Stalingrad 1943
Yes, all the objective reports are pretty pessimistic right now, but the military experts of boards (their numbers have dropped notably in recent weeks) will keep insisting that the big counter offensive to drive Russia all the way back to Moscow is just around the corner and will keep posting the occasional video of a Russian tank being blown up to prove that Ukraine is actually on the way to victory. Ukraine has no choice but to fight, but it looks increasingly like a doomed effort, at least as far as the East is concerned: what land Russia doesn't take it will simply destroy. Ukraine needs a game-changer, and very quickly.
Depressing, but not surprising. Expect one of the slava Ukraine group here to say it's all part of the Ukraine strategy for imminent victory. More realistic, sadly, is the opinion of the ex-British army hief who's said that now that Russia has a large chunk of the east under its control the stage could be set for negotiations for a settlement, which presumably means: Ukraine gives up the east of the country for security guarantees for the rest of the country. A horrible compromise but probably as good as is realistic right now.
a big feature of russia’s WW2 campaign was rape… so though in that particular battle they were marginally the lesser of two evils… I don’t think they can be considered the good guys during that time period…Stalin had just engineered a famine causing the death of millions
Helped defeat Nazism of course which is hugely to their credit, but by summer 1945 it was still evident to anyone that it was a horrible oppressive dictatorship. East Germany and subsequently the Berlin Wall should never happened and their occupation or 'control' over Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltics etc for four decades were mostly completely illegal.
The lesser of 2 evils in WW2. Yes, Stalin was an absolute monster and colonised half of Europe after the war, but the countless millions of Russians who fought and died against the Nazis were facing an existential threat even worse than what Ukraine faces now and many were true heroes who gave up their lives for a war none of them chose.
I would guess gust this would happen this year. I don’t think anyone wants this to drag on through a winter. And over coming weeks I would imagine that the US will start to question whether further depletion of its weapons stocks is worth it, if the writing is on the wall. Let alone the expense
Why is it some posters seem incapable of presenting their views without a need for petty digs?
I would assume weaponry would need to be replaced anyway on a periodic basis and disposal of old weaponry is very expensive. Depleting stocks by handing it over to Ukraine may not be economically bad, depending on how long they plan to replace these stocks.
So they will do what instead? Seem to recall that there are 40 odd countries involved, not just the US. Quite a lot of what is being delivered is not in a press release.
I think because since this started anyone who suggested that a settlement was an inevitability has been portrayed by certain posters as as pro-Russia or a putin-bot
Thanks for letting me know that you didnt read the article:
"And the Lithuanians even cleared their position with the European Commission – at the technical level, as is now being emphasized. That means that Commission officials had examined the legal situation and determined that Lithuania’s policy was the correct one. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also said that the position of the Lithuanian government was consistent with the sanctions regime."
The EU has reinterpreted its own definitions to kowtow to Berlin and Berlin kowtows to Moscow.
Europe would be more secure without this federalist project hamstringing European nations.
Well, it is up to you to be adult enough to ignore that kind of stupidity. It comes across as childish score settling otherwise but if that's your thing have at it.
You're forgetting the jobs and profits to be made by US arms manufacturers replacing and improving that stock. Never mind their armed forces getting better newer stock of materiel. War is profitible, especially if you don't personally have to do the fighting.
And as I said earlier, even if Mother Russia wins this war, nay even if they take the entire country of Ukraine lock stock and barrel, they've lost. Nato's borders have massively expanded, their armed forces seen as remarkably lacklustre and Russia's economy and political standing is forever changed for the forseeable future and not in a good way.
i think you’re referring to someone else’s posts
Russia have absolutely lost strategically. I’ve always drawn the distinction between their tactical wins but strategic losses. They’ll just end up with a largely meaningless tactical gain that Putin will spin back home as a victory, and what he always wanted
If they take Eastern Ukraine, they'll probably end up with another Afghanistan.
They may well have made the right decision, this is not the time for knee jerk reactions towards the Russians, any countermeasures against Russia must be carefully thought out before execution. Russia can never be trusted again until a completely new regime takes over and proves itself to be changed. This won’t happen overnight unless there is a revolution so otherwise Russia has completely isolated itself from the west just as during the iron curtain.
It's actually potentially much worse for Russia compared to the days of the Iron Curtain. Back then it was a command economy with double the population and their vassal states and other friends built on self reliance since the 1920's. Back then virtually nothing in their infrastructure and the daily lives of ordinary Russians was sourced from the West. Today they can't even distribute their new bank notes through their Western built ATMs and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The so-called republics (which are only recognised by Russia and Syria) are still a part of Ukraine, even if they are illegally occupied by invaders.
A tactic that Stalin used was to have machine gunners behind his own army in order to gun down anyone who tried to retreat. He also regularly had many generals executed. So I think a lot of the army knew if they didn’t follow order they would be shot.
If the nazis did defeat the russians would it have been much worse then life in Ukraine at the time where cannibalism was happening as a result of result of Stalin. In fact the Ukrainians welcomed the nazis when the invaded. Stalin would not forget this.
There were some Russian war hero’s but how many ? They have such a brutal history/culture. How many of these war hero’s engaged in war crimes ?
You’d have to assume that the vast vast majority of Russians are normal everyday people like ourselves otherwise it would be a mad max hell scape of a country. It’s their system of governance and leadership and military doctrine and culture that is brutal.
Much much worse, they have gone from having cutting edge tech at the end of WWII ie their tanks, to being three generations behind the US on jet fighters. The Brain drain recently will do nothing to improve this and I don’t see that reversing.
It always impressed me that the Irish Euphile will change his beliefs on the fly to whatever it is that Brussels decided.
If they left Ukraine out to dry altogether you'd be defending them.
If the sanctions stay while Russia occupies Ukraine they will begin to rot behind the new Iron Curtain. Also, Ukraine can start a serious offensive from Kherson if they get the weapons they need. If there is a full on war in the south, UA might win back the south, at least.
Yes but I do wonder what effect that system has had on people… people spending their whole lives in that system are going to be affected… people are very malleable
Well, in that case it's not just a case of the EU ordering the Lithuanians what to do, but the Germans apparently "ordering" the EU to tell the Lithuanians what to do. That's just one interpretation of what's happening.
As for you assertion that Europe would be more secure without "this federalist project" hamstringing European nations, the only way small nations can stand up to Russia is through collective action, whether by means of NATO or the EU.
It's clear from this and your other recent post that your animosity to the EU has clouded your judgement on policy towards Ukraine.
We've seen it. They shrug. It's a deeply ingrained part of the Russian psyche. I could have said this 30 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago and it would still apply.
Saw a video recently where it was argued that as long as Russians are not mobilised they are happy. They have outsourced politics to Putin. All they have to do is shut up and get on with their lives. That’s the phase we are currently in. It is more likely that escalation rather than sanctions will stir the Russian people to real action against Putin or a combination of both especially if the escalation is unprovoked.
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