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Forums - Politics Discussion - Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

Just complete insanity and nobody in Russia gives a damn.



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Zkuq said:
Ryuu96 said:

Just feels like the West wants Ukraine to win but not too quickly out of fear of what a quick collapse would do to Russia so instead hope for a slow bleed out of Russia and the delusional hope that Putin will eventually see sense, that and some countries are unwilling to actually take hits to their military, despite the fact that nobody threatens them directly and the only one who could (Russia) is currently fighting Ukraine. We spend a gross amount of money on military and it feels like it's all just for show if the time we should actually be using it most, we aren't.

What I've been thinking is that perhaps the West doesn't want Ukraine to win. Instead, perhaps the idea is to force a stalemate by providing Ukraine just enough equipment to not seriously threatedn Russia, so both parties can claim a bit of victory (Ukraine for keeping its independence, Russia for taking land), keeping Russia stabilized. But the West can't explicitly force Ukraine to accept a stalemate, so it has to be done the hard way, i.e. via actions instead of words. I'm just not sure many decision-makers are actually interested in making Russia lose due to instability concerns.

I'm not convinced this is the case, and perhaps the West is indeed still hoping for Russia to lose. I just haven't been all that sure about it in a while.

Ryuu96 said:

So many things we could have done better, so many things we can still do better, instead we still today debate about red lines and are unwilling to put ourselves in a fraction of an uncomfortable position as Ukraine is putting themselves in for us. We then moan about being tired because the war could last years despite us not doing everything in our power to speed the conclusion of this war up, the reason it is lasting years is because of our reluctance to give Ukraine what it needs.

This is also potentially another factor. The public support for supporting Ukraine might have been there a year ago, but it feels like significant support for Ukraine is much more difficult at this point in time, and it's probably not going to get much better. A lot of the momentum for support has been lost, I think.

I think the problem is another altogether.

European countries have mostly only sent their surplus equipment to Ukraine so far. Most countries are now running very low on surplus and don't have much to send anymore that they themselves don't need right now - especially with most countries investing more into equipment and expanding their armies again, so new production will go to them first, too. At the same time the US Republicans are trying to stop any further shipments to Ukraine, so there's also less coming from that side.

In this regard, the German Ringtausch program was actually an ingenious idea: country A sends older stuff to Ukraine and country B will replace this with newly produced equipment. If this could be expanded to EU level (with the EU financing the replacement bill) Europe could both bring higher support to Ukraine and reinvigorate the armament industries across Europe, accelerating the modernization (and bringing a degree of standardization to boot) of Europe's Armies.

At the same time, they are building factories for military equipment within Ukraine now, but until those are up and running, shipments need to go on unimpeded.



This happened a few days ago but I was waiting on satellite images, Ukraine hit another Russian ship in dock, a Kalibr missile carrier.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 06 November 2023

As much as I hate to put out bad news on this topic, the alongside the above there was also this Russian strike
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67327411

The news sites I follow have been putting out a rather forlorn message of late to with the war creeping to a stalemate. There also a been a bit of an increase of those pushing a “peace negotiations” position, and whilst they still get confronted as being hopelessly naive and asked why they still that’ll work this time when it didn’t in 2014, its feeling like the calls are gonna start to grow.



Nice hit and that ship is only a few years old.



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SecondWar said:

As much as I hate to put out bad news on this topic, the alongside the above there was also this Russian strike
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67327411

The news sites I follow have been putting out a rather forlorn message of late to with the war creeping to a stalemate. There also a been a bit of an increase of those pushing a “peace negotiations” position, and whilst they still get confronted as being hopelessly naive and asked why they still that’ll work this time when it didn’t in 2014, its feeling like the calls are gonna start to grow.

Whoever was in charge of that unit should be charged for gross negligence, utterly stupid and no excuse, although not too surprising to see it happen.

As for the rest, I'm not too bothered, there has been idiots calling for peace negotiations since the start of the war, these "anonymous sources" crop up every month and I honestly don't really care what they think, we're talking possibly one guys opinion out of tens of thousands if we're talking about government officials, even more if we're talking military officials, across dozens of countries.

They should stop hiding by anonymity and then I can decide whether or not I give a shit about their opinion

Until I see someone relevant speak about peace negotiations then I'll just disregard their anonymous comments, as we know there are people who are even openly batting for Russia without anonymity, I imagine there's way more behind the comfort of anonymity. Until someone significant starts demanding it then I'm not concerned. Also...If we're being really cynical...The military industrial complex probably won't want the war to end on peace and a lot of government officials lick the boot of these corporations.

Finally, Ukraine decides when the war ends, not the West.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 06 November 2023

Funding for the security capacity building initiative amounts to 5.4 billion Euros for 2023 (after 2 billion Euros for 2022) and additional authorisations to enter commitments in the following years amounting to 10.5 billion Euros. 

Military support for Ukraine | Federal Government 

Germany has also pledged 10bn Euros for the next years, mostly military assistance to Ukraine.



3 missiles getting through though...

On the same target.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 06 November 2023



No one weapon will "radically" change the situation at the front, it will require a collection of different weapons and systems working in harmony; artillery, drones, tanks, IFVs, long range missiles, etc. With this logic that a singular weapon won't radically change the situation, why send any weapon at all? Well Taurus may be able to reach Kerch Bridge and blow it which would be a blow to the Southern front logistics at least.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 06 November 2023