Russia - threadbanned users in OP

It's not a case if they have the equipment or not ,they have the men to go on the offensive,the biggest question will be If they do go on the offensive and take even more ground then what ?

For all we know the Russians are happy to sit and watch watch the Ukrainians going through multiple meat grinders like bakmut,then make a move ,and then We will be back to breaking news f16s been discussed,a handful of f16s won't change the the current situation either

And yet they hold large areas of Ukraine, areas Ukraine are absolutely struggling to make ground were heading into 2 months of this counter offensive and they are not much further than they started off , breaking news is single vehicles blown up is all well and good but if your in the same position as you were 12 months ago despite tens of billions in weapons and vehicles been delivered questions will start to be asked

Not sure standstill will be enough. I think they really need a big victory this year. If they could take another massive chunk of territory like they did last year that could be a game changer and make the war unsustainable for Russia. If Ukraine can truly threaten Crimea then Russia may look for a fast way out.

It seems to me the way to win is attrition by artillery or economic collapse in Russia, or both. If Ukraine can hold out long enough Russia might implode economically.

But if they withdraw the economy won’t improve. The sanctions will still apply, the west may pursue reparations. What will actually improve for them?

Either way they are f'ed.

When suddenly articles like these start appearing in conservative western media outlets it's most likely kite flying and to start maneuvering the public for an outcome.

Paywalled, can you paste the full text of the article, ta.

The NYT has started producing similar clickbaity titles like the above, but the content is usually the same as anywhere - the counteroffensive isn't going as fast as hoped, but still making progress.

Another US package should be announced in the next days, 1.3 billion, I see a lot of drone stuff being mentioned (Phoenix ghost's, Switchblades and jamming)

It's gist is that the offensive is being held back, Ukraine has lost a lot of equipment and men in the last few weeks, it's not the usual pro Russian leftwing stance at all, he points out that anything but a defeat for Russia is a win for China and Russia and a loss for the West.

Give them everything they need,or the price will be much higher long term, it's a call to war.

Might be the strike on Odessa last night?

Absolutely not. The Telegraph is the mouthpiece of the Tory party.

The British government, like others, marched their populations up a hill and now need to condition public opinion for the climbdown. The counter-offensive that was intentionally built up through a media campaign has failed, they spent all this money and you can be absolutely sure a media campaign is underway to guide the public to accepting what is all but inevitable.

No-one wants to be left holding the baton.

This is not new. It's how the media has always operated.

I think your maths is wrong.

If 40k sqkms is 17% then 160k sqkms is nearly 70%

Blame Google

Before 2022, Russia occupied 42,000 km2 (16,000 sq mi) of Ukrainian territory (Crimea, and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk), and occupied an additional 119,000 km2 (46,000 sq mi) after its full-scale invasion by March 2022, a total of 161,000 km2 (62,000 sq mi) or almost 27% of Ukraine's territory.

@johnnyskeleton

I hope it won't be for much longer, but I fear it'll be a while yet. It appears that Putin's strategy of maintaining support, if not apathy, is to shield urban Russians from the war as much as he can, while sending off the rural poor, and poor rural Russians seem to have an abiding fetish for misery anyway.

Not that this strategy is novel. You could even say it's the standard method of staffing an army, or at least the ranks of its infantry. If Putin is not stopped somehow, he'll be looking to prosecute this war until Ukraine is subjugated or until the war causes some kind of internal crisis like a demographic collapse that attentions must be urgently diverted homeward.