this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
586 points (94.1% liked)
World News
32387 readers
312 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Did I read the same article as everyone else? I don't get where "failed offensive" is coming from. It was western media that created the impression of an impending counter-offensive that would all but end the war, not anything from Ukraine's armed forces as far as I know.
This doesn't sound like a "failed" offensive to me. The "much-vaunted" part came from the West, not Ukraine. It sounds to me like western officials got themselves psyched up based on nothing and are now whining about it. So like, yeah, critics of the slow counteroffensive, shut up. You sound as ridiculous as the people who acted like Kyiv would be taken by March 2022.
billions of dollars of western equipment and they recaptured a dozen villages.
The Russians have the parts of Ukraine they want and have fortified heavily which leads my analysis of the situation to be that Ukraine recapturing the taken area is not realistic and their goal of getting Crimea on top of that to be completely delusional
Ukraine needs to get within artillery range of certain major logistical hubs to hamper Russian reinforcement and supply via the southern corridor. And it is close, now. The Russian administrators of Melitopol have already abandoned the place.
With ATACMS, this would have been easier, fyi.
Only people who don't understand the situation repeat the sort of thing you are claiming.
Furthermore, the US aid to Ukraine was mostly stuff that was destined to be decommissioned. The "billions of dollars" is on paper, not in fact. Nothing Ukraine is receiving from the USA is current gen or in use by the US and therefore isn't diminishing the US armed forces. Arguably it's actually increasing US strength, since the USA is now ramping up artillery shell production.
From a strategic standpoint, destroying the Russian military (estimated around 50% of Russia's MBTs and Airforce) in exchange for stuff you weren't going to use anyway is a bargain.
no one wants them to hit those places with artillery if the Ukrainians start using American artillery on Russian cities the Americans will have kittens
Russia has nuclear weapons which means there is a line that can't be crossed with regard to dealings with them
It's all about plausible deniability. The US didn't want to arm them with anything that could reach Moscow and hit Russian territory in general, but the Ukrainians have developed the ability to do so on their own, so now US officials I think are more willing to discuss these things, since it can't be directly traced to them (since now Russia can't prove it was specifically American armaments or equipment used whenever it gets hit inside it's territory).
no they haven't they're using artilery equipment we gave them.
Don't blatantly lie.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-weapons-can-hit-russia-targets-430-miles-away-zelenskyy-2023-9 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-develops-weapon-zelenskyy-says-1.6953132
So, if you wanna say "oh secretly it was still the US that supplied the drones or whatever", extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I thought you were talking about artillery. Those drones are just repurposed consumer drones fitted with explosives they aren't on the scale needed to make a major difference
Nope. Just to be sure I went back and checked my initial wording, and I can see why you thought I meant artillery. I should have specified that they are using their own domestically developed military equipment to strike targets within Russia, which could theoretically allow them plausible deniability to then use a couple of Western-supplied artillery, assuming they could do it in such a way that Russia wouldn't be able to tell if it was a drone, IED, or proper artillery.
These weapons are the kind of thing the Ukrainians have developed to "retaliate" against random civilian housing blocks whenever Russia craters a command center. They're basically modern V1/V2 rockets "This will terrify the russian population into submission!!"
While i don't doubt Russian civilians have gotten hurt or killed, ukraine isn't targeting city centers or hospitals deliberately the way Russia has.
Lol really.
How many Russian civilians has Ukraine "indiscriminately killed", compared to Russia's "collateral damage" when they target "Ukranian command centers".
Reading this sort of abject nonsense on a day where a Ukranian market was hit with an S300, killing.a minimum 16 people, or when Russia spent the whole winter trying to freeze Ukrainians to death, or bombs cafés where authors and journalists are known to congregate...
You know what, just fuck you, you genocidal apologist. And fuck Russia, nation of barbarians.
You do realize that increasing us strength and military spending are bad things right? That just means more death and misery to thr world in general and US residents aslo?
Yes, we should just let China and Russia run roughshod over everyone.
TBH, if the military just did some proper accounting and auditing, it would save a ton of money and be just as efficient.