Ukrainian War Developments

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Interesting answer why Russia seems unprepared in the conflict. Putin approach is spy's approach not general approach.

caudaceus said:

Interesting answer why Russia seems unprepared in the conflict. Putin approach is spy's approach not general approach.

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Hard to say. The writer is a anti Kremlin/Putin poster. So take what he said with the right about of bias adjustments. Not to say he's wrong but could be quite skewed.

Botnet said:

All of this in 72 hours? Unless Ukraine sat down and waved the white flag, this is beyond the realm of possibility

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I am saying that I think the pentagon was expecting them to use more weaponry deeper into urban areas. Plus the Russians never really tried to stormed the city. Even all these live videos only showed heavy bombardment on the outskirts but never any huge offensive moves deeper into Kiev.

Despite these factors, Russian forces have advanced very quickly in the first 72 hours of operations reaching the suburbs of Kiev within 48 hours

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yongpengsuen said:

Ukrainians may be good at a few hit and run tactics on foot due to lack of fuel and heavy weapons (which have been destroyed by air strikes) but now with Russia's focus on Kharkiv which is close to Russia border it's going to be very difficult for Ukrainians.

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Well it need to start to be very difficult because nothing is moving for way too long. New of Russian pulling out is starting to look like making way for a neutron bomb attack.

Atomicfrog said:

Well it need to start to be very difficult because nothing is moving for way too long. New of Russian pulling out is starting to look like making way for a neutron bomb attack.

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They are redirecting troops out of the north due to not making any significant advances and allocating more resources to the east to save face since the operation has gone quite poorly.

I don’t think they are planning on using nuclear weapons on Ukraine.

meckhardt98 said:

They most likely used one there to recover the vehicle; or it could have already been abandoned near the vehicle by Russian forces attempting to get their own vehicle unstuck; I do feel like that image is a bit sketchy and I’m skeptical of it, however I do believe they launched a small boat operation and most likely “captured” already abandoned equipment. It is an interesting development non the less; seeing that a small boat operation is what they are devoting resources to of all things.

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Good for morale and social media I suppose. All for the 'gram!

meckhardt98 said:

They are redirecting troops out of the north due to not making any significant advances and allocating more resources to the east to save face since the operation has gone quite poorly.

I don’t think they are planning on using nuclear weapons on Ukraine.

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Hoping not, the news about pulling off from Sumy some days ago looked quite strange.

FriedButter said:

I am saying that I think the pentagon was expecting them to use more weaponry deeper into urban areas. Plus the Russians never really tried to stormed the city. Even all these live videos only showed heavy bombardment on the outskirts but never any huge offensive moves deeper into Kiev.

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I think it was meant to be disinformation to make it seem like the Russians missed their timeline. In all honestly 72hrs was way too short and I think the Pentagon knew that but wanted to protest as Russians missed their objective

Lethe said:

Some days ago now Zelensky

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the following:

Now, this is not surprising. It is merely official confirmation of what was already widely suspected: that NATO was not willing to admit Ukraine, but would not say so publicly.

Yet to have official confirmation of this is meaningful indeed, because we know that such a public declaration and legal guarantee of Ukraine's non-membership of NATO is precisely what Russia sought in the lead-up to this war:

Now, part of the issue here is for Ukraine: the matter of revising the constitution to return to strategic neutrality. But the other aspect is in NATO's hands. Just as NATO was able to acknowledge and support Ukraine's ambition to join in the 2008 declaration, it could have offered a similarly public assurance that Ukraine would not be permitted to join NATO. In fact, any one of NATO's member governments could have offered this guarantee, because the accession of a new member requires

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.

Let us state that clearly. Any one of the governments of NATO's thirty member countries could have publicly committed to vetoing any attempt by Ukraine to join NATO and could have submitted that declaration to the UN as an instrument of international law, and thereby gone a long way toward avoiding this terrible conflict. Each and every NATO member government chose not to offer this assurance.

That's how much Ukrainian lives matter to those in power in the west. Even though NATO had actually revised its position since 2008, it did not want to be seen to have revised its position. The governments of NATO did not want to lose face, and the present catastrophe is the result. That NATO is "willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian" is not just a macabre quip, but de facto NATO policy.

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I want to come back to this point that I made a few weeks ago. Recently we have seen footage and heard reports of atrocities committed by Russian forces against Ukrainian civilian populations. We should rightly condemn these actions, but we should not be surprised by them. In war the darkest aspects of humanity are unleashed and evil stalks the land. This is why policy makers on all sides should go to great lengths to avoid war, and more broadly should discharge their duties in full cognizance of the weight of their responsibilities.

Which brings us to article from the Wall Street Journal. As :

WSJ: On Feb. 19, German chancellor Scholz proposed to Zelensky that Ukraine "renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal" signed by both Putin and Biden. Zelensky said no.

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To this @MarkAmesExiled makes a :

If true, then why didn't Biden and Scholz offer to give Zelensky political cover by first publicly declaring NATO would not allow Ukraine to join. Making Zelensky renounce NATO first would've led to his overthrow.

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I have previously described how Ukraine's constitution was modified in 2019 to enshrine its quest to join NATO, and how it specifically enjoins the President and Parliament of Ukraine to pursue that goal. The German chancellor Scholz surely knows this, and moreover the political balance of power within the Ukrainian government and the pressures and constraints on Zelenskiy.

So why, as @MarkAmesExiled asks, didn't Scholz, Biden, Macron, etc. make it much easier for Zelenskiy to sell such a shift at home by publicly declaring what was already private NATO policy, i.e. that Ukraine would not join NATO? Zelenskiy would then be able to say to his people that it is out of our hands and we must forge a different path.

Unfortunately the answer is very clear. Even on the brink of war, the governments of each and every NATO member judged it more important to save face than to avert this catastrophic conflict. NATO did not want to be seen to be revising its strategic posture in the face of Russian threats (even though they were!) and this was evidently judged to be more important than avoiding tens of thousands of deaths, crimes against humanity, mass displacement of communities, and all the other forms of human suffering that have occurred and are still to come.

There is a lot of blame to go around here.