There is growing alarm about the pace and prospects of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, with few signs of progress in recent weeks and Russian lines holding strong.  Those concerns picked up steam …
  • halfpipe [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    754·
    1 year ago

    The weirdest part of all this is watching those daily casualty updates by the OSINT guys.

    Every day they claim that another 500+ Russians were killed and one Ukrainian stubbed his toe, and they’ve kept on claiming that all summer, even as Ukraine was doing WW1 style assaults into minefields and trench lines, without air support, and with a severe disadvantage in artillery. Those guys must be getting fucking slaughtered.

  • KlargDeThaym@lemmygrad.ml
    662·
    1 year ago

    I live in fear conscription and hope of borders opening. The second they do, I’m leaving this dump forever.

    When I watched them dismantle USSR’s coat of arms on the Motherland Monument in Kyev, I had that wretched feeling in my guts. I have no motherland anymore.

  • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
    413·
    1 year ago

    At least I’m getting some gimp experience.

    This quote is particularly telling.

    Those concerns picked up steam in the past week after Ukraine launched a second push in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and has still come up mostly empty in the eyes of Western allies.

    You know, like when you are doing a group project and all your “partners” just watch you do all of it, but in this case the project is made with other people’s blood, and you already knew the whole class was gonna fail anyway.

    It would be funny seeing the blame game getting heated between (what remains of) Ukraine and NATO, if not for all the senseless and pointless spilling of blood they could’ve avoided from the start. I bet eventually they’ll agree on some third-party scapegoat a la WW1 Germany.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
      431·
      1 year ago

      Anybody who thinks the west is doing this to help Ukrainians needs to stop smoking crack. There was even an article a few days ago that actually admitted that the west knew Ukraine lacked the resources to do the offensive, but forced them into it anyways:

      When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring, Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons—from shells to warplanes—that it needed to dislodge Russian forces. But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day.

      The big question is how the west gets out of this debacle now. Having spent two years propagandizing the public, it’s hard to do a 180 on the spot. A lot of politicians have their careers staked on this war, and if Russia wins decisively then they’re going to be politically toxic at that point. They asked people to make all these sacrifices saying it would be worth it in the end, and now the end is coming and it’s not what they said it would be.

      My prediction is that they’re going to throw Ukraine under the bus saying that Ukrainians lied about the state of the war, and maybe they’re gonna remember about all the nazis too all of a sudden. Framing all this as the fault of Ukraine seems like the only solution at this point.

      • lil_tank@lemmygrad.ml
        271·
        1 year ago

        But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day

        Why though. What makes Ukrainians so resourceful and courageous according to them? This shit reeks racism like “the Russian are less brave and smart because actually they’re 70% asian while Ukrainians are actually 60% european” fr 💀

        • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
          231·
          1 year ago

          I’m sure racism is a component, but to me it reads more like the arrogant self-righteousness the West engages in, mixed with falling for their own propaganda. Americans, at least, still think the stories from the beginning of the war of massive Russian losses and Ukrainian farmers taking out battalions of tanks are still true. When you try so hard to create this image of the invincible underdog, you shouldn’t be surprised when your own side plans for that kind of impossible prowess. Everyone in the West was stirred up into a frenzy about the righteousness of the Ukrainian cause, the tenacity of the Ukrainian people, and the miraculous heroics they allegedly pulled off. I’m not surprised that, at some point, someone actually fell for their own lies. They’re paying for it. Or rather, the Ukrainian people are paying for it, sadly.

      • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
        261·
        1 year ago

        I’ve been under the impression Ukraine was an explicit trap for Russia, to draw them into a quagmire war they couldn’t really avoid, and that the West intends to draw it out for as long as possible to tie up Russian resources and possibly even break them through attrition.

        Ukraine’s current regime has become aggressive towards its Western paymasters, hyped up on their own fascist rhetoric if their politicians are anything to go by, and they’re losing bad, proving they’re an unreliable and dangerous ally. However, I don’t think they’ll be thrown under the bus quite yet. I suspect, if NATO’s puppet regime can’t win, they’ll just turn the region into a terrorist state. Whatever government Russia sets up there will need constant Russian military support, and this will be used as propaganda of how Russia “conquered” Ukraine. Fascist resistance, heavily armed, will be trained, supplied, and directed by NATO for years to come, shown as “freedom fighters”, while every action Russia takes to keep its borders secure - or even to help Ukraine against fascist terrorism - will be skewed and displayed as tyranny.

        In other words, the US will do what it does in every country it fails to install its puppets. At least, that’s my prediction. But who can say?

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
          191·
          1 year ago

          Breaking Russia economically and causing a regime change was the hare brained scheme from the west. However, that whole plan relied on being able to sanction Russia effectively. The reality is that Russia is just too big and too integrated into the global economy for that to happen. So, when the west started trying to freeze Russia out of the global financial system they found out that India and China weren’t on board, at which point the whole scheme fell apart.

          What’s worse, we’re now seeing that it’s actually the west that’s having growing economic troubles while Russian economy is growing and domestic industry is developing. The relative cost of keeping this war going is far more significant for the west than for Russia. Europe in particular is screwed because they got cut off from cheap energy they were getting. Meanwhile, Russia has no problem selling energy to other countries. So, in practice it’s Russia breaking NATO through attrition as opposed to the other way around.

          The west trying to go the terrorist route is a possible scenario, and it has been openly discussed. However, that carries dangers of its own as well. What’s likely to happen is that Russia will annex all the regions that are heavily populated by the Russian speaking population. People there just want the war to end, and they will integrate into Russia. Then there’s going to be a rump state of western Ukraine left that’s full of nationalists. It’s not going to be able to function on its own, and it will become west’s problem because if it fails then there will be a flood of refugees coming to Europe. This is the nightmare scenario for the west where they either have to keep pumping billions of dollars to prop up whatever’s left of Ukraine or deal with a huge flood of refugees that Europe’s not able to absorb.

          And of course, the fascists will end up feeling betrayed by the west at this point and they will realize they’ve been cynically used. I expect there will be at least as much terrorism happening in Europe as in Russian controlled territory as a result. CBS put out a report a while back stating that only 30% of the weapons made it to the battlefront. The rest end up on the black market, and it’s almost certain that Ukrainian fascists have been linking up with far right cells across Europe and feeding these weapons to them.

          So, I agree with you that this is the likely US plan, but I predict that it’s going to backfire the same way the proxy war did. US completely misread the situation and they’ve made huge blunders over the past two years that are now culminating in a debacle for them.

          • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
            131·
            1 year ago

            I’m sure it will backfire for the liberal element in the West, but this is exactly what the fascists could have hoped for. And unless those would-be terrorists are dealt with in the aftermath of the war, I foresee a fascist shitstorm in a region that’s primed for fascist takeover.

            I can’t shake the feeling that more than a few people planned for a Russian victory from the beginning, martyring Ukraine for a fascist revival in Europe. Not saying people didn’t genuinely think Ukraine could win, just that there were cleverer puppeteers who sacrificed the country for a wider fascist movement.

              • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
                91·
                1 year ago

                True, but I’m thinking about the grassroots fascist orgs that coordinate online, that got involved in this whole project. I’ve talked to fascists before, and there is a breed of them that really would burn a whole country down to incite fascist sympathy across Europe. If the US gave them power, knowingly or unknowingly, in Ukraine, then I think there’s more at work than just the ghouls in leadership.

          • Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
            61·
            1 year ago

            fascists will end up feeling betrayed by the west at this point and they will realize they’ve been cynically used

            Idk, the original banderites that fled to Canada seemed pretty supportive of the regimes that used them. And their descendants even more so - just look at Christie Freeland

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
              121·
              1 year ago

              Sure, ones that flee to the west and get comfortable are going to be like that, but vast majority of them are gonna be stuck in a ruined country.

        • Buchenstr@lemmygrad.ml
          181·
          1 year ago

          The thing is the russian MOD and putin have plainly, and explicitly said that they would not occupy ukraine and set up a government, and that they would not pay for any of the damages in the war. The russians have only held the russian speaking areas in ukraine, and there’s a good reason for this. The imperial core wanted to russia to fight a occupation style war, similar to how the soviets fought in afghanistan. But the SMO has been conducted completely differently, the russians fight a defensive war, and force the ukrainians to be on the advance. Ukraine cannot win the war in a situation like this.

          • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
            121·
            1 year ago

            If that doesn’t change, then it’s less resources and risk holding the Russian-speaking areas, but the West will try and stir the pot in the area. I don’t think we’ll see them simply abandon fascist assets just to use them as scapegoats. I think they’ll keep anti-Russian terrorism going in the region as long as it takes to force Russia to get involved again.

      • Sinister [none/use name, comrade/them]@hexbear.netBEnglish
        162·
        1 year ago

        They will do 100% WE DIDNT know that Ukrainians were nazi and doing genocide on russians1!1!1 we have to critically analyze the situation sweetie. And suddenly all anarcho-bidenist will be „it was just like iraq“.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
      341·
      1 year ago

      I bet eventually they’ll agree on some third-party scapegoat a la WW1 Germany.

      This is also why they relentlessly always push for the great man being responsible for everything, because blaming individuals get them great freedom of policies afterwards - if they win, they have their heroes, if they lose they have their scapegoats and enemies are greatly personalized too in case of sudden flip in propaganda if they become vassals. And the people are never, ever, demanding systemic resolution to what exactly cause the entire conflict in the first place.

      In this case they are already blaming dead Zaluzhny for the Nordstream and they will blame Zelensky for the losing of that war.