Ukraine is doing great. I know Russia is a meme, but they do have far more resources and man power. These guys are working with tech they just got trained on. Russia is well fortified. Keep in mind, the counter offensive is still developing. Often things are said publicly to skew the other side.
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Yeah. this is still in the "probing" and "shaping" phase, the Ukrainians are launching attacks to see which bits of the front are softest and to force the Russians to commit their reserves so that when a breakthrough happens they have fewer options to respond with.
Just today the big news was about Ukraine blowing up a vital bridge the Russians need for resupplying their lines, for example. And yesterday I was reading an interesting analysis about how the Ukrainians might actually be able to attack across the former Kakhovka reservoir now that the Russians blew up the dam and drained it. Even if they don't do that it might make sense for them to look like they're considering it so that the Russians have yet more front lines they need to reinforce.
People have been spoiled by reading history books in which they can take in a summary of a years-long war in a paragraph or two, or by Desert Storm which was rather a different sort of war than this one. This offensive could take months, and it doesn't have to have a clear "beginning" and "end" moment where one side captures a flag and declares victory over the other.
Could you link a source on those Ukranian wins you mention? I'm interested to read on those.
The only one I mentioned specifically was bombing the Chonhar bridge. Not sure how you missed that, Russian media has reported on it and Russian politicians are making threats of retaliation over it.
Now, watch this drive
Mission accomplished
Although disappointing, not entirely unexpected. Assaulting and defending are two different things and without air or artillery superiority, the assault phase is even more difficult. So these lads are pressing in on well prepared defensive lines without a ton of battle space preparation. Hopefully, they can perform well enough, and violently enough to overcome the typical 3:1 requirement for beaching and destroying fortified positions.
Interesting. With how poorly Russia has done so far, I think the expectation was for the counter offense to be fast and severe. I wonder if their training is better suited to holding land, if they were holding back their more competent troops from the front line, or if the soldiers are more invested in their defense than the offense.
Russia did a shit tonne of work putting in mines, trenches, and structures everywhere. They might not fight for shit, but they can dig holes and place dragon teeth. Doesn’t really require much advanced thought or tech.
Well, the quality of some of that work leaves much to be desired, in some cases. But even if it's all crap there still is an awful lot of it so it'll take time to clear a path.
As long as the dragon teeth aren’t hollow
Also, while the morale of russian front-line soldiers is shit, their artillery in combination with minefields are responsible for most Ukrainian losses.
That may have been the case in meme-circles, but anyone looking at the war objectively knew it was going to be slower. The Kharkiv counteroffensive only was so brutally effective, because the russian defensive lines were so weak and they didn't have any secodary defensive lines to fall back on. Meaning that once the defense was breached, Ukrainian Humvees could just keep driving and pursiung fleeing russians.
Kherson had a better defense setup, but with the bridges over the Dnipro cut, russia couldn't supply them.
Now, russia had time to create layered defensives and their logistics are harder to cut. The push towards the south is the most difficult offensive Ukraine has undertaken so far, so it's only logical for it to take the longest.
There is also a difference in tactics: While russia employs zerg rushes of convicts and mobilized into fortified Ukrainian positions, Ukraine tries to achieve local supperiorities of firepower and taking russian positions into pockets. That lowers your own casualties, but makes offensive operations more difficult.
I think the expectation was for the counter offense to be fast and severe.
Only if you've been chugging western propaganda. It was pretty clear beforehand, and has been very clear since it "started".
Offense has been losing to defensive technology since after WW2 the major exception being ICBMs of course.
Big problem is the Russian air force has been holding off for just this moment. Low flying helicopters and drones are hard to hit and doing significant work defending the lines. It's why we've seen a lot of helicopters downed in the last week too.
Give it time, there'll be a solution eventually.
Sad for Ukraine. I wonder whether we're back to WWI with long, static defensive lines and grinding, awful, slow advances.
They should try advance through minefields as vast as an ocean and then criticize.
Who would have thought! I totally didn't see this coming! I'm absolutely not being sarcastic!
What nonsense is this? They are doing a great job. Assaulting heavily fortified positions is extremely hard, whoever thinks Ukraine is not fast enough probably knows nothing about shit. Just look at the Allies offensives in Europe during WW2, especially the beach landings. It took months to break the lines of defense.
Maybe redditors will stop cheering for other people to be sent to die. But probably not.
I would really rather that people stop dying. But that choice is entirely up to the Russians, who are the ones who started and are continuing to pursue this invasion.
They could just go home and this would all be over. This is on them.
Amazing deflection of responsibility. Why are you in favor of forcing people to die for your cause? Go fight yourself.
Then there's the denying of reality. The Russians aren't going to go away, even if you send in more conscripts. So the plan is what exactly? Just send in more guys (not you of course) until there's no-one left?
And you also pull the old kindergarten move of "they started it", when you know damn well this shit has been brewing for a while. Heck, even if this were true, maybe some deescalation would be wise? But no matter, the other guys are 100% at fault for sure and so your hands are clean.
Ah, yes. Deescalate with Putin. Because he has shown himself to be such a reasonable man. If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine stops existing. If Russia stops fighting, the war will be over.
I'm not going to die for my country or my government, why do you expect Ukrainians to die for this shit?
And because you wouldn't, clearly noone else would either, right?
Ukraine is conscripting people. They're preventing men from leaving the country. They are clearly sending people to the front who do not want to be there.
If someone sends me to die in this way I reserve my right to kill them in self defense.
Stop cheering this on.
If you want to flee conscription, I support that. But likewise, Ukraine has the right to defend its sovereignty. As of now, most of Ukraine's conscripts have been volunteers and, opposed to russian conscripts, they receive training in the very most cases.
And to hammer that point home, just like involuntarilly conscripted soldiers, the people in Bucha, the people in Kherson and the people in Mariupol did not choose to take part in this war. Whenever russia retreats, stories of torture, killings and abductions emerge. Leaving those people to suffer under russia is as inhumane as it gets. Not to mention, all the (war)crimes committed on russian occupied territory will never even have the chance of getting investigated if russia is allowed to hide them.
How do you think the Ukrainians are receiving better training than the Russians? Not that it matters, I'm going to change my mind about sending conscripts to the front, whether they receive 2 weeks or 6 months of training or whether the Russians are doing the same thing. I'm not cheering on Russia's war effort, you're cheering on Ukraine's.
You think it matters to most people who controls what territory? Do you really think a country that has soldiers (whole units!) proudly wearing SS and other Nazi shit are some paragons of virtue towards civilians? It clearly would be best for civilians if the fighting stops as soon as possible.
If you believe all this stuff about good vs evil I've got a bridge to sell you.
One side has some units wearing Nazi iconography. The other side has state sanctioned torture, killings and deportations (and also Nazi iconography). Your comparison is a textbook example of false equivalence.
So what about the fact that
- the democtraticly elected government of the Ukraine is deciding to continue or surrender. Military aid is not forcing them to fight but helping then after they have decided to do so.
- There is little stopping Russia from attacking other regions or contries after they overtook the eastern part of Ukraine. They allready stated they see Poland and Moldova as part of the "russian world" they want to create
I do agree that there were breaches of verbal agreements by the NATO but there is rarely a more clear aggresor than when one contry invades an other. You may now start with whataboutism, the us and all the countries they invaded but two wrongs don't make a right
The democratically elected government of Ukraine was overthrown in a western backed violent coup in 2014. What Ukraine has now is a client regime.
Nobody is being forced to die for any cause. Ukrainians are fighting Russia because Russia intends to wipe their country off the map. I don't really see why you think you have the right to tell Ukrainians that they don't have the right to fight for the existence of their country.
I also can not believe war mongering people are doing, blaming only one side but also sending other people to die?
Don't Ukrainians don't count as people who should live? What will Ukraine look like after this war? How many decades will it take for them to recover?
And now, if you even try to mention peace, you are Putin's shill.
And now, if you even try to mention peace, you are Putin’s shill.
No, you don't. You are Putin's shill if you mention peace only at Russian conditions. I'd welcome a peace where Russia leaves the occupied territories forever and stops waging war, the people of Donbass, both of Russian ethnicity and Ukranian ethnicity, get more autonomy, Tatars can go back to Crimea, Russians can vote democratically and have independent media, talk and protest without going to jail and all in all live better.
I'm against war and if everyone just lived in peace, I'd be much much happier.
I just thik that when you put conditions on peace, as you did, and those conditions, as we all know, are not possible (true, current wagner mutiny might and hopefully will change that), you are not really in for peace talks.
There are reasons Russia acted this way, and thise reasons did not change, wether we agree with their (or better even, his reasoning) does not matter. Putin did what he was talking from 2014 he will do.
I for one really hope more Russians can peacefully surrender, and that Putin's regime ceases it bloody campaign against people's liberties foreign and domestic.
I also hope that western nations will welcome russian people that do not wish to fight (as long as they behave that is). Not only will it send the signal that the west is not against russia itself, only against the regime, it will also rob russia of manpower.
Tl;dr: Not many Ukrainians want to push into a longer war in Russia, they just want to get the fuck back to "normal" and rebuild and foritfy their nation.
I mean I understand western powers giving billions, expecting a massive push, but just hear me out...these people are fighting for their home. They don't want to push into Russia and kill Russians or kill innocent people, their lives have been ruined already. War crimes have been committed against Ukraine, massive amounts of explosives detonated over entire cities. Land mines cover hundreds of miles by now, and Russia made sure to do as much damage as possible, long lasting damage. People will work hard and push hard, when they are in survival mode, and defending their lands is def something they are very righteously doing. Expecting them to counter attack and become the very thing they have rallied against, come on....the Western powers that "give" Aid, are going to want to make money, and a prolonged war with billions in sales of weapons, is of course what they want.
Ukraine just wants to rebuild, fortify and make sure this shit never happens again, what they don't want, is to go into Russia and land grab for power. It is no mystery why the counter offensive just doesn't have the same ferocity.
The counter offensive isn't into Russia, it's them trying to get back their territory which was occupied last February. Where a lot of Ukrainians currently have family members, and where we know for a fact torture of dissenters and kidnapping of children is taking place.
IIRC almost all polls show strong support from Ukrainians to take all their land back.
It's also to get back their territory which was occupied in 2014. I think XymerianMonk is subtly implying that that territory is "Russian" now, which is pretty disgusting if so. Russia doesn't get to seize and annex territory from its neighbours and then cry about being "invaded" when those neighbours try to take it back.
Santa Ana.
Whatabout.
Brooklynman 2
How can such an ignorant comment even be upvoted?
They’re pushing into Ukraine still, this is a push to take back their land from Russia not a fucking march to Moscow.
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