They state a lot of things, most of it is just empty talk. They don't want to publicly signal weakness or defeatism to either Russia or their own population.
Russia would of course fight hard to keep Avdiivka if Ukraine was trying to win it back - but as things stand today, that's super unlikely. Ukraine has to focus all of its resources and energy on holding the rest of their territory, rather than going on the counteroffensive again. And to this specific end, Avdiivka is irrelevant.



My country is run by fucking clowns, I never claimed otherwise.
Still, these new sanctions that are being talked about would be narrow, mostly symbolic and inconsequential for the larger economy.

Please don't say the bolded out loud. At this point it's a meme, increasingly so as countries in the middle are telling us to get out of their countries for years with our military bases and we just kind of shrug our shoulders and pretend like we hear nothing.

You said North Koreans are starving, I could think of an arrangement where Russia pays for arms in grains/other food items if it's not actual currency. I would think food probably helps most people there, not just ruling elite.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Feb 20 2024 03:20pm

Grain exports would be a possibility, sure, but any grain Russia sends to NK is grain they can't export in exchange for hard currency to the global markets. We don't really know how Russia pays them, so speculating is a bit pointless. In my mind, the first vkusno i tochka store in Pyongyang opens up and is immediately plundered by fattie Kim^^^^

I agree that the whole schtick with the rule-based international order was always a sham, but it is nonetheless a possible rationalization for Western leaders to support Ukraine. Anyway, my point is that economic benefit was never the reason behind Western support.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 20 2024 03:27pm

no real point going round and round as to what led to where we are today, everyone has their own views on it. I just dont see the USA plan right now.

A lot of opportunity has already been squandered. Had the West not been as reluctant with supplying heavy weapons, Ukraine could have driven Russia out of much more occupied territory back when Russia was in disarray in the fall of 2022. By giving Russia enough time to dig in and fortify their positions, the spring 2023 counteroffensive was doomed from the get go.

Anyway, to answer your question: imho, the plan is to supply Ukraine with enough weapons to enable them to hold roughly their current territory and ultimately retain their sovereignty. At the end of the day, Russia has taken just 2 cities over the past 20 months, one of them in a nearly indefensible position, both of them only after months-long fighting and suffering huge losses. And in both cases, it was a static fight in which Russia could concentrate its artillery fire and air support on a narrow battlefield, maximizing their advantage. But to go further from here, they'd need to capture and hold wide open territory.

The prevailing sentiment in this thread seems to be that Russia will steamroll Ukraine from here on out, but as long as Western support for Ukraine doesn't dry up entirely, this is absolutely NOT a given. Possible, yes, but far from inevitable.

One more thing to keep in mind: Ukraine will not be the only party suffering from attrition and war fatigue - it will affect Russian society too. Maybe not to the exact same degree, but still. So now that Russia got the things they wanted the most out of this war, will they really be able to keep up the same fighting spirit, the same willingness to invest a ton of resources and lives into further conquests?

of course economic benefit is a major reason, if russia takes the place western big corp wont be able to make money in ukraine

in the US senators have literally come out to say that in their state jobs depend on manufacturing stuff for ukraine

ukraine does have resources and large areas with some of the best farmland on this planet, i am pretty the monsanto and friends crew wants access to that

even in the country of extreme pacifism germany the military industrial complex propaganda has arrived

ask most of the politicians and the public one day before the invasion, fuck the military, military exports bad etc

two years later former peace activists demand a thousand tanks for ukraine and nuclear bombs

obviously there are usual dumbass suspects here, but its clearly also a sponsored effort

you gotta love how cold war fearmongering was part of the education in school and 30 years everyone falls for that same bullshit

This post was edited by JohnnyMcCoy on Feb 20 2024 07:56pm

I now know why the US is putting f35s with b61s (Nukes) in lakenheath:

It's a concern. The Chinese have been testing their MIRVs and mid-range missiles and other platforms multiple times a year for the last decade straight. The US and EU haven't been. It's a concern. We've been so worried about "what'll everyone else think" that verifying functionality is no longer part of the program. Like, you don't have to arm them with warheads, it's the platform itself the integrity needs to be verified on.



Agreed. And you can see it here in PARD. Claims of "Communist Russia" when that's not a thing keep increasing. It's stupid.

Russia was a solid trade partner. Seems pretty clear that US Corporations and EU Corporations want direct access to Ukrainian resources, and they're willing to sacrifice the entire male population of Ukraine to insure that access.

Well, the ongoing war has of course given the usual warmongers and the military-industrial complex a bounce. But at least here in Germany, large swaths of the political class still don't really want to ramp up military spending more than absolutely necessary.

That some corporations want to exploit Ukraine if there's an opening is obvious and self-evident. Russia will do the same by the way, as did Ukraine's own oligarch class before them. What I meant was that "economic gain for the masses" was never a public selling point for the Ukraine war, at least not in the West. Particularly not in Europe, where an eventual EU membership of Ukraine would mean decades of heavy funding and subisidies.

There are several things here, so I will ask the first question and will see where we go from there - i.e. :

1. If the plan is to supply Ukraine...to enable them to hold roughly their current territory, then why did they not agree to the peace deal last year, or destroy this years talks of peace? I can only assume that when you refer to retaining their sovereignty you mean reclaim crimea and the donbass? can you clarfiy?

anyway, im going to watch a few hundred video's from Zelensky to try to understand him a bit better.

This post was edited by ferdia on Feb 21 2024 03:25am