Official Russia vs Ukraine War Thread

Zelensky in trouble.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is concerned he is being taken advantage of by someone close to him, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, citing their conversation during the meeting in Lviv on Thursday.

Asked by a farmer about the Ukrainian leader’s “situation” on Monday during a visit to local vineyards, Erdogan claimed Zelensky was “very worried. There are people around him who deceive him a lot.”

Erdogan had not mentioned this confession during earlier public statements about the negotiations in western Ukraine, and he did not elaborate further on who Zelensky believed was deceiving him. The two men met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and signed an agreement on restoring Ukrainian infrastructure destroyed during the conflict.

Erdogan to brief Putin on talks with Zelensky

The Ukrainian president has been firing high-ranking members of his administration at a fast clip since Russia’s military operation began in February. Special forces commander Grigory Galagan was removed last month.
First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Ruslan Demchenko was also let go last month, though for apparent health reasons, while Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova and Intelligence Bureau chief Ivan Bakanov were suspended and placed under investigation on suspicion of working with Russia.
Not content to merely behead the Ukrainian security service (SBU), Zelensky announced a personnel audit in the agency and fired several regional heads as well. He had apparently been planning to audit the SBU for some time, claiming that on February 24, the day Russia launched its offensive in the Donbass, some representatives of a law enforcement agency were “somewhere [else], instead of protecting their people.”

If you truly cared about preventing the death of “many more people” you would be calling for Russia’s immediate withdrawal from all of Ukraine. Since you’re not doing so, we can only conclude that your real issue is that you’re suffering from the “massive inflation and energy and power shortages” (aside - it’s not clear to me what distinction you’re making regarding energy and power (power is just the rate of energy usage)). So, just admit that you care more about gas prices than Ukrainian lives already.

It's not me who is pushing to continue this war that is costing so many lives.

That would be you.

So you agree that Russia should withdraw immediately and end the war? Or, are you pushing for Russia to continue its invasion?

It’s reached a point where Ukraine want victory now, not peace. They want Crimea back too. Ukraine have seen the power of NATO support and they have a real opportunity to send Russia back to 3rd world status.
The US and NATO are happy to supply Ukraine with enough weapons to stay in the fight and keep Russia tangled in this war, slowly bleeding them out. Russia is crumbling, brick by brick they are collapsing. Each day they become weaker, both economically and militarily. Each day they become more isolated. Each day their society is eroding. Look what has happened to Russia in only six months. Imagine what’s left after 6 years.

Careful. I didn't excuse civilian deaths in the manner you are suggesting. I argued that there are "principled differences between Russian killings of civilians in its invasion of Ukraine, and the US/Allied bombings of Germany and Japan during WWII." There are, and if you weren't a pro-Russian shill, you'd acknowledge them yourself.

All these things are different, and must be viewed in different contexts. Listing death numbers and/or engaging in whataboutyouism does not accomplish that. The Russian decision makers who have decided to order the bombing of Ukrainian civilians in, e.g., Kyiv (and the terrorizing and murder of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha) have different motivations, values and goals, and are considering different facts and contexts than, e.g., President Truman and his advisors had and faced when deciding whether to bomb Hiroshima. Those differences have to be analyzed if you are going to assign degrees of moral culpability to the decisions.

(Your "wailing mothers scooping up body parts of their children" is appeal to emotion fallacy, and probably a hypocritical one at that.)

I must have missed it amidst all the Russian cheerleading and cliched America-bashing you do.

The term "Russophobe," whether frothing or not, is not the criticism or insult you think it is. It's closer to calling someone a Naziophobe or scumbagophobe than it is to the other usual uses of the phobe suffix you are likely thinking of.

Yes, I have been transparent in my opinions of Russia, Russians, Putin, and un-American American supporters of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

I have no reason to post facts critical of Ukraine (and in the context of the Russian invasion, I'm not sure there are any), as I am not pretending to be an objective "no dog in this" analyst like you are pretending to be. I want every Russian soldier in Ukraine to die. I want Putin killed, and the entire miserable Russian system to collapse. I want NATO troops walking the streets of Moscow, de-Russifying the society, much like Allied troops de-Nazified Germany after WWII. Most Americans want the same. For 75+ years, the free world has had to deal with this miserable Russian culture and its endless psycho threats, intimidations and assaults, and it is time to end it. I predict it will be ended in the next 5-10 years.

Everyone in this thread is opining on morality or showcasing their lack of it. I didn't lecture on objectivity, other than to point out you have none on these events, despite pretenses.

Okay, now you or Lolly or Carmine or some other America-hater can hit that Report Post thing to the lower right. Cheers.

Again, Ukraine and US need to negotiate as they should have from well before the war began. Russia had some very reasonable demands.

December 20021:

President Putin further said that Moscow wants a guarantee from Ukraine that it will not enter the US-led NATO.

Russia has also demanded that NATO rule out further expansion, including the accession of Ukraine into the alliance, and that it does not hold drills without previous agreement from Russia in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, in Caucasus countries such as Georgia or in Central Asia.

Moscow also calls for the two countries US & Russia - to pull back any short- or medium-range missile systems out of reach, replacing the previous intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty that the US left in 2018. Vladimir Putin has demanded that the West provide Russia with “legal guarantees” of its security.

After the invasion, the following demands were added:

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Ukraine must stop fighting, amend its constitution to guarantee neutrality, formally cede Crimea to Russia, and recognize the independence of the Russian-backed breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine.
If Ukraine enshrines neutrality in its constitution — which would prevent it from joining NATO or the European Union — and accepts Russia's territorial demands, it will remain an "independent state that will live as it wants," Peskov said.

All very reasonable.

But USA wants its proxy war with Russia and so is spilling Ukraine blood.

carmine9

Russia is whipped, and this was totally predictable.

By the time this is over and Putin is destroyed, Russia will have lost over 100,000 soldiers while gaining 800 miles of NATO on their border. Add losing TONS of planes, tanks, generals, ships,equipment.

What a stupid idea trying to invade Ukraine.

These jingoistic opinions and predictions were made plain a few thousand posts ago.

Link to latest satellite map of fire events in the Ukraine.

This significantly correlates to rocket and artillery attacks.

Predominance of strikes are in Russian-held areas.

Russia isn't "whipped" until they are.

But this indicates they're staggering on their back heels since HIMARS arrival.

Which shows what "experts" know. There was no shortage of analysts predicting HIMARs would have minimal to moderate impact.

firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov

NASA-FIRMS

@nasa

Fire Information for Resource Management System

Open link

Correlates well with Russia's lack of gains over the last two months, as shown in linked map (or, for those that believe Kremlin propaganda, they've intentionally slowed their campaign to protect civilians). Almost all of the Russian gains since June 25th are from the week immediately after Ukrainian forces withdrawing from Lysychansk.

I have read maybe three posts in this thread, bottom line is Russia has lost this anyone not seeing that simply refusing to deal with reality.

Only thing that will happen now is more dead people mostly Russians.

Finland joining NATO the big gain for Russia, hahahahaha!!!!

Your hero.

Ukraine needs to negotiate.

The Russian hammer is coming down