The report is absolutely scathing. Some choice quotes:
But when the next crisis came, both the US and the governments of Europe fell back on old models of alliance leadership. Europe, as EU high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell loudly lamented prior to Russiaās invasion, is not really at the table when it comes to dealing with the Russia-Ukraine crisis. It has instead embarked on a process of vassalisation.
But āaloneā had a very specific meaning for Scholz. He was unwilling to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine unless the US also sent its own main battle tank, the M1 Abrams. It was not enough that other partners would send tanks or that the US might send other weapons. Like a scared child in a room full of strangers, Germany felt alone if Uncle Sam was not holding its hand.
Europeansā lack of agency in the Russia-Ukraine crisis stems from this growing power imbalance in the Western alliance. Under the Biden administration, the US has become ever more willing to exercise this growing influence.
Ok let me stop you right there. Russia put everything it has into the Ukrainian frontline. If you have any illusions about that consider their military response to an armed rebellion: A couple of planes (all of which were lost), mountains of police forces ā with like three armored vehicles between them. Transports, not tanks or artillery. In technical terms Russia right now has exactly zero defence in depth, and their other borders are pretty much deserted.
The situation youāre looking at right now is nowhere close to a stalemate. The reason we only now see Ukrainian gains is because a) weather and b) Ukraine training troops, receiving hardware from the west, etc, for the last months. Why would Ukraine start an offensive in unsuitable weather with disorganised forces with cracked tires and reactive armor replaced by cardboard: Theyāre not Russians.
Summing up: Ukraine is currently rolling, slowly but surely, over the combined might (minus nukes) of the Russian armed forces. And you wanted to tell me Russia would stand a chance even against, say, France, alone.
I want Russiaās imperial aggression to cease as soon as possible. And as they donāt seem to be willing to leave willingly they will need to be driven out.
I would never suggest such hypothetical as it doesnāt even make sense from a geopolitical perspective for either party in my opinion. Neither would ever declare war on each other alone as things stand. My point is that I donāt believe you are correct in saying that āRussia canāt match Ukraineā given that they have achieved their official war goal a whole year ago. Feel free to correct me with some official Russian statement on how they actually want anything more than those 4 Oblasts and Ukraine out of NATO, things that are already well within their grasps.
That seems to be the definition of a stalemate, yes. If the stalemate is ending now, we will only be able to tell in the future. If neither side is making gains due to logistics, strategy or elements outside of their control, I donāt know what to call it other than a stalemate.
Do you dislike Russians as a people or something? That seems like a weird comparison to make on basis of ethnicity alone.
Are the Russian forces supposed to be able to match both Ukrainian and Russian forces now?
But is that more important than ending the war as soon as possible? Can there be no peace so long as Russia occupies the 4 oblasts? In other words, can peace only come if Ukraine wins a decisive victory and not a day before? For the record, I am generally in favour of an immediate cease fire so that negotiations can happen without further spilling of blood.
yogthos said:
(I first thought that was you but it actually wasnāt, however, doesnāt matter itās still the context)
To which I replied:
Now, if you accept that Europe as a whole has more military might than Ukraine alone, my point stands. I rest my case.
Do you play chess? You can have long exchanges of moves without one player capturing a piece, yet any observer with knowledge of the game will be able to tell you that one is winning, and the other is losing.
An army indeed should be able to match a mercenary company it employs, yes.
Ask the people lying in mass graves in Bucha. Ask the prisoners of war Russians castrated with pocket knives. If Russia is given the territories they will not know peace, they will know genocide and tyranny: No, there cannot be peace as long as Russia is occupying, categorically so precisely because genocide and tyranny arenāt peace.
Also besides the point countries cannot be allowed to get away with wars of conquest. As a tankie Iād expect you to hold that imperialism is bad in any and all circumstances, but, it seems, youāre blind on the Russian eye. I wonder why, itās not that current-day Russia would be anywhere close to communist, in either name or action, why are you taking their side?
I certainly have no side in this war, I only wish for the bloodshed to end however it needs to. I have not even defended Russia from any moral standpoint, and am specifically only arguing about that specific point you made. If you think saying āUkraine is not winning right nowā is defending Russia, you might be conflating (controversial) assessments of war performance with some kind of endorsement for the winning side. Germany defeated France in WW2, doesnāt mean they were the goodest good boys.
Your point does not really stand because 1) I have never mentioned the rest of Europe myself here and am only attempting to understand and correct a possible misrepresentation of the conflict as if Russia is not āmatchingā Ukraine itself, which would require Russia to be trying and failing to advance in Ukraine rather than defending conquered positions, and 2) Ukraine is receiving a good chunk of material support from NATO and other NATO countries, which should count against the notion that Ukraine is single-handedly blocking some complete Russian advance.
From my very humble understanding, Russiaās official stance is only to maintain their annexation, in which case they already achieved all that they sought to through war, and need only defend their new positions. Can you provide me any source that goes in-depth on how this not true?
The mercs they employ is part of their total forces, but counting a revolt of a corp as some victory for Ukraine seems misguided. Were the mutineer communist soldiers in WW1 in Russia a victory for the Kaiser?
Everything below here is beside the point and tangential.
Taking this rather simplistic chess analogy, Russia controls the parts of the board it intends to, and Ukraine has finally started pushing it back. Either way chess is a terrible analogy because there are no peace treaties in that game and it only ends when one side wins definitively or in a complete draw. Since you like Paradox, itās more like if Russia currently occupies the the war goal and is just waiting for the war score to go up while defending counter-offensives. Still simplistic, but I believe it is more appropriate. Real life complexities donāt translate well into games though.
Taking your word for these, why exactly is the only way to stop that with direct warfare? Has Russia ever denied the condition of free passage of Ukranians in the 4 Oblasts to the rest of Ukraine in case of a ceasefire? How is soldiers dying in the front materially helping those people? And why does Ukraine not evacuate all of their civilians who want no part in the war if they want to avoid such atrocities?
Ukrainian manpower is, with NATO surplus materiel. Going up against even just the EU, not the whole of NATO, would involve going up against more than twice the current size of the Ukrainian army, and thatās without conscription, itās all professional soldiers. Well-equipped ones at that.
In Russia, in the meantime, well, Shoigu has some very nice villas, so do his generals. Not terribly useful in a war, though.
If you compare Russian vs. Ukrainian morale Russiaās war exhaustion was at like 50% the moment the three-day offensive failed. In Ukraine people were queuing at recruitment centres, the army didnāt have capacity to train that many people at once. Contrast Russia which wanted to conscript 300k people, upon which 700k (conservative estimate) fled the country. Many more would like to but donāt have the means. Russia is a big place if you want to vanish in the woods thereās pretty much nothing stopping you but your survival skills.
Russia has been force-relocating people to filtration camps. They have abducted children. Give me one good reason to believe theyād grant freedom of movement.
Also, irrelevant: Those areas would still be under Russian rule. Thatās imperialism and remember imperialism bad and must be opposed.
Because the Russian army would shoot at them. They also shoot at aid workers trying to bring supplies to people affected by the Nova Kakhovka dam breach while themselves not lifting a finger to help people.
But to bring out a more general point: None of this is your decision. Mine, neither, itās just that my position aligns with what Ukrainians themselves want: Their country back, and Russia to fuck off. Had the three-day offensive succeeded Ukrainians wouldāve started a partisan war, theyāre tenacious bastards.
Also I find this whole āpacifism is when you roll over and let me kick youā line of thinking highly distasteful. No, maybe I want to break my fist on your skull when you fuck with me and my loved ones because Š¾ŃŃŠµŠ±ŠøŃŃ Šø ŃŠ± ŃŠ²Š¾Ń Š¼Š°ŃŃ.
Becoming rather rude are we?
Yes, but the point is not about āmatchingā the EU but only Ukraine. Iām not insisting on this line of thought about Europe and Russia fighting a fictional all out war, so Iād advise you to drop it as well. Instead focus on your first claim that āRussia canāt match Ukraineā and actually argue against what I have said there, instead of some anachronistic hypothetical. Russia has spent the last 1 year mostly occupying their claimed lands, despite the full mobilisation of Ukraine and their NATO arsenal and training, who is only now finally maybe making some headway. I would say that they have at least āmatchedā Ukraine there. They donāt need to invade the entirety of Ukraine because that was never their stated goal. It is okay to admit you were being hyperbolic there.
The rest, again, is tangential and beside the point of the argument over the āmatching Ukraine so farā point. Valuable? Yes. But is not related to my original point. Iād rather you focused on the above rather than the following as this is getting too tangential into the morality of war.
So, it was never a demand from Ukraine at the negotiating table to stop those relocations or to allow inspections? If it was, did Russia never respond? If we are just assuming things rather than providing sources we canāt make much progress here.
Not sure what you mean there. How exactly is it more imperialist for Russia to annex regions that have significant Russian and Ukrainian populations, but not for Ukraine to annex them back? Imperialism bad, sure, but if you define imperialism binarily youāre not gonna go very far considering how complex the question of ethnicity and self-determination is in border regions. If Ukraine somehow wins and joins NATO, this will also surely have imperialist repercussions as that organisation is the ultimate imperial bloc worldwide. So should Ukraine then avoid NATO because of a binary notion of imperialism?
I donāt refer to evacuating civilians in occupied areas, but rather the rest of Ukraine under Ukrainian control. Men aged over 18 have been forbidden from leaving Ukraine. Families have to bend over backwards to reunite in the rest of Europe. If the lives of Ukrainian civilians is important (and I believe it is), the first priority should be relocating all those who donāt wish to participate in this war. And use all that NATO tech for that as well. Then we can think about more operations like counter-offensives.
Not as individuals, yes. But you probably have a government that is very keen to support more Ukrainian war efforts but not so keen to support Ukrainian and Russian refugees fleeing the war. And this is an internet forum, so what Iām saying here is not directed only at you, so hopefully some people question this notion that we need more deaths to save some lives. Either way, this was all about pedantically correcting your statement implying that Ukraine has been overwhelmingly winning against a Russian offensive, which is not really the case.
Also I donāt recommend ever summing up a whole ethnic group as having a single position or tendency. Youāll find that some Ukrainians actually just want their basic necessities met wherever in the world they are. Others are furries. People are diverse.
This is not about pacifism, it is about being pragmatic. Throwing in more soldiers to die has not proven effective at saving innocent Ukrainians. Weāve had 300 thousand dead now. The land is not people, and if you want to save people instead of land, youāll have to accept some land losses. After a ceasefire, itāll be much easier to negotiate human rights inspections and evacuate all Ukrainians who donāt wish to remain in the new Russian domains. But sticking stubbornly to some possible future in which the Russian forces are driven out through sheer willpower and NATO hardware does nothing to help those people right now. If some heads have to roll, sure, but how many heads, both Ukrainian and Russian, have to roll before we recognise that this is not really working?
Are you fucking serious. āWas it ever a Ukrainian demand to stop the genocide of Ukrainian peopleā. Are you listening to yourself. Have you touched grass recently.
People who had it happening to them donāt call it āevacuationā. Evacuations also donāt tend to be by force, or end in internment camps.
You claim to be āoh so neutralā and yet youāre regurgitating Kremlin propaganda 1:1. I have no idea who youāre trying to convince, here.
Thatās wounded, not killed. Killed we have about 70k Russians, maybe 20k Ukrainian soldiers. Not counting civilians (which are overwhelmingly Ukrainian, anyway).
Obviously, Russia throwing more soldiers into the grinder to die has not proven effective in advancing its war goals, so why arenāt they fucking off to their side of the border? This kind of logic always cuts both ways and you applying it to one side only betrays your bias.
āWeā doesnāt matter. Ukraine will fight until itās free, Russia until itās exhausted. Thatās whatās going to happen, thatās how war works, no matter your preference, war is and will always be unaesthetic: It continues until the parties have an agreement on what can be achieved by both sides, and with Russia being unrealistic (because jingoist and superiority complex and Š²Š°Š»ŃŠ¹, ŠµŠ±ŃŠ½Š° Š¼Š°ŃŃ!1) itās dragging out. Russiaās mind about its own goals cannot currently be changed by any other means but on the battlefield, thatās why thatās where negotiations take place.
I subscribe to the same philosophy as Linus Torvalds in these matters. You can rest assured that Iām not writing in anger.
1 You probably donāt get the reference: Pushkin, The Wagon of Life.
Please no needless rudeness, thancc. Also you forgot to respond to the absolute only thing I actually care about (the āRussia canāt match Ukraineā while Russia controls their war goals contradiction), while talking a lot about a bunch tangential stuff I explicitly mentioned is besides the point. Could you properly address that bit rather than focusing on unrelated morality questions?
I have, just this morning in fact. The blades of grass sadly donāt bring news about European wars. You might not be aware, but the world outside cares very little about this one war. Please answer the question or ignore it, but thereās no need to be this aggressive for a basic curious question. If you care so much about Ukraine, you could provide the info you have rather than attack me for asking. And if you think this answer is so obvious, instead provide me a link.
You seem to misunderstand what I said there. I am not advocating for the Russian forces to āevacuateā Ukrainians from the warzone, but rather for the Ukraine government to evacuate all civilians who canāt or donāt wish to contribute to the war to their western allies in Europe. That is not happening right now, and could possibly save many lives. Could even use those NATO transports. Itās not good for the war cause, yes, but it would save lives.
No idea what that is about. Sadly I donāt know Russian and get most of my news from popular European and Unitedstadian outlets, so I find it hard to believe Iām getting it from the Kremlin. If that is just a knee-jerk reaction to the previous misunderstanding, I apologise I guess.
Thank you for the correction. In either case, itās a lot of people dead, specially on the Russian side. I think the point still stands there.
I donāt see any Russians here advocating for the continuation of the war, do you? If they were Iād equally push back at their ideas. But the reality here is that they control some regions, and kindly asking a military to forgo all of its conquests will mean that the war was for nothing. Meanwhile, Zelenskyās administration in conjunction with NATO seems intent on dragging this war out until either Russia loses all conquests or every able-bodied Ukrainian is dead. Now which sounds more viable as a peace talk demand, for Russia to forgo every conquest theyāve spent Russian lives, labour and capital on, and also pay a bunch of reparations on top of their sanctions, or for Ukraine to accept its current de facto domain and work within it to safeguard the lives of Ukrainians in all lands without having to send more troops on counter-offensive after counter-offensive? Neither is a pleasant choice, but there are no pleasant choices in war.
And then I guess we circle back to the old point where Russia has already pretty much achieved its goal and is just fighting to keep what land they grabbed at this point. I think itās just a matter of opinion on what is āunrealisticā, as I also find it very unrealistic to believe some invading army would just give up on its conquests, specially if they believe their own rhetoric (and Iām pretty sure a bunch of them do) of trying to prevent NATO encroachment and protecting the Russians in the now annexed lands. Could the same case for āunrealisticā not be applied to Ukrainians who demand such capitulation? If āUkraine will fight until itās freeā, itās safe to assume that the war will go on until either every able-bodied Ukrainian (who hasnāt fled illegally) is dead or victory is achieved. I would certainly not support some government in marshal law that puts in practice such a plan.
Linus Torvalds is famous for his C programming skills, not his communication capabilities. It would be less of a waste of both our times if you spent your words on information rather than petty insults.
Sorry, I donāt read European poetry. can I interest you in some Funk?
If you donāt want me to address points, maybe donāt bring them up?
About 8.2 million, thatās like 20%, have fled. Numbers oscillate but many are going back to help the war effort, sometimes even with children.
Believe it or not but a people might want to fight. Not just a leader, not just an army, but a people. Generally speaking you donāt want to piss off Slavs. Their national anthem (complete banger, no, not Funk) is about pretty much nothing else but this. First used 1917, then Russia happened, then in use since 1995, and now Russia happens again. If you have a look at different anthems of eastern European states many contain language such as āOur country isnāt lost, yetā, āWe havenāt yet perishedā, each and every time itās referring to Russia.
If you get your information from European media, youāre not getting told those kinds of cultural and historical background because they donāt need to be said. If you get your news from the US itās likely that itās at least interspersed with Kremlin propaganda. They donāt understand why Europe is fighting, either, they just want to bonk some Russkis, donāt want to be seen not doing anything while the rest of NATO is up in arms, but also need to be dragged into doing things ā because they donāt understand Russia.
This war would already be over had Ukrainians received better support from the start.
First off, no because Ukraine will have won long before then. Secondly, no because if the war was going badly for Ukraine (it isnāt) Poles etc. would volunteer en masse. Speaking of Poland the only reason their military isnāt in Ukraine right now is because NATO also is a leash.
As the joke goes, two Polish veterans meet in a bar. Asks the one: āSuppose Germany and Russia again invade us at the same time. Who do we shoot at first?ā ā āEasyā, says the other, āThe Germans: Business before pleasureā.
Yes. Thatās why they have to be kicked out by force.
And here I thought you said you wanted to learn more about Russia. That poem describes the Russian soul and its own exasperation with it.
As to the more general point of āRussia is losingā: I guess itās useless to argue further, youāve made up your mind. Ukraine and its people disagree with you.
Go start watching the progress of war more closely (about any youtuber going over maps, try e.g. this one). Promise me youāll eat your shoes if Ukraine wins in under a year from now and I promise I will neither gloat nor insist you actually do it.