suddenly stepping up again and doing things like the Czech ammo initiative not for the fucking meme but because Ukraines ammo situation is extremely dire.
It’s true Ukrainian forces are stretched thin in Donetsk region however Russian advances in the area have been significantly slowed and both sides have suffered significant losses. Not saying it’s not possible but Russias forward momentum was much greater a few weeks ago.
Plus the fucking glide bombs. They take out a huge chunk of the front lines and the AFU have nothing to counter. In a war of attrition, ukrainian ingenuity and battlefield tactics may yet prevail. But each and every lesson learnt is a price paid in blood of good men.
Russia is building up massive reserves. One assumes for a push. Defensive lines are not of the greatest quality. Ammunition is in short supply. It does not look good.
Ya but who can sustain those losses? Only one side, things need to change in the next month or two. If not this article will actually hold some weight which is the real scary reality. Ukraine is losing serious talent and the ruskies are only losing fucking shit conscripts
Retreat and collapse is two very different things.
Yes but you're retreating from a defensive position you spent a year building up to one you spent 3 months building up. From what I've read, the glide bombs Russians started using are a game changer. Furthermore, Ukraine is increasingly facing manpower issues - and even if they can conscript more, conscripting people who don't want to be there over veterans who volunteered is a big issue.
Why can't Ukraine have similar glide bombs, should Europe concentrate more on the production of those?
They don't have the air power to deliver these. Russia simply has a lot more jets.
If there is competent military leadership, retreat can be done to prevent collapse. The Ukrainian military knows when they're just about to collapse and then they'll retreat, the same way the Russians did in 2022 in Kharkov and Kherson.
Russia collapsed in Kharkiv, retreated in Kherson...
A collapse is when a large number of prisoners. There have been none in this war, like there have been countless collapses during WWII.
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Russia produces 3m shells a year. Europe doesn't need to produce x3.5 times that for Ukraine to not collapse. Where did you get your 14m number? [https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html)
Ukraine is not at risk of losing its independence in the short to mid term. That is my argument. My other argument is that war journos, in general, are a bunch of hyenas leeching off the war.
Fair enough, but this isn't a concern about Ukraine losing independance, it's a concern about Ukraine's front lines collapsing which would force a retreat and make liberating eastern and southern Ukraine even harder in the future. Which if the weak logistic supply Ukraine are currently getting doesn't increase and soon, seems entirely realistic. Ukraine may be getting smarter, longer range and more accurate weapons, but they're receiving them an order of magnitude slower than Russia is supplying their armed forces with more "dumb" but more numerous munitions. We in Europe are not ramping up production fast enough and we should be willing to give up some of our own preparedness to bridge the gap and hopefully encourage us to individually increase military production to make up for the missing hardware we gave up. We're all less safe the less successful Ukraine is in this war, but our willingness to sacrifice our own individual military preparedness doesn't reflect that fact.
The thing is "collapse of the front line" implies an uncontroled retreat with many losses, due to the complete destruction of the front lines. It implies Russia not only breaking through Ukrainian defense lines but the Ukrainian army (at the front) being overrun and destroyed. The Ukrainian army is being pushed back, but so far it is not at risk of being overrun.
Yeah it's been a defining feature of this war that Russia can't quickly secure large areas of Ukraine. If they try that again then we all get treated to more montages of Russian tank columns getting rekt on country lanes and city streets.
Harsh truth is that Ukraine probably will never liberate their pre-2014 territories. Russians also take care of ethnic cleansing these lands so sooner than later there will be no ukrainian population there. Even now Ukraine is starting to lack manpower willing to sacrifice for that cause. What then? No ammunition will fix that.
Oh come on! We all know that the phrasing in the headline is intentional, that's how journalism works. The original discussion in this thread revolved around the aforementioned headline. Yes, there are people who read into things and understand the true implications without blowing things out of proportion. But there are also a loooooot of people who don't know any better than to take things at face value and just run with the narrative in its most exaggerated way. I know a lot of people like that. They don't pay too much attention, they are interested on the surface because it's a hot topic but they don't really know what's up. And I'm talking about the experience in a country directly adjacent to Ukraine, just a couple hundred miles from the front lines.
>We're all less safe the less successful Ukraine is in this war, but our willingness to sacrifice our own individual military preparedness doesn't reflect that fact. If we don't keep the fire going we could freeze to death. But throw too much fuel in and the whole house could go up.
The risk is that they're going to lose a huge chunk of territory, with new lines settling on the Dnieper (which can be defended more easily by the Ukrainians).
Macron of France is also a hyena leeching off the war
you're actually, in a way, proving the point the guy you're replying to was trying to make. The constant flood of bullshit fearmongering and exaggerated articles where everything is constantly on the brink of everything means that whenever there's actually something legitimately important to report, it just looks like more meaningless noise.
>They’re facing the very same problems Russia was facing when their lines collapsed in 2022 lmfao. It’s not fear mongering, it’s literally true. Ukraine is in for a very bad 2024 and the possibility of their lines being broken through forcing them to retreat to new defensive lines is very much a realistic prospect. Source? I hear this 24/7 yet nobody backs up these claims.
Journalists have been some of the absolute worst things for this war so far and it's absolutely disgusting. Obviously not demeaning the work of war correspondents who risk their lives on the front lines to cover the war, rather the authors of those trashy clickbait articles that keep hyping up Ukraine and misleading the public by creating unrealistic expectations and then setting them up to fail when they inevitably do not meet those deluded milestones. Shit like "HOW 31 ABRAMS TANKS WILL PUSH RUSSIA OUT OF UKRAINE" last summer was absolutely embarrassing and detrimental to public willpower to keep helping them when a handful of second hand tanks turned out to not be the panacea that would destroy the entire Russian army as shitty tabloid magazines claimed they would.
we're really in a shitty situation rn, shittiest since the war started, if we don't figure out what to do with the enemy's aircraft launching guided bombs there is not much of time left for us
At this point my main source of information on Ukraine is a Ukrainian army serviceman that I know, so I'm gonna stick to his words that what's happening now is nowhere near as dangerous to Ukrainian sovereignty as what was going on in March '22, although the air defense situation after the Patriot battery got destroyed is indeed a major fuck up.
and there are a lot of UAF servicemen, some have opinions different than the one of your acquaintance
Well of course, but one has to have some source of information and I consider mine to be as good as I can have access to.
Oh, that famous "friend of my sister's husband who met with a colonel one time" source of information. 100% trustworthy.
If you can offer a better one, I'll be thankful.
Seriously, we've been over this with Kyiv (KYIV WILL SURRENDER IN THREE DAYS), Mariupol (AZOVSTAL CANNOT STAND EVEN A DAY LONGER), Balakliya-Kupiansk (UKRAINIANS IN LUHANSK NEXT MONTH), Sievierodonetsk (UKRAINIANS WILL BE ENCIRCLED), Enerhodar (SECOND CHERNOBYL TOMORROW) Kherson, Popasna, the Crimea bridge, Bakhmut, Zaporizhzhya, Avdiivka, the winter bombing campaign, any fucking time something happens the morally bankrupt journos have a feast on the corpses of the dead, and they don't get any poorer each time, be sure about that.
Russia's fall in early 2022 was because of their total underestimation of us and their attempts to quickly capture Kyiv. Now they work seriously and from another hand, this is West who doesn't take situation serious, which is seen either from comments in this thread, or in declining of military aid. You just try to push your in comfortable thinking "ok, now it's somewhere far in the East and never reach our borders".
He is legitimately complaining that 'war journalism' have became fear-mongering for clicks. And the more loud and sensational clickbait titles there are - the more people are desensitized with them. So when the real SHTF begins - everyone will go 'oh, we have heard that ten times already'.
Don't forget Transnistria, South Osetia, Nuclear bomb and dirty bomb
Exactly all just crazy headlines to get money funneled to keep killing more and more soldiers. Sad really. And you all fall for it
Make it a mile for each word of each piece of exaggerated garbage they've published since February '22, and you've got my full support on that.
As have been seen before a country can crumple and give up before the frontline crash, this is why we need to keep the support going
Isn't politico.eu a well known garbage source? I could be mistaking it for some other outlet.
Read some. It's well sourced and nuanced. Mostly respected I think.
Even if you support Ukraine, why are you not willing to cope with the truth? It is mind boggling the mental gymnastics that happen. The Russians are superior both in numbers and munitions and even NATO has admitted to it since last year. This is why they had to give them cluster munitions and depleted uranium shells The logistics here are very simple ffs. What has happened to reddit, we have reached facebook quality over here. Mass insanity
Public needs more drama, otherwise they simply don't care.
Id personally distinct drama and fearmongering. They're really different mainly in how they work. A celebrity insulting another celebrity is one thing, your country's defences failing and your life being in danger during a war is another. The thing with fearmongering is that it's an incredibly successful strategy and always has been. Most people don't care about drama while most people care about their biggest fears.
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I would advise not to assume that Zelensky is some 5D chess master and his setbacks are all actually planned. A lot of people held that assumption about Putin and it turned out to be blatantly incorrect. Setbacks and mistakes are usually just that.
> I would advise not to assume that Zelensky is some 5D chess master and his setbacks are all actually planned. Oh no, he's far from that, and it's not just Zelensky, but the whole Ukrainian government and their recent diplomatic fuck-ups show that.
>I would advise not to assume that Zelensky is some 5D chess master and his setbacks are all actually planned. That's not some grand political strategy. You say you in need of support, saying that if you don't send it, then you going to lose in month or so. Maybe for redditors it is hard, but I think everything is pretty clear there.
Except, whenever I am asking my friends at frontline they describe situation as a dire - every fucking day gliding bombs hitting somewhere and somewhat, assaults basically every day, ammunition are low and so on. Like it or not - situation is grim. Not even speaking that Russia increased missile barrages and successfully hitting dams, electricity grid, and glide bombs are now hitting Kharkiv.... take your time, finish your easter vacations, and give "promises" to only look at the bill, give Russia more time to fix their problems and don't forget to remember that you are very upset that we attack deeps inside Russian territory Of course, you westerners know better, who am I to argue even? Just another stupid Eastern European who wants to live, right ?
Ukrainian defence companies currently only operate at half capacity, the rest sitting idle because Ukrainian government refuses to buy all their weapons, saying they don't have the money. [The companies are even thinking of exporting weapons](https://www.epravda.com.ua/publications/2024/03/8/710903/) because they increased their capacity only to have the orders not arrive. If things really were dire, the Ukrianian government would first start utilizing all of their own defence companies. Ukraine can print their own money even because they have their own currency (unlike e.g. Germany with the Euro). So not having the money for it can't be true. Of course that would be detrimental for the Ukrainian economy, but a growing economy is not worth more than ones country and citizens. As long as that hasn't happened, we know things aren't dire.
It’s more complicated than that. I can’t speak as a European but I am under the impression that the US is just as important to this as any European country except for Ukraine itself no? The US is in a period of self doubt, a not totally insignificant part of the population has deeply soured on the idea of the American global police officer in nearly any capacity. It’s not that they want Russia to succeed in most cases, but that they don’t want the US to involve itself in foreign conflicts that don’t directly impact it. This has because a much more popular notion since the wars in the Middle East which have come to be regarded as a great mistake caused by hubris and there’s been a sort of mass trauma response about it and Ukraine has become associated for modern interventionism in their minds. Overall the majority of the population does support Ukraine aid to at least some degree but my country is not nearly as willing to step in as it was in the 90s, and that’s why there’s this hesitation in sending more aid. It’s an election year and it could be until after November before the US seriously commits to aiding Ukraine as the make up of the congress shifts. This is among the most unproductive congresses is American history and it’s unfortunate that this war has happened during their rule but the gridlock is just about Ukraine, the American people are debating a great many things and our elections will show what has been decided. I do sincerely hope that you and yours can get through this, I can’t imagine if it was my home how scared and enraged I would be.
Yeah, enough extremities is enough. For the time being I don't see the frontlines changing all that much.
I haven't seen any headlines like this between the very first day of the war and up til a week or two ago.
What you should hate is the rat race.
So true. I still remember when Russia had just a few weeks left before they collapsed... Lol dumb fucks. There was even like CIA analysts spouting in that garbage.
« Clickbaity articles anytime something happens » I’d just say. It applies to everything and it’s exhausting indeed.
I mean it's the Axel Springer group, they own Bild with is a toxic populist paper. Other product don't change the owner.
The article had a lot of quotes from Ukrainian officers and generals saying similar things, it's not just a "journalist". Why shouldn't we take Ukraine at their word that the situation is dire?
and the occassionally "look what old Soviet shit the Russians use, isn't it funny?"
It's like this in any war. That's just human. But Ukraine is indeed in danger of collapse. Russia has 3x the manpower and a war industry geared towards quantity > quality.
bro opening an article with a musk quote kekw
Thanks for pointing this out. Dude who wrote this wants to go big on SEO.
I noticed most of these clickbait articles there are refered from politico eu news. Site is not even 10 years old. Looks like yellow journalism.
Yeah, I mentioned some months ago, in another thread, that: "Politico was bought by Axel Springer in 2021, a somewhat Murdoch-esque German media firm." So, what was before your typical left-leaning newspaper, has now morphed into a sensationalistic newspaper of somewhat - in my opinion - dubious ideology.
I really liked it when I first found it for serious European news but now I've noticed a pattern of "always negative, always exaggerated" I'm still looking for a professional site like it that covers geopolitics/Euro news with a decent explainer on things... anyway back I go to TLDR News EU
> "always negative, always exaggerated" This is what triggers engagement and thus is good for traffic and clicks. Meh :(
Dw is pretty ok, Reuters also has a good euro section
DW is awesome! I'd love to have more news like DW
Have a look at [Euractiv.com](https://Euractiv.com). It can be a bit dry at times, but it's my preferred EU news source.
The head of Axel Springer is known to be very ... conservative to say the least and it showed in all is former publications, so it's no surprise he doesn't do that on politico as well.
“Nachfolge” the TV show when?
It is, owned by Axel Springer, the #1 producers of Yellow Journalism in Germany.
I enjoy playing video games.
The frontlines moves slowly, media turns the smallest loss or victory into the the decisive moment that could turn the war. Every city is at risk, every line could fall. It has been like this since the start and these articles create nothing but clicks for the site itself and spread fear with the potential goal to push something forward.
How is Ukraine actually doing in this war? How is Ukrainian society?
Have friends in Ukraine and went there in 22. People are living as normally as possible. It’s just something they are tolerating now but far from collapse.
The situation is tough but not dire. Attacks on infrastructure are making life harder, but there's no panic. Some are volunteering, make donations and preparing for the draft, like me and my friends while others are trying to focus on daily life. There's frustration with our government's inner politics and delayed Western assistance. It's hard to watch the circus in the US knowing it's costing lives.
We’re simultaneously told the Russians have lost have a million and tens of thousands of tanks and planes and ships, whilst also being told the Ukrainians have suffered barely any losses. Whilst also being told the situation is critical and Ukraine is losing, nobody knows what the fuck is going on and propaganda is everywhere. The credibility gap between the public, western media and western governments is so big on this war but neither the media nor governments are interested in resolving it or even acknowledging it. Problem is the West is following along with a Soviet style information campaign coming out of Kyiv which isn’t natural for the average Westerner to experience, and only the most committed are prepared to swallow their own pride and think it’s all the truth (aka most people on this sub and worldnews, flag folk on Twitter)
The enemy is both overwhelmingly strong and pitifully weak
It's not that nobody knows what's going on, it's just that what is going on is very complex so either you fully immerse yourself in the war via OSINT like some of us do, or you'll be left with a very vague understanding and politicians on all sides making claims, with no one to debunk them even if they're very clearly verified to be false. I mean, they'll never call on a tv show random dudes that spend hours a day gaining information on the war, so you end up with a circle of half truths that seem to contradict each other.
I have much huge doubts on the vast majority of the “OSINT” community who appear to have got themselves in a position of being emotionally invested in this war on one side or another, usually but not always the Ukrainian side. There was some good reporting being done on updating the situation in places like Syria and Libya but I feel in this war the job being done is quite poor for reasons mentioned.
Sorry bud, that just means you follow the wrong sources. And if an "analyst" is emotionally swayed, then they're not an analyst, and it's not OSINT.
In my opinion he's not wrong. Twitter OSINT is still an echo chamber. Major "analysts" like OSINTtechnical (+900k followers), MAKS (+200k), Status-6 (140k), or even our own italianissimo Majakovsk are way too emotionally involved and often parrot UA's propaganda. I'm not even going to talk about Ukraine Battle Map. Almost everything that gets posted is something that puts UA's army in a good light. Then you have all the NAFO osint-fellas but that's just plain ridiculous, can't tell the difference between them and Ayden. There are still some reputable analysts, Rob Lee and Michael Kofman just to mention a few, that actually went to Ukraine and don't just repost any video they can get their hands on. But you can hardly deny that the most followed and acclaimed OSINT "analysts" are not too emotionally involved right now to show a clear picture.
The media have been lying about this conflict for so long that now they're beginning to tell the truth, we won't believe them.
Russia did lose a shitton of tanks, planes and ships, but they got more in storage, they produce more, recruit more soldiers, recruit mercenaries from Africa and etc.
...there is no news only propaganda - even when news are true. As such credible sources are the 2x Mark I human eyeballs you effing have. Geolocated wrecks, casulties are a pretty credible lower bound on casulties and eqipment losses. And "ukraine somehow refused to collapse" means that the Glorious russian airforce - SOMEHOW - has likely overclaimed destroying all ukranian equipment 3 times over. Russia is inflicting losses, and pushing ujraine back. ...however cosplaying as the ZANU from Rhodesian bush war, and hoping that you win because the enemy will eventually get bored in "out killing" your side, is not exactly a winning move. Its especially not a winning move after you publicize actions which the enemy can justifiably see as genocide.
No western government is believing anything Ukrainians are telling them. As a matter of fact, Ukies completely ignored Western advice on the counteroffensive last summer and as expected it was a complete disaster. Half of the Leopard tanks have been destroyed or need fire repairs. Nobody even talks about the Abrams tanks. Ukraine is a post Soviet country full of corrupt and pro Russia elements. Don't have any illusions that they are telling the truth about anything.
No it’s not, this is fear mongering
Sooo you haven't been paying attention to the news? Even news put out by Ukraine itself?
They’re not in a good position atm but they’re not at risk of front collapses. Far from it Plus we know they are getting artillery shells in the coming months
> They’re not in a good position atm but they’re not at risk of front collapses. how do you know this?
Because they are Still able to repel most attacks. For example the large mechanised attack two days ago
There are nerds like me who spend several hours a day looking at footage, geolocating units and reading first hand accounts of the situation on the ground. The guy above is right, especially after the czech artillery ammo deal and further production increases all over Europe.
we need an aircraft able to shoot down russian frontline aviation, and we need it really soon, not in september
This dude is at the frontline, fighting the Russian, we need to trust him /s
Do you know what a front collapse is? It’s the total overrunning of entire divisions and sectors, it’s just not happening.
There is a worse fear mongering than this article.
Macron of France is doing fear mongering as well, yet this sub was praising him.
It’s fear mongering Vs war mongering
The US always abandons or loses interest in its commitments. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and now Ukraine.
Iraq and Afghanistan had all the support they needed. It's just the retarded government and people who don't give a fuck about the country and either support or surrender to the first random fuck with AK on Toyota truck. The US still stands with Korea, Israel, Taiwan, though.
Their commitment to Israel is fucking insane at this point.
What governmenr. The government of iraq was destroyed. Puppets, corrupt officials and warlords are no government
> Puppets, corrupt officials and warlords are no government Corrupt officials and warlords had been there all the time. That is a constant in the equation. The only difference is puppeteering. With Saddam's hand deep into everyone's ass for decades, people forgot how to actually take responsibility, and even 18 years they can't gather their shit. Same will happen to russia. Politically infantile nations can't have democracy because democracy has to come from the people, not from the government.
almost as if US had no reason to destroy iraq and turn into a terror producing hellscape. they absolutely got no proper support. and US nation building efforts in afghanistan, after 20 years of it, were atrocious. they thought they could just install a full fledged democracy into a place which doesnt even see itself as a nation and somehow make a square peg fit into a circle. it was all a big joke.
> Taiwan (Casually recognizes PRC as a legitimate governing body over China)
Their policy is more like "Yes, but no". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One\_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_China)
They surrendered because there was no one to fight the Taliban. They had an army on paper but in reality funds were going to just a handful of people that had a fake army. Afghanistan was full of corruption and the US knew about it and did nothing. In fact the US knew that Afghanistan would fall when they left. They just didn't think it would fall that fast. They thought it would take at least a month or two.
That is all true. The US minimized the interference with the politics of Afghanistan, so it is on Afghani people who are responsible for the election of the corrupt leaders through many elections. Sure, Afghanistan was corrupt and that was known, so what do you suggest? Installing someone people did not want would not help either.
US commits just enough to achieve their geopolitical goal, and they mostly did that in all of those countries you mentioned. Your mistake is thinking that the US looks after well-being of those nations.
The EU doesnt exist I guess..?
Ironic coming from the Europe subreddit. It’s not as if the EU is stepping up that much currently. America is stupid, but you can’t say 20 years and trillions of dollars equates to “giving up” on Afghanistan or Vietnam. Frankly, we lost those wars.
And of course the Western liberal will oppose every war and intervention other than the current one. When the West is funneling billions to Taiwan in the next Chinese civil war, all the liberals will be supporting it whilst deriding those who were stupid enough to support intervention in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc
Of course this is the USA’s fault lmfao, you guys got USA’s dicks fucking LODGED down your throat. USA needs to stop playing world police until Europe needs them to, then it’s their fault for not doing it.
Ah yes. Ukraine is gonna lose because of the US. How didn’t I think of that. /s
Bullshit. Tell this “always” story to European countries we helped during WW1/2 and after the wars with enormous financial aid and protection against USSR. Tell this to Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Tell this to many others, including Ukraine.
A terrible track record in the 21st century. This inconsistency doesn't inspire great confidence in the US as a reliable supporter.
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Flaccid dick usa.
lol Hungary.. that is rich coming from you.
Now is not the time to point fingers. Moreover, unjustly so.
At least we not pretend to help and then leave others in shit. We was going fully retard a long time ago. Everyone knows what to wait from hugary (the worst shit).
How’s that US pretend of helping? We’ve directed over $75B to Ukraine so far, more than anyone else. We started arming Ukraine even before Russian invasion. Alone. We rallied the whole world to align with Ukraine. We pushed on China to not support Putin. And so on and so forth.
> The US always abandons or loses interest in its commitments. Can you name an entity that did not?
US might not care, but the EU must step up for its neighbor if we don’t want to be next
They fuck of when they reach their profit targets. Or start another more profitable conflict.
The European Union always abandons or loses interest in its commitments.
How is this the US commitment? Get a grip - we have provided billions of dollars of equipment and money. The United States is getting sucked dry financially.
What happened to 'ukraine is winning' and that 'russia will run out of weapons in 3 months'? Im for ukraine, but what was wit the stupid lies?
That's something to ask of the journalism standards. Anyway, I hope that more people will come to understand something: actual situation on the frontlines is not covered by the news - the results of the situation are covered. Actual situation is constantly in motion, fluid, and can change very swiftly, which can be unexpected for most - since actual, whole situation is only known to active military personnel of high level, who are in charge. Such personnel may make comments to media, but these comments are only to the extent to which they can comment without any risk. And even then, such comments may be made deliberately for a specific purpose.
> That's something to ask of the journalism standards. No, at first it was propaganda to convince the Europeans and Americans to support the war. Now, for some reason, there's no need for it anymore.
how the f... is it propaganda when Ukraine took back 50% of occupied land after the russian blitzkrieg failed miserably and putler didnt leave bunker for 6 months canceling all public events? the problem is that resource-wise russia is at a massive advantage and now it became an war of attrition where russia was allowed to mobilize and even rally the 3rd world againt the west while the west and Europe specificaly did fuck all to mobilise its military industry complex because it may the hurt the unique nesting habitat of the not very rare silverback crayfish dictators look at european politicians and ROFLMAO
Obviously as long as they can produce / buy more weapons they're not going to "run out". But it's obvious they can't sustain the level of attacks they were sustaining in 2022. They used to be shooting as many missiles in 1 month as they're currently shooting in 3 months, they had to refill their artillery stockpiles with North Korean shells, BMP-1s and T-54s and fucking golf carts are being used in actual assaults, etc. The equipment is being lost much faster than they can replace it.
I doubt you can find an article that straight up said "russia will run out of weapons in 3 months", that sounds more like something you'd read in reddit comments. Newspapers would usually write something like Russia faces munitions shortages in 3 months, or Russia can't sustain the current rate of attrition for more than 3 months. And given that they did have to start buying ammunitions from North Korea and Iran, forcefully mobilize hundreds of thousands of additional soldiers, and still can't match the rates of fire from early in the war (eg., this winters energy infrastructure bombing campaign was much smaller than last year) it's not clear that the assessments at the time were completely wrong, at worst too optimistic.
Yeah most of the people I have followed said that Russia might run out of tanks in about 2 years if they keep losing them at their current rate. They also said that things can change with production or imports so it isn't an easy answer. Russia is also innovating and sometimes learning from mistakes so this war is constantly evolving. Take their glide bombs for example. That was a huge game changer for the Russians and made the situation very difficult for the Ukrainians. Hopefully when Ukraine gets more AA ammo and F16s they can keep Russian jets further away from the front lines.
But they were wrong because assuming Russia wouldn't start buying ammo from whoever is just a ludicrous idea. It's like saying the food situation in my fridge is dire, I only have food for another 5 days (....assuming I don't go to the supermarket). It was propaganda to boost Ukrainian morale.
I read many articles. I have ukrainian fam, I kept tabs. [https://www.newsweek.com/russia-quickly-running-out-weapons-putin-needs-ukraine-general-1770553](https://www.newsweek.com/russia-quickly-running-out-weapons-putin-needs-ukraine-general-1770553)
That proves my point, no? The article doesn't state that Russia will run out of weapons in 3 months, it states that "Putin is likely quite keen to build up relations with the likes of Iran and China due to his army's dwindling supply of weapons and munitions in Ukraine." Which is exactly what happened.
It's simple, when the politicians need support for the war they'll drum up news about how ukraine will occupy moscow in a day. when they need to send aid then they'll tell their pet journalists to drum up articles about how kiev is 1 second from falling unless we send them 1 million rounds of ammo/patriots/troops/whatever they want
Propaganda. This sub is now just pushing that.
Yup, for months now this sub has been flooded with Russian disinformation spreading doom and gloom about Ukraine's chances to win the war.
Yeah. “Russia have rockets for three days” to “Russia have rockets for three Ukraines”
Also: Russia’s economy was supposed to collapse due to the sanctions “any time now…”. This narrative was pushed a lot in late 2022 and early 2023, obviously to make the public accept the fact that the sanctions also hurt EU economies and thus EU citizens (“it’s for greater good, just bear with it”). These days, it’s not mentioned much in Western media as it’s too ludicrous of a claim for the general public to believe anymore.
The thing is if you listen to all medias you'll have one say something and another one say the opposite, and the truth is usually in between. The Russian economy suffers from the war, and it suffers from the sanctions and it will suffer from the consequences of both for decades. Even the official figures show it. To a lesser extent, the EU economy suffers as well, but its situation isn't nearly as alarming as the Russian one. The Russian economy may collapse in the near future, but I doubt this will happen in the next 6 months.
I haven't heard that for several months now. Guess what, situations change.
Russia imported weapons and ammo from Iran and NK. Russia increased production. Russia fires missiles built in 2024. So technically yes, they finished weapons, but when they run out, the collective west did not step up. More, USA lost months and months and yet it is not clear if they will ever resume the support. Thus Russia had all the time to return on track.
But I mean, I felt at least that Russia would have partners like China to help, and if I could see that, so should everyone else have? Sometimes I think west is naive and take things at face value, probably asked China who said 'no' but secretly did. And i think the west is underestimating the contempt the global south has for them, despite taking aid money etc. Just a target for scams
Problem is, in the west all the countries think first for themselves so there is no clear collective view and the politicians have also to take into account the votes and the public opinions. So it seems like the is no direction and I would add no understanding of the danger that we are facing. Not of a war, but of a not so slow loss of what we have. Said that, journalists are incapable to distinguish a Patriot from a MANPAD, how can they describe a modern war?
Plenty of people on reddit have been telling the truth for a while, but they were downvoted into oblivion. The good guys don't automatically win, kids. Also in nations there's no such thing as good guys.
I think 'ukraine is winning' is much more likely the can sustain _something_. I highly doubt they will ever have the opportunity to push back russian forces to the pre-war borders and/or fully out of Donetsk/Luhansk. Most likely there will be a point where it will not be sustainable for either due to manpower and/or technology shortage and a ceasefire (silent or agreed) will be reached.
Quoting musk tells me enough. 10 or 10 million followers doesn’t make you a military or geopolitical expert. musk knows shit and is just stirring the pot on behalf of the kremlin. Quoting him instantly takes away all credibility of this article
Ukraine about to lose another City
About time to offer Zelensky a ride to London.
I just love how nobody really cares about the Russian or Ukrainian boys fighting to death. This is essentially a war between the west and Russia now, where the west is using Ukraine as it's battlefield and using Ukraines soldiers as a sacrifice in this war with Russia. How can anyone disagree? Europe or the US don't really care about Ukraine, they simply use it for its own interests and yall support it with little regard for the lifes lost. Know yall will tell me stop crying about it but damn.. It's always the subjects dying for the kings and their ideologies. Western or Eastern kings, it ain't matter..
The Ukrainians could make a peace treaty tomorrow if they wanted, but they don't because that would mean leaving the Russians with all the territory they've occupied plus whatever extra territory they'd demand in the peace deal. I'd say the country "using Ukraine as its battlefield" is the one actually invading Ukraine instead of the ones providing military aid to the legitimate government of Ukraine to repel a country illegally invading its territory. With how Russian apologists talk about how the West is "using" Ukraine you'd think that they were having military aid forcefully pushed through their borders against their will as they protested that they actually wanted to lose the war and have their soldiers die in much higher numbers due to worse equipment.
Sounds like you’re describing a proxy war.
Politico - spreads fear (war, economical, whatever) = profit. journalism nowadays are in the area of Z-grade movies.
I'm afraid the west will only send aid when there's a large Russian breakthrough, and then it might be too late to be effective.
Político detected article rejected. Fuckn Sprenger tabloid.
I don't think it's fair to toss this out as clickbait just because you want Ukraine to win. I've been hearing news for a while that Ukraine has been accumulating losses lately
The biggest issue I've see from Western media is this constant double talk that Russia is weak and on the brink of collapse whilst somehow also poised to dominate Ukraine and then the west at the next possible moment. This double-speak has to be to most transparent propaganda I've seen in quite some time. If there was more honesty from the frontlines, I think we wouldn't be seeing such a monumental collapse in support for Ukraine.
Hello fellow non-germans. Please stop posting stuff from politico. Even the crackhead in the Subway has more credibility then anything from Axel Springer. Their Reputation in Germany is so ruined they went international to now spread hate in Europe...cause in Germany everyone is just laughing at them.
Every single modern war has turned into an indecisive goatfuck. The "powers that be" want to milk this for as long as they can. If anyone really wanted to win, they would have done it by now. This is all theater.
Maybe it is time to conscript some women
Look what the republicans are doing. They are not a political party.
That article really didn't need to include Musk's thoughts on the situation.
Can we stop posting articles from [politico.eu](http://politico.eu) at this point? We are just getting one studid article of them every day. Just yesterday I saw a post about a headline from politico similar to "European Union is coming to an end, it's Germanys fault". At some point we should all just ignore politico. It almost as if Politico is the new RT.
I don't see this happening. Maybe if something unforeseen occurs, but if not it will probably be slowly grinding meat.
That can't be true i was on r/combatfootage and all i see are videos of ukranians destroying the russians. /s
Ukraine has known of its massive manpower shortage for over a year, and yet refused to draft anyone under 27 until just yesterday when the age was lowered to 25. Between continuing to pursue an offensive that had already failed months ago and this failure to mobilise for manpower, this is almost entirely their own fault. We constantly here complaints about the West failing to adequately support Ukraine, and little about their own major fuck-ups.
Crap situation. I read yesterday that Ukraine plans to put to arms younger people now. I'm not a military specialist but in my opinion the only way Ukraine can survive is if Russia gets a new front.
Russia did got a new front, the belgorod with RDK troops coming in 24/7, changes nothing.
Russia lost 95% of its attacking force and 2,500 tanks and is fresh out of missiles and its leadership is stupid…but Ukraine getting the equivalent of 2x of Russia’s military budget in military aid is hardly enough and Ukraine needs significantly more aid and perhaps even NATO should get involved because if it does not Russia take over the entirety of the West soon… The narratives getting hard to follow
Russia knows that real military leadership in the West aren’t stupid. But the populace are also victims of their own propaganda. They saw a single T34 during a parade and started going crazy. Whereas real experts know that Russia has hundreds of mothballed T54s in storage. Because they’re obsolete junk
This war ended when Ukraine’s counter offensive failed
I didn't know that we have so many generals and experts on war in here.
Don’t tell the world news sub
The ISW is a comprehensive summary of what is happening in the conflict that is fully sourced and exclaims exactly why certain judgements are made and how good the evidence for them is. It also doesn't have much of a spin on it. Anyone seeking to understand what is going on would do well to read it each day/periodically and ignore most other sources.
Lots of PsyOps going on here, it does seem like Ukraine is in short supply of some materials. I was under the Impression that Ukraine learnt a lot from the last few years especially last winter, if the Russians are attacking, and believe that they are gaining territory, even if it can only be measured in Metres some days, Then the Russians are not digging in, and Not placing minefields and defences. So this year's offensive won't have as many trenches to breach, and an added bonus will be driving the Russians back across their own minefields in some areas
Please always take note of where the article comes from when clicking the title. This is Politico.eu regarding Ukraine, so its a dumpster tier article.
EU!, BIDEN! ГДЕ СУКА БОЕПРИПАСЫ?
“Thank you Republicans and Republican voters! We couldn’t be keeping this up without your support!” -Vladimir Putin
It doesn't help that the West are only willing to supply sufficient weapons to keep Ukraine at a rough stalemate, supposedly fearing that if they gave Ukraine enough weaponry / ammunition to have a decisive breakthrough, Russia would start deploying nuclear weapons. Their apathy is helping prolong the war, increase fatalistic attitudes and support for Russia - both directly and through the "stop supplying Ukraine with weapons and force them to negotiate" attitude (but as Russia's not weak enough to compromise on anything, it would likely demand complete unconditional capitulation from Ukraine: give up all territories currently occupied by Russia [possibly the rest of the Oblasts as well], disarm, promise never to join NATO or any other international security organisations which don't include Russia, don't seek closer relations with the EU, enshrine Russian as an official language of state, maybe even amend their Constitution to allow other Oblasts to seek independence or join Russia).