How can Donetsk be loaded with manufacturing if most males been sent/already dead in the trenches, others just migrated either to west or east? Or you have any credible source of factories/plants producing something there?

What construction projects? They built like 30 apartment buildings that look ok on the outside, but inside its all falling apart and unliveable. If you agree that this conflict is not about morals why do you keep bringing up “moral reasons” then?

This post was edited by MichaelWS on Apr 28 2024 02:20am

The manufacturing base of the east is centered on areas beyond the front lines deep in Russian held territory. In Donetsk, Severodonetsk, Luhansk. The coal and gas of the region stretches along the basin to the far east and past the border with Russia. Some are untouched, some of that has certainly been obliterated like Mariupol but is being rebuilt in those construction projects you dismiss, and they sit on the resources the Russians are going to capitalize upon. Construction projects like ya know, the biggest bridge in Europe. Entire cities being rebuilt, some of the biggest civil engineering projects on earth right now

A moral argument would be something like me pointing out how this mirrors the way America left Libya's infrastructure in disrepair after toppling Gaddafi and abandoning the country and we bear culpability for the failure of their water resources and dam collapse at Derna that killed thousands. What isn't a moral argument, is pointing out that American policy predictably abandons its proxy war pawns, adopts refugees that stress social welfare systems in the US and EU and eventually gives up on conflicts entirely, while Russia is motivated by rational self-interest and strategic necessities. These are descriptions of the dynamics of the system, not moral lectures about what should happen in some idealized world where everyone sings kumbayah and holds hands.
"Morals" aren't the reason I could predict how this war would end before it even began.

Entire cities being rebuilt as in 30 apartment buildings for propaganda purposes, the liveable ones that are marketed for the wealthier Russians to come and buy, all others for the locals already falling apart? While whole city still resembles Aleppo?

Please sir, learn to filter out propaganda, Russian Government just like any other doesnt care about people. If it did it would solve 1000s of problems it has inside its own borders.

If you think Ukraine people or Russian people have genuine desire to go die/become cripple for a village nobody can find on the map you better visit psychiatric clinic.

This post was edited by MichaelWS on Apr 28 2024 04:09am

As for bridge being built, just another propaganda monument, economically it doesnt reimburse the budget and is net negative overall. Some Russian elite made bunch of money, same way Ukraine elites making money off Russian gas transit right now while celebrating drone attacks on Russian gas/oil infrastructure.

Learn to use your head

Again with the anarchoconspiratorial fever dream. Putin isn't some ogre sitting upon a throne of skulls drinking the blood of babies, he has rational motivations and predictable behaviors. The coherence of his actions are the advantage of his dictatorship and contrast with the incoherence of the democratic west. And those people in the east of Ukraine were fighting a civil war with the help of his little green men for 8 years before the invasion and he spent those years investing in their infrastructure, only western propaganda pretends they're some oppressed and occupied territory. America has been investing in trying to blow up the largest bridge in Europe and failed to do so, do you think the people of Crimea cheer on our attacks?
We'd be a lot better at actually opposing Russia's hostile actions if we bothered to understand Putin's thought process and had a good sense of our own strategic options instead of blundering about like we have been. The phone call between Macron and Putin shows how deep that vein of incompetence goes. Biden could have taken a hard line and dared Putin to call a bluff on the invasion but instead he dithered and plunged us into this fruitless half measure, presumably because some genius got the idea that we could bait Russia into a costly war and needle them, with that cold war zero sum mindset that every Russian loss is our gain. Now here we are, losing.

Yea yea coming from a guy who thinks that pre-2014 subsidised by Ukraine government regions that lost 80-90% of their economically productive populace since 2014 and decayed for all these years are now manufacturing packed resources hubs that will uplift entire Russia economy once this is over.

Same as you thinking that placing a bet on a big power being able to inflict major damage on small poverty stricken power at its doorsteps is some sagacity insight.

Just not sure for which side you are bigger useful idiot for, with your cold war esq mentality, Western military complex or its Russian analogue.

Funniest thing about naive people, is that they dont realise they are far more emotionally engaged in these conflicts than Putin, Ukraine President, Biden combined haha

This post was edited by MichaelWS on Apr 28 2024 04:52am

Vladimir Putin made that calculation. You can disagree with it all you want, its his transparent motivation. When the war is settled and Americans disregard Ukraine like they do Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria, Russia will a sphere of influence that extends over the lion's share of Ukrainian resources. He made his country self-sufficient, prioritized being an energy and manufacturing and farming country instead of a service and information driven economy. And that's a rational strategy, the belief that the stakes of the future will be in tangible assets not accounting contrivances.

The world isn't run by people adhering to some infantile reductionist view where its their job to be snidely whiplash villains who profiteer at the expense of starving masses. Nor is it run by grand strategists with brilliant xanatos gambits. Its run by fallible people, with their own visions and interests and conflicts, all trying to do what they think is right. The Biden/Obama administrations infected themselves with true believer Ukrainian nationalists who itched for war with Russia, with cold war mentality hawks who wanted to exploit them to tear down Russia, and with self-interested politicians who believe the ends justify the means. Putin has the luxury of a singular purpose, one heartbeat away from chaos.

Rational people try to understand how these systems work. Irrational people scream about how all gub'ment is evil and men must free themselves from the shackles of society by taking off their underwear in public

This post was edited by Goomshill on Apr 28 2024 04:59am

Rational people understand that one side brings the firewood the other side brings the spark. You can discuss artificial reasons to make it all happen like Russian green people, Ukraine nazis, attacks on rusty boats/100 guys retreating causing domino effects all you like though. Not with me though, our conversation ran its course. Gl with your endeavours.

The defeated Russian army is capturing more Ukrainian towns as they continue their advance

Every time I hear about Russia losing the war, I think of that Ukrainian pilot story they made up. The Ghost of Kyiv... LOL. The whole war has been a marketing ploy to make America more munitions to sell, try to help bolster it's economy with another war to fund.. etc etc.. I feel for the Ukrainian and Russian people suffering through it all.