Surely the US can endlessly fund Ukraine with $$ paper, but attrition of physical war assets is real and I think a major reason why support is changing among independents and republicans. Not so much about Russia outpacing, but US weakening on the whole. Perhaps some strong arming rehtoric Blinken trying to peddle before peace talks or something.

if you mean men, your not wrong.

In the meantime you were celebrating another weapons delivery escalation by the EU, lol

Apparently Ukraine already burned through the 1M+ shells that the US provided?

I believe that Mcconnell statement comes from a discussion he had with other western leaders (Ukraine, France, Poland) on a program called conflict zone. He states the the money sent to Ukraine so far has only amounted to about 0.02% of US GDP.

The part where he talks about the % of GDP starts at 36:40 in the video

I guess he was doing the rounds. here is the one i saw:



I'm watching your video now, I probably won't comment on its content. it is what it is.

This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 3 2023 10:24am

If there's one thing the last 25 years have shown us is that what the people want very little reflects in how government behaves, particularly when it comes to foreign policy and wars. Both Afghanistan and Iraq wars were deeply unpopular for many years before we actually ended them. We have as much as influence as the average Russian or Chinese when it comes to actually ending wars.

Projection much?




Just a couple of days ago, Brazil and Saudi Arabia voted in favor of the UN General Assembly's resolution calling for Russia's unconditional withdrawal from Ukraine.


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Wrong. It's not Mossad reporting these ridiculously lopsided numbers, it's an obscure Turkish newspaper citing an anonymous source which claims to have his info from the Mossad. And of course the notion is completely ridiculous that the defender in any war which has dragged on for over a year suffers 8.5 times more casualties than the attacker, particularly when the attacker has spent the majority of this time trying to storm heavily fortified positions.

Also, what makes you believe that Russia has the capacity to bomb Western Ukraine into the ground (with conventional means)? Yes, Bakhmut will fall in the coming days, but it has taken Russia over 3 months of intense fighting to break Ukraine's positions in the city. If they had the ability to bomb a city into the ground just like that, why haven't they used it in Bakhmut to drive the Ukrainian defenders out instead of sacrificing thousands of their proxy troops and wasting god knows how many rounds of shells and ammunition?

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 3 2023 10:45am

They have the ability but eastern Ukraine is saturated with air defense systems. Russia isn't willing to put their planes at risk because unlike the US, they have fairly limited air power. They have always been a ground army, that's their bread and butter, that was the case in WW2 and it is now.

Their strength is artillery which they have a damn near unlimited amount. Why completely wipe out Bakhmut with air strikes and risk your limited planes (which they are probably saving in case there's an actual war with NATO) when one of their primary goals is not to just take territory but actually degrade the Ukrainian army both men and equipment wise. It makes much more sense to let Ukraine send thousands of soldiers over and over and degrade their future abilities to counter-attack. Multiple Ukrainians combatants reported that they lose about a battalion a week in Bakhmut. Let' say the Russian sent in their top weaponry and full weight of their AF, those extreme Ukrainian losses never happen.

People still don't understand that this war is not just about territory and their strategy has shifted from gobbling up territory to grinding out the Ukrainian army in a very slow but painful way.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Mar 3 2023 10:48am

If Ukraine has such strong air defense systems at its disposal, that contradicts babun's claim that Russia will just bomb Western Ukraine into the stone age once the Eastern parts of the country are under control.

As for degrading the Ukrainian army: this argument is only valid if Ukraine is suffering "extreme" losses in Bakhmut while Russia does not, which seems highly unlikely. If anything, Russian losses should exceed Ukrainian ones (attacking a fortified position and all that). Also note that while Russia has deeper reserves in terms of potential manpower (populations of 42m vs 145m) and artillery/ammunition, the ratio isn't infinitely high. Overpowering Ukraine with numbers only goes so far.

The losses aren't equal because Russia has artillery superiority, even with western supplies flowing into Ukraine. I highly doubt their losses exceed Ukrainian as Ukrainian soldiers themselves admit that for everyone shell their fire Russia fires 10.

And that ratio is more like 30-35million to 145 million +3million that moved there from Ukraine. Russia can trade 1:1 and absolutely outlast Ukraine.