Is the Ukraine-Russia conflict really just a proxy war between the US and China?

Since we're reading different sources, it's unlikely we will agree on what's happening in Ukraine. According to my sources Ukraine's counter-offensive has not even reached the first lines of Russian defenses; they are being slaughtered by the thousands.

Zelensky is pinning his hopes on the NATO meeting in Vilnius next week. Putin is waiting to see what support NATO will offer to Ukraine.

By some accounts, Poland and Lithuania have already made preparations to "defend" western Ukraine outside of their NATO status.

Putin may have anticipated that action:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_presence_in_Belarus#Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

"Following a 2022 constitutional referendum, the Belarusian and Russian militaries have pursued policies of stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

"On 26 March 2023, Putin announced that Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus under a nuclear sharing agreement, and that 9K720 Iskander missile launch systems had been transferred to Belarus."

 

..... your map is already out of date....it "occupies" a bit less every day....reciprocity sucks huh

 

......no.....Putin's big plan was predicated on the decapitation of the Ukrainian Government and Ukrainians welcoming Russian invaders as heros and liberators and throwing apple pies and virgins at them in thanks....so bless his cotton socks...Putin f**ked up large really.....but fear ye not!!!! He remains the master strategist

 

I'm not especially selective of my sources, though I won't blindly take any of them on face value.

Regardless, the basic facts are clear; Putin initially believed that his forces could just drive in to Kiev, capture the Ukrainian leadership and either replace them with a puppet regime or simply declare Ukraine part of Russia. That didn't happen, because the Ukrainians offered more resistance than he expected and the Russia forces weren't initially able to defend themselves especially well. Ever since then, it's been pretty much a stalemate, with both sides making small advances but neither gaining significant ground. It seems likely that neither will and so neither will be able to definitively "win" on the battlefield. Like most modern conflicts, it will need to be resolved by negotiation and agreement, which is why so much of the surround talk is about politics rather than military details.

So my initial points stands. If military success was entirely down to the simple numbers you listed, Russia would have easily defeated Ukraine by now. The very fact they haven't is proof that the numbers alone are no guarantee of success. Ukraine is probably not going to win on the ground either (baring the extremely unlikely direct military action by NATO nations) but they're unlikely to lose either. If you've thrown all in politically with either side for whatever reason that could be a difficult fact to accept, but if your primary interest is simply an end to all the death and destruction, and a return to democratic freedoms, it's just a sad reality.

 

No! Poland and Lithuania is prepared to defend there borders lt any part of Ukraine. They will help Ukraine with military material but they will not put boots on the ground.

 

Any “ peace treaty” that leaves Russia controlling any part of Ukraine is a win for Putin and a tragedy for Ukraine. That would Finlandenkze Ukraine!

 

Putin has already lost this war in every sense but territory.
NATO has gotten larger.
Russia has become a pariah among nations.
Russia's military reputation has gone from second best in the world to second best in Russia.
The Russian economy is being damaged in ways that will take years to recover from, if it ever does.
Putin has shown personal weakness in the Wagner mutiny.
As time goes on, more cracks will appear in Russia's and Putin's foundations. There is a definite time limit for them to get this done.

 

It is a proxy war - between the US and Russia.

 

This war is all about territory and control of territory.
Never underestimate your enemy. Russian is a big country and still has a lot weapons and people left to throw at Ukraine. One type of weapon Ruddia has is aircraft of all types and Ukraine is piss poor in aircraft.

 

So . . . You'll admit it's purely a war of aggression and Russia is to blame? You realize that means Putin is a fascist, right?

 

Wars are not only won on the battle field. Ukraine did not ask to be invaded, If russia did not invade Crimea 10 years ago, I think Ukraine would have been a more nuetral country, I mean once russia invaded all bets were off.

 

If you have read even a handful of my posts here you would know that of course I view Putin as a NAZI/Fascist and of course Russia is the aggressor just as Germans were many many moons ago.

 

From the Russian perspective, Ukraine lost any chance at neutrality when a US-supported coup installed a far-right government in Kiev in 2014. Crimea had been part of Russia for hundreds of years before Kru shchev rearranged the deck chairs on the USSR. Russia saw a corrupt, hostile proxy state on its western border and decided to remove the threat. It will likely be over by Labor Day.

 

How's the 3 day op going so far?

 

Sorry. There are a lot of pro Russian commenters on these threads and a lot of them have lost sight of where they started. I had you figured for one of those. I was mistaken.

But as to the rest of this point, in this war turf was a secondary objective to the Russians. The idea was to spook Sweden and Finland off from NATO, frighten the ex-SSRs into toeing the line

 

A pro-Russian slug would not have
Слава Україні! as his signature. Putin wanted to restore the Russian empire that is why he invaded Ukraine. He also lamented the breakup of the USSR.

 

Or it coulda been that whole genocide thing ukraine was doing to ethnic Russian ukrainians....using nazis at that....armed and funded by NATO. Or the biolabs. Or a whole list of shitty things germinating in the 'country' that has national holidays for nazis.

The US went into Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan with less. And none of those shitholes are on our border. As is ukraine to Russia.

Pro tip: don't train and arm 30 battalions of genocide committing nazis and put German tanks on the border of Russia....Russia hasn't forgot about the over 20 million dead Russians the last time that **** happened. The stupidity and arrogance of NATO has no bounds.

 

Russians were not subject to genocide. That is just a great UNTRUTH. You post is a pile of crap.

 

Maybe you can't read so good, so I will post it again "ethnic Russian ukrainians".

Yeah, your pile of crap misdirection don't work bud. I notice you didn't dispute any of the nazi references. Facts is facts.

 

Stop posting piles of crap. There was never any genocide against Russians or anyone else in Ukraine.

 

There's about 14,000 dead men women and children that disagree with your bovine excrement. You really hit a new low. Disgusting.

And now your hero President Potato Brain is sending illegal war crime cluster bombs to ukraine. Similar to the ones they were using back in 2014,15 to bomb little kids and women. You must be proud.

 

No there aren't. Stop posting piles of bovine excrement.

And how are cluster munitions illegal if neither we, Ukraine nor Russia has signed on to the ban? Not that they're nearly as bad as Russia constantly sending drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities, mind you.

 

The article your quoting is waaaay out of date. To the point in fact the opening sentence should be changed to tread "Russia had one of the mot powerful militaries in the world'. Just using tanks as an example Russia went into this war with something like 3000 modernized main battle tanks (MBTs) in deployed or available on short notice with it's army. The 12,000 or so figure quoted in the chart represents an estimate of its reserve stockpiles of older tanks plus those in service. Something like 1800 of Russia's modernized MBTs have been visually confirmed destroyed, captured or otherwise rendered unusable. And those are only the visually confirmed losses. Actual losses have to be much higher (2000 plus) because not all of the destroyed or badly damaged equipment will be left on the Ukrainian side of the front lines where they can be readily photographed. Its also become apparent that a large % perhaps 30-50% of its 'reserve' force are junk because they were improperly stored in the open for decades. And since prior to the war Russia was reliant on key western components for things like night vision, targeting computers and radios etc they can't produce new tanks at anywhere near the rate needed to replace what they have lost or equip those tanks to the same standards. On top of that the Russian tank factories have been cutting back workers and production lines for more than a decade due to low orders. Result haven't been able to ramp up production despite strident demands it be done? So now they are replacing losses with whatever upgrades they can manage to put on 40-50 year old T-64s and T-62s.

Troop strength reported (900,000) represents the on paper strength of the entire army navy and air force in total as well as interior troops and border control forces which are not equipped to fight conventional battles. And while on paper they could (possibly) have 2 million reservists available the vast majority of them haven't done any military service in a decade or more and thanks to corruption and inefficiency etc it turns out they don't have the uniforms, body armor and other basics to equip them with even if they al volunteered to turn up! Here we are 18 months into the war and how many troops has Russia drafted? 300,000! That apparently being as many as they can manage to sustain in the field and even then they're still struggling. And even if they could sustain more such is popular opposition to the draft in the big cities that Putin hasn't been able to risk calling for a general mobilization.I could go on about the thousands of artillery barrels that have been burned through and rendered useless, the chronic shortages of smart (guided weapons) and high tech spare parts (think jet turbines and circuit boards etc) needed to keep aircraft and complex equipment operation. But what's the point?

The key takeaway is that Putin's armed forces has been revealed to be badly lead, crippled by chronic shortages of manpower, material and technology and incapable of coming even close to matching the figures quoted in that table. Ukraine struggles too but as long as it has the economic and military support of America and the EU it has a chance of continuing in its endeavors to retake lost territory. It might not get all of it back but there's a good chance it can get most of it back and humiliate Putin in the process.

In fact Russia's best chance of winning this war? Donald Trump becoming President in 2024. That's how 'powerful' the Russian army is.

 

Here's a link and video just for you D. I know you won't watch it or read the link......because it is exactly what I said was in 2014.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions

 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/03/19/ukraine-more-civilians-killed-cluster-munition-attacks

Forces in rebel-held areas most likely launched the cluster munition attacks that struck government-controlled areas, and Ukrainian government forces most likely launched the cluster munition attacks that struck rebel-held areas, Human Rights Watch said.​