Pyrrhic taking of cities vs pyrrhic taking of a handful of small towns, exhausting tens of thousands of men on the southern front by Ukraine.

Avdiivka doesn't have a ton of strategic significance (other than being really close to Donetsk and a launch pad for arty towards the city) but it does have optical significance. Even after delivery of vaunted NATO training and equipment Ukraine is not able to defend targets Russia really goes after. Bad optics for morale in Ukraine, bad optics for expectation of further support.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Oct 31 2023 11:08am

The Time article is damning.

Ukraine has lost. By refusing to admit reality, they only dig themselves deeper into the hole. Their own supplies are being pilfered by their own people FFS.

It's time for them to cut their losses & put forth a conditional surrender, for the good of the Ukrainian people.

This post was edited by El1te on Oct 31 2023 11:09am

100%

And even being the self proclaimed second strongest miltary on the planet, Russia couldn't conquer the poorest country in Europe.
Still can't. Will suffer half a million casualties in 2 years.
Will go with their hands out to Iran and North Korea for support.

I mean, optically they could really use a W. Even a phryic one.

Collective NATO alliance pumped hundreds of billions and emptied out many years worth of ammo, only to amount to dislodging Russia from a dozen villages.

The best and most objective indication of how the war is going is support from other countries, which is waning and is at the lowest compared to at any point in this war. Proof is in the pudding, no matter how much you wish for things to come into existence.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Oct 31 2023 11:19am

In context of special operation that was meant to take a matter of days.

Tell you what I'll pickup the goalpost for you and start walking, you tell me when to stop.

I'm a bit confused on your perspective on who "wins" here,

To my understanding, since Russia failed to conquer all of Ukraine within a few days, any other scenario is a loss for them?

Nobody wins in war.

But don't take my word for it. Look at Putins war aims.

First he demanded NATO return to its pre 1997 borders. Failed.
Sweden and Finland will enter NATO.

Then he claimed Russia would demilitarise Ukraine. Failed. Ukraine is the most militarised place probably on the planet.

He also claimed Russia would remove the "Nazi regime"
in Ukraine. Failed.
Zelensky asked for ammunition and not a ride out.

This is in contrast to the 2014 occupation of Crimes where Putin obviously felt he needed to secure Sevastopol for the Russian black sea fleet. And that was accomplished.
Which ironically has now been decapitated and is headquartering to the east in order to avoid further destruction.

Allow me to ask you these questions,

Can you clarify what ordinary Russias had to gain from this war before the invasion?
Can you clarify what they have gained at the expensive of enormous casualties?

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Oct 31 2023 11:45am

Russia's best friends: You, Molotox, ofthevoid, and...

Woof

It's a retarded framing honestly. Some people no matter what happens will frame what happens as Russia losing.

Winning-losing is a spectrum. The best version of winning for Russia would be being in full control of the entire Ukraine and having a pro-Russian president in charge, as it was prior to 2014. Just because that didn't happen doesn't mean anything short of that is a loss.

If they have to settle for capturing and keeping 1/5 of the territory, basically the size of England (which is also the resource richest part of Ukraine) and the war dies down, it would be retarded to look past 40 years from now and say they 'lost' the war. Would take some next level mental gymnastics for a country to gain an England-sized territory and somehow be framed as losing a war.