I dont think many military people would agree, salients are areas you breakout from, the idea of fighting in one for several months is fighting at a disadvantage, now more so in an age when the battlefield is under constant surveillance, the best course now is to round out their lines and fight defensively. I believe the Ukrainians are coming around to this type of thinking.
Makes me fcuking angry. It's Western nations and particularly US Republicans had stopped acting the cnut, this could have been prevented.
One of the most on-point observations in this thread in recent days. Beautifully put.
Where would be next big attack for Russia be if adviika falls?
I don't think the three day war was a delusion at the time .... if Kiev had fallen, which was a real possibility in the initial assault it could have been over pretty quick.
North Korea has and will endure because it put the legwork into intentionally becoming a feudal, utterly insular state. I don't think there's a single comparable nation on earth when it comes to the Pyongyang dynasty. While the difference with your other examples is neither state put an inordinate amount of its resources into a war it cannot win, yet has already lost hundreds of thousands of lives, and as many have fled the country - in a country that was already suffering crazy demographic problems before the war started. That centre can't hold forever.
It's easy to forget but Russia was once a grubby country everyone looked the other way for, because it was the source of our gas, finances, World Cups and sundry other little tendrils that had ensured we pretended Putin was a normal world leader. They were as bad at whitewashing as the Saudis continue to be. Then he miscalculated that apathy and ordered his tanks towards Kyiv.
I'll say one thing you're way off about: ain't no chance Russia's gonna replace Putin with someone better - in fact I maintain a degree of worry it's gonna be someone worse. Dissent and legitimate political rivals are effectively dead and gone now, so what's left? It's entirely possible a smarting Russia ethno-nationalist will take over and push the country into a further antagonistic stance.
I suspect that there won't be any great changes in the coming months. Russia will consolidate what it has and keep doing terror attacks on other Ukrainian cities, Ukraine will fight heroically to not lose anymore and score the occasional big hit on a ship or similar.
If US weapons dry up and Trump gets into power things could get worse.
That's my modest prediction. Chances of Ukraine driving Russia out this year as long as Putin is in power? Zero
Imagine being in your 20’s or 30’s fighting and dieing for an old dickhead who is inspired by history going back to the 9th century AD.
Let's see what happens. I don't fully share your optimism (rotten and crazy regimes can last a lot longer than people think, plenty of recent evidence for that too... Mugabe, Assad, North Korea, Iran etc etc etc) but I'll be among thr first to raise a glass the day Putin's regime ends and is hopefully replaced by something better.
Delusional perhaps but not without grounding. The Russian state is a total black box and it's impossible to predict its future with certainty sure: but it also can't be wide of the mark to speculate that this war - as wars have done with Russia before, time and time again - is gonna be the catalyst for collapse, regime change - or both. The clock is ticking here IMO. Russia is kinda pulling a Weekend at Bernie's at this stage: the state's functionally dead across a host of metrics, it's just being propped up by a cartel headed by a now proven delusional wannabe Tsar itching to reform "historical Russia". Coups happen fast, and I don't think any of us will see it coming - least of all Putin. He has definitely stamped out all opposition but he may want to keep an eye on his military bigwigs for one.
Kyiv is fighting for its life and will do so I suspect to the bitter end; pure spite and gumption has turned this 3 day war into a 2+ year one and by and large that's on the Ukrainians will to persist. Even if Russian tanks rolled into Kyiv tomorrow? They're not gonna go anywhere cos then the Guerilla war / insurgency will begin and so Russians will keep dying - albeit not quite on an industrial scale.
I always remember what the Economist defence expert said back in summer '22: neither side has the ability to win, neither side can afford to lose.
"All Ukraine has to do" is hang on long enough 'til Russia's ability to prosecute the war runs out and I'm not sure that's as crazy or far off as you might think. That assertion isn't wrong but it doesn't factor in the reality that one side has a greater will to win than the other - a will that'll extend past the capital falling. Whereas Russia? Can it just keep going and going?
The 3 day war delusion and the Russia will collapse in 2 weeks delusion increasingly sound similar. As always, it's amazing how people at the extreme ends of each spectrum have a lot more in common than they'd like to think.
As for me: I'd love to see Ukraine win and Russia hammered. I just don't see it happening and I've been proved right so far. Putin gone and regime reset in Russia is the only hope of a happy outcome
We're in broad agreement. But there are still quite a few people who keep insisting some turning point leading to total Russian collapse is just around the corner, they've been predicting it since May 2022 and I still don't see it coming, after a while it sounds almost as deluded as the rightly derided 3 day war prediction.
Still the most concise and to the point summary I've heard.
Maybe they’ve seen how the Gurkhas were treated by the British once their usefulness was over. Joanna Lumley had to sign on and help them fight for the promises that were made to them after the Perfidious Albion dumped them.
It's not about "running out" but at some point when you have bled 400,000 men in pursuit of a goal you've only 20% achieved, there's a degree of math at play here. The Russian army isn't going to have zero soldiers one day, that's asinine logic, but it's about making the equation unsustainable to keep losing as many soldiers as they are for a net gain of about zero. As has been noted russian is now scrabbling for Nepalese volunteers in lieu of worrying the middle class. Clearly this isn't a war machine working with its best options anymore.
Ukraine are hardly tripping over successes here and their supply issue is perilous close to causing serious harm but ... does anyone seriously think this Russian invasion is some unparalleled success with a distinct forced momentum? As noted already, Ukraine take a village and the offensive is a failure: Russian take the same village and it's a sure sign Russia's victory is inevitable.
I wish. I’d love to be paid for my opinions. Not everyone loves Ukraine and Zelensky.
Ukraine and the West in general is saying how bad the situation is getting due to lack of weapons and still the boards keyboard warriors tell us, no no everything is fine it's the Russians who'll run out of men and ammo in 2 weeks, or maybe 3 weeks, cos some guy on Twitter said so....
BBC acceptable for you?
Apparently Russia preparing another huge assault on Robotnye. Would be a shame to see Ukraine lose their counter offensive gains here. I'm still hoping they can build on them come the summer.
western european countrys are supplying the middle east with munitions, if they stopped supplying the middle east for three months ukraine would be in a great place
Let's say you have 2 tanks, and you send them to Ukraine. Both are destroyed. You build two more, employing a lot of people and the GDP shows a big increase in production. But you still only have 2 tanks.
One of the poorest countries in the world so I'd say desperation and a hope that it might be profitable. Also don't necessarily have a very clear picture of the war.
Is that all, only 7.5% of their gdp on defence ? Seen as russian gdp is only about 3.5 times that of Irl, that doesn't seem enough, would it keep pace with all the losses they have.
Any source for this news you would like to share?
Meanwhile, in the real world:
Other thing is maybe (just guessing) people around the world in poorer countries, a long way from Europe, not following what has been happening last few years in both Russia and Ukraine don't know/understand the kind of nuttiness Russia has descended into when they sign on.
Their country may have had good past relations with Russia/Soviet Union before that. They may still trust the word of its agents, and may believe what they are told about getting huge amounts of cash, put in safe(r) support roles only etc. etc.
I think Cuba already had to run them out of it for sending in recruiters with packs of lies trying to snap up mercenaries (article from last year), and now Nepal has to do similar.
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