this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024

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144

Ukrainian Special Forces and Syrian Rebels Decimate Russian Mercenaries in Syria (www.kyivpost.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

"Decimate" means to decrease by 10%.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Just stop. Meanings of words change. Besides, we’re not speaking Latin.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/the-original-definition-of-decimate

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

While I disagree with you, that was a good article.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (4 children)

This might be somewhat unpopular with some people, but I don't think Ukraine should involve itself in other countries' civil wars, but I can see why they'd do that:

they fight against Russian interests, and
they get brownie points with the West for fighting against their enemies

Still not a huge supporter of that, though.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (2 children)

That's not what they're doing, they're forcing Russia to fight harder on another front to reduce forces in Ukraine and hopefully weaken their defense enough for a major breakthrough.

If that means Russia abandons Syria then Ukraine will likely get a huge influx of Syrian mercs or Russia redistributes assets and losses ground in Ukraine, either way that's a win.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I don't know how many Syrian merchants would be available to ukraine. I do feel like russia may be more willing to abandon Syria than lose to ukraine. Even without russia there will still be fighting for awhile between the groups in Syria. It's just that the russian horse in that race will no longer be in debt to them. This isn't good for russia I'm sure, but russia has already abandoned allies for this war. Armenia was calling in the equivalent to article 5 on russia again and again. They were left to rot. I don't know how long it would take this to pay off. I can see putting pressure on them, but if you break them in Syria, it may just cause russia to pull all the troops from there and bring them to ukraine. There's a careful dance to play here.

Edit, autocorrect changed mercenaries to merchants

[+] freeman -10 points 6 months ago (3 children)

There's the small issue that Syria is still actually a sovereign country. Though of course most westerners don't really give a shit about countries in the middle east.

[–] footoro 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You mean the brutal military dictatorship that has driven millions out of the country, and incarcerated, tortured and killed further hundreds of thousands?

[–] freeman -5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

As opposed to ISIL and 'moderate' islamic militias? Or Turkey that occupies areas in the north?

Do you think life would be better for Syrians under them? After all the country was under the same regime for decades but the crisis started after the war.

You don't care about Syrians, you most likely do not actually give a shit about Ukrainians either.

[–] footoro 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Is this a football game where we have to pick sides?

Since you don’t know me you obviously also don’t know who or what I care about.

All I see is you shilling for a dictator and war criminal. That others also are fascist war criminals doesn’t make him any less evil.

[–] freeman -1 points 6 months ago

It's not sides, it's outcomes.

Is Syria better off after the civil war? It's still going to split between the same dictator, some islamic militias while many many people died and many more had fled. At least ISIL died off eventually.

I have no issue calling Assad or Putin evil. I just don't have any delusions about who their opposition was and whether they were evil or not. If they won Syria would have been worse off today. There would probably even be a conflict with Israel, the US would promptly drop them, where Syria would get even more fucked.

But it is for your that this is a game. There are clearly good guys and evil guys and any effort to slightly undermine the evil guys is worth the cost (which is not borne by your or any of the good guys). Ukraine did not make this attack to improve the situation for any Syrian. You know that, you cheer them because they are on your team.

I also want to know how do you think the world should work. After all Syria is not the only dictatorship in the world. Should random countries attack Saudi Arabia? China? Israel? Pakistan? Eritrea? Sudan?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Do you not remember the miadan? Ukraine is the last country you should try that argument with.

[–] freeman -4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What exactly was Syria's role in maidan?

Ukraine is also not the fist country that got invaded so I don't think it's somehow the 'last country you should try that argument with'.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Don't be obtuse the similarities between the the Syrian Arab spring and the maidan uprising are quite obvious if you actually know what either are.

[–] freeman -4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Don’t be obtuse the similarities between the the Syrian Arab spring and the maidan uprising are quite obvious if you actually know what either are.

Ukraine was not a dictatorship unlike Syria. Maidan succeeded and Russia attacked both openly in Crime and with 'rebels' in the East. Western support was limited till the next invasion by Russia.

Syria was a dictatorship. After the Arab spring the US started arming islamic militias and attacking Syrian forces. A couple of years later and we had fucking ISIL devastating a big part of Syria and that is when the immigration crisis from Syria peaked, not at the start of the civil war. The US kept supplying the 'moderate' islamic groups even though it was known that a lot of their equipment ended up on ISIL.

Do you really believe that any of the foreign interventions in Syria has benefited the Syrians? Do you believe it was meant to?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Swing and a miss. I've not the time to teach math or cause and effect boss. Ask your parents.

[–] freeman 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Dude you could not teach a kindergartener, you are clueless.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Whomp whomp, be more creative.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

I mean objectively we care about them perhaps too much just not for the right reasons.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think they just want to kill Russians anywhere and everywhere. That’s one less that will come to Ukraine. I don’t blame them

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Those Russian mercenaries are running recruitment operations to feed foreign nationals e.g. Syrians into the Ukraine theatre.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

They also force Russia to dedicate tactically significant resources to a region far away. This in turn weighs on logistics.

It also weighs on morale, every time Ukraine can show that Russia is not as invincible as they like their opponents to believe it helps their adversaries, who in turn can also apply more pressure on the Russian military war machine.

Allies of Russia mainly use Russian military equipment and in the current situation, exports of the Russian military industrial complex are 0 or below (they buy back previously sold equipment). So buyers of this equipment start looking for other sources of equipment, which many other countries will gladly supply. Causing the customer base of the Russian manufacturers to shrink, making development and production more expensive and alternatives more interesting. A lost customer here is usually lost for decades of not forever.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago