While technically correct, this is a highly disingenuous talking point. Yes, Russia overstretched itself during the initial invasion, was poorly organized and pushed back by Ukraine's late summer offensive in 2022. Since then, i.e. over the past 2.5 years, they have steadily gained ground. At a glacial pace which is overstated by the Russia shills in this thread and elsewhere, but progress nonetheless. And the pace of the Russian advance has accelerated over the past year. It's still disappointingly slow, but nonetheless worrying.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 16 2025 12:24pm

This war can only somewhat be framed as a stalemate because Ukraine is literally being kept on life support to the tune of over 100+BN a year by a collective of what 20+ countries? (Trump recently said real number is actually 350BN total idk if accurate or not)Including the US, the wealthiest country ever? Ukraine took territory that Russia didn't have the numbers to defend or weren't willing to sacrifice/trap troops (i.e. north bank of Kherson). Russia has been taking territory that Ukraine has no interest in yielding. Almost every major battle in the last 1-2 years, and i mean real battles has been fought in places that Russia eventually took.

We've been over this many times, their strategy is not to blitz their way across huge swaths of territory leaving lines exposed. Their strategy has continually been to allow Ukraine to bring its troops to these battle fronts and methodically crush these units. War of attrition.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Feb 16 2025 12:34pm

And Russia is being propped up big time in both military and economic terms by China and Iran. Where would they be if China didn't help them defang the Western sanctions? Where would they be without the Iranian drones?



Yes, they're very focused on not exposing any flanks or supply lines, after they got burned this way time and time again during the initial 8 months of this war. Nonetheless, the notion that Russia is completely chilled, under no pressure whatsoever and could push a lot harder/faster if they wanted to, isn't plausible if you ask me.

They wouldn't go around begging for troops in freakin' North Korea and Yemen, or offer increasingly huge sums for those who enlist voluntarily, if they had no recruitment issues.
They wouldn't let Ukraine hold parts of their own territory (Kursk) for a whole year if they had huge amounts of reserves up their sleeve.
You wouldn't have had a dispute over insufficient supplies between their official military and their proxy forces turn so bitter that the mercenaries eventually marched on Moscow.

Imho, the current Russian efforts are roughly the maximum they can do without going on a true all-out wartime footing. It looks like it will have been just enough to secure their core objectives, so kudos to them. But nothing I've seen over the past 1-2 years proves those of you right who argued that Russia was a behemoth who could crush Ukaine with ease if only it stopped fooling around and took off the gloves.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 16 2025 01:06pm

By 1000s of videos where russian mercs are shooting themselves in the heads with their own rifles, literally praying to Ukrainian drones on their knees not to drop their payloads, I am not sure who is actually doing the trapping and methodical crushing tbh...

This post was edited by Fnall on Feb 16 2025 01:24pm

So to sum up Munich conference fallout:

European politicians are scrambling for talking points as their current programming is directly contradicting US foreign policy.

US planning peace talks with Russia bypassing Ukraine & EU

US planning new security framework with Russia & China (no EU?)

US demanding 500bn from Ukraine and/or subsoil resources as war reparations (the audacity lol)

EU needs to acknowledge that deep political and economical reform needs to be implemented to address new emerging realities of 2025 (Draghi report is a good pointer).

Key dates to watch: 18th Feb US/Russia meeting in Saudi Arabia.

Potential peace dates are 20th of April (orthodox + catholic easters are on the same date in 2025) or 8th/9th of May (German WW2 capitulation). Big hopes are pinned on successful negotiations to end this pointless slaughter.

This post was edited by Malopox on Feb 16 2025 03:26pm

She's kind of cute though

Sir Keir Starmer has said he is "ready and willing" to put UK troops on the ground in Ukraine to help guarantee its security as part of a peace deal.

Sir Keir's announcement comes after the former head of the Army, Lord Dannatt, told the BBC the UK military was "so run down" it could not lead any future peacekeeping mission in Ukraine.

Lord Dannatt - who was head of the Army from 2006 to 2009 - told the BBC up to 40,000 UK troops would be needed on rotation for a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine and "we just haven't got that number available".

He said, in total, a force to keep the peace would require about 100,000 troops on the ground and the UK would have to supply "quite a proportion of that and we really couldn't do it".
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gxgxl3grgo

I lol'd

No refunds Brit voters

How far the homeland hath fallen.

Does the UK even have 40k troops?
I thought they only had a military big enough to control internal security for the government, locking up people for gesticulating, and complaining about the state of affairs, ect..