Invasion of Ukraine • Page 173

Ukraine pushes back Russian troops from Kupiansk, military says

Norway may increase aid to Ukraine to $2.7 billion in 2025

 

White House presses Ukraine to lower draft age to meet manpower needs against Russia

 

this is fucked up

especially in light of some of the latest polling that shows the majority of the country (52%) supporting a negotiated peace deal vs continuing fighting the war

(I do have a lot of questions about the accuracy of polling in an active war zone, were front line soldiers included in this, etc.)

 

Another great discussion from Perun; bit of a dry delivery as usual, but lots of good info here

 

The entire situation Ukraine is in is fucked up but what can they do? Do they say “congratulations, Russia and North Korea, you have more people. Here is our future.”

If this is bad, maybe an easier solution can work. Ukraine pulls a Russia and gets troops from other countries. If the aggressor can do it, the defender can.

 

I don't disagree that the entire situation is fucked up, but I think it is wrong for the United States to push for this. if Ukraine decided they were going to drop the age of conscription down to 18, I would have thoughts and opinions about that as well, but that would be a different situation. I am saying it is deeply fucked up for the Biden administration / the United States to be pushing Ukraine to do this right now.

as to your suggesting, there was this from the other day:

 

we're where we're at because of orientalist takes like this.

 

Well, yeah, the US forcibly initiating it would be a problem because it’s not their people. I agree with that being fucked up.

The article doesn’t make it sound like an ultimatum in the way that the headline does. From the article it seems that the US is recommending it as well as saying they are willing to also lend support IF Ukraine makes that choice - “So, we’re also ready to ramp up our training capacity if they take appropriate steps to fill out their ranks,”

It looks like the US is still giving Ukraine the choice to do it or not do it but, under the stat of troop numbers, the US is recommending it as a realistic course of action.

 

Let's get down to business, to defeat the PUTIN!!
Did they send me daughters when I asked for tanks?

 

Russia's War Economy Shows Signs of Strain | OilPrice.com

 

I suppose I just do not cut the United States any slack or give them the benefit of the doubt here. In my opinion, the US is being incredibly cavalier about adding the lives of 160,000 young Ukrainian men to the hundreds of thousands already killed.

Given the nature of the relationship between the two countries right now, the US "making suggestions" carries an incredible amount of weight, and Ukraine is really in an impossible situation where they are going to feel immense pressure to do what the US is "suggesting" out of fear of losing the support the US is currently giving them, which is completely and utterly essential to them but a literal accounting error and completely arbitrary to the US.

Putting it differently, there are a lot of other things that the US could do to help Ukraine right now if they wanted to help them that do not boil down to 'force hundreds of thousands of your young men to go fight a war that they do not want to fight'.

Honestly, I have to assume that countries that consider themselves allies of the United States elsewhere in the world are taking a long, hard look at Ukraine and what US "support" gets you and then doing some serious soul searching about their security arrangements.

 

“and Ukraine is really in an impossible situation where they are going to feel immense pressure to do what the US is "suggesting" out of fear of losing the support the US is currently giving them“

Not sure if you’re reading comments on X that the US said it would end support, but none of that is even hinted at in the article. Just so you know.

This is not about cutting the US slack. This is about listening to the numbers. Of course Ukraine can just not do what numbers show and watch what they’ve been fighting for over the last 3 years end up in vain because they’ll be possibly outmatched by Russian and Korean soldiers.

It’s getting real old of hearing “there are other ways”…..and then radio silence.

 

There are other ways. Russia could simply leave the Ukraine.

 

I understand that if things keep going the way that they are right now Ukraine needs a large number of soldiers that they currently do not have. There are several things that the United States could do to change this reality on the ground and fundamentally alter everything about how this war is currently being fought, all of which run the risk of this escalating to the point where it is no longer just Ukrainians and Russians (and maybe North Koreans) dying.

Specifically, the United States could actually provide Ukraine with an effective number of F-16's ourselves instead of just blowing a lot of hot air about them and relying on other countries to drip-feed small numbers of them in over years or fucking decades at this point and lending a hand training pilots on them. Or we could send F/A-18's, or a few F-22's, or hell some F-35's. The US / NATO could easily close the skies over Ukraine and not allow Russian aircraft to fly there. We could send MQ-9's, or RQ-7B Shadows or RQ-21 Blackjacks, both or which we are retiring anyway. We could send high-powered microwave systems to help combat drone swarms. There are a slew of military land vehicles that we currently use that we could provide to Ukraine if we chose to that we would never consider actually sending.

I do not think any of them are smart options, and I understand why the people making the decisions right now are reluctant to pursue them, but I would say that we are in the current situation that we are in because of the earlier disastrous and short-sighted decisions of these very same people. The US has consistently provided less than what Ukraine has needed and requested every step of the way and much more slowly than they needed it and then placed unrealistic and frankly insane expectations on the Ukrainian troops utilizing this stuff, throwing them into situations no US service member or NATO service member would ever even come close to being in.

 

“throwing them into situations no US service member or NATO service member would ever even come close to being in”

You and I both know the very clear reason why US and NATO service members are not coming close to being in them

The fact is that you need troops to fight a troop war. Russian is getting a lot of troop support from North Korea. Does someone tell Ukraine the bad news or do they keep the suggestion, and reality, to themselves?

 

I mean they are being asked to fight in battlefield conditions that no US service member would ever be asked to fight in. their offensive was launched against entrenched positions without being under anything even approaching local air superiority

 

I’m sure they would be asked if it was the US was the one being invaded.

But I’ll ask again: should the U.S. have withheld its suggestion about Ukraine’s troop situation? It doesn’t really seem like the behavior of an actual ally if they were to withhold such a suggestion. It seems better to share their thoughts with Ukraine and let Ukraine make its own decision based on them—which, according to the article, is exactly what happened.

 

if the United States assesses that Ukraine will need far more than 160,000 additional troops to stay in this fight then, yes, the US should share this assessment with Ukraine.

I think it is monstrous however to tell them that they need to start forcing Ukrainian men aged 24 to 18 who clearly do not want to be fighting in this war that they need to while continuing to withold all of the other things that I pointed out above and more.

For me it goes back to the original sin of not actually helping Ukraine enough to allow them to push Russia back to pre Feb 2022 lines and looking at this entire situation as an opportunity to kill Russian soldiers and weaken Russia militarily and economically without having to officially go to war against them and put US service members' lives (and US citizens' lives if we're being honest) at risk.

 

Orientalist take?

He’s right.

And I know my sh-t.

Mother from Russia, visited Russia tons of time, spent summers there, know russian culture to its fucking core, from god-awful Dostoevskiy to the brilliant, god-tier Sorokin, from Guyday to Tarkovskiy and Balabanov, I know it all. My friends were attacked by ruzzian government (art group VOINA, very famous anti mainstream performance artists, Nadia Tolikonnikova was a part of it; my future wife hide them in Kyiv’s apartments in 2008-2009; the funny part is half of the group became Z patriots after 2022). But anyway… Could you please remind me, what performance artists were arrested in the US for the last… like, 20 years? For expressing their opinion?

I know how putin killed his own people in staged “terrorist attacks” from “terrorist Chechnia”, another country which was viciously attacked by ruzzia. It was early 2000s. Then there were killed journalists, politicians, opponents.

You’re seriously comparing US and ruzzia.

Give me a reminder, when did US occupied the country and started shoving their passports into peoples throat?

Give me a reminder, why Bush Sr is not the acting president of your country?

May I ask, why do you think Ukrainians (these little white trash stupid people who can’t decide what empire to serve) giving their lives to stop ruzzia from spreading? Maybe because everything putins ruzzia is proposing is r*pe, m*rder, and poverty? And to be honest, it’s not putin ruzzia. But I won’t even start it.

Do you guys know what percentage of Ukrainians supported Ukraine joins NATO thing in 2014? LESS than 40%.

ruzzia wanted to join NATO, even landed its land in Rostov for a few bases. But then volodia was informed that westerns won’t roll with all his bullshit in Georgia, Ukraine and so on. And volodia decided he’ll make everyone respect ruzzia and his PSYCHOTIC goal of REUNITING EMPIRE.

Where is the west to blame? The collective west is 1) corrupted by ruzzia; 2) scared OF ESCALATION OMG 3) even more corrupted

The Budapest thing… Yeah, it’s all bs, no one cares, OK.

What the fuck is this “orientalist” take, I dunno… This guy said it as it is.

Once again. 2014. September. Ukraine is promised to drift to EU, papers signed. November. Putin presses Yanukovich, and he back pedals the agreement with EU. Protests arose. Students get beaten. The situation escalates. Yanukovich is scared to use full
force. February. People are killed by Berkut spec-op forces. 100 people are killed. Yanukovich flees to russia.

March. Putin enters his troops to Crimea, and WONT ADMIT it was russia troops UNTIL 2020. “But people were happy”, says our geopolitical expert Joe Rogan, or some similar human shit. The truth is not, they were not. My father’s friend lost 10M business there to some ruzzian general, also his bank accounts were taken care of. Crimea tatars faced political
pressure and ran away. Many, many
people were just scared, because this beautiful “Crimea joins ruzzia sign here”
thing was accompanied by armed forces everywhere.

Late March, April. Putin enters troops to Donbass, the Donbass is absolutely fucking destroyed. Who were the leaders of russian Donbas? Ex-convicts, murderers, bandits. Google Motorola Donbass.

Meanwhile, to the westerns ruzzia is a “country with a mystery… oooh… ruzzian soul… ohhh… you’ll never understand”… Because it’s marketed this way. And putin is one of the richest persons on earth now.

Could you imagine that the guy who runs the country for fucking TWENTY FIVE years, who
stole all that gas/oil money (ruzzia is #1 country in terms of many resources, gas is one of them), wouldn’t go emmm a little crazy?

Especially when his favorite ruzzian writer and “philosopher” Illin, he even opened monument of him. Illin is a nazi who worked with Nazi Party and took care of public relations. Wow such mystery russki dusha!

So yes, YES, the reason for this war is a fucking retarded psycho named colodia putin. He’s not smart in a good way. He’s manipulative little douchebag surrounded by talented people whom he bought to indoctrinate his psycho narrative into russians heads (google Surkov). But his level… is sexist offensive dirty jokes, stupid giggling, and hiding in his bunker when atacams news came.

US wants all the white slavic trash kept in one place. They don’t want ruzzia to be destroyed into 1000 little countries, all with nukes. They also don’t really care about Ukraine because we another slavic trash. Thus we have this politic from Us - help. but not too
much. Especially when there are tons of morons who believe ruzzia will use their fucking nukes. I mean they got Kursk occupied, what else did they need to strike Kyiv? Now atacams, and little roe jogan says “fuck zelensky, fuck your people”. Poor little corrupted soulless pig.

No nukes will be used. And no WW3, for now. Let them take Ukraine, and then yes, you’ll see ww3 in five-ten years.

I can write all of this in this tone because I’m in Kyiv haha! And still alive although my mental state is not so great. But it could be worse.

We’re still rolling here despite everything

But bottom line: yes, the only reason the war is happening is putin’s wet desires of one nazi country under one g-d (him)

Not NATO or Joey Biden, not Zelensky or Ukrainian fools who can’t just lie and die already.

Logging out for another half a year, will check responses later

sorry for a strong language, and, this is serious—

I indeed love y’all and know that your takes are coming from good heart, all of them

thank you for even discussing this topic here, keep checking and participating in any kind - discussion, donate, sharing

XX

 

what are your thoughts on the recent polling that seems to indicate that a majority of the Ukrainian population supports negotiating for a peace settlement now as opposed to continuing to fight?

 

yes.

 

US is absolutely worse than Russia

 

but the US is NOT barbaric. i repeat, NOT barbaric!

Now Happy Thanksgiving...

 

If I recall you were the first to share that you’re skeptical of that exact poll. What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are that I’m sure EVERY Ukrainian wants a peace settlement that favors Ukraine. Not a peace settlement that doesn’t. And so far none have favorited Ukraine, so I support them wanting such a peace settlement and I hope they get it.

 

Well, the US isn’t forcing Ukraine to lower the age and they’re not going to penalize Ukraine if they reject the recommendation. I don’t see anything wrong with it. They’re just putting it on the table. Here’s the thing about war. No one wants to do it. It’s unfair and most people involved are going against their own wants. Ever since Russia invaded, fighting a war they didn’t want has been the hand Ukraine has been dealt. If the numbers show that more troops are needed then that’s what the numbers show. And if NATO troops can’t be used, the troops will have to come from within Ukraine. It’s a logistical argument, not a moral argument.

I agree that the US should (and have an obligation to) help more. Russia gave strong threats regarding the use of F-16s and we know those threats went nowhere, although bad faith actors were crying that appeasement should happen instead of F-16s. I think the US shouldn’t hold back in all areas other than sending troops.