With all the western media outlets declaring that Russia has all but been defeated, I’m wondering if the situation is really all that grim over there. Are the Ukranazis really winning?
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There’s a bunch of other threads around (check out the Death to NATO community for a few) that are full of a lot of people (myself included) handwringing about this to quite a big degree. Russia has withdrawn their “military” from Kharkov oblast almost entirely (they apparently were mostly composed of militarized police units like Rosgvardia that would never stand up in a real fight) some civilians were evacuated, and thank the gods for that, but not all, and there are already stories of the Ukrainians performing what they call ‘filtration’ on the locals who were left behind (read, genocide, rapes, murders, looting, etc.)
NATO has taken the opportunity to call once again for regime change in Russia, saying that just getting Ukraine back all the Russian speaking areas to genocide in isn’t enough, but Russia must be ‘de-imperialized’ (the fucking nerve of NATO to say something like that).
Today, Russia did hit Ukrainian power infrastructure, which has cause huge blackouts and even ancillary fires in power plants for technical reasons I don’t understand. Electricity, water and even internet went out in numerous parts of the country.
But the Ukronazis aren’t done yet and are apparently preparing another offensive near Ugledar, hoping to push to Mariupol, apparently their reserves were not fully exhausted by the Kharkov offensive. Hopefully the Russians can put some real defences in place for this one and we won’t have a repeat of the last few days. If for nothing else than for the sake of the Civilians in places like Mariupol.
Today, Russia did hit Ukrainian power infrastructure
The fact that it took them this long to do this (the US would have mounted massive strikes of this kind on day one) shows that Russia really has been going out of its way to spare civilian lives.
Is it about sparing lives or about sparing infrastructure for the capitalists to take over?
Honestly, that’s a really good question. You’re probably better placed to answer it than I am.
I do get the sense that Russian oligarchs (unlike American ones) have figured out that terrorism comes from poverty, and if Ukraine is totally destroyed, absolutely none of their problems will be solved. So even sparing infrastructure for the sake of profits is something of an improvement over what the United States regularly does.
Is Ukraine well on their way to take back Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea? It sure as hell doesn’t look like it. Russia still has an immensely strong grip in the east, this looks far from over… how can they jump the gun and declare Russia’s ‘already defeated’?
Hell, at this point idk why ppl still include Crimea in the Ukrainian map. Even Navalny knows it’s Russian territory
Navalny is a nationalist, of course he would
True, I’m not saying he isn’t bised, just saying he’s a popular figure for libs who want a “Freed Russia”
It’s the Western media, whenever Ukraine does something they lose their minds.
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My guess is that they might declare formal declaration of war so that they will be able to draft more soldiers into the war.
Russia went into war in a total civilian economy and mobilization, as opposed to Ukraine who mobilize their entire industry and issuing draft to large chunk of their population. As a result, the Russia can afford only around 200,000 troops on the entire Ukrainian front, which likely begin the war with more than 600,000 troops, not counting further draft and foreign “volunteer”.
Keep in mind, army composed not just of combat elements, but also support elements as well. Basically they’re less than 100,000 personals that’s on the frontline, which is around 2000 kilometers long.
There’s so much an army of that size can actually do in a war, and recent operations indicate that they’re stretched pretty thin.
(In comparison, against Iraq, similar size but significantly less well-armed, US et al. sent around 900,000 troops to Iraq, but still took 6 months to end the war, despite the US being pretty indiscriminate with their strikes.)
Sooner they can end this thing may be for the better.
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I think they are likely to declare an anti-terror action before formal war, it would open the scale of the war, but not over commit, especially with the developments in Armenia.
I have been following various channels and websites interpreting this development for the Russian side as a tactical failure (Military Summary), a chiefly-PR disaster (Alexander Mercouris), or a clandestine, premeditated strategy (The New Atlas), all of which come with their various items of evidence. Obviously more time is needed to confirm either hypothesis, and that time must neither be one of panic, denial, or other premature conclusions.
Either way, in my opinion the decisive dynamic of this conflict has now extended far beyond, and indeed decoupled from, what goes on within the actual borders of Ukraine. While I do not wish to belittle the worry and suffering of the people in Donbas, the nature of its consequences is now global and economic, while the strategic and psychological components have been degraded to a sideshow; and in a global view the consequences have already irreversibly come out in favour of anti-imperialism, regardless of how the military situation plays out. Look at the state of the West right now: Even if Ukraine should tonight succeed in pushing out Russian and militia forces in their entirety and have some alone time to do Nazi stuff, its own economy is on the brink of collapse, European governments will struggle to survive the winter, Washington will have lost a third of its military stockpile, sunk billions of dollars into a Pyrrhic victory, will sink billions more into rebuilding the Ukrainian positions opposite Donezk, and have been distracted from its plans elsewhere in the world, which comes on top of the myriad of domestic problems it already has. Meanwhile, the privilege of trading oil and gas with Russia has now forever moved from the Western world onto the Global South, the SWIFT banking system has lost its global monopoly, and Western industries are going to need to relocate even further parts of their business to China because of rising oil and gas prices, from which let us not forget Russia is profiting big time.
All we westerners have to do now is overthrow our regimes so they cannot make our lives worse.
I highly doubt it. There was an offensive where they took a lot of land, but all the soldiers are still in ukraine.
As Donald from Revolution Report said, the west is spinning Russia’s intent in this war. Then when Russia inevitably doesn’t do the crazy shit what the says it wants to they declare a Ukrainian victory. If anyone knew why russia is invading, they’d realise its not half as dire as it seems
Why is Russia invading? In your opinion
I think they want to create a buffer zone between them and NATO aligned states. They don’t seem to want to cause regime change in Ukraine.
At this point it feels like they’ll have to cause some regime change, at least removing the parts of the government that are Amerikan puppets (and all of the fascists in the UAF), to prevent all this from happening again
Demilitarisation of Ukraine and liberation of Donbass Region
Difficult to know with the fog of war, from what I saw on the news from the Russian side is that Ukraine took back the territory, but suffered many casualties and loss of equipment.while Russia retreated with minimal loss of equipment and lives, but now they have started to fight back, by the latest information the air force launched attacks on civilian targets of logistics such as trains and subway as well as power plants and power lines at that moment leaving much of Ukraine without electricity and rail transport.
Ok so I had question. Didn’t this push take like, everything Ukraine got? Like it’s their last ditch effort to have a big win? So if Russia is able to push back or set up a defense and stop it, it could potentially be the last win of Ukraine if enough of their forces get taken out? I honestly don’t know I just remembered hearing ppl talking about how this was gonna be the big push as they rally everything they’ve got?
It seems like it took a lot of time and effort for them to pull together enough actually trained combat troops for this offensive, along with pulling together the equipment, both ex-Soviet and western. Supposedly their previous actions mostly made use of raw conscripts thrown in waves. While they reportedly have taken a lot of losses, it’s way too early to call it ‘it’ for them, a lot more Nazis still out there to kill.
I’ve stopped reading telegram for a bit cause it was just making me depressed all the doomscrolling, but last I saw was that Russia was still trying to set up new defensive lines and it was too early to say they’d put a stop to it. War conducted with the internet reporting every tiny thing has been a disaster for the human race, and for my mental health at least.
Just dropping by to mention this video from The New Atlas (edit: although apparently it’s controversial)
I’m a bit puzzled by this downvote
Many are of the opinion that New Atlas got this one wrong, the Russians did not have a sufficient defence in the area, and they gave it up rather than be overwhelmed, leaving many civilians to the ‘mercy’ of the Nazis. It wasn’t some sneaky master plan, just a lack of boots on the ground to hold the area. If I understand right, the forces that had been holding Balakleya and Izyum for quite a while were armed police units (SOBR, Rosgvardia) not army, which is kinda bad, but a consequence of the limits of the “SMO”.
Some telegrams today are reporting rumours or something (I dunno, can’t access Russian media in my country cause ‘free speech’) that the duma is gonna declare an “Anti-Terror Operation” in the Ukraine, which is legalese for what they did to Chechnya. But that’s also counter to what New Atlas said.
In other words, people feel like that vid is a bit copiumy.
I see, thank you. I was mostly focusing on the “no, this doesn’t mean that Ukraine is ‘winning’” part. Certainly, either way, it’s irresponsible to leave these areas knowing what was done in Bucha.
But is he right that Ukraine has been suffering tremendous losses in these last offensives? If so, isn’t there a clear parallel between the Kharkov offensive and the Ardennes offensive?
You’ll have to ask someone with more historical knowledge :|
it’s irresponsible to leave these areas knowing what was done in Bucha.
Some more cynical people I know IRL (Marxists mind you) suspect such a development is not irresponsible or accidental, but very much desired. The “filtration” of local civilians by UAF and USS will serve to embitter the people against the government.
I hope that’s not true, but since it’s still a capitalist country, there are bound to be some of these types in the government
Some people are salty and downvote posts for no reason.
No.
