Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Turkey hates Russia, I'd love to see Turkey go after them. They can't blame the West for that if it were to happen.

War is won by gaining new territory.. (the Russian army is so far taken new territory) annexed it.

This is a war taking place on multiple fronts, with heavy fighting taking place in cities and big towns, and a big obstacle for the fight to not be over quickly is the Ukrainian army is not a small army. There were allegedly 300,000 soldiers- which means they had a 2-1 advantage over the Russians and probably a higher number today since men not part of the army joined up after the invasion and the foreign mercenaries came to the country to help Ukraine. Plus now Nato providing the logistics to keep Ukraine stay in the fight. Did the Iraq army and Afghanistan army receive this kind of support from world powers? No, they did not. This is substantial support to fight Russia and can now be viewed as an American proxy war ( the Ukraine military used as the boots on the ground to stop the Russian advances cold) Ukraine receives real-time intelligence and assessments from Nato about Russian movements and their concentrations of forces inside Ukraine so its lot harder for the Russians to take Ukraine army by surprise on the battlefield.

The reality is this. Ukraine was adding on Twitter they had launched a counter-offensive to retake Kherson weeks ago, but nothing had actually shifted on the actual front line. While Russia on the other hand about to take another city in the south of the country- Mariupol ( a city that Russia actually wanted to take) at the beginning of the war.

Hold three important cities previously occupied by Ukraine forces hows is that examined as a failure? Only in the west would it be after only a month of fighting.

The offensive in the Donbas if successful achieves most of the aim here to demilitarise the Ukrainian military in the east and south. Ukraine's army would then be forced back North to Kyiv in hurry ( if they can get out that is). The defeat in the Donbas means Odessa will be an easier target for the Russian military to take.

If they have the coast could they get in a few fast boats with supplies/reinforcements?

If they had spent more time fighting and less time looting white goods and raping toddlers they may have made advances worth talking about. Instead they took a tiny part of Ukraine which was already in conflict and only succeeded in mariupol by leveling it. So they effectively 95% took a wasteland. If that's winning how do you spin the complete failure that was the Kyiv offensive.

That would be video that's 2,980 bodies short of your 'few' thousand.

As expected, bizarre views.

Russia had more territory 6 weeks ago than it has now. They are losing equipment at the rate of 3 to 1. They've lost more men than the US lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined, in 20 years. What was supposed to be a quick "operation" has turned into a quagmire. They still have a large potent army but they are struggling to match their week 1 gains, they have been struggling to take one key city for 6 weeks now. A country with a much smaller (on paper) military is holding them almost to a stalemate.

Maybe they suddenly start clawing more than a few kilometres a day and they take a much larger swathe of East Ukraine, then what? How does a sanctioned country with an economy smaller than Texas and such a demoralised army hold so much hostile territory?

Going to be interesting mental gymnastics performed over this by the Kremlin and their supporters that's for sure.

Five attack fronts. With the bulk of the Russian army attacking the east and the south of the country.

Have a solid point if Putin send the majority of his army at Kyiv but he did not. This was never the main target for the operation.

Keep ignoring Putin’s war aims. Demilitarise the Donbas and denazify the Ukrainian military.

Why do you think it is the Russian tv channels keep saying daily declare war on Ukraine? Know this is a not real total war against Ukraine. There surrounded cities, but there not bombed and destroyed by the Russians. Look at every war for the last century, cities are bombed until all is left is rumble. Russia actually being civilized with the attacks.What stopping them from leveling Kharkiv and Odessa or any small city?

Expectation you had Putin would occupy Kyiv with 40,000 soldiers?. Kyiv has 3 million people. I dont know what the goal was but certainly wasn’t to take the city. I think ( viewpoint) it was probably to lock down the bigger force holding the north so it could not help turn and help the smaller force to the east and south. Maybe the 40,000 forces performed poorly or could be they were given orders to be mindful of civilians and buildings which hindered their progress. Russia got vast amounts of artillery not much of it was used.

Explain what denaizification means to you?

That's a don't challenge my posts type .

Or do people believe they can just parachute heavy artillery into a country and expect soldiers to operate it effectively without hands on experience

I hope you didn't have your car left in your buddies garage in clane ! It might have a bit of smoke damage!

Your own post and link show that it would be short term pain and nothing that Germany hasn't weathered in the last 20 years.

While the extermination of Ukrainian democracy, mass war crimes against humanity, including mass murder may not weight much in Germany over good relationships with Comrade Putin, it's actually a big deal.

The damage to Germany in Eastern Europe, where it is now viewed as verging on as hostile through its sheer coldness to their survival or the welfare of Ukrainian civilians.

That damage will last long past Russia's inevitable defeat.

No, war isn’t won by gaining new territory. War is won when the goals of the one of the belligerents have been achieved. On 24th February Vladimir Putin stated that the goal was the “demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine”. The Russian military expert view at the time was that it would take five days. Eight weeks later he appears no closer to achieving his goals. Instead, by invading a sovereign territory he has:

-       Killed innocent civilians and been justifiably accused of war crimes

-       Lost at least 20,000 troops

-       Suffered embarrassing military setbacks in northern Ukraine

-       Lost his flagship of the Black Sea fleet

-       Led to an increase in the size and capabilities of the Ukrainian army, including at least 20,000 new volunteers from other countries

-       Made enemies of nearly every democratic nation on the planet

-       Ensured the expansion of NATO in Europe

-       Triggered a large increase in NATO spending on defense

-       Crashed the Russian economy

-       Ensured that all Russians will be hated by Ukrainians for generations

If the campaign in Donbas were successful (as you put it) it would be difficult even for the Kremlin to spin that as a “win”. 

It's not simple to support a foreign military without sending a single combatant. Tremendously difficult I would imagine. Like professional soldiers spend years training on modern equipment in combined operations and still might not perform in the real thing. The us are going to send them modern equipment, to a live battlefield, that they've never used and they don't even share the same language. Like they'd be doing well to be ready for action in a few months surely? Which might not be a waste of time, going by the rate of this war, they might be trading shells for a decade in donbas. Perhaps that should be the outlook in the west, we should start planning for a multi year war.

Apparently shot himself before he killed his family