Western media have finally change course. They are now admitting that the much promoted Ukrainian counter-offensive has failed. In fact, the acknowledge that it never had a chance to win in the first place.
The Hill, the Washington Post and CNN now agree that the Ukrainian army will never achieve its aims.
western MSM has a rare encounter with reality!
That makes it difficult for the Biden administration to get Congress approval for $24 billion in additional 'aid' to Ukraine. It does not make sense to pay for a cause that is evidently lost.
b seems overly hopeful regarding the rationality of US congress, but i think hes right- why would we throw more money at them, US politicians have made it clear they do not support bringing Ukraine into NATO if they do not win this conflict. of course, US politicians are prone to lying and misleading
Nothing has come from the 'peace conference' which Saudi Arabia arranged on Ukraine's behalf
lol. lmao even. props to big dog MBS for trying
Despite the onslaught of bad news the Ukrainian army is still trying to take Russian positions in the south and east of Ukraine. But it simply does not have enough in men and material to break through the lines.
Even if they would manage to get a local breakthrough there are not enough reserves to push for the necessary follow up. Just one of the NATO trained brigades has still been held back. All others have been mauled in their various deployment zones.
nothing has changed it seems
In the northeast around Kupyansk the Russians have started their own offensive which has the Ukrainians on the run. Ukraine has ordered the evacuation of the area
But Kupyansk is a Russian city and people refuse to leave.
show this to the libs claiming Russians are committing genocide in the regions they capture. curious that these civilians are content with Russian occupation when you believe what western media claims
The Russian campaign is slowly speeding up. As the Ukrainian Strana.news reports (machine translation):
Also in Ukraine, it is recorded that from Kupyansk to Bakhmut, Russia has increased the number of attacks.
"Over the past month, the total number of attacks in the Kupyansk, Limansky and Bakhmut directions has grown significantly. In July, during the week there were 6-6.5 thousand attacks, during the last week-9 thousand attacks, " - said the representative of the National Guard Ruslan Muzychuk.
According to him, the Russian Federation does not experience "shell hunger".
Aviation is also actively used, and over the past few weeks, more than 50 air attacks have been taking place every day, and sometimes more than 80.
That is bad news for the Ukrainian side which lacks the reserves to counter the Russian onslaught. There are also less weapons coming in from the West. F-16 fighter jets will be delayed for another nine months due to training issues. Tanks and other material are in short supply.
these supply issues sure bode well for the west’s performance in WW3 
Strana also report of an interview with a knowledgeable Ukrainian soldier (machine translation):
Continuing the topic of the situation at the front, an interesting interview was given by a Ukrainian sniper fighting near Bakhmut with the call sign "Grandfather". On the air of political scientist Yuri Romanenko, he was introduced as Konstantin Proshinsky (this is a pseudonym).
The fighter spoke in detail about his vision of the situation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Russian army.
- Mobilization. In his opinion, it is conducted incorrectly. Recruits are sent to the front who have never been trained, and they are often over 50 years old and with a whole bunch of diseases.
- No rotation. The soldier says that "the same brigades" are fighting at the front, and people are not taken out of the front line for six months or more. Whereas by Western standards, they can be kept in a war zone for no more than three months.
- Behavior of mid-and high-level commanders. According to Proshinsky, many of them are trying to arrange a "mini-Stalingrad" on the positions, forcing them to go into frontal assaults on well-fortified Russian positions.
- The Russian Army began to fight better.
- Proshinsky believes that Russia has not yet used much of what it has against Ukraine.
The soldier thinks that the Russians will not move from their positions and that a stalemate peace like in Korea would be the end result.
UAF in real dire times— recruiting the elderly, poor logistics, engaging the enemy at inopportune times, and Russia has yet to waver
I believe that to be wrong. Russia's aim is to liberate at least the four regions that it has claimed for itself. For political reasons it can not stop before that is done.
Should the Ukraine continue to fight after that, Russia is likely to set new aims and take more land.
more editorializing, but it doesnt seem unreasonable. i thought Russia would stick to its original goal of Donetsk and Luhansk, but if Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are receptive to Russian governance, it would be foolish for Russia to give them up
Mod reports so far:
Reporter:
@jemikwa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Reason: Go away tankies with your editorialized commentary
Reporter:
Nate Cox@programming.dev
Reason: propaganda
Hey @jemikwa@lemmy.blahaj.zone and @natecox@programming.dev Why don't you show up and defend your beliefs in the free marketplace of democracy instead of crying for the authoritarian Stalinist mods to silence everyone you don't like.
Reporter:
@lasagna@programming.dev
Reason: support of human rights violations
Why don't you show up and defend your beliefs in the free marketplace of democracy instead of stuffing your complaints in the authoritarian Stalinist mods mailbox?
If you don't support fighting to the last Ukrainian, then you are supporting genocide of Ukrainians
support of human rights violations
Hmm maybe we should just report every pro USA comment as this?
The burden of the left, we're forced to comport ourselves to a higher standard because our enemies have no sense of responsibility
"Mods! mods! Delete this tankie at once."
They think this is Reddit.
Looks like Amadeus Bordiga has an account on the programming instance.
Reporter:
Nate Cox@programming.dev
Reason: Harassment
Reporter:
Nate Cox@programming.dev
Reason: Harassment
Double whammy from @natecox@programming.dev stuffing more hatemail in the modbox. The quicker you either 1) show up and actually try and prove why you're right and the article is wrong. or 2) stop making false mod reports over opinions you disagree with, the quicker you'll stop getting pinged for wasting everyone's time.
@natecox@programming.dev are you really going to keep replying to me via mod reports? Are you really that scared of saying hello or incapable of walking away from an unwinnable event?
@natecox@programming.dev this is getting boring, knock off filling my report box with your replies and we'll call it even.
Alright @natecox@programming.dev you decided to keep going, not me.
Edit: this probably looks weird to anyone looking in. TL;DR each comment here is a response to a mod report I get. I'm not stopping until I stop getting mod reports.
comes to an instance commonly defederated because tankies
Sees tankies
OMG I DIDN'T KNOW HEXBEARS WAS ACTUALLY TANKIESlol “editorialized”. i counted two instances of b editorializing in this otherwise well cited article. and one of those is barely editorializing, more of a hypothesis based on prior evidence that Ukraine does not have enough reserves to follow up if they happen to break the Russian line. the other is a guess of Russia’s future actions, but again, its a reasonable guess based on the current status of the Russian army and the general sentiment of civilians in Russia-occupied oblasts.
so come @jemikwa@lemmy.blahaj.zone and @natecox@programming.dev. come @lasagna@programming.dev. defend ur claims in the posting arena instead of cowering in the mod reports
Show me one place the Ukronazis broke through even the first line of Russian defences. I'll wait, dorks.
I am still astounded by this part, the utter failure of Ukraine to make any substantial gains whatsoever. I never expected the counteroffensive to succeed, but with the Russian evacuations of the combat zone, and the withdrawals in Karhkiv and Kherson, I pretty much expected the UAF to be allowed to reach the 1st line of defense. The utter failure of the UAF to take only a few tiny pockets, despite their force concentration, just shows the utter failure of NATO to identify an effective doctrine.
Now, with Russia on the offensive again, I don't really see any possibility of Ukrainian gains in the future. If the counteroffensive was supposed to improve Ukraine's position on the negotiating table, well, this is their high tide.
It doesn't seem like a big departure from where they've been for most of the war. Well before this I recall the general consensus being that Ukraine was sending out waves of unsupported light infantry and Russia was mulching them with massed artillery fire, and then the process repeated until the UA soldiers refused to advance.
NATO doesn't really seem to have much going in terms of tactics except "lol air superiority". A lot of their equipment is shitty and has poor mobility, and they haven't fought any real battles since Vietnam. All they really know is air superiority, gun run, JDAM, bomb civilians, hot chip, and lie."
As far as I understand it it's the Russians who have air superiority in Ukraine no?
It's pretty funny that they use the mod report button like redditors, as if this place wouldn't have mods that toe the party line completely, rather than some guy who turned himself into a chatbot through the sheer power of propaganda.
Its just so much fucking blood spilled.
I can't get over how many people are throwing their lives away over some dipshits in their respective capitals putting new lines on a map. Nightmarish to see Ukrainians and Russians alike march to their deaths over this shit.
some Ukrainians are being coerced into serving. libs will call me a Russian bot for this, but i dont think the same can be said for Russia. they have enough active military personnel to avoid drafting; they havent even deployed them all
but yeah, war is depressing. hopefully before we go extinct we will achieve communism and end war
You’re right of course but it’s a significant degree of coercion away from the way Ukrainian recruiters were grabbing people on the street and throwing them in vans.
tens of thousands of casualties from Wagner alone? that sounds spurious
Bakhmut was a literal meat grinder of human lives, absolutely brutal battle with mass casualties on both sides. Definitely was no where near worth the life lost.
They’re also still fighting in Bakhmut too. Some asshole from my state just got mortared to pieces there about a week ago. Many news stories about him. The dude was maybe fifty, had been rejected from the US military for undisclosed health issues decades earlier, was estranged from his wife, and went to fight in Ukraine because he wanted to help the children 😬
fair, but also they arent part of the Russian military. and they stopped recruiting prisoners
Does Ukraine really need to coerce people into serving? I was under the impression that the country had huge numbers of bloodthirsty fascists salivating at the thought of killing "RuZZian orcs."
The Ukrainian leader said all officials responsible for military conscription in each region of the country were dismissed.
Mr Zelenskyy said a probe into military recruitment centres across the nation exposed illegal dealings including bribery.
The investigations also unveiled reports of officials helping men dodge conscription by fleeing across borders.
There is currently a wartime ban on travel for draft-eligible men.
"This system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and bribery during war is treason," Mr Zelenskyy said on Friday.
'recruitment' lmao
No they definitely need to conscript. Most people don't want to give up their lives for some war, no matter their ideology.
There are a huge number of racists in Ukraine but that doesn't make it a monolith. When you see things like 76% approval for Bandera, some people support him killing Jews but some were genuinely miseducated on him.
Also, a lot of these people have families in places where bombs have fallen, will fall, or are currently falling. In the face of a massive enemy like Russia, even as a Ukrainian reactionary there is a good case to be made to just stay and protect your family since you aren't going to stop the bombs. Being there to rescue a survivor right after a bomb hits is much more likely to help them than making sure a thermobaric missile kills 17 people instead of 16 on the front lines.
It's a country of like I think forty million people. It's not a monolith. The Banderites are strongest in Galacia, which varying amounts of support beyond that.
some Ukrainians are being coerced into serving. libs will call me a Russian bot for this,
Nah they can't, even western news outlets acknowledged that zelenskyyyy banned all working age men from leaving the country, effectively condemning them to die in the war as cannon fodder for NATO.
libs will call me a Russian bot for this, but i dont think the same can be said for Russia.
I think they were talking about libs calling them a bot for saying Russia didn't have to rely on coercion. I'd still disagree with that though because afaik Russia actually has been (or at least was at one point, correct me if that's changed) using conscripts in Ukraine.
I'm not sure if there's been conscription of new soldiers, but Russia has taken some pretty marked measures to ensure they have enough people - Retirements for older soldiers have been postponed, they've called in retired technicians and specialists to take over positions within russia to free up young workers for military duties. I think there was some serious resistance to the call up early on. Maybe not widespread, but enough to be noteworthy.
those are typical wartime measures tho. unemployment is currently incredibly low in Russia, so pulling ppl out of retirement is to maintain a reserve army of labor. i dont think this is good and hope Russia has a proletarian revolution, but by capitalist standards, they arent acting inordinately cruel
libs will call me a Russian bot
Everyone who disagrees with me is a lib is great defense. Chuds will disagree with me though
I don't consider myself a lib. Housing should not be an asset for profit. Workers pay should increase based on the value they create. Housing first policy for the homeless. Food prices should not be rising based on corporate profit seeking
I think I'm still pro market economy, but not in a capitalist sense. A market economy can incentivize progress, but workers shouldn't be forced to participate at minimum wage through the threat of hunger and homelessness.
corporate power lobbying has ruined public infrastructure and that's bad.
But I'm not backing Russia fully on this invasion thing, so I'm definitely a liberal!
I don’t think anyone here really supports Russia, in the sense that we want them to conquer Ukraine. More that we don’t see prolonging the war as useful for anything but killing more people and selling more weapons. Peace is what we should all aim for here.
Yeah. A Russian victory, or at least a favorabel stalemate, is desirable because it would harm NATO, not because there's anything good about Russia. There's some argument to be made that it's likely better than allowing Ethnic Russian Russian Speaking Ukrainians to fall in to the hands of the Banderites that run Kiev, but that's kind of up in the air.
Workers pay should increase based on the value they create
Who do you think should get shares from the worker's fruits of labours, too? Who do you think ought to distribute them on the level of a company and on the level of societies?
Housing should not be an asset for profit
What changes in laws and legislation as well as enforcement of power are needed for that? To de-commodify what Neoliberalism and Colonialism as well as Imperialism did privatize over the last centuries will be a hard fight.
How do you think power can be generated to achieve those goals? Which in itself are idealist or utopist. The question is how to change the world after all.
pro market economy, but not in a capitalist sense
So "Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against" type?
Quite a leap you do there. Ignoring political science and social science of more than 100 years, ignoring how social democratic liberals in the Weimar Republic did ally with conservatives and the military against party member who weren't in favour of the war with talk of traitors and propaganda of being the voice of the enemy (which is the back then equivalent of "Russian Bots") is certainly something.
You also ignore the difference i.e. from USA liberal's who favour property rights over people's lives and often espouse values only as long as it doesn't cost a thing and how they do support the US empire and often its wars.
You also leap since OP didn't say "all are against me!", but was precise. That you don't understand slang is kinda a You problem. You also deny the experience of others, maybe that is something that you also do in your regular life and social interactions? If so you can utilize a change of perspective and behavior to get more from the world. People here - even ones who are far from Russian propaganda - are often called Russian bots by people on many instances, often by people labeling themselves as liberals. I have different views than many on this site and yet I can differentiate what people say.
Finally do you think your argument is in any way new or interesting? Like, what was your motivation to post it?
Biden truly scares me, being so casually ending European prosperity
Biden's a senile puppet. He didn't do anything aside from sign whatever was put on his desk by staffers and read whatever was on his teleprompter. Europe was ultimately screwed by its own slavish obedience to deindustrialization, a process decades in the making and orchestrated by the forces of finance. This was enhanced by their millennia-old tangled web of bigotries that made it easy for finance to divide and conquer them. They'd have been fucked over in the exact same way regardless of who sat in the oval office or what colour of lawn sign that person had.
I don’t think even Obama would dare to cross this line, and Obama was the one who deleted half of the generational wealth of black community overnight, which as Michael Hudson repeatedly reminded us, made him quite possibly the most racist president in the history of the United States.
I don't think Obama is anywhere close to the most racist president in US history, but that speaks more to the quality of his competition than any lack of racism on his part.
That's true, but I still don't think he's quite on the level of Andrew "Indian Removal Act" Jackson.
Obama was the one who deleted half of the generational wealth of black community overnight
Wait, what is this referencing?
Remember when Libs were trying to say the guy who gave Strom Thurmond's euology wasn't a racist?
I joked yesterday about how I'm not getting the simulated liberalism I was promised but like, I remember someone the other day saying it was simulated too well and to please stop and you said on.
Are you just using this as your normal account now?
Can we also end the overarching simulation while we're turning these things off?
Sorry, this isn't actually a simulation. We're all in hell because we wore polycotton clothing.
Thank you, I thought of making a similar remark about blood pressure, lol
When the
bitsimulation is too good
made him quite possibly the most racist president in the history of the United States
multiple US presidents were literal slavers.
Yeah that's whack, he could say he's the most racist US president since Andrew Johnson and that would make more sense
even then I'm not so sure it's clear cut. the US has been responsible for so much horrifying shit in the 20th century too.
To understand how seriously China sees this issue, you need to read the science fiction novel Three Body Problem, which is extremely popular among the elite and academic circles in China.
could you elaborate on what you mean by this? Like, they're extremely worried about a large tech gap between the US and China?
Ok so that is what I was assuming, but it doesn't quite make sense to me, are they afraid to do tech embargos in return for fear of further retaliation?
Also, would this kind of support my idea that part of the reason they haven't accelerated their transition to a fully planned economy is that they want to fully build up their self-sufficient semiconductor industry first?
Underestimating the bloody-minded insanity of European Imperialists is a repeated note in the history of the last few centuries.
A lot of people took the Trisolarian-Earth conflict to be an allegory of a US-China war in the future.
Incidentally, Obama really liked the Three-Body Problem book.
Agreed. My strongest evidence that Biden is just immensely cruel and an absolute true believer is that he worked as a mountpiece for the Credit Card industry for literal decades and was still, relatively speaking, poor when he became VP. I think his assets with his wife might have been like 2 million, or maybe even 1 million, and I think a lot of that was from Jill's career. Biden somehow, working for one of the most corrupt sectors of the economy, never managed to make any money off of it in decades of doing their bidding. Only a profoundly weird man or a profoundly stupid man could achieve that.
Probably hundreds of thousands of people dead for the ambitions of a handful of gerontocrat crooks and their cronies.
If you want a really bad thought imagine what the Red Army soldiers from WWII would think finding out that Ukraine and Russia were at war and Banderites had taken control of the government and were leading the charge?
This is really weird. I just read on quora that Russia has almost no tanks left. I'm not joking.
CW: cartoon blood, violence.
spoiler
Show
This isn't really related I just think the DKK shovel meme is funny. Yes that makes me a boomer, no, I don't care.
There's enough content on Quora to keep the dunk tank going until the sun explodes.
I remember dozens upon dozens of shitposts on Quora about how Russia was supposedly unable to produce ball bearings because of sanctions. One of the biggest weapons manufacturing powerhouses on the planet.
Every single one of them would end with the phrase: "Sanctions work, just slowly" -- i.e. the usual grift from Neoliberals.
Always claim that the big victories are right around the corner, just in reach, just gotta wait a little while longer!! Meanwhile they make off into the distance with whatever spoils they managed to gain during their grift.
I remember dozens upon dozens of shitposts on Quora about how Russia was supposedly unable to produce ball bearings because of sanctions.
Americans seem to have a weird fascination with ball bearings. In WW2 some intel genius figured the German war effort could be crippled by bombing the ball bearing factories in Schweinfurt. The first raid was a desaster; after rebuilding the US Air Forces in Britain for months, they tried again and lost even more bombers. At least Schweinfurt was 98% destroyed.
German motor vehicle production suffered no noticeable impact.
Hilariously, that's precisely the event those Quora posts were referencing, pretending it was some kind of huge victory.
Which would be nonsense even if the operation hadn't been a debacle. Final reports on US and UK bombing campaigns after the war identified strikes on German transit infrastructure as having had the greatest meaningful impact on their military performance. This was corroborated by the Germans themselves I believe. Strikes on factories of any kind were seen as having only limited efficacy.
It's February 2022. Russia has no tanks left etc :ti
Shit wha'ts the doctor manhattan emoji?
Using a combined arms NATO style attack tactic for the counter offensive when Ukraine basically has no air force was certainly a very smart and good idea with no potential problems. Especially when attacking entrenched and mined Russian positions. Great idea from the NATO military commander failsons
I can only imagine the number of dead and wounded Ukrainian soldiers. This didn't need to happen.
My friend's Ukrainian husband just got out, but he's still in some sort of family visa limbo. He's story from the last two years is just trauma laden with trauma.
So much fucking senseless death and human tragedy just so the US Empire can stave off its encroaching decay a few years more.
And the ironic part is, if anything, this whole event has only accelerated its demise.
Even more ironic that the supposed ruler of the empire can't even comprehend what's happening because he's a demented old fuck.
I mean Hitler was probably on as many drugs and zonked out like ol' Joe after Kursk 1943 (read "Blitzed", it's so great) but a dying empire sending 1,000s to their death in minefields or a braindead 80-year old zombie... that's gotta be a first, right?
Even more ironic that the supposed ruler of the empire can't even comprehend what's happening because he's a demented old fuck.
putin is losing in iraq
See also: the war on terror.
The MIC raked in the dough while the USA suffered several domestic setbacks that they still haven't recovered from. Good job, guyz!
Jesus that's... This whole situation is fucking awful. : (
Put yeah, propaganda slamming head long in to reality.
Why leopards, though? Are there leopards in Ukraine?
Leopard tanks were the wundwaffe of the month when the counteroffensyiv started.
Disgusting waste of lives.
All of this should have fucking ended but Boris Johnson fucked it all. Fuck him and fuck all the liberals that have been spewing bloodthirsty vile shit calling for tens of thousands of lives to be wasted in a fucking meatgrinder for some lines on a map. I do not give a fuck about the Ukrainian state, I do not give a fuck about the Russian state. Lines on a map are not people.
These people deserved better than bloodthirsty assholes.
Don’t worry guys, I hear they’re bringing in some dude called Steiner to start another counter-offensive, everything’s still good 👍
I don't think one Steiner Scout Lance would change anything long term, but it would certainly make an impression until the Russians managed to smash through the Atlas' armor or overwhelm their EWAR systems.
The counter offensive is more than a military maneuver. It's an idea. Light itself.
- Show
That’s it?
THAT’S the counteroffensive?
THAT WAS JUST THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME!
i don't understand, its been going bad the entire time, why admit it now? its been 18 months and thousands of lives, wtf
They'll just drum up some other backwards ass excuse to throw more money at neo-nazis in Ukraine. This war is never going to end anytime soon and frankly your average burger is literally a world away and views it as team sports.
NYT is running an article today saying they are making progress https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/12/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war.html so I am not sure about western media changing course.
According to Proshinsky, many of them are trying to arrange a "mini-Stalingrad" on the positions, forcing them to go into frontal assaults on well-fortified Russian positions.
Its not that I'm surprised at this point when anticommunist propaganda turns out to be projection, it's more that im still surprised at how often it pops up
Russia is doing human wave attacks to capture Ukrainian asphalt plants. Of course they're just going to ruin them. They have no idea how to use this foreign material.
where do they go from here?
