i think its latent cold war mentality, "they have weapons, so they can fight". will of the american people in the middle east took a long time to break, we all look at it negatively now but look at what happened to the Dixie chix, they were run out of public for being opposed to it. even edgy people like greenday waited years to oppose GWB. russian public opinion seems more mixed and a lot faster, likely because they arent winning soundly like we did. the taliban farmers didnt steal tanks.

I'm not sure if it's as simple as "ethnic Russians automatically prefer to be in Russia vs. Ukraine." Take a look at Kharkiv where ethnic Russians lived in peace for decades. Do you think they will easily forgive what Russia has done to the city? I have to imagine that this war is going to create a wide spectrum of feelings toward Russia ranging from extreme animosity to extreme loyalty. Where everyone falls in that spectrum? Who really knows? As I said, the war is fluid and we have no idea what's going to happen to either country in the long term.



I'm referring to the latter. If Russia continues to be disorganized in those regions, Ukraine has the troops and weapons to start taking back territory. Time is a huge factor though. It's REALLY hard to take back defensive positions...especially if you can't surround the enemy which would be hard to do that far East.

I think the Russian offense is pretty much done in the East unless the Ukrainians make a catastrophic mistake and/or the Russians can bring significant reinforcements. We've been worried about a pincer for a couple weeks now and the Russians are unable to execute it.

It's a big area, the JFO are entrenched and the Russians have been fighting on 3 axes of advance. If Russia concentrate their airpower, resupplying efforts; including troops from Kherson and Kharkiv, then it's hard not to imagine a scenario where the Donbas is taken by Russia

Also, when Mariupol falls there will be a lot of troops available to push North

The sanctions which are already in place are of course hurting the Russians like crazy. What I am arguing against, however, is this common conception that an oil and gas embargo (on top of the sanctions which are already in place) would quickly dry up Putin's warchest and make it financially impossible for him to continue this war. This notion is used by proponents of such an embargo to put moral pressure on those disagreeing with it and it imho just doesn't have a lot of merit.

The morale issues of Russian troops, problems replacing fallen soldiers with similarly trained ones, the discomfort with the war at the home front, the economic pain suffered by ordinary citizens, the inconvenience and loss of wealth felt by the oligarchs and elites - all these things mean that this war cannot be kept up indefinitely anyway. An embargo on top would not fundamentally change this situation, but come with gigantic repercussions for us in Europe.

Imho, the best course of action is clearly to stay the current course, find replacements for Russian oil and gas and tell Putin to go suck Xi's dick once we are done disentangling our supply from Russia.





I agree with this, but got to wonder... one week ago, I was making the argument that the fall of Mariupol would free up troops and increase the pressure on the Ukrainian forces in Donbass (and potentially Kharkiv). If my memory serves me right, it was you who pushed back against this take and said that Mariupol falling would only free up an insignificant amount of Russian forces and not change the situation in the east all that much. This is not meant as an attack btw, I'm just curious why you changed your mind.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 25 2022 03:20pm

You're right, it may not be a significant amount of combat power due to casualties taken (and that will be taken) to take Mariupol, but that was from ISW and I've gone a bit cold on them since

ukraine ministry of defense twitter caught posting Arma3 game footage as their supposed military achievement, in latest propaganda fail

facebook post link (now deleted) from their verified account can still be found in google search

https://www.facebook.com/MinistryofDefence.UA/videos/на-херсонському-напрямку-сьогодні-вранці-розрахунки-протиповітряної-оборони-сухо/638619003875346/




This post was edited by HeLiCaL on Mar 25 2022 06:06pm

So the Ukraine government lies and deceives its people.
Where have I seen this before?

Your guys should give up, your losers are at the wrong side of history once again. Cant stop whining. Disgusting.

Russia army was corrupted like the rest of the country: equipment, weapons, maintenance, furnitures, even clothes budgets were falsified and sucked out to pay yatchs and datchas. So if they lost 1/3 of their tanks this means they only have 1/3 left because the last 1/3 is unusable.

This post was edited by Saucisson6000 on Mar 25 2022 09:29pm

Not me shanty chief.
i'm against Zelenskyy and Putin.

you are against everyone else isn't it ?