Ukraine Watch...

[UndercoverElephant]

Evidently. And there are many more examples.

Examples of what, exactly? People offering opinions about the future, qualified by statements making clear that they are opinions which might turn out to be wrong? Awful. Shocking! Tut tut.

I shall continue to offer opinions about the likely future, and continue to listen respectfully to other people's.

Also, for the record, this war is not yet over. Nobody knows who will win the US election. Nobody knows whether China will attack Taiwan.

[invalid]

You know what we we're discussing. Now its WW3, haha. Just like you thought coronavirus was the start of a global colapse. Anyway can't be bothered.

I'm simply calling you out on your terrible predictive track record.

[UndercoverElephant]

You know what we we're discussing.

We are discussing your persistent trolling. My track record for making predictions on this forum is no better or worse than anybody else's, and that includes on this topic. This war is not over, and nobody knows how it is going to end. If you continue to troll me then I will stop responding to you.

[Default0ptions]

My track record for making predictions on this forum is no better or worse than anybody else's, and that includes on this topic. This war is not over, and nobody knows how it is going to end

It’s going to end with the Ukraine forced to the negotiating table with Russia dictating terms.

I’m sure you’ll manage to spin that into a win for you though!

[Default0ptions]

No.


Your assessment is wrong in every statement.

Time will tell . . .

[Default0ptions]

“Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is on a tour of Baltic states on Wednesday, seeking to bolster support from reliable partners at a moment US and EU aid has stalled and remains in question.

From the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius he warned that Western hesitation will only embolden Putin. Zelensky has recently lashed out in disappointment over his Western partners losing focus on Ukraine”

Sweet Jesus I get so bored with this stuff!

The story for the west is that Russia is losing in the Ukraine.

So how can he possibly take all these other dominoes?

Or is he winning and going to attack NATO in Europe?

You really can’t have it both ways you know!


‘Putin "is not going to stop" Zelensky claimed, and emphasized, "He wants to occupy us completely." However, the stalled battlefield situation strongly suggests Russian forces are content to solidify hold over the majority of the four annexed territories in the east at this point.’

Yeah. Russia is just sitting there holding the territory it said it went in to hold.

He specifically stated that Russia did not want to occupy the Ukraine completely

“the reality is that Ukrainian forces were already losing the war, given top US officials have long acknowledged the counteroffensive has stalled and failed, even with all the weapons the US has already poured in. Likely Kiev is headed toward a situation where it will be forced to finally negotiate and cede territory.”

I will still draw your notice to the fact that if the west had just honoured Minsk 1 or Minsk 2 - we would be where we’re going to end up anyway; but with hundreds of thousands of people alive instead of dead.

[Ralphw2]

We get bored reading your same flawed analysis.

Putin planned a lightning strike on the whole of Ukraine two years ago. The initial attack was a spectacular failure, with tens of thousands of his best troops killed or captured, and forced to retreat from 40percent of the ground he initially invaded in the first year.

Since then, he has clearly changed plans in the face of reality. He has fortified the ground he has captured, employed a general conscription, and ramped up the Russian economy onto a full war footing, whilst still denying that Russia is at war. He has started importing weapons from Iran and North Korea, two of the most brutal regimes on the planet, because Russian domestic production cannot keep up with demand. No other country will trade with him.

He has clearly dug in for a long war, hoping for West to get distracted, and his 20 year track record is one of broken treaties and repeated attacks in incremental regains of small territories lost with the breakup of the USSR. It is his clear ambition to retake as many former colonies as possible, and is prepared to wage brutal war over many years to do it.

However, this invasion has shown the Russian military to be a feeble shadow of its former self, and only a willingness to suffer massive casualties and loss of (mostly ancient and rusting) hardware has enabled it to hold the territory it currently has, in the hope that the West,and US in particular, will tire of the cost. If Trump is reelected, he may get lucky.

We are on the downslope of the end of industrial society. No country or power block will be able to sustain mechanised warfare on this scale in the coming decades. Maybe Putin realises this, and is using his legacy Soviet military in one final death or glory campaign before corruption and the second law of thermodynamics finally overwhelms it.

[UndercoverElephant]

...and for the record

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67954152

The UK will give Ukraine a further £2.5bn in military support, Rishi Sunak has said - Britain's largest annual commitment since Russia's invasion.

Does not look like western support for Ukraine is faltering any time soon. Really tired of reading the delusional troll bollocks.

[Default0ptions]

...and for the record

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67954152

The UK will give Ukraine a further £2.5bn in military support, Rishi Sunak has said - Britain's largest annual commitment since Russia's invasion.

Does not look like western support for Ukraine is faltering any time soon. Really tired of reading the delusional troll bollocks.

That £2.5bn was already committed - it’s not new funding

13th April 2023: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-b ... -countries

And this: “The military aid Washington has been providing Kiev has come to a halt, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.”

[Default0ptions]

And £2.5bn is peanuts:

“Zelensky said it would be difficult, if not “impossible for Ukraine to survive” if aid packages worth a total of more than £90 billion continued to be blocked in Brussels and Washington”

So if we’re looking for a figure to keep Zelensky in the fight we need to come up with about $87 billion or, by his own accounting, it’s all over.

This might be a problem: “The military aid Washington has been providing Kiev has come to a halt, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.”

[Default0ptions]

Ralph2:

Putin planned a lightning strike on the whole of Ukraine two years ago.

That’s opinion. You could just as well claim that Putin planned a lightning strike on the whole of the moon two years ago.

Thwarted by those pesky Clangers perhaps - or maybe the Soup Dragon . . .

The actual facts are that Putin set out what his objectives were at the start - and Russia has broadly achieved those aims.

[adam2]

I expect that military aid from the USA to Ukraine will resume. Most of the American people and their elected representatives seem to support Ukraine, or at least to dislike russia which is rather similar.
The present funding pause is due to internal political differences within the USA political system, some want greater spending on protecting the Mexican border and are blocking funding for Ukraine until this is granted.

Supplying weapons and military consumables to Ukraine also protects jobs in American defence industries.

[Default0ptions]

I think the US is involved in so much internal wrangling over its open southern border that it has little time to spare for yesterday’s manufactured ‘crisis’ over the Ukraine.

Stopping the funding for the Ukraine by the US is directly linked into dealing with the USA’s absurd open border issue.

So It’s a big fat zero for the indefinite future for the Ukraine until the US sorts this kind of thing out:

“Texas Seizes Control Of Border City Park, Escalating War Against Illegal Immigration”

“In its latest assertion of sovereignty and responsibility for securing its border with Mexico, the once and future Republic of Texas has seized control of a 47-acre park in the city of Eagle Pass, which has been a major avenue of illegal immigration. What's more, the Texans are barring US Border Patrol agents and watercraft from the property, which they've used as a staging area for processing migrants.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/tex ... mmigration

[Default0ptions]

Most of the American people and their elected representatives seem to support Ukraine

This simply isn’t true Adam!

“CNN Poll: Majority of Americans oppose more US aid for Ukraine in war with Russia“

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/04/poli ... index.html

[Ralphw2]

A US military assessment of a recent China's readiness for war reports that the recent crackdown on corruption in the Chinese military has revealed severe problems especially in their ballistic missiles division, with potentially the majority of their strategic reserve inoperable due to fuel theft and design flaws. The Chinese military has never faced a major war in many decades, and may be as much of a paper tiger as the Russian forces have proved to be. The assessment is that reduces the probability of an invasion of Taiwan considerably, as their leadship is much more militarily cautious than Putin has been.

Time will tell, but demographics are not in China's favour, as their population is aging rapidly and the number of military age males in the population is falling rapidly.