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Russians are being routed out of Pokrovsk at the moment
in the long run I hope you are right on your assessment of the Ukraine Russia war.
They've held out better then we thought. It would have been a disaster if Russia took the city swiftly 3 months ago. The same happened with Vovchansk where they made swift gains and we didn't expect Ukraine to hold on so long to the point Vovchansk holds no strategic value for Russia.
I don't have much but I really hope Pokrovsk can remain the frontline for a long time. We need Russia to get stalled eventually and not to keep making creeping gains towards the Dnipro each year.
Key countries in Europe should hold referendums on whether to help defend Ukraine directly, as in troops, no restriction on weapons etc
I'm not sure if you missed it or not but Trump has been "trying" to stop the war for a year now by pressuring Ukraine/Europe and has failed spectacularly. The peace talks have amounted to nothing because Putin has simply demanded what he's demanded all along. Ukraines surrender.
The only thing Trump has in common with Biden is neither of them seem willing to sanction the ever loving f*ck out of Russia and give Ukraine the tools to bomb some common sense into the Russian economy and war machine. It's the only strategy that has not been tried so far.
You use this nebulous term "realpolitik". Im wondering what specific real political moves you would make in order to stop this war right now? Apart from simply giving Russia everything it wants. I suspect you'll be back with a waffley list of what essentially amounts to Ukraines surrender, NATO stops expanding, sanction removal etc.. Or to put it another way , Putins wishlist.
So apart from that what would you do?
Values dont save millions of lives , enforceable peace agreements do !
Like demonstrated the Minsk agreement….
Edit: and the Budapest Memorandum.
……
I think movement on the front lines in Ukraine has been minuscule for some time now and any one who takes these as an indicator that russia is winning does not understand the scale of the country that putin has tried to invade or has some ulterior motive like profiting from exploiting resources in the war torn countries involved if a putin victory of sorts was declared.
Ukraine may have avoided hitting some infrastructure targets in russia when the USA was supplying them with weapons that helped them, but Trump has cut off aid, and they have upped the production of their own weapons that will in time break putin's fossil fuel dependent economy. I think the Ukrainians continue to play lip service to Trump so cutting them off completely from USA sourced weapons and intel would be political suicide for Trump and the republican party, but he no longer has the leverage to make them accept anything that would just suit his business interests and friendship with putin.
The problem is that it's putin speaking through trump's mouth and trump is acting like someone who has been compromised by russia, maybe by something in Moscow or the paedophilia link with his epstein activities, either way, it's not advancing due to trump but in spite of him, Moscow has already poo poo'd his latest attempt. trump just isn't a strong enough leader to be able to handle putin.
As it is, the russians are continuing to take horrendous losses and are destroying their demographics for the next few decades, the real winner will be China.
???
You are ignoring the facts: Trump has already advanced Ukraine peace talks. Peace talks would not have been possible without Trump. Biden's isolationist cold war strategy with no dialogue in 3 years was not going to puke up peace talks
realpolitik demands dealing with all protagonists to stop the killing not pretending principles and political speak sound bites will halt the direction of tanks.
Values dont save millions of lives , enforceable peace agreements do ! Dismissing Trump's role as mere "sycophancy" just prolongs suffering to spite him.
Pipeline gas is one thing, but why LNG, it can easily be shipped from the US, Qatar etc?
No, not enough Republicans care to revolt against him. Some of them for fear of repercussions and reprisals by this most vindictive assinine president.
Andrew Perpetua says Ukraine pushed Russia back outside of Kostyantinivka.
Probably doesn't get as much mention because gains on the front line are visible and immediate regardless of how small. Whereas Ukraine's destruction of vital Russian infrastructure is harder to quantify and is literally a slow burn. The important thing for Ukraine will be to stay in the fight long enough until its infrastructure strategy pays dividends on the front line.
Trumps control and effective bypassing on the Congress arm of government is unprecedented.
A revolt there among republicans is a good thing. I wonder do enough of them care enough such is the current price of crossing Trump.
Not quite as depressing when you look at the absolute values…
https://energyandcleanair.org/june-2025-monthly-analysis-of-russian-fossil-fuel-exports-and-sanctions/
…or the historical data.
The value of fossil fuel imports from Russia by the EU has decreased significantly since 2021 due to sanctions and the invasion of Ukraine, falling from an estimated $108 billion (€99 billion) in 2021 to approximately €21.9 billion in the third year of the invasion (2024).
While we would like it to be less, a reduction of 80% since 2021 is not a complete fail.
when discussing how the war is going it comes down to Russia is winning and the momentum is with it because of what is happening on the front lines and the pummelling of Kiev , etc, with drones almost on a nightly basis
BUT, BUT, BUT how come there is no mention of the Ukr is making in continuing to increasingly destroy Ru ability to refine and pump its major foreign exchange earner, namely oil . And thesame Ukr action must be having an increasing effect on fuel shortages to the transport sector including the Ru army’s need for fuel
The Russians will prob take Pokrovsk eventually but will all that blood and equipment really have been worth it?
Republican civil war erupts over Ukraine in the Congress.
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Chair Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) have led the public criticism of the administration’s pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept a deal heavily tilted toward Russia’s demands.This has put them in direct opposition to Vice President Vance, who is exercising increasing influence over U.S. attempts to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a Vance ally, has taken over as Trump’s top interlocutor with Ukraine.
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Chair Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) have led the public criticism of the administration’s pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept a deal heavily tilted toward Russia’s demands.
This has put them in direct opposition to Vice President Vance, who is exercising increasing influence over U.S. attempts to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a Vance ally, has taken over as Trump’s top interlocutor with Ukraine.
This is a depressing stat from that video
I can’t understand why the Russians never learn from their folly. This is thanks to Putin yet again getting them obsessed about a single town for the sake of a propaganda win, ignoring the entire tactical picture.
Yet again, the AFU is drawing them in and destroying Russian units for the sake of what is now a ruin. You just know they’ll do it again too.
Mod - Let's just move on without commenting, one post deleted
Mod - @brickster69, do not post in this thread again.
Economist Alexander Kolyandr assesses the state of the Russian economy on DW. He says the Russian economy "is manageing" and "holding on". Growth has dropped to 1.45% though. Says the defence industry has no further to grow, no matter how much the government pumps into it. Says there are "problems" and the government sees that, and it will affect the average Russian, but not cause a similar collapse as the Soviet economy in 1990. He thinks the Russian government is too optimistic though.
For a city where Ukraine was collapsing for the last 3 months, they are doing pretty well.
That just shows 2 things:
If it's any consolation, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. There has been for a long time - secret weapons etc.
Russia running up another massive butchers bill to try and take Pokrovsk
So pretty much this new “Istanbul” is yet another pointless talking shop designed to make the Russians look somehow reasonable (and failing at said task all at once too…not a bad bit of multitasking there…)
Embarrassing that Europe won't help drive Russians out. All thoughts and prayers.
