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Thanks very interesting to see your general viewpoint. 👍
Their fortress belt was a brutal, god-awful bloodbath for Russia and it served its purpose to protect the rest of Ukraine, but it still kept crumbling backwards village by village for years.
This is true, this was part of the strategy of attrition, to pull back slowly to avoid heavy losses, and make sure the losses on the Russian side were bigger.
Some of these things were potentially significant but in the end none of them panned out quite as effectively as might have been hoped.
I disagree, operation spiderweb was a major success, and the bombing of the Kerch bridge was the beginning of what we are seeing happening now. Cutting off Russia from the back. This has led to Russia needing to use the long road to Crimea, and Ukraine is absolutely destroying Russian supplies there now. Also the marine drones have been so successful that Ukraine have won the war of the black sea without having a fleet!
some of it was straight propaganda,
Absolutely we have received our share of that too. But the propaganda has never been completely disconnected from reality like the Russian propaganda has.
Ukraine was doing pretty good to defend itself with a minimum of losses but that’s not the same as “winning”
Well this may be true, but IMO that depends on how you look at it. Already early on, when Ukraine was able to stop the Russian convoys with for instance Man Pads. Russia showed incompetence, and Ukraine showed they were both determined and smarter than the Russians. When Ukraine began with the early Bayraktar attacks and made the Bayraktar song, I was pretty convinced that Russia would lose this war. This was already in the first year of the war.
Ukraine would’ve eventually been forced to cede their occupied territory to Russia in exchange for ending the slow, death-by-a-thousand-cuts
Absolutely true especially early on, if Putin had been willing to negotiate on reasonable terms, Ukraine would probably have ceded territory to Russia for peace to save lives. But still I have been very confident for more than 4 years now, that Ukraine would get stronger and Russia weaker as the war dragged on. And it has been happening already for years pretty much as I expected, maybe except for a short period after the failed Ukrainian spring offensive. It’s just very obvious this year.
And it’s always been understood that putting political and economic pressure on Russia and collapsing Russia’s internal stability is the only way Ukraine gets out of this with an actual victory,
Yes, and this has been the plan of Ukraine and their allies all the time. Which is why for instance EU has sanctioned Russia heavily, and heavily reduced purchase of Russian fuel at great cost to ourselves. Only a few countries have refused or been unable to transition to other sources, but we only import about a sixth of the fuel overall now compared to 2021. Oil gas and coal. This has helped weaken the Russian economy, and with economic aid to Ukraine, allowed them to get the upper hand on the economic side.
Russia is the larger country and they are absolutely comfortable with continuing attritional warfare forever,
It may seem so, but the reality is that Russia can’t afford to sustain the effort they have made for the past 4½ years much longer. Even without the successful destruction by Ukraine of their oil industry, Russia was already slowly collapsing. It’s just much faster now.
this really feels like a significant shift compared to everything that came before,
It absolutely is different. All the efforts Ukraine and allies have put in, are now resulting in Ukraine having the military upper hand, so it is no longer a matter of waiting for the Russian economy to collapse under their expenditures on the war.
The difference is in how widespread, sustained and relentless this is
Yes everything about how Ukraine has managed this is impressive. Putin probably thought Zelenskyj was just a comedy actor, way out of his depth. But Zelenskyj turned out to be a true leader from the very first minute of the attack. And he and the Ukrainian people have outmaneuvered Putin and Russia badly from the start, where Russia failed to take Kiev the first day as planned, and Russia never managed it!
taking out their entire fuel supply is no joke and makes it almost impossible to continue their war effectively, and we can see it’s actually having real lasting and undeniable consequences on the Russian economy and population
As they call it: Ukrainian is sanctioning Russian oil. And yes it’s impressive how Ukrainian drones are able to operate unhampered by all Russian defenses, even in Moscow that is the most heavily defended and fortified part of Russia. AFAIK it is still unknown how they do it? Russia has its most advanced air-defenses around Moscow, but also heavy electronic defenses against drones, that should make it impossible for drones to operate. Still they just flew around in the middle of it all, as if they owned the place!
this is what Ukraine’s actual path to victory potentially looks like.
Yes absolutely, it seems like Putin will never pull back by himself. So some sort of collapse is probably necessary.
Either political, economical / infrastructural or militarily. And whichever comes first, will probably quickly be followed by the others.
Russia can lose thousands of soldiers a day forever.
No actually they can’t, this is what Putin wants us to believe, but in reality they absolutely can’t. The balance between civilian society that has to carry the cost, and the size of the military is already lopsided, this is a major reason why we could be so sure the Russian economy will break at some point. This problem is slowly getting worse for Russia as long as the war continues, and would sooner or later destroy Russia from within, even without Ukraine being able to attack into Russia like they are doing now.
I’m not sure they’re (Russia) going to have any good answers to this, they haven’t seemed to so far.
Lot’s of leading Russian politicians are threatening to use nukes. and lots are threatening to attack EU and NATO.
But realistically they have no viable response option that I know of.
Lukashenko and Belarus is abandoning Russia, and Lukashenko has a meeting with Xi that resulted in statements that indicate that China is shifting their bet away from Russia. And the Chinese foreign minister has invited the Ukrainian foreign minister.
Which seems like an indication that Russia is more alone now than they have ever been.
Thanks very interesting to see your general viewpoint. 👍
This is true, this was part of the strategy of attrition, to pull back slowly to avoid heavy losses, and make sure the losses on the Russian side were bigger.
I disagree, operation spiderweb was a major success, and the bombing of the Kerch bridge was the beginning of what we are seeing happening now. Cutting off Russia from the back. This has led to Russia needing to use the long road to Crimea, and Ukraine is absolutely destroying Russian supplies there now. Also the marine drones have been so successful that Ukraine have won the war of the black sea without having a fleet!
Absolutely we have received our share of that too. But the propaganda has never been completely disconnected from reality like the Russian propaganda has.
Well this may be true, but IMO that depends on how you look at it. Already early on, when Ukraine was able to stop the Russian convoys with for instance Man Pads. Russia showed incompetence, and Ukraine showed they were both determined and smarter than the Russians. When Ukraine began with the early Bayraktar attacks and made the Bayraktar song, I was pretty convinced that Russia would lose this war. This was already in the first year of the war.
Absolutely true especially early on, if Putin had been willing to negotiate on reasonable terms, Ukraine would probably have ceded territory to Russia for peace to save lives. But still I have been very confident for more than 4 years now, that Ukraine would get stronger and Russia weaker as the war dragged on. And it has been happening already for years pretty much as I expected, maybe except for a short period after the failed Ukrainian spring offensive. It’s just very obvious this year.
Yes, and this has been the plan of Ukraine and their allies all the time. Which is why for instance EU has sanctioned Russia heavily, and heavily reduced purchase of Russian fuel at great cost to ourselves. Only a few countries have refused or been unable to transition to other sources, but we only import about a sixth of the fuel overall now compared to 2021. Oil gas and coal. This has helped weaken the Russian economy, and with economic aid to Ukraine, allowed them to get the upper hand on the economic side.
It may seem so, but the reality is that Russia can’t afford to sustain the effort they have made for the past 4½ years much longer. Even without the successful destruction by Ukraine of their oil industry, Russia was already slowly collapsing. It’s just much faster now.
It absolutely is different. All the efforts Ukraine and allies have put in, are now resulting in Ukraine having the military upper hand, so it is no longer a matter of waiting for the Russian economy to collapse under their expenditures on the war.
Yes everything about how Ukraine has managed this is impressive. Putin probably thought Zelenskyj was just a comedy actor, way out of his depth. But Zelenskyj turned out to be a true leader from the very first minute of the attack. And he and the Ukrainian people have outmaneuvered Putin and Russia badly from the start, where Russia failed to take Kiev the first day as planned, and Russia never managed it!
As they call it: Ukrainian is sanctioning Russian oil. And yes it’s impressive how Ukrainian drones are able to operate unhampered by all Russian defenses, even in Moscow that is the most heavily defended and fortified part of Russia. AFAIK it is still unknown how they do it? Russia has its most advanced air-defenses around Moscow, but also heavy electronic defenses against drones, that should make it impossible for drones to operate. Still they just flew around in the middle of it all, as if they owned the place!
Yes absolutely, it seems like Putin will never pull back by himself. So some sort of collapse is probably necessary.
Either political, economical / infrastructural or militarily. And whichever comes first, will probably quickly be followed by the others.
No actually they can’t, this is what Putin wants us to believe, but in reality they absolutely can’t. The balance between civilian society that has to carry the cost, and the size of the military is already lopsided, this is a major reason why we could be so sure the Russian economy will break at some point. This problem is slowly getting worse for Russia as long as the war continues, and would sooner or later destroy Russia from within, even without Ukraine being able to attack into Russia like they are doing now.
Lot’s of leading Russian politicians are threatening to use nukes. and lots are threatening to attack EU and NATO.
But realistically they have no viable response option that I know of.
Lukashenko and Belarus is abandoning Russia, and Lukashenko has a meeting with Xi that resulted in statements that indicate that China is shifting their bet away from Russia. And the Chinese foreign minister has invited the Ukrainian foreign minister.
Which seems like an indication that Russia is more alone now than they have ever been.