@mods, as I see this conversation is continuing, this is a new entry, independent of the last one that was stopped due to personal exchanges. It will be all point-to-point on topic with nothing personal.
Russia's military performance and hesitancy are becoming a joke and has lost respect even among its allies.
Who's laughing and which allies? If the US wants to negotiate and told Ukraine to let its territory go, that is their sign of weakness. If they thought Russia could be defeated, they would do it. Russia's main allies are China and Belarus. There are no changes to thier support. Can you name any country that has changed its stance on Russia?
All the red lines were crossed and Putin didn't fulfill any of the tough response promises he made.
He's now testing new missiles like Oreshnik in Ukraine. He's basically playing with it and killing people to validate military technology now. He's also increasing the general combat intensity.
Hence the inevitable comparison with Netanyahu's leadership in Israel against Iran and Hezbollah.
Only if you were to compare Russia with Israel, both countries that have gained land in the conflict and inflicted disoproportionate casualities on their enemies.
Russia's diplomacy and geopolitical arrangement were hasty. The West confiscated Russian money, imposed sanctions, threatened it, and no real alternative emerged other than non-institutional bilateral collaborations in the BRICS.
There is no diplomacy when the whole West fears Russia. The creation of NATO was specifically to keep the Russians out as they are natural enemies. Nobody in the West fears Israel; Israel is an instrument of Western control inthe middle-east.
There is no way to ignore that the execution of the conflict contains flaws. Defending errors as some do only prevents those errors from being corrected. The function of the yes-man is very despicable.
I'd say angry backseat drivers insulting world leaders feared by all the West is more despicable, especially when they understand nothing compared to those leaders, not the situation within the Russian/Ukrainian militaries and not the long-term plans made.
Ukraine made a big mistake by being fooled by Western promises. It was devastated. But that does not mean it is the end. They are showing that they still have support against Russia's incompetent execution.
Of course they have support from the West. How can they not? How can they withdraw support? You talk about Russia's credibility but this is their credibility on the line and it is being used as a tool to trap them to bleed out.
So I maintain my assessment of this conflict: Ukraine will be divided into three parts. Donbass and Crimea will remain with Russia. The center will become a kind of West Bank and the western part will be an extension of Poland economically and militarily.
So basically, in this words case scenario where Russia is expanding by NYC-sized land by the month and just decides to stop, it will still have taken a big chunk of Ukraine.
This only corroborates what I have been saying here.
Trump would be discredited in politics if he immediately cut off aid to Ukraine while Putin only shows fear and weakness in the face of so many provocations.
Russia has lost deterrence. Which is a setback, since Trump was counting on resolving the conflict by justifying Russia's power in the event of a WWIII. Since Russia only shows fear, the Ukrainians regain vain hopes of winning and continue fighting and receiving aid.
Therefore, I maintain that the war is heading towards a stalemate that is unfavorable for Russia.
But your assumption that Russia will negotiate to Trump's favor makes no sense. Russia is advancing; whether they negotiate is up to them, not Trump. Actually, in this scenerio, it makes sense for Russia to wait for Trump to enter office before making heavy pushes. Why? Because the exiting Biden team is volatile; they may escalate with Russia and do stupid rash things to make the mess more difficult for the Trump team to clean up. But when Trump comes into office with a clear desire to end the Ukrainian conflict so he can focus on China, Russia can do many things and put all the chess pieces where they want before they allow Trump to negotiate on Russian terms.
As long as Ukraine's leadership is functional and receives sufficient international aid, Ukraine will not collapse.
That's not true. War efforts are kept up by young men, not the leadership. Leaderships often collapse and new leaderships arise but when the combat population is decimated, the war effort is soundly defeated.
The war will last for years and if Putin remains fearful he will receive attacks closer and closer to his inner circle.
Putin has told China that he wouldn't mind if it goes on for 5 more years at least. Russia stamina is historically known. You cannot expect to go to war and not get hit at all. Israel is hit often by rockets from all sides. Putin answers by continuing his land expansion and the killing of the Ukrainian military population.
You are counting on magic and cheerleading while the real world works on mathematics and logic. You are moving away from reason just to defend Putin's supposed 4D chess game...
This wasn't for me, but the feeling is mutual. I have cited all the reasons. Let's see if you can rebut them point-to-point. Nothing personal to go off on, just points on the conflict.
About 30,000 square kilometers since Russia lost the Kiev, Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts and northern Kherson.
It's not gaining territory to take your own things back that you lost. Net gain/loss is the key. If you lost your wallet and phone, then found just your wallet, you didn't profit a wallet; you lost your phone. Russia profited Ukrainian land; Ukraine lost it.
Since then, progress has been minimal for both sides, increasingly close to a stalemate.
What about personel loss? That is the purpose of a meat grinder. It is Russia's tactic to lure Ukraine into meat grinders, locations where they lose more and more men without any meaningful territorial exchange. They say in battle that if you trade territory to preserve your men, you can fight and win it back, but if you gave up your men for the territory, you will have no defenders to keep it. This is what is happening to Ukraine, which is increasing desperate in its mandatory draft with women and boys being called up to fight.
Try to convince the USA and Ukraine of this, not me. But it is difficult when Putin allows them to also damage Russia's image with impunity. So for them it's worth doing this.
Ukraine cannot swallow it but the USA is calling Ukraine to let go of its losses and negotiate. At the beginning, neither side wanted negotiations with Russia, with Zelensky saying negotiations are not possible until every inch of Ukrainian land is returned and Putin is deposed. He's no longer so picky, is he?
But this arrangement favors guerrilla warfare with herdsmen in sandals, but would not favor the comprador elite of Jews and Poles who now make money from Western governments and companies to fight Russia, while are also reducing the opposition of Orthodox "inferiors" in battles for the territory they want to dominate alone. ..
These are details compared to big picture that Ukraine is running out of people, regardless of their religion or origin, who can fight for it while Russia is just getting ramped up with more soldiers and new weapons.
"The Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line.
Data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) shows that Russia has gained almost six times as much territory in 2024 as it did in 2023, and is advancing towards key Ukrainian logistical hubs in the eastern Donbas region.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region is faltering. Russian troops have pushed Kyiv's offensive backwards. Experts have questioned the success of the offensive, with one calling it a "strategic catastrophe" given manpower shortages faced by Ukraine.
in 2023 neither side made any major gains - with the conflict largely sliding into a stalemate.
But new ISW figures suggest the story in 2024 is more favourable for Russia. The ISW bases its analysis on confirmed social media footage and reports of troop movements.
The ISW data shows Moscow’s forces have seized around 2,700 sq km of Ukrainian territory so far this year, compared with just 465 sq km in the whole of 2023, a near six-fold increase.
Dr Miron told the BBC that Russia’s advance has handed them a stronger negotiating position as Trump’s new foreign policy team prepare to take office.
“What they're controlling right now, it does give them a certain advantage,” she said. “If it came to negotiations, I'm sure that as the Russian side has been stressing, ‘we will do it based on the battlefield configuration’.
“From a Russian perspective, they have much better cards than the Ukrainians.”
