Last I heard is they withdrew significant forces from Izium so as to prevent them from being surrounded. It's obvious that at this point Russia cares more about not losing significant amount of men versus holding territory.

It's a serious win for Ukraine not sure at what cost thought. Typically blitzkriegs could be very costly men wise. I seen footage of streams of ambulances pouring into Kiev (very far from the front) with Russian channels saying that the losses were very heavy so closer hospitals in Kharkiv are full. Not sure if it's cope but there was similar type of footage in Mikolaev a week or two ago when they were pushing in Kherson.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Sep 10 2022 12:10pm

Yeah, Russia is claiming that they've destroyed thousands of Ukrainian forces and hundreds of pieces of armor. Typically Russian claims like that tend to hold up, but given the psychological hit they may be taking atm maybe they're exaggerating.

Both can be true, they may be exaugurated but it can still be partially true. Advancing fast means you're putting yourself under artillery fire, sacrificing safety for speed. The Russian air force was also peppering the advancing armor so who knows what losses are.

I see chopdix is back on a new account

treat it as another user imo. the style of writing is different (unless im going blind).

I'm not a sockpuppet. Most of the world doesn't support Ukraine in this war, most of them don't support either side, but a whole lot hope that Russia uses Ukraine as an anvil to hurt the economies and militaries of the West, responsible for so much misery in the world.

I'm not Russian, and tbqh while I can respect that Putin is at least a serious leader (unlike all of the clowns the West sticks in power) who has effectively managed an incredibly difficult situation post-1991, I don't like his internal policies. I don't like his policies in this war, either. My support for Russia in this war is based primarily on wanting to see the West politically fracture, and for dollar hegemony to end. The former is possible, the latter is an absolute certainty IMO.

Most of the world is against Russia but they don't want to risk their economies. I can't blame them for that since most of them shit where they eat.

At the end of the day though, the West and it's allies have united around opposing Russia. We're stronger than ever and the world will be more stable after this catastrophe.

That's some of it, but to pretend it's anywhere near all is blind.

There's also longstanding support for Russia, a carry over from the USSR's support for their liberation struffles during decolonization.

There's also a genuine dislike of Western imperialism. Africans are aware that they grow the coffee but Nabob isn't headquartered there. That France has extensive nuclear power but not an ounce of uranium. That they aren't underdeveloped, they are overexploited. So they see Russia as standing up to that and (hopefully) winning. Bolivians know who supported the 2019 coup. Mexicans know about the politics of the drug war and who wants it to continue.

Again, for the hundredth time - just because you're on the internet doesn't mean that you are outside of the Western media bubble.

Edit: India's External Affairs Minister, answering a Western journalist's question: "I am partly reacting to the previous observation... somewhere Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problem but the world's problems are not Europe's problems. And there is a reflection of it."

Captures Global South ambivalence quite well, IMO.

This post was edited by kusotarre1 on Sep 10 2022 08:41pm

I don't think this is true. Post WW2 was that time. The world is becoming bifurcated. The countries that are on the fence or refused to follow the west's lead see it and that's why they rather be neutral and sit on the sanctions sideline, something that would of never really happened a few decades ago.