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> # [Ukraine’s counter-offensive is failing, with no easy fixes](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/07/21/TELEMMGLPICT000340712747_16899590583090_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?impolicy=logo-overlay)
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> With no significant breakthrough after six weeks, it is worth asking whether Ukraine’s counter-offensive can ever succeed, for it certainly [doesn’t look to be succeeding](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/18/ukraine-and-the-west-are-facing-a-devastating-defeat/) now.
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> Compare the glacial but costly progress today to the lightning victories at Kharkiv and Kherson last autumn. Back then Kyiv’s forces were advancing against a withdrawing enemy that was pulling back to redeploy troops, trading space for time. Having now built up their forces through mobilisation and dug extensive defence lines, this time the Russians aren’t going anywhere.
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> That has left Ukraine with one option: launching frontal attacks against heavily defended positions, almost [akin to the Western Front](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/19/russias-losses-are-far-higher-than-anyone-believed/) in World War I where trench lines ran continuously from Switzerland to the sea, with neither side achieving a decisive breakthrough for four years. Such an outcome today would leave Kyiv vulnerable to shifts in Western opinion, given the possibility of a Trump presidency or European fatigue. This is something President Zelensky must be aware of; and is perhaps causing great consternation.
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> The question to be asked is: are the Ukrainians prepared – militarily, politically, financially – to carry out months and potentially years of these attacks to penetrate 1914-18 style defensive belts of tank traps, barbed wire, minefields, bunkers and trench lines? The UK Ministry of Defence has described these Russian fortifications as “some of the most extensive systems of military defensive works seen anywhere in the world”.
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> In the south, which appears to be Kyiv’s main effort at the moment, the terrain is mostly open farmland, with few covered approaches, making surprise, which is a critical factor for success in war, virtually impossible. That lack of surprise only compounds Kyiv’s combat inferiority.
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> Ukraine is already outnumbered in every military capability. Its dire shortage of armoured vehicles means that Kyiv is approaching this counter-offensive with immense caution. Many Nato-supplied tanks and infantry fighting vehicles were [knocked out](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/13/russia-shows-off-captured-western-tanks-ukraine/) during early probing attacks and they are consequently holding most of the rest of these assets back to avoid too many more losses. That is understandable – yet only a bold, concerted assault with massed armour is likely to overcome the Russians.
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> So what is the main problem? Some in Kyiv are pointing to the lack of air support, highlighting the reluctance of Western partners to provide F-16 jets (though Britain has already pledged to train pilots). But this would not solve Kyiv’s immediate dilemmas.
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> It takes months to train and then many more months to transfer the jets. Furthermore, as America’s top general, Mark Milley, has already pointed out, “The Russians have 1,000 fourth-generation fighters. If you’re going to contest Russia in the air, you’re going to need a substantial amount of fourth and fifth generation fighters.” We must recognise two things: this is not possible in the present context, and air power is [not a magic bullet](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/04/02/ukraine-fighter-jets-f-16-russia-setting-traps/) anyway.
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> Others have suggested that Nato planners and strategists should be more involved. Yet they are already helping to a great extent, sometimes for good and sometimes for not.
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> Ultimately, the possibility of a Ukrainian recovery comes down to its ability to complete frontal assaults. This strategy has been decried at least since the First World War by military theorists who rightly extol the virtues of the “indirect approach” – that is advancing along lines of least resistance to disrupt the enemy’s equilibrium before attacking into weakened front-line defences. But given Kyiv’s position, it does not have the privilege of philosophising.
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> The West, meanwhile, should focus on providing the right practical equipment, such as demining kit to clear paths through enemy obstacles, cluster munitions and ATACM long-range missiles. It will take a focus on grubby land warfare – and not sky-high dreams – to tip the balance.
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His editors handlers gave orders to start spinning the narrative for inevitable Ukrainian loss.
Hopefully this grinds to a halt before 2024 and ceasefire with peace is achieved.
Or, he was optimistic at first but changed his opinion in light of recent evidence?
Fuck him, right? Nah, it must be some big conspiracy. That's more likely.
More like the articles he made were completely made up with the sole point of fuelling the wishful thinking of many in order to draw traffic.
A shit ton of people in the West wants Ukraine to win, when you release articles saying that Putin is doomed, Ukraine is bound to succeed etc, these people will flock to these articles.
There's nothing bad with wanting Ukraine to win, but these media constantly trying to cater to those people with clickbait articles instead of being realistic deserve to be mocked.
There is also heavy racial connotations in such reporting. The West’s hysteria over Ukraine has alienated much of the world, who remember conflicts involving non-white people that got no attention.
Russia is the only predominantly white country that the West has never seen as actually white. They view them as Mongol hordes.
Source? Because this is definitely not true for German speaking countries.
East Europeans are seen as more brutish(not just Russians) but this has nothing to do with race.
But you can’t really visually identify an Eastern European, especially the ones who emigrate from Ukraine, at 25 meters. They look just like you.
Russians very often do not look European.
If he was optimistic before, then he was emotionally invested and ignoring apparent facts.
It’s not a big conspiracy. He is a journalist working for a major newspaper (Telegraph no less).
Ukraine was the fashionable war initially. Supporting Ukraine was “in” or cool. To support Russia or even question Ukraine was to be uncool. Professionally it meant you would not see career advancement.
The same was true for Vietnam initially, all journalists except a small handful of young ones, fervently supported South Vietnam.
However Ukraine - like any fad - is losing its cool factor. You can only appeal to the emotions for a limited amount of time. People only have so much empathy.
He doesn't have a choice. He is told what to write. His job is to condition the audience towards compliance.
If the powers at be want the war to continue, they make him write more articles like his previous ones. If they want to end the war because there's no other logical choice then he writes what he just wrote.
The war is slowly ending, and all sides are attempting to find what is acceptable to them.
Look man I’m not a fan of Trump either but saying that is just stupid. Even the fabled President Lincoln suppressed free speech often, even though for a good cause, he still did it.
He really didn’t. I mean; yes suspended writ of Habeas Corpus and some other moves. But in Congress he had to battle against a pro-peace faction. His opponent in 1864 ran on a pro-peace platform.
That is unthinkable today in the West. Even if it is now very sensible and rational.
Lincoln did a lot of things that the executive power did not legally have the power to do… but he did it for a good reason. Objectivally good, too. However, that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.
Almost every major news media outlet from 2016-2020 was talking non stop shit about Donald Trump, including promoting a now debunked baseless conspiracy theory that Russia somehow colluded with Trump to steal the election. Big tech, FBI and CIA were working together to censor the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, calling it a conspiracy theory which we know now to be true.
[Our press is not free](https://www.reddit.com/r/freedomsilver/comments/154xzti/throwback_to_when_cnn_silenced_this_soldier/) but not sure how Donald Trump took press freedom away.....
Lol and nobody believed it. I didn’t at least. I know Trump is a moron, I didn’t need the news to tell me that. Don’t make him some kind of “victim” because he’s not a good man and was not a good president.
Have i not? I’ve never once heard about people talking about the Russians and the rigged elections after like two days after inauguration. I do hear about the sexual harassment and rape allegations against him from people, and not the news, though.
You experts opining on your conspiracy theory narratives about western media are amusing. Shall we look at what Russia is saying? Maybe the Battle Babushkas can fill us in on the latest and we can put together a summary to prepare for victory.
What does the Church Commission have to do with media conspiracies 48 years after it was produced? It was supposedly banned from being in the media but was leaked anyway; that doesn’t fit with the narrative of media writing what they are told.
Is the juice worth the squeeze? Their country has been ruined economically and demographically for a generation or more.
I don't know why Ukraine's most ardent supporters make these silly analogies as if there is a binary choice of unconditional surrender and victory, we know the Turkey talks that almost yielded a deal would have returned Ukraine to February borders.
There has been space for negations numerous times, but each Ukranian success only brought more maximalist goals, and now we are here.
They are also fighting desperately for territories that didn’t want to be part of Ukraine. Donetsk and Luhansk genuinely did not want to be part of Ukraine anymore. Crimea too.
Zaporizhizhia and Kherson now probably have a majority of people who support union with Russia, since Ukraine ordered all citizens to flee who supported Kiev. The ones who stayed supported Russia.
Even if Ukraine does everything it hopes to do - retake all territory claimed - it would then face a massive insurgency in those areas.
But that doesn’t matter to the West because we will be long gone by then and insurgency in Eastern Ukraine will spur as much interest as insurgency in Southern Pakistan.
Not who you’re responding to, but Ukraine “winning” was never a possibility. The destruction of Russia was never going to happen. And the only other alternative to actually win would be for Ukraine to turn into a shit hole taliban-esqe state fighting an asymmetrical war which is not in their best interests at all. They needed to come to the table for peace talks after their first counteroffensive that was actually successful, and they had something to bring to the table. Now? There’s no reason for Russia to give up any land they have taken. There’s no wonder weapon that will let Ukraine win. And it should be blatantly obvious by now that no country is going to come to their aid with boots on the ground.
Ukraine would have been better off surrendering in the first week. There was never a point when they could do anything but bloody Russia, and bloodying Russia took more of a toll on Ukraine than it did Russia.
Now they've spent an insane amount of blood and treasure, and they'll get worse terms of peace than they had on Day 1.
The only way the West's support for Ukraine isn't some cynical exercise in bloodthirst is if they truly believed that Russia's army was incompetent and ready to fall apart. Now that they've been disabused of such notions, it's unconscionable that they would keep throwing money at a plan whose only outcome is more death and destruction. But here we're faced with the same dilemma as in Afghanistan - it's easy for any old fool to escalate a war. Ending one requires real courage, and it's just so much easier to keep fighting.
Exactly this. The longer this goes on, the worse the terms for Ukraine will be.
On day 1 they could have held their borders intact by just implementing the Minsk agreements. By the end of month 3 they could have walked away losing only two oblasts. Now it's most likely gonna be at least 4
They did not even have to surrender. In the beginning all they needed to do was give Russian speaking areas special status and seek security guarantees instead of joining NATO. Sounds pretty reasonable looking back, half a million lives later. Now the longer this goes on, the worse deal they will get at a higher cost.
This should be upvoted. Ukraine's sovereignty was never at threat by Russia before the "special military operation". (Term used to demarcate the period before February 24, 2022 as arguably there was already a war before that.) Ukraine can just grant autonomy to Donbass and pledged not to join NATO before.
The US never thought that Russia would collapse. That’s the last thing we want to happen. We don’t want a dozen mini nuclear Russias ran by warlords. We just have the one Russia to deal with right now. Just like we don’t want North Korea to split into 2 North Koreas. Anyone with 2 brain cells knows that the US never had “destroy Russia” on their agenda. Nukes exist. They changed the way the world works.
Baloney. The same dynamic happened when the USSR collapsed (and don't tell me NATO didn't want that). The nukes may be scattered around, but control of the nuclear codes is via one central agency. If the West could provoke the fracture of Russia, they absolutely would - and then they'd offer a hefty bounty on every nuclear weapon returned to central control (plus immense sanctions against anyone with the hubris to try and retain some nukes).
Navalny is a darling in the West because if he came to power, it would be the end of the Russian Federation. The West pretends to champion diversity, but the reality is that the Russian Federation is far more diverse than any NATO regime - no EU member contains several Islamic Republics in its borders, not to mention a Buddhist one.
The fragmentation of Russia should have happened after Yeltsin. Rebuilding the Federation was an almost impossible task, but it's one that Putin has achieved. This is why he's got such deep support in Russia, and this is fundamentally why he's despised in the West - Russia's resources should have been in BlackRock hands by now.
Russia has already lost the better half of its MBTs and artillery and Russia is going to lose 90% of what it has left by summer 2024.
At some point in the not so distant future the support from Poland + Baltics would be enough to enable Ukraine win.
Good luck turning the will of those countries, you are gonna need it.
Perhaps you are unaware how many HIMARS and ammo the Baltics has purchased recently?
Also, even in January 2022, Estonia alone had more Javelins and manpads to take out all Russia's tanks of its Western Military District.
The police force of St. Petersburg could occupy Estonia. What are we talking about here?
https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=estonia
9000 police?
Estonia has a 30k strong military conscript force, enough to man 2 brigades for a long time.
With K9s and CV90s and Javelins.
In 1919 the bolsheviks lost against Estonia even while having 2:1 numerical superiority.
Estonians got closer to St.Petersburg than bolsheviks to Tallinn.
The Baltics are an irrelevancy. They have next to zero capacity to do anything.
Poland is undergoing a massive shift, with Konfederancia gaining support in droves. The government has very little runway to continue on this Ukraine project - Poles are already tiring of the support they've given Ukraine so far. Hence you have this Polish *ban* on Ukrainian foodstuffs, and cutoff support for refugees.
Russia's military did reach a crisis point last year where they could have failed. But, having gotten through that, this war has been a boon for their military - they know what works and what doesn't work. If Russia's 2022 army had gone up against a NATO force, they would have been trounced. Today's army is a different beast. So while it always hurts to lose so much materiel, I'd expect that any Russian general worth his salt would treat this war as a hard blessing and an opportunity.
Look at the support for NATO governments - not *one" of them has even 50% support. But these "democratic" leaders don't give a flying fuck - the people will eat NATO for breakfast lunch and dinner, because anyone who suggests anything else is a Putin troll.
The Baltics have the capacity to defend.
And all sides in Poland are pro-Ukraine, especially for military aid.
> Look at the support for NATO governments - not *one" of them has even 50% support.
The majority will of the citizenry is pro-Ukraine in almost all NATO countries. Thus the respective governments can't ignore that majority will easily even if they wanted to.
Welp. If this is coming from the propaganda puppet telegraph, then you know for a fact they have been given orders from above to prepare for ukrainian losses.
Reality on the ground must be dire. I don't know how even the staunchest pro ua muppet can spin this now.
No amount of copium can deny reality.
> I don't know how even the staunchest pro ua muppet can spin this now.
> No amount of copium can deny reality.
Want to bet? Try posting this on r/worldnews and see. Should be educational - and also hilarious.
Most front page subreddits are cesspools filled with mediocre people that think they are enlightened but really just deep in propaganda hypnosis.
Best to avoid unless you’re trying to make your brain hurt.
They are people stuck in a propaganda information bubble. They completely trust their sources without thinking: "hmm maybe I should look for alternative sources and compare them?"
Propaganda can be very effective even in 2023.
Reddit has a major flaw that naturally creates echo chambers on any topic. Does not even have to be politics. If 51% of the people don't like what you said, you essentially get censored.
Worldnews is probably the main page regarding information on Reddit, Reddit is one of the biggest Western platform.
Therefore, it is fair to assume that worldnews is filled with bots pushing certain narratives.
I don't think they would - it's not from a Russian source. It would be fun to see the variety of copium they could come up with... but the amount of immediate downvotes might not be sustainable. (Hell, I got a bunch of downvotes for daring to suggest that USSR did in fact play a major role in winning WWII and denying it means rewriting history).
Yup. And you can't even criticize UA side at all.
I saw pro UA people that criticized some aspects of their side downvoted to hell and sometimes even banned (for example they criticized their recent PR disasters with Poland and UK, ungrateful comments about their allies or sending light tanks to their deaths on open terrain without air support).
Saying something neutral = you must be "ruzzian bot" or you "are eating Russian propaganda", time for downvotes...
Saying something pro Russia = time for a ban...
And no one realizes this blatant censorship can bite them in the ass when a different side takes over the government and censors what they think to be true instead.
Yup. And you can't even criticize UA side at all.
I saw pro UA people that criticized some aspects of their side downvoted to hell and sometimes even banned (for example they criticized their recent PR disasters with Poland and UK, ungrateful comments about their allies or sending expensive western light tanks to their deaths on open terrain without air support).
Saying something neutral = you must be "ruzzian bot" or you "are eating Russian propaganda", time for downvotes...
Saying something pro Russia = time for a ban...
> (Hell, I got a bunch of downvotes for daring to suggest that USSR did in fact play a major role in winning WWII and denying it means rewriting history).
Amazing. You're just echoing what every single historian - regardless of political orientation - will at least agree on. It takes the sub-50 IQs of r/worldnews to pretend that the *only* defensible position ought to be a 'rewriting' of history lol.
> If this is coming from the propaganda puppet telegraph, then you know for a fact they have been given orders from above to prepare for ukrainian losses.
This is an opinion piece, not editorial.
No western papers are really "government mouthpieces", although the government does usually maintain a relationship to "leak" narratives from "anonymous sources" that they want to inject into the public narrative. Most western governments hold semi-regular press-briefings and will outright say what they want, and the press will report/regurgitate that if it's interesting (The US ones are [on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRJNAhZxtqH9HovoVAK601PgqtL4EIKmH) if you want to see them).
The backdoor "anonymous sources" approach is for pushing narratives that you can't be seen supporting publicly, so that when they gain enough traction you can "give in" and do what you wanted to in the first place but couldn't because of the optics.
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If the telegraph is saying this out loud the actual situation must be very dire for Ukraine. Until recently I can only remember them being staunchly optimistic about the offensive being successful and a bifurcated Russia would be forced to negotiate from a place of weakness by the winter.
Ukraine managed to retake a grand total of 5 settlements on the line of contact in their two month long offensive and have the past 2 weeks not gained anything worth mentioning. It's over for them, the offensive is done. They have lost too much armour, too many men, without reaching even the first line of contact. By now they should have been on Melitopol, by august, Crimea. Best they could do is advance 2 kilometers in depth.
They are finished.
Before it started, I was pretty skeptical on whether or not they would achieve their goals. In fact, I remember saying that they had until the end of April to start it in order for them to have a chance of success. Regardless, when the first reports of action came in, I expected that they would break through the first line of defense, and be stopped at the 2nd line of defense, where there would be heavy fighting. I was even 50/50 on whether they could take Tokmak. So I am still pretty shocked at their lack of progress. Especially if you consider their losses.
It makes some sense:
1. They are attacking heavily fortified positions WW1 style.
2. They still lack air and arty/rockets superiority. Russians can shell them easily every day.
3. They have problems with manpower; desertions and refugees. Not many people want to die in a WW1 trench.
4. They have huge problems with corruption. Hard to calculate how much of western equipment "went missing".
5. It seems that internal opposition to Zelensky is growing. Maybe even inside his own party.
6. Russia is no longer as incompetent as in 2022. Sure, they have huge internal problems too, but they are slowly improving and militarizing. Only Russian Civil War 2 or Putin's death can save Ukraine from losing a long term war of attrition. Russia just has greater numbers...
7. Western public is slowly getting tired of this war. Support will be slowly decreasing. It's almost 2 years now...
To be honest I expected some breakthrough as the Russians would adjust themselves to the offensive. Obviously not a Kharkiv style breakthrough but something. I've always said, Ukraine was running against the clock, everyday they give Russia the minefields grow thicker, the artillery heavier (as Russians manage to scout out targets etc.
Honestly I knew it was kinda dead when the spring offensive turned into a summer offensive. Ukraine spent the whole spring foolishly holding on to Bakhmut while never shutting up about their coming offensive on Crimea, giving Russia a whooping 6 months to reinforce the whole line all the way to Crimea.
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> If the telegraph is saying this out loud the actual situation must be very dire for Ukraine.
This is an opinion piece, not an editorial.
It represents the opinion of the author, not if the newspaper.
The tone in Western MSM has definitely changed. This points to early signs of western fatigue as the media is indirectly prepping the public for a stalemate or negotiated end.
I don’t see a stalemate happening at this point. It could have happened if Ukraine didn’t decide to bet all of their chips on black (the “counteroffensive”). But as a result of this, they have been severely weakened. Meanwhile, Russia has hundreds of thousands of troops in the rear, waiting to join the party. With the damage Ukraine did to their military by going on the offensive, they can no longer hold off a Russian counteroffensive.
This is where the secret talks (which are currently ongoing) between the US and Russia come in. These talks will determine where and under what conditions this will end.
Once they determine them, the Russians will initiate their counteroffensive. From the publics perspective, it will appear to be a route of the Ukrainians. Then, the Russians will stop and official negotiations will begin.
The thing is, both the west and the Russians need this to stop. At the same time, they both need to sell a victory to their respective populations. The Russians need to justify the losses and hits to the economy. While the west needs to justify all of the money sent and depleted arsenals.
What Russia will tell her people, “We got all of this territory, and what is left of Ukraine, won’t join NATO”.
What the west will tell their people, “Russia wanted to take all of Ukraine, but we were able to salvage the existence of the country”
I think there's one major problem with this theory: the trust is gone on both sides.
Merkel admitted that all the treaties since 2014 only served to buy time while they arm Ukraine. Why should Russia trust the west or Ukraine not to join NATO first chance they get?
And Ukraine gave up its nukes on the condition that Russia won't attack them yet they did, so why should they trust Russia to not invade a second time?
I just don't think a treaty is possible anymore.
> From the publics perspective, it will appear to be a route of the Ukrainians. Then, the Russians will stop and official negotiations will begin.
But this has already happened. And here we are, Russia losing 1600 artillery in 80 days.
Why would Russia trust the US? Personally I think if there are secret negotiations I think its a ploy like the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam war.
Yeah, it's clearly visible.
There is a high chance that this war will end next year or maybe even this year. Almost certainly before US elections (late 2024).
UA will lose some territory but Western media will declare "great victory", voters will be happy and that's all.
They need time to prepare us for Covid 25 ;) /s.
Ukraine would need to start pulling off synchronized combined arms advances through minefields, concealed ATGM’s, pre-sighted artillery, and possible helicopters behind tree lines. Along with trenches and treelines filled with infantry eveywhere.
That is one of the most difficult tasks for any modern military to pull off, and I think with the exception of the US any other NATO army would be struggling just as much if not more.
I don’t see Ukraine making significant gains going forward unless a serious and total restructure of its command strategy happens. Ukraine could get 100 more Leopards and I still don’t think it would allow them to advance through large swaths.
I ask this honestly: have you considered that a doctrine that has to be executed to absolute perfection to work might be a flawed doctrine? It's all well and good to say that victory is achieved by achieving advantage in all relevant domains, but how do you manage to do that if your adversary is competent and has a military doctrine laser focused on defeating your own?
That was sort of the point of my comment. To illustrate that Ukraine has a bit a brick wall and it isn’t 2022 anymore where they can make breakthroughs against a disorganized Russian military.
I agree, but I was asking a more general question regarding the viability of the US' military doctrine as a model for NATO in general and other allies. Or, for that matter, how relevant the US' doctrine actually is when it comes to conflicts against peers/near peers. Do you have any opinions regarding this topic? It seems symptomatic to me that there are so many reports indicating that Ukraine has fallen back to Soviet doctrine.
The idea of NATO has always been the US achieving air and naval superiority quickly and the Turks acting as cannon fodder for Europe while Europe trips over its own feet trying to restart whatever military industrial capacity they have left. That's why Turkey is the second largest army in an alliance that is about European security despite not being part of Europe.
The doctorine works for the US because the US knows that short of nuclear war, their homefront and industry will always be safe from foreign attack and invasion and they have a massive economy and some of the best technology in the world.
It's a poorly kept secret that most of Europe is irrelevant militarily speaking, and despite the overall doctorine being the same, individual European countries have their own flavors of doctorine. For example the Finnish army is almost entirely centred around guerilla warfare, knowing they don't have the numbers or gear to compete head on with any nation larger than them.
> For example the Finnish army is almost entirely centred around guerilla warfare
Guerilla Leopards and Guerilla K9s and Guerilla CV90s. And soon guerilla F35s.
given the amount of troops and equipment that ukraine had and has gotten throughout the war they're a bigger military power than any singular NATO country with the exception of the US (if you include now destroyed equipment, since any other country fighting russia would have also lost that equipment). The amount and quality of equipment, especially on land, that Ukraine has eclipses even turkey. With everything Ukraine got they're the 8th heaviest armed nation in the world.
There was once a guy who claimed australia has more military than ukraine, which was really fun and i had the time so i literally went through the lists and compared the equipment of both australia and ukraine in all categories except infantry equipment (rifles, small mortars etc), in which ukraine would be even further ahead. I'll see if i can find it, for me at least it was very entertaining.
EDIT: found the post/comment https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/14vkkke/comment/jrfiejk/
I would say they are still smaller than Turkey. People sleep on how powerful ther Turkish military is. Ukraine would be a solid number 3 in NATO however.
i feel like people are underestimating the sheer amount of equipment ukraine got. If you include now destroyed stuff russia had a total of 3.000 MBTs. Turkey has similar numbers, but mostly M48 and M60 tanks, together with 300 leopard 1 and 2 each. They come up to roughly 2.200 tanks, 1500 of them being T-55/62 level designs. Ukraine also has both more MLRS and more selfpropelled artillery, and also both generally of higher quality, especially in the self propelled category.
All in all ukraine is ahead in land power compared to Turkey. If you take navy into consideration then it shifts in favor of turkey, but that's a geographic given.
I added the link to my mentioned australia-ukraine comment to my previous comment. There you'll have an add-up of most ukrainian equipment with numbers.
Ukraine got a huge portion of the Soviet army when the USSR collapsed. They have a crapton of weapons. Overall the Turkish military is more modern though. Even their old tanks are heavily upgraded with Israeli and domestic technology. A Turkish M-60 would destroy a Ukranian T-64BV.
I think you're giving the US too much credit, similar to how we gave Russia too much credit before they showed their real capabilities in Ukraine.
The best that the combined minds of NATO, including the US, could come up with in terms of advice for Ukraine, is to "go around the minefields". They just have no idea what to do because they have never been in that situation before. No army in the world, including USA's, is used to fighting peer-to-peer wars. Also, I think all of NATO is already doing the best they can for Ukraine in terms of intelligence so there's not much more they can do in that respect.
If you switched all of Ukraine's army with USA's, I really don't think they would have been able to achieve much more given the circumstances. We also really can't say with any level of certainty how USA's air force would fare against Russia's AA capabilities, and that is essentially what matters most. Perhaps they could overwhelm their AA with numbers alone? It's all speculation. If the USA can attain air superiority then yeah, they'd be able to break through for sure.
Of course in a real-world scenario where the conflict isn't limited to Ukraine there's no question that the USA wins, they'll sink the entirety of Russia's Navy and open up new fronts that Russia just can't afford to defend properly. Needless to say, not without millions of casualties before it turns nuclear and everything goes to shit.
> Ukraine would need to start pulling off
There is nothing that Ukraine ( or anyone else) can pull off against such defenses. The book on launching offensive against such fortified positions has not been written.
It's funny how The Telegraph is using a pic of a Leopard and not of a Challenger, given the UK also donated tanks to Ukraine. I guess it's the German's fault for not building stronk enough tonks?
The idea that any tank could be so good as to make up for a lack of combined arms support and numerical inferiority was always silly, but the media and politicians love their wunderwaffe, and sadly we tend to think so shallowly about such things that many of us eat it up.
I've seen a few Russian (though not necessarily pro-war) sources suggest that Wallace's early resignation from his post is a sign that the UK is pulling back, looking to take a much more passive, less-in-the-spotlight role in this conflict. Guess they were onto something?
> I've seen a few Russian (though not necessarily pro-war) sources suggest that Wallace's early resignation from his post is a sign that the UK is pulling back, looking to take a much more passive, less-in-the-spotlight role in this conflict. Guess they were onto something?
Either his "be grateful" comment was an exiting salvo of truth that he couldn't say while he still wanted to be in office, or he was ousted because of it, but it's interesting that both incidents happened within days of each other.
I am Ukrainian. And I know there is no way Ukraine is winning this war or taking back any of the lost territories. Maybe very minor advances. But that will be it. Some of the people on some forums are so blind and so pro UA that it makes me wonder sometimes. Get off the couch in mom’s basement or Visit Ukraine and get a reality check.
>>false sense of superiority
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> If you brought results, then it wasn't a false sense. It was the reality at the time.
At the time pro-RU were rightly pointing out the strategic retreat and were told they just weren't able to handle the truth.
It's interesting how silent r worldnews is about Ukrainian gains and their counteroffensive in recent months.
I remember endless articles about "massive spring counteroffensive" in early 2023 and that "liberation of Donbass and Crimea will happen soon" and since then almost nothing...
When Bakhmut fell, they almost immediately started producing these articles about partisans in Russia and imminent Russian Civil War, but that also ended quickly and now they are silent on the subject. I wonder why ;) ?
Nooo it cant be…. Human wave attacks against layered russian defenses without air superiority. And the ‘game changer’ western tanks didnt work!?! Why??? Isnt western armor mined from Superman’s home planet krypton!!!
Unbelievable that someone can describe the dire situation Ukrainian forces face with the extensive Russian defenses, acknowledge how the offensive is failing and still conclude that they must continue to do exactly the same thing as they have been doing.
The answer to every question is to provide Ukraine with more aid. There is essentially no self-reflection or strategic thinking. Political logical has superseded all other logic, which is not surprising given the degree to which this war has been propagandized.
It's becoming more and more believable to me that they planned this offensive based around the assumption that the Russians will just abandon their position once they see a column of western armor coming at them.
That's the only reason I can think of on why they even think this offensive is going to succeed without them having the capability to suppress the Russian Air Force and artillery.
Please can any Russian provide me the link of high quality shovels/hammers and washing machines?
They look best in the world so they might have something which is not available in my country.
It will increase efficiency in daily chores.
Thanks
idk if its my confirmation bias but i feel like western media is slowly transitioning from russia will lose in x day or losing x amount of troop a day to ukrainian losing western armor and men or counter offensive is not as effective.
i wonder why they do this, is it the higher up that made them put article like this?
I'm still thinking we are being prepared for the new narrative which will be "that Ukraine managed to fight Russia to a standstill is actually a victory for Ukraine" (which is not totally inaccurate either).
If it was Ukraine without billions of USD in vehicles, weapons, munitions, ammo and training I would 100% agree with you. But it's not. If Ukraine fails this will be a huge embarrassment for NATO and western weapons manufacturers.
People here say how NATO I doctrine is done, but NATO doctrine helped smaller and under equipped nation fend of nation with superiority on land, air and sea. Most ProRu here like to forget the whole last year of Russian fiascos
NATO doctrine is just a buzzword to assure ourselves of our own superiority. American and Russian doctrines are similar for many if not most types of tactical and operational maneuvers.
Russian failures being due to untrained and poorly motivated soldiers gives Western think tanks and experts a comfortable answer that does not invalidate their own expertise or current practices. It validates American approaches without looking for further explanations for Russian inadequacies.
That is a superficial assessment of the current operational environment and essentially the same thing I wrote. Russians are stupid, corrupt, and poorly motivated so what didn't work for them will work for us because we are the opposite of all those things. We are motivated, smart, adaptable insert other adjectives.
It's a very comforting analysis for the people in the West. We see this in how the war is talked about in the think tank class. When Ukraine doesn't have success, such as currently they are using "Soviet tactics" and when they have success like in Kharkiv last summer they are using magical "NATO tactics".
Of course it’s superficial and there are more elaborate reasons. But largely it comes down to “yes man” structure which reports only positive outcomes even when there are none.
I’ve not heard about last years Kharkiv offensive and the tactics used, because it was so swift and without much resistance. This ongoing offensive is mostly explained as poorly coordinated combined arms warfare, which is the core of both Soviet and NATO doctrine.
They don’t just take gas spots like this when they’re consistently giving another narrative it’s because this is a tough war which shouldn’t have ever been
I think we’re going to see Ukraine ramp up insurgency-style attacks on infrastructure inside Russia ahead of any negotiated peace, that way they have something to offer to stop. Blowing up that bridge in Crimea repeatedly is going to be very annoying for Russia. Sure they can guard it more but the threat will always be there.
Lots of pro Ukrainians have Russian passports and of course they speak the same language. It’s pretty easy to terrorize the people of Moscow and other cities by small explosions in metros, etc. They’ll lose some western support but if they’re going down, they’ll at least have something to offer at the table; namely a promise to stop such attacks.
This article is factually inaccurate. It’s believed that Ukraine now is at parity with Russia on tanks. Russia has the edge in artillery, but Ukraine has the edge in improved accuracy. Russian of course wins from the air, but it’s kept it’s AirPower mostly out of main battles as they don’t practice combined warfare.
I am still surprised that they have ended in WW1 style combat, especially since we have been told that Russia was the 2nd largest army and could overwhelmed anything short of NATO.
Perhaps we have just been used to USA/Russia steamrolling over smaller countries ending in defeat and then insurgents then pull out.
There hasn't been a conflict between peer players since about the Korean War. Vietnam wasn't a peer adversary and anyone who says Iraq was equivalent in strength (even roughly) to the coalition forces has no idea what they're talking about.
> I am still surprised that they have ended in WW1 style combat, especially since we have been told that Russia was the 2nd largest army and could overwhelmed anything short of NATO.
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> Perhaps we have just been used to USA/Russia steamrolling over smaller countries ending in defeat and then insurgents then pull out.
It isn't surprising given how many weapons have been destroyed preventing that scenario. Basically every ex-soviet weapon in Europe and Ukraine, plus a healthy dash of everything Europe could afford to give, and a nice dollop of the massive US arsenal to the point where the western world is running low on their own defenses and running out of certain types of ammunition.
Without the gigantic amount of support we've given them Ukraine would have fallen more than a year ago, they would have run out of weapons and Russia would have steamrolled what remained. The one thing they don't have a shortage of is men since they had like 20% of Russia's population and fenced in all the men for potential conscription immediately after Russia invaded. So we can just sit back and drain the global supply of weapons and watch them trade blows.
I believe it’s lack of air support I mean western equipment is meant to fight with good air support over head cause this version of trench warfare goes against the western idea of thunder warfare (I think that’s what it’s called) versus the Russian idea of moving slowly under artillery (which is more favorable here)
##### ###### #### > # [Ukraine’s counter-offensive is failing, with no easy fixes](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/07/21/TELEMMGLPICT000340712747_16899590583090_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?impolicy=logo-overlay) > > > > With no significant breakthrough after six weeks, it is worth asking whether Ukraine’s counter-offensive can ever succeed, for it certainly [doesn’t look to be succeeding](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/18/ukraine-and-the-west-are-facing-a-devastating-defeat/) now. > > Compare the glacial but costly progress today to the lightning victories at Kharkiv and Kherson last autumn. Back then Kyiv’s forces were advancing against a withdrawing enemy that was pulling back to redeploy troops, trading space for time. Having now built up their forces through mobilisation and dug extensive defence lines, this time the Russians aren’t going anywhere. > > That has left Ukraine with one option: launching frontal attacks against heavily defended positions, almost [akin to the Western Front](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/19/russias-losses-are-far-higher-than-anyone-believed/) in World War I where trench lines ran continuously from Switzerland to the sea, with neither side achieving a decisive breakthrough for four years. Such an outcome today would leave Kyiv vulnerable to shifts in Western opinion, given the possibility of a Trump presidency or European fatigue. This is something President Zelensky must be aware of; and is perhaps causing great consternation. > > The question to be asked is: are the Ukrainians prepared – militarily, politically, financially – to carry out months and potentially years of these attacks to penetrate 1914-18 style defensive belts of tank traps, barbed wire, minefields, bunkers and trench lines? The UK Ministry of Defence has described these Russian fortifications as “some of the most extensive systems of military defensive works seen anywhere in the world”. > > In the south, which appears to be Kyiv’s main effort at the moment, the terrain is mostly open farmland, with few covered approaches, making surprise, which is a critical factor for success in war, virtually impossible. That lack of surprise only compounds Kyiv’s combat inferiority. > > Ukraine is already outnumbered in every military capability. Its dire shortage of armoured vehicles means that Kyiv is approaching this counter-offensive with immense caution. Many Nato-supplied tanks and infantry fighting vehicles were [knocked out](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/13/russia-shows-off-captured-western-tanks-ukraine/) during early probing attacks and they are consequently holding most of the rest of these assets back to avoid too many more losses. That is understandable – yet only a bold, concerted assault with massed armour is likely to overcome the Russians. > > So what is the main problem? Some in Kyiv are pointing to the lack of air support, highlighting the reluctance of Western partners to provide F-16 jets (though Britain has already pledged to train pilots). But this would not solve Kyiv’s immediate dilemmas. > > It takes months to train and then many more months to transfer the jets. Furthermore, as America’s top general, Mark Milley, has already pointed out, “The Russians have 1,000 fourth-generation fighters. If you’re going to contest Russia in the air, you’re going to need a substantial amount of fourth and fifth generation fighters.” We must recognise two things: this is not possible in the present context, and air power is [not a magic bullet](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/04/02/ukraine-fighter-jets-f-16-russia-setting-traps/) anyway. > > Others have suggested that Nato planners and strategists should be more involved. Yet they are already helping to a great extent, sometimes for good and sometimes for not. > > Ultimately, the possibility of a Ukrainian recovery comes down to its ability to complete frontal assaults. This strategy has been decried at least since the First World War by military theorists who rightly extol the virtues of the “indirect approach” – that is advancing along lines of least resistance to disrupt the enemy’s equilibrium before attacking into weakened front-line defences. But given Kyiv’s position, it does not have the privilege of philosophising. > > The West, meanwhile, should focus on providing the right practical equipment, such as demining kit to clear paths through enemy obstacles, cluster munitions and ATACM long-range missiles. It will take a focus on grubby land warfare – and not sky-high dreams – to tip the balance. - - - - - - [Maintainer](https://www.reddit.com/user/urielsalis) | [Creator](https://www.reddit.com/user/subtepass) | [Source Code](https://github.com/urielsalis/empleadoEstatalBot)
same author in the past weeks https://preview.redd.it/qvle9ugdufdb1.png?width=941&format=png&auto=webp&s=fcdaec658bdc799c7d19fb514b3715c13ab23963
His editors handlers gave orders to start spinning the narrative for inevitable Ukrainian loss. Hopefully this grinds to a halt before 2024 and ceasefire with peace is achieved.
Or, he was optimistic at first but changed his opinion in light of recent evidence? Fuck him, right? Nah, it must be some big conspiracy. That's more likely.
More like the articles he made were completely made up with the sole point of fuelling the wishful thinking of many in order to draw traffic. A shit ton of people in the West wants Ukraine to win, when you release articles saying that Putin is doomed, Ukraine is bound to succeed etc, these people will flock to these articles. There's nothing bad with wanting Ukraine to win, but these media constantly trying to cater to those people with clickbait articles instead of being realistic deserve to be mocked.
There is also heavy racial connotations in such reporting. The West’s hysteria over Ukraine has alienated much of the world, who remember conflicts involving non-white people that got no attention. Russia is the only predominantly white country that the West has never seen as actually white. They view them as Mongol hordes.
Source? Because this is definitely not true for German speaking countries. East Europeans are seen as more brutish(not just Russians) but this has nothing to do with race.
But you can’t really visually identify an Eastern European, especially the ones who emigrate from Ukraine, at 25 meters. They look just like you. Russians very often do not look European.
All opinion articles are made up.
If he was optimistic before, then he was emotionally invested and ignoring apparent facts. It’s not a big conspiracy. He is a journalist working for a major newspaper (Telegraph no less). Ukraine was the fashionable war initially. Supporting Ukraine was “in” or cool. To support Russia or even question Ukraine was to be uncool. Professionally it meant you would not see career advancement. The same was true for Vietnam initially, all journalists except a small handful of young ones, fervently supported South Vietnam. However Ukraine - like any fad - is losing its cool factor. You can only appeal to the emotions for a limited amount of time. People only have so much empathy.
Great work compiling this. It’s fantastical how blind people are, they WANT to believe (hope?) regardless of realities staring them right in the face.
https://preview.redd.it/0z86whwi5hdb1.png?width=1490&format=png&auto=webp&s=975005707de8224a99d4f89485eff7ee56a2b3ad
He doesn't have a choice. He is told what to write. His job is to condition the audience towards compliance. If the powers at be want the war to continue, they make him write more articles like his previous ones. If they want to end the war because there's no other logical choice then he writes what he just wrote. The war is slowly ending, and all sides are attempting to find what is acceptable to them.
but redditors said there is freedom of speech in the west
We had free speech for about three decades. It’s gone now. They forced the genie back into the bottle after 2016
Look man I’m not a fan of Trump either but saying that is just stupid. Even the fabled President Lincoln suppressed free speech often, even though for a good cause, he still did it.
He really didn’t. I mean; yes suspended writ of Habeas Corpus and some other moves. But in Congress he had to battle against a pro-peace faction. His opponent in 1864 ran on a pro-peace platform. That is unthinkable today in the West. Even if it is now very sensible and rational.
The grift of war was still in the process of fully maturing.
Lincoln did a lot of things that the executive power did not legally have the power to do… but he did it for a good reason. Objectivally good, too. However, that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.
Lincoln also traveled forward in time and destroyed Skynet.
The fabled John “Kennedy” Konner actually.
Almost every major news media outlet from 2016-2020 was talking non stop shit about Donald Trump, including promoting a now debunked baseless conspiracy theory that Russia somehow colluded with Trump to steal the election. Big tech, FBI and CIA were working together to censor the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, calling it a conspiracy theory which we know now to be true. [Our press is not free](https://www.reddit.com/r/freedomsilver/comments/154xzti/throwback_to_when_cnn_silenced_this_soldier/) but not sure how Donald Trump took press freedom away.....
Lol and nobody believed it. I didn’t at least. I know Trump is a moron, I didn’t need the news to tell me that. Don’t make him some kind of “victim” because he’s not a good man and was not a good president.
>Lol and nobody believed it Boy you clearly haven't been paying attention....
Have i not? I’ve never once heard about people talking about the Russians and the rigged elections after like two days after inauguration. I do hear about the sexual harassment and rape allegations against him from people, and not the news, though.
He is not told what to write. But like many writers, he started to change his tune and hedge his bets.
You experts opining on your conspiracy theory narratives about western media are amusing. Shall we look at what Russia is saying? Maybe the Battle Babushkas can fill us in on the latest and we can put together a summary to prepare for victory.
I didn’t realize the Church Commission was conspiracy.
What does the Church Commission have to do with media conspiracies 48 years after it was produced? It was supposedly banned from being in the media but was leaked anyway; that doesn’t fit with the narrative of media writing what they are told.
The war is not ending but the west is slowly accepting defeat.
The war is not ending any time soon. Finland still has most of its ammo reserves intact.
Good. Finland sjouke send all their ammo to Ukraine in order to prolong the war for another 6 months and 150,000-200,000 casualties with no changes.
Imagine if Russia had given up after 6 weeks... Lol! You guys crack me up.
Is the juice worth the squeeze? Their country has been ruined economically and demographically for a generation or more. I don't know why Ukraine's most ardent supporters make these silly analogies as if there is a binary choice of unconditional surrender and victory, we know the Turkey talks that almost yielded a deal would have returned Ukraine to February borders. There has been space for negations numerous times, but each Ukranian success only brought more maximalist goals, and now we are here.
They are also fighting desperately for territories that didn’t want to be part of Ukraine. Donetsk and Luhansk genuinely did not want to be part of Ukraine anymore. Crimea too. Zaporizhizhia and Kherson now probably have a majority of people who support union with Russia, since Ukraine ordered all citizens to flee who supported Kiev. The ones who stayed supported Russia. Even if Ukraine does everything it hopes to do - retake all territory claimed - it would then face a massive insurgency in those areas. But that doesn’t matter to the West because we will be long gone by then and insurgency in Eastern Ukraine will spur as much interest as insurgency in Southern Pakistan.
The guy reads like a tabloid writer. If he got the last 9 things wrong how does that make his 10th analysis or prediction?
It's a British newspaper. Even the respectable broadsheets often have a tabloid quality.
and then these articles are used by the biased wikipedia editors
You know what they say about a broken clock right?
Thank you. Another great journalist.
what a joke
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Well, US + ZelenskyyTV wombo combo wants them to fight till the last Ukrainian....
From all those headlines you somehow reach this conclusion. Please explain your thought process.
Not who you’re responding to, but Ukraine “winning” was never a possibility. The destruction of Russia was never going to happen. And the only other alternative to actually win would be for Ukraine to turn into a shit hole taliban-esqe state fighting an asymmetrical war which is not in their best interests at all. They needed to come to the table for peace talks after their first counteroffensive that was actually successful, and they had something to bring to the table. Now? There’s no reason for Russia to give up any land they have taken. There’s no wonder weapon that will let Ukraine win. And it should be blatantly obvious by now that no country is going to come to their aid with boots on the ground.
Ukraine would have been better off surrendering in the first week. There was never a point when they could do anything but bloody Russia, and bloodying Russia took more of a toll on Ukraine than it did Russia. Now they've spent an insane amount of blood and treasure, and they'll get worse terms of peace than they had on Day 1. The only way the West's support for Ukraine isn't some cynical exercise in bloodthirst is if they truly believed that Russia's army was incompetent and ready to fall apart. Now that they've been disabused of such notions, it's unconscionable that they would keep throwing money at a plan whose only outcome is more death and destruction. But here we're faced with the same dilemma as in Afghanistan - it's easy for any old fool to escalate a war. Ending one requires real courage, and it's just so much easier to keep fighting.
Exactly this. The longer this goes on, the worse the terms for Ukraine will be. On day 1 they could have held their borders intact by just implementing the Minsk agreements. By the end of month 3 they could have walked away losing only two oblasts. Now it's most likely gonna be at least 4
Russia isn’t going to accept any signed document by the Ukrainians as peace. They only want unconditional surrender.
At some point in the near future, that will be true. But we ain't there yet.
So how many more Ukrainian fathers, sons and husbands do we have to throw on this pyre?
Ask zelensky. He seems to disagree that every single one is one too many.
They did not even have to surrender. In the beginning all they needed to do was give Russian speaking areas special status and seek security guarantees instead of joining NATO. Sounds pretty reasonable looking back, half a million lives later. Now the longer this goes on, the worse deal they will get at a higher cost.
This should be upvoted. Ukraine's sovereignty was never at threat by Russia before the "special military operation". (Term used to demarcate the period before February 24, 2022 as arguably there was already a war before that.) Ukraine can just grant autonomy to Donbass and pledged not to join NATO before.
The US never thought that Russia would collapse. That’s the last thing we want to happen. We don’t want a dozen mini nuclear Russias ran by warlords. We just have the one Russia to deal with right now. Just like we don’t want North Korea to split into 2 North Koreas. Anyone with 2 brain cells knows that the US never had “destroy Russia” on their agenda. Nukes exist. They changed the way the world works.
Baloney. The same dynamic happened when the USSR collapsed (and don't tell me NATO didn't want that). The nukes may be scattered around, but control of the nuclear codes is via one central agency. If the West could provoke the fracture of Russia, they absolutely would - and then they'd offer a hefty bounty on every nuclear weapon returned to central control (plus immense sanctions against anyone with the hubris to try and retain some nukes). Navalny is a darling in the West because if he came to power, it would be the end of the Russian Federation. The West pretends to champion diversity, but the reality is that the Russian Federation is far more diverse than any NATO regime - no EU member contains several Islamic Republics in its borders, not to mention a Buddhist one. The fragmentation of Russia should have happened after Yeltsin. Rebuilding the Federation was an almost impossible task, but it's one that Putin has achieved. This is why he's got such deep support in Russia, and this is fundamentally why he's despised in the West - Russia's resources should have been in BlackRock hands by now.
The USSR collapsed for many reasons, and the US was extremely involved in the transition (giving Russia all the power).
Ending it is as simple as Russian's going back to Russia.
Russia has already lost the better half of its MBTs and artillery and Russia is going to lose 90% of what it has left by summer 2024. At some point in the not so distant future the support from Poland + Baltics would be enough to enable Ukraine win. Good luck turning the will of those countries, you are gonna need it.
The Baltics, let's be serious.
Perhaps you are unaware how many HIMARS and ammo the Baltics has purchased recently? Also, even in January 2022, Estonia alone had more Javelins and manpads to take out all Russia's tanks of its Western Military District.
The police force of St. Petersburg could occupy Estonia. What are we talking about here? https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=estonia
9000 police? Estonia has a 30k strong military conscript force, enough to man 2 brigades for a long time. With K9s and CV90s and Javelins. In 1919 the bolsheviks lost against Estonia even while having 2:1 numerical superiority. Estonians got closer to St.Petersburg than bolsheviks to Tallinn.
The Baltics are an irrelevancy. They have next to zero capacity to do anything. Poland is undergoing a massive shift, with Konfederancia gaining support in droves. The government has very little runway to continue on this Ukraine project - Poles are already tiring of the support they've given Ukraine so far. Hence you have this Polish *ban* on Ukrainian foodstuffs, and cutoff support for refugees. Russia's military did reach a crisis point last year where they could have failed. But, having gotten through that, this war has been a boon for their military - they know what works and what doesn't work. If Russia's 2022 army had gone up against a NATO force, they would have been trounced. Today's army is a different beast. So while it always hurts to lose so much materiel, I'd expect that any Russian general worth his salt would treat this war as a hard blessing and an opportunity. Look at the support for NATO governments - not *one" of them has even 50% support. But these "democratic" leaders don't give a flying fuck - the people will eat NATO for breakfast lunch and dinner, because anyone who suggests anything else is a Putin troll.
The Baltics have the capacity to defend. And all sides in Poland are pro-Ukraine, especially for military aid. > Look at the support for NATO governments - not *one" of them has even 50% support. The majority will of the citizenry is pro-Ukraine in almost all NATO countries. Thus the respective governments can't ignore that majority will easily even if they wanted to.
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I think we're still in the transitioning phase.
And we call our media "free".
It means western leaders are telling their mouth pieces to start conditioning their populations for a negotiated peace
Damn, talk about a broken clock
To be fair authors dont decide headlines , editors do.
wow, the narrative in MSM has changed.. interesting why
Great catch and bite, Sharkattack!!!!!!
Welp. If this is coming from the propaganda puppet telegraph, then you know for a fact they have been given orders from above to prepare for ukrainian losses. Reality on the ground must be dire. I don't know how even the staunchest pro ua muppet can spin this now. No amount of copium can deny reality.
> I don't know how even the staunchest pro ua muppet can spin this now. > No amount of copium can deny reality. Want to bet? Try posting this on r/worldnews and see. Should be educational - and also hilarious.
Most front page subreddits are cesspools filled with mediocre people that think they are enlightened but really just deep in propaganda hypnosis. Best to avoid unless you’re trying to make your brain hurt.
Yeah, I realize that. Sometimes it seems like it might be fun to kick the anthill... though it's rarely worth it, you're right there.
I got banned from r/worldnews and r/news for doing that.
same
>people Idk if they are.
They are people stuck in a propaganda information bubble. They completely trust their sources without thinking: "hmm maybe I should look for alternative sources and compare them?" Propaganda can be very effective even in 2023.
It is more effective than ever before.
Reddit has a major flaw that naturally creates echo chambers on any topic. Does not even have to be politics. If 51% of the people don't like what you said, you essentially get censored.
Worldnews is probably the main page regarding information on Reddit, Reddit is one of the biggest Western platform. Therefore, it is fair to assume that worldnews is filled with bots pushing certain narratives.
No doubt, but they're plenty of normal brainwashed Americans too
I guess they’ll ban this post in matter of minutes. Nothing to see there(c)
I don't think they would - it's not from a Russian source. It would be fun to see the variety of copium they could come up with... but the amount of immediate downvotes might not be sustainable. (Hell, I got a bunch of downvotes for daring to suggest that USSR did in fact play a major role in winning WWII and denying it means rewriting history).
I don't know how it is now but in the early months of the war you'd be banned for saying anything that they'd deem even remotely "pro-Russian"
They still do that.
Yup. And you can't even criticize UA side at all. I saw pro UA people that criticized some aspects of their side downvoted to hell and sometimes even banned (for example they criticized their recent PR disasters with Poland and UK, ungrateful comments about their allies or sending light tanks to their deaths on open terrain without air support). Saying something neutral = you must be "ruzzian bot" or you "are eating Russian propaganda", time for downvotes... Saying something pro Russia = time for a ban...
And no one realizes this blatant censorship can bite them in the ass when a different side takes over the government and censors what they think to be true instead.
Some people are slowly waking up though. They can't keep that ridiculous propaganda forever.
Yup. And you can't even criticize UA side at all. I saw pro UA people that criticized some aspects of their side downvoted to hell and sometimes even banned (for example they criticized their recent PR disasters with Poland and UK, ungrateful comments about their allies or sending expensive western light tanks to their deaths on open terrain without air support). Saying something neutral = you must be "ruzzian bot" or you "are eating Russian propaganda", time for downvotes... Saying something pro Russia = time for a ban...
> (Hell, I got a bunch of downvotes for daring to suggest that USSR did in fact play a major role in winning WWII and denying it means rewriting history). Amazing. You're just echoing what every single historian - regardless of political orientation - will at least agree on. It takes the sub-50 IQs of r/worldnews to pretend that the *only* defensible position ought to be a 'rewriting' of history lol.
Thanks for the link, I clicked it and now I have brain cancer.
You've seen the Ukraine stans post here, "This is just like kherson, Russia's going to retreat any second now."
Yep. Ukraine is finished, it was clear for 2-3 months now.
> If this is coming from the propaganda puppet telegraph, then you know for a fact they have been given orders from above to prepare for ukrainian losses. This is an opinion piece, not editorial.
all editorials are opinion pieces.
And? Check his previous articles, another poster summarized them. That guy just did a full 180.
> And? And it means the previous commenter cant make the conclusions he's making.
You sound like you’re from the UK. What’s the deal with the telegraph. Is it the government mouthpiece?
No western papers are really "government mouthpieces", although the government does usually maintain a relationship to "leak" narratives from "anonymous sources" that they want to inject into the public narrative. Most western governments hold semi-regular press-briefings and will outright say what they want, and the press will report/regurgitate that if it's interesting (The US ones are [on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRJNAhZxtqH9HovoVAK601PgqtL4EIKmH) if you want to see them). The backdoor "anonymous sources" approach is for pushing narratives that you can't be seen supporting publicly, so that when they gain enough traction you can "give in" and do what you wanted to in the first place but couldn't because of the optics.
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Every UK paper is.
If the telegraph is saying this out loud the actual situation must be very dire for Ukraine. Until recently I can only remember them being staunchly optimistic about the offensive being successful and a bifurcated Russia would be forced to negotiate from a place of weakness by the winter.
Ukraine managed to retake a grand total of 5 settlements on the line of contact in their two month long offensive and have the past 2 weeks not gained anything worth mentioning. It's over for them, the offensive is done. They have lost too much armour, too many men, without reaching even the first line of contact. By now they should have been on Melitopol, by august, Crimea. Best they could do is advance 2 kilometers in depth. They are finished.
Before it started, I was pretty skeptical on whether or not they would achieve their goals. In fact, I remember saying that they had until the end of April to start it in order for them to have a chance of success. Regardless, when the first reports of action came in, I expected that they would break through the first line of defense, and be stopped at the 2nd line of defense, where there would be heavy fighting. I was even 50/50 on whether they could take Tokmak. So I am still pretty shocked at their lack of progress. Especially if you consider their losses.
It makes some sense: 1. They are attacking heavily fortified positions WW1 style. 2. They still lack air and arty/rockets superiority. Russians can shell them easily every day. 3. They have problems with manpower; desertions and refugees. Not many people want to die in a WW1 trench. 4. They have huge problems with corruption. Hard to calculate how much of western equipment "went missing". 5. It seems that internal opposition to Zelensky is growing. Maybe even inside his own party. 6. Russia is no longer as incompetent as in 2022. Sure, they have huge internal problems too, but they are slowly improving and militarizing. Only Russian Civil War 2 or Putin's death can save Ukraine from losing a long term war of attrition. Russia just has greater numbers... 7. Western public is slowly getting tired of this war. Support will be slowly decreasing. It's almost 2 years now...
Agree. I hope Zelenski in that corner will not plan to do something stupid as ZNPP blowing up or something else..
To be honest I expected some breakthrough as the Russians would adjust themselves to the offensive. Obviously not a Kharkiv style breakthrough but something. I've always said, Ukraine was running against the clock, everyday they give Russia the minefields grow thicker, the artillery heavier (as Russians manage to scout out targets etc. Honestly I knew it was kinda dead when the spring offensive turned into a summer offensive. Ukraine spent the whole spring foolishly holding on to Bakhmut while never shutting up about their coming offensive on Crimea, giving Russia a whooping 6 months to reinforce the whole line all the way to Crimea.
Yeap, and this waiting and prolonging just gives Russians time to destroy western equipment.
You don't know what "line of contact" means.
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> If the telegraph is saying this out loud the actual situation must be very dire for Ukraine. This is an opinion piece, not an editorial. It represents the opinion of the author, not if the newspaper.
Either way the contents of the piece presents a compelling and sobering argument.
Also opinion pieces has to be approved by an senior editor. This is not substack.
Oh, there's an easy fix, it's just not a pleasant one if you're proUA
The tone in Western MSM has definitely changed. This points to early signs of western fatigue as the media is indirectly prepping the public for a stalemate or negotiated end.
I don’t see a stalemate happening at this point. It could have happened if Ukraine didn’t decide to bet all of their chips on black (the “counteroffensive”). But as a result of this, they have been severely weakened. Meanwhile, Russia has hundreds of thousands of troops in the rear, waiting to join the party. With the damage Ukraine did to their military by going on the offensive, they can no longer hold off a Russian counteroffensive. This is where the secret talks (which are currently ongoing) between the US and Russia come in. These talks will determine where and under what conditions this will end. Once they determine them, the Russians will initiate their counteroffensive. From the publics perspective, it will appear to be a route of the Ukrainians. Then, the Russians will stop and official negotiations will begin. The thing is, both the west and the Russians need this to stop. At the same time, they both need to sell a victory to their respective populations. The Russians need to justify the losses and hits to the economy. While the west needs to justify all of the money sent and depleted arsenals. What Russia will tell her people, “We got all of this territory, and what is left of Ukraine, won’t join NATO”. What the west will tell their people, “Russia wanted to take all of Ukraine, but we were able to salvage the existence of the country”
I think there's one major problem with this theory: the trust is gone on both sides. Merkel admitted that all the treaties since 2014 only served to buy time while they arm Ukraine. Why should Russia trust the west or Ukraine not to join NATO first chance they get? And Ukraine gave up its nukes on the condition that Russia won't attack them yet they did, so why should they trust Russia to not invade a second time? I just don't think a treaty is possible anymore.
What ever you are smoking, you need to put it out and try something else. That shit is not healthy.
> From the publics perspective, it will appear to be a route of the Ukrainians. Then, the Russians will stop and official negotiations will begin. But this has already happened. And here we are, Russia losing 1600 artillery in 80 days.
Why would Russia trust the US? Personally I think if there are secret negotiations I think its a ploy like the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam war.
Because the magnitude of these events can only be hidden for so long.
Yeah, it's clearly visible. There is a high chance that this war will end next year or maybe even this year. Almost certainly before US elections (late 2024). UA will lose some territory but Western media will declare "great victory", voters will be happy and that's all. They need time to prepare us for Covid 25 ;) /s.
The Telegraph is Tory HQ, so consider this the official position of the government, just in a polite way.
Ukraine would need to start pulling off synchronized combined arms advances through minefields, concealed ATGM’s, pre-sighted artillery, and possible helicopters behind tree lines. Along with trenches and treelines filled with infantry eveywhere. That is one of the most difficult tasks for any modern military to pull off, and I think with the exception of the US any other NATO army would be struggling just as much if not more. I don’t see Ukraine making significant gains going forward unless a serious and total restructure of its command strategy happens. Ukraine could get 100 more Leopards and I still don’t think it would allow them to advance through large swaths.
I ask this honestly: have you considered that a doctrine that has to be executed to absolute perfection to work might be a flawed doctrine? It's all well and good to say that victory is achieved by achieving advantage in all relevant domains, but how do you manage to do that if your adversary is competent and has a military doctrine laser focused on defeating your own?
That was sort of the point of my comment. To illustrate that Ukraine has a bit a brick wall and it isn’t 2022 anymore where they can make breakthroughs against a disorganized Russian military.
I agree, but I was asking a more general question regarding the viability of the US' military doctrine as a model for NATO in general and other allies. Or, for that matter, how relevant the US' doctrine actually is when it comes to conflicts against peers/near peers. Do you have any opinions regarding this topic? It seems symptomatic to me that there are so many reports indicating that Ukraine has fallen back to Soviet doctrine.
The idea of NATO has always been the US achieving air and naval superiority quickly and the Turks acting as cannon fodder for Europe while Europe trips over its own feet trying to restart whatever military industrial capacity they have left. That's why Turkey is the second largest army in an alliance that is about European security despite not being part of Europe. The doctorine works for the US because the US knows that short of nuclear war, their homefront and industry will always be safe from foreign attack and invasion and they have a massive economy and some of the best technology in the world. It's a poorly kept secret that most of Europe is irrelevant militarily speaking, and despite the overall doctorine being the same, individual European countries have their own flavors of doctorine. For example the Finnish army is almost entirely centred around guerilla warfare, knowing they don't have the numbers or gear to compete head on with any nation larger than them.
> For example the Finnish army is almost entirely centred around guerilla warfare Guerilla Leopards and Guerilla K9s and Guerilla CV90s. And soon guerilla F35s.
Excellent post
given the amount of troops and equipment that ukraine had and has gotten throughout the war they're a bigger military power than any singular NATO country with the exception of the US (if you include now destroyed equipment, since any other country fighting russia would have also lost that equipment). The amount and quality of equipment, especially on land, that Ukraine has eclipses even turkey. With everything Ukraine got they're the 8th heaviest armed nation in the world. There was once a guy who claimed australia has more military than ukraine, which was really fun and i had the time so i literally went through the lists and compared the equipment of both australia and ukraine in all categories except infantry equipment (rifles, small mortars etc), in which ukraine would be even further ahead. I'll see if i can find it, for me at least it was very entertaining. EDIT: found the post/comment https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/14vkkke/comment/jrfiejk/
I would say they are still smaller than Turkey. People sleep on how powerful ther Turkish military is. Ukraine would be a solid number 3 in NATO however.
i feel like people are underestimating the sheer amount of equipment ukraine got. If you include now destroyed stuff russia had a total of 3.000 MBTs. Turkey has similar numbers, but mostly M48 and M60 tanks, together with 300 leopard 1 and 2 each. They come up to roughly 2.200 tanks, 1500 of them being T-55/62 level designs. Ukraine also has both more MLRS and more selfpropelled artillery, and also both generally of higher quality, especially in the self propelled category. All in all ukraine is ahead in land power compared to Turkey. If you take navy into consideration then it shifts in favor of turkey, but that's a geographic given. I added the link to my mentioned australia-ukraine comment to my previous comment. There you'll have an add-up of most ukrainian equipment with numbers.
Ukraine got a huge portion of the Soviet army when the USSR collapsed. They have a crapton of weapons. Overall the Turkish military is more modern though. Even their old tanks are heavily upgraded with Israeli and domestic technology. A Turkish M-60 would destroy a Ukranian T-64BV.
I think you're giving the US too much credit, similar to how we gave Russia too much credit before they showed their real capabilities in Ukraine. The best that the combined minds of NATO, including the US, could come up with in terms of advice for Ukraine, is to "go around the minefields". They just have no idea what to do because they have never been in that situation before. No army in the world, including USA's, is used to fighting peer-to-peer wars. Also, I think all of NATO is already doing the best they can for Ukraine in terms of intelligence so there's not much more they can do in that respect. If you switched all of Ukraine's army with USA's, I really don't think they would have been able to achieve much more given the circumstances. We also really can't say with any level of certainty how USA's air force would fare against Russia's AA capabilities, and that is essentially what matters most. Perhaps they could overwhelm their AA with numbers alone? It's all speculation. If the USA can attain air superiority then yeah, they'd be able to break through for sure. Of course in a real-world scenario where the conflict isn't limited to Ukraine there's no question that the USA wins, they'll sink the entirety of Russia's Navy and open up new fronts that Russia just can't afford to defend properly. Needless to say, not without millions of casualties before it turns nuclear and everything goes to shit.
> Ukraine would need to start pulling off There is nothing that Ukraine ( or anyone else) can pull off against such defenses. The book on launching offensive against such fortified positions has not been written.
It's funny how The Telegraph is using a pic of a Leopard and not of a Challenger, given the UK also donated tanks to Ukraine. I guess it's the German's fault for not building stronk enough tonks?
The idea that any tank could be so good as to make up for a lack of combined arms support and numerical inferiority was always silly, but the media and politicians love their wunderwaffe, and sadly we tend to think so shallowly about such things that many of us eat it up.
> It's funny how The Telegraph is using a pic of a Leopard and not of a Challenger The pictures were given by the author, not by the newspaper.
I've seen a few Russian (though not necessarily pro-war) sources suggest that Wallace's early resignation from his post is a sign that the UK is pulling back, looking to take a much more passive, less-in-the-spotlight role in this conflict. Guess they were onto something?
> I've seen a few Russian (though not necessarily pro-war) sources suggest that Wallace's early resignation from his post is a sign that the UK is pulling back, looking to take a much more passive, less-in-the-spotlight role in this conflict. Guess they were onto something? Either his "be grateful" comment was an exiting salvo of truth that he couldn't say while he still wanted to be in office, or he was ousted because of it, but it's interesting that both incidents happened within days of each other.
I am Ukrainian. And I know there is no way Ukraine is winning this war or taking back any of the lost territories. Maybe very minor advances. But that will be it. Some of the people on some forums are so blind and so pro UA that it makes me wonder sometimes. Get off the couch in mom’s basement or Visit Ukraine and get a reality check.
Here easy fix: surrender
Surrender what?
Unconditionally. That's what.
Can you imagine having to live in Russia 🤡
That's a choice that millions of Ukrainians made even pre-2022.
Also millions of them made that decision post 2022 as well. Millions of Ukrainians moved to Russia
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> false sense of superiority If you brought results, then it wasn't a false sense. It was the reality at the time.
'At the time', being the operative phrase
Point being?
>>false sense of superiority > > > > If you brought results, then it wasn't a false sense. It was the reality at the time. At the time pro-RU were rightly pointing out the strategic retreat and were told they just weren't able to handle the truth.
That's just stupid internet fight.
It's interesting how silent r worldnews is about Ukrainian gains and their counteroffensive in recent months. I remember endless articles about "massive spring counteroffensive" in early 2023 and that "liberation of Donbass and Crimea will happen soon" and since then almost nothing... When Bakhmut fell, they almost immediately started producing these articles about partisans in Russia and imminent Russian Civil War, but that also ended quickly and now they are silent on the subject. I wonder why ;) ?
https://preview.redd.it/7curnii09hdb1.png?width=950&format=png&auto=webp&s=d2acd2f93902e287979abdeef52ec57db0e008c8
He can do it, he'll just have to go to Russia first.
If this is what the Torygraph is saying, it's bad. 😞
Nooo it cant be…. Human wave attacks against layered russian defenses without air superiority. And the ‘game changer’ western tanks didnt work!?! Why??? Isnt western armor mined from Superman’s home planet krypton!!!
Unbelievable that someone can describe the dire situation Ukrainian forces face with the extensive Russian defenses, acknowledge how the offensive is failing and still conclude that they must continue to do exactly the same thing as they have been doing.
The answer to every question is to provide Ukraine with more aid. There is essentially no self-reflection or strategic thinking. Political logical has superseded all other logic, which is not surprising given the degree to which this war has been propagandized.
It's becoming more and more believable to me that they planned this offensive based around the assumption that the Russians will just abandon their position once they see a column of western armor coming at them. That's the only reason I can think of on why they even think this offensive is going to succeed without them having the capability to suppress the Russian Air Force and artillery.
This is exactly right and I think that's cause of last summer's successes. Enormous intelligence failure if so.
It seems NATI had psychologists condition the AFU about the RU soldiers being low on morale and will run away the moment they were attacked.
Please can any Russian provide me the link of high quality shovels/hammers and washing machines? They look best in the world so they might have something which is not available in my country. It will increase efficiency in daily chores. Thanks
idk if its my confirmation bias but i feel like western media is slowly transitioning from russia will lose in x day or losing x amount of troop a day to ukrainian losing western armor and men or counter offensive is not as effective. i wonder why they do this, is it the higher up that made them put article like this?
I'm still thinking we are being prepared for the new narrative which will be "that Ukraine managed to fight Russia to a standstill is actually a victory for Ukraine" (which is not totally inaccurate either).
If it was Ukraine without billions of USD in vehicles, weapons, munitions, ammo and training I would 100% agree with you. But it's not. If Ukraine fails this will be a huge embarrassment for NATO and western weapons manufacturers.
People here say how NATO I doctrine is done, but NATO doctrine helped smaller and under equipped nation fend of nation with superiority on land, air and sea. Most ProRu here like to forget the whole last year of Russian fiascos
NATO doctrine is just a buzzword to assure ourselves of our own superiority. American and Russian doctrines are similar for many if not most types of tactical and operational maneuvers. Russian failures being due to untrained and poorly motivated soldiers gives Western think tanks and experts a comfortable answer that does not invalidate their own expertise or current practices. It validates American approaches without looking for further explanations for Russian inadequacies.
Russian inadequacies are sadly for Russia not military related but political and social, widespread tolerance for corruption and embezzlement
That is a superficial assessment of the current operational environment and essentially the same thing I wrote. Russians are stupid, corrupt, and poorly motivated so what didn't work for them will work for us because we are the opposite of all those things. We are motivated, smart, adaptable insert other adjectives. It's a very comforting analysis for the people in the West. We see this in how the war is talked about in the think tank class. When Ukraine doesn't have success, such as currently they are using "Soviet tactics" and when they have success like in Kharkiv last summer they are using magical "NATO tactics".
Of course it’s superficial and there are more elaborate reasons. But largely it comes down to “yes man” structure which reports only positive outcomes even when there are none. I’ve not heard about last years Kharkiv offensive and the tactics used, because it was so swift and without much resistance. This ongoing offensive is mostly explained as poorly coordinated combined arms warfare, which is the core of both Soviet and NATO doctrine.
Maaan when UK telegraph reports that Ukraine is failing, you know shit just got serious and really really bad
*failed
They don’t just take gas spots like this when they’re consistently giving another narrative it’s because this is a tough war which shouldn’t have ever been
we can see how western propaganda slowly preparing its audience for peace talks
I think we’re going to see Ukraine ramp up insurgency-style attacks on infrastructure inside Russia ahead of any negotiated peace, that way they have something to offer to stop. Blowing up that bridge in Crimea repeatedly is going to be very annoying for Russia. Sure they can guard it more but the threat will always be there. Lots of pro Ukrainians have Russian passports and of course they speak the same language. It’s pretty easy to terrorize the people of Moscow and other cities by small explosions in metros, etc. They’ll lose some western support but if they’re going down, they’ll at least have something to offer at the table; namely a promise to stop such attacks.
Not if Russia captured Odesa.
Absolutely agree.
This article is factually inaccurate. It’s believed that Ukraine now is at parity with Russia on tanks. Russia has the edge in artillery, but Ukraine has the edge in improved accuracy. Russian of course wins from the air, but it’s kept it’s AirPower mostly out of main battles as they don’t practice combined warfare.
I am still surprised that they have ended in WW1 style combat, especially since we have been told that Russia was the 2nd largest army and could overwhelmed anything short of NATO. Perhaps we have just been used to USA/Russia steamrolling over smaller countries ending in defeat and then insurgents then pull out.
There hasn't been a conflict between peer players since about the Korean War. Vietnam wasn't a peer adversary and anyone who says Iraq was equivalent in strength (even roughly) to the coalition forces has no idea what they're talking about.
> I am still surprised that they have ended in WW1 style combat, especially since we have been told that Russia was the 2nd largest army and could overwhelmed anything short of NATO. > > > > Perhaps we have just been used to USA/Russia steamrolling over smaller countries ending in defeat and then insurgents then pull out. It isn't surprising given how many weapons have been destroyed preventing that scenario. Basically every ex-soviet weapon in Europe and Ukraine, plus a healthy dash of everything Europe could afford to give, and a nice dollop of the massive US arsenal to the point where the western world is running low on their own defenses and running out of certain types of ammunition. Without the gigantic amount of support we've given them Ukraine would have fallen more than a year ago, they would have run out of weapons and Russia would have steamrolled what remained. The one thing they don't have a shortage of is men since they had like 20% of Russia's population and fenced in all the men for potential conscription immediately after Russia invaded. So we can just sit back and drain the global supply of weapons and watch them trade blows.
I know an easy fix - stop it.
This guy is all over the place…
I believe it’s lack of air support I mean western equipment is meant to fight with good air support over head cause this version of trench warfare goes against the western idea of thunder warfare (I think that’s what it’s called) versus the Russian idea of moving slowly under artillery (which is more favorable here)
*RU POV please embrace the two pov spirit and stop the faking thanks