In late 2022, many Western and NATO countries promised to send modern weaponry to Ukraine. As U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin put it, the intent was to support Ukraine for as long as it takes to drive Russia out. As signs indicate a Ukrainian spring offensive may soon launch, many Western military analysts claim that a sufficient amount of Western armor could turn things around for Ukraine. A careful analysis reveals such optimism may be misplaced.
On March 23, Commander of the Ukrainian ground forces Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky confidently declared the Ukrainian Armed Forces would “very soon” launch a new offensive and drive Russian forces backward, “as we did in the past near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliya and Kupyansk.” Four days later, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced the UAF had already received tanks and armored personnel carriers from Britain, Spain, France, the U.S., Germany, and Portugal. “The greatest vehicles for the best soldiers,” Reznikov tweeted, adding that it was time to move onward to the offensive.
NATO Provides Modern Equipment & Training to Bolster Ukrainian Armed Forces
Many will understandably point to the considerable acquisitions promised to or already delivered to Ukraine: MiG 29 jets, U.S.-provided Patriot air defense systems, M1A1 Abrams tanks, and Stryker armored vehicles. These are joined by British Challenger tanks, German Leopard tanks, French AMX-10 tanks, Turkish Kirpi armored personnel carriers, U.S. Paladin self-propelled 155mm howitzers, and thousands of drones. That is a lot of firepower. What is far less understood in Western media, however, is the laborious process of turning varied modern platforms into combat power.
MiG-29 fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Most analysts simply assess that the capacities of the various planes, tanks, and armored vehicles make them superior to their Russian counterparts, and thus the mere possession of them grants an assumed tactical advantage to the Ukrainian side. It is far more complicated than that. As I have detailed in previous analyses in these pages, to use these many platforms from a host of different countries, Ukraine must have reliable logistics supply lines to provide spare parts, trained mechanics, and the ammunition tailored to each system.
Further, each platform includes a unique operating system that operators must learn, in addition to understanding their own Soviet-era equipment. Cobbling all that together, keeping it all operating and supplied with ammunition, fuel, and spare parts is a monumentally difficult task. Yet as hard as it is to cobble together so many different platforms in the absence of mature support systems, the greater difficulty facing the Ukraine Armed Forces will be to use them effectively in a combined-arms offensive.
Reportedly, up to 30,000 Ukrainian troops have received anything from weeks to several months of training at numerous NATO facilities. While this will no doubt improve the capacity of the UAF, the effort is far too disjointed and will not adequately prepare the Ukrainian military to conduct large-scale, properly coordinated, and sophisticated combined-arms operations to penetrate multiple belts of prepared Russian defensive positions.
The chances of overcoming the equipment and logistics challenges as well as difficulties in training and operations would be remarkably low for any force. Compounding the UAF’s challenge, they would be attacking with almost no air cover, and at least through the summer, they would have limited numbers of artillery shells.
Leopard 2’s and M1A1 Abrams’ Combat Performance
There is still another factor that gets far too little consideration in Western press. The tanks Ukraine is counting on are not, in themselves, transformative technology that will greatly increase battlefield capabilities. In fact, the Leopard 2 and M1A1 Abrams have shown themselves vulnerable in combat.
Leopard 2 Tank
In December 2016, the Turkish army was conducting an operation against Kurdish separatists and ISIS rebels in northern Syria. Earlier in 2016, Turkey had lost many of the older M60 Patton tanks they had gotten from the U.S. and decided to employ the more modern Leopard 2A4s. In the Battle of al-Bab in December, the Leopards fared no better than the Patton tanks had, and at least 10 of the German tanks were knocked out by insurgents. Also in 2016, Defense One reported that up to 20 M1A1 tanks operated by Saudi Arabia in its war against Houthi rebels in Yemen had been knocked out.
Let that sink in for a moment. Leopard 2s and M1A1s — the foundation of Ukraine’s battlefield hopes — were knocked out in battle when used by NATO Turkish troops and American-trained Saudis in fighting against insurgents, who themselves had no tanks. The most likely result for Ukraine, whether it’s the Leopard, the Challenger, or Abrams tanks, is going to be little different than the results they have achieved with their forces’ current, Soviet-era tanks. What matters is always how the equipment is used. The tanks themselves make far less difference.
What Comes After Ukraine’s Spring Offensive
While one cannot help but admire the tenacity and courage of the Ukrainian defenders — and wholly understand their desire to drive the invading Russians out — the risk that Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelensky and his generals face is much greater than not succeeding in an offensive. To truly understand what is at stake, we must look beyond Ukraine’s chances for success in pushing forward. A Ukrainian failure would have clear negative ramifications. What few realize, however, is that even a tactically successful drive could ultimately cost Ukraine the war.
A failed offensive could leave the Ukrainian Armed Forces in such a weakened state they may not survive the year as a cohesive force. A successful offensive could also leave them so weakened they become vulnerable to a Russian counterattack. This is because Ukraine has spent months building up this offensive strike force, leaving conscripts and lesser trained forces to languish on frontline hotspots such as Bakhmut. (This has been crucial in giving strike forces time to prepare.)
Once they are spent, there will be little beyond national guard troops to defend the country — and an insufficient pool of manpower from which Ukraine may draw to constitute a new offensive force. The Ukrainian position will be compounded by the number of troops and amount of war material their enemy possesses.
In early February, Ukrainian intelligence reported that Russia had amassed approximately 300,000 troops inside Ukraine for a massive invasion, stocked with an astonishing 1,800 tanks, 3,950 armored vehicles, more than 3,000 pieces of artillery and rocket launchers, 400 jets, and 300 helicopters. The expectation was that soon Russia would blast through with a major push. Perhaps because of Ukraine’s stubborn resistance in Bakhmut, Russia was unable to launch a large-scale winter offensive. There is no doubt Russian forces had to pull reinforcements to replace battle losses in Bakhmut, Vuludar, and Avdiivka.
MLRS rocket system. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Yet there likely remains a sizable Russian force not currently engaged. As far as we know, Ukraine does not have any meaningful strategic reserve. If the Ukraine offensive is successful and drives Russia back by any distance, they will be a spent force. If the Russian lines bend but don’t break and only give small incursions along the line, the UAF will also become a spent force. In either case, once that moment of culmination has been reached, Russia will have a large and well-supplied force to launch a major counterattack of their own. Ukraine will be hard-pressed to stop a Russian counterattack.
In the last part of this assessment, we will examine the tactical situation for each side in more detail. We will take a deeper look at what might come after Ukraine’s presumed offensive and consider what conditions might look like for each side going forward. Emotion and Western preference for a Ukrainian victory aside, a calculating examination of the combat and wartime fundamentals do not bode well for Kyiv.
Author Biography and Expertise
A 1945 Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” Follow him @DanielLDavis.
Johhny Ray
April 4, 2023 at 4:28 pm
Of course it’s expected Ukraine will employ a NATO/USA combined arms approach to the assault bringing in the right weapons and right troops at the right place and time so that any one piece of the is not the most important. What is important is leveraging the various forces to produce multiplier effect death and destruction of the enemy.
With that said, I sort of agree artillery and tanks in and of themselves won’t produce a victory. Indeed artillery and tanks is so 20th century warfare. 21st warfare is about guided munitions, drones, electronics, multi-dimensional intelligence, air domination, even helicopters to for troops skip over water, trenches and fortifications.
Last, without a reliable supply of weapons and ammo of any kind, neither side can win anything at all.
If the Ukraine assault fails miserably, and it might, I don’t see the war will be over. Seems to me both sides are ready to fight with pitchforks and rocks if it becomes necessary.
This war is going to take awhile.
TG
April 4, 2023 at 4:34 pm
An interesting post. You may well be correct. However, the Ukrainian/American forces have been nothing if not inventive, aggressive, and flexible. It is POSSIBLE that the Ukrainians will have some surprises in store for the Russians. For example:
– The counter-offensive starts with a storm of advanced long-range missiles strikes, devastating Russian logistics and supply depots all the way through Crimea. The Kerch bridge is taken out, this time for good. In essence, the Ukrainians do what they did in Kherson but on a larger scale.
– Perhaps the Ukrainians/Americans have penetrated Russian computer systems, and they are waiting until a critical time to shut them down. Russian C&C is offline at a critical moment, it can be fixed but there is not enough time…
– Advanced long-range anti-ship missiles launched with western targeting info take out the entire Russian Black Sea fleet
– American jets pretending to be Ukrainian launch massive stand-off missile strikes on Russian positions. You really think Russia will attack Poland?
– Using better night vision devices, the Ukrainians launch devastating night attacks. As with most of this conflict, the Ukrainians know where every Russian unit is located, and the Russians are fighting blind. Even light units can be devastating if they know exactly where to attack and what to bypass, as we saw near Kharkov.
– And audacious amphibious assault with light infantry across over 100 sites makes it across the Dnieper (at least, enough of them) and catches the Russians completely off guard.
– The combination of western intelligence and precise missile strikes is in fact exactly like tactical air superiority. The Russians will have almost no ability to maneuver into a counter-attack.
– A false-flag attack brings NATO directly into the conflict. Do you really think the west is going to sit back and let Russia win?
Maybe not. But if I was on the Russian general staff, I would be staying up late thinking about things like this.
404NotFound
April 4, 2023 at 4:56 pm
US-NATO tanks, tramps and plans won’t do one bit of good for Biden & stoltenberg’s neo-nazi foot soldiers in Donbass.
They are DESTINED for the dustheap of history, just like the ukros-banderas 14th SS division of WW2 and Messer’s hitler, goebbels and bormann.
Once the driller-killer US-NATO-sourced almighty war machine starts grinding forward in Donbass region, Russia will nuclear whammo the accursed neo-nazis and their fascist fortress cities like Lyiv, Odessa and even Oslo.
Biden won’t be around to witness the “fruit’ of his euro proxy war, the stupidest US proxy war since nam & Afghanistan.
Commentar
April 4, 2023 at 5:06 pm
The only viable weapon system today capable of fully stopping the current global fascismo bloc, a.k.a NATO, is the thermonuclear fist or hydrogen bomb.
That has been fully understood by north Korea, which has the largest-sized mobile ICBM in service today, the hwasong-17.
Hwasong-17 is capable of vaporizing the village of Washington DC, the lair of globalist unfettered or unrestrained warmongers.
Yet, Biden is holding one war exercise after another, in south Korea.
Shows that only a actual strike using thermo warheads against their military forces and/or their cities will make an impression on the fascists.
koke
April 4, 2023 at 5:10 pm
I had my doubts about whether the arms sent to Ukraine would win the war but now that Davis has written an article claiming that they won’t, I’m certain that the end is nigh for the Russian invasion. Such is the power of Davis’ powers of prediction; anything that he says will happen will definitely not happen and visa versa. George Costanza would be proud.
Gary Jacobs
April 4, 2023 at 5:19 pm
LoL, Davis. Ever the cherry picker.
It is true Ukraine does not have a full US/NATO level of air support, but they do have their own version of it coming together nicely. And the distance from the front line east of the Kakhovka Reservoir directly south to Melitopol on the Sea of Azov is precisely the range of HIMARS.
The JDAM-er is also a nice addition of 500lb bombs with up to 45mile range. It has been made to fire from Ukraine’s soviet era planes the same way HARMs have been.
Furthermore, plenty of available videos showing the Ukrainians are amassing a wide array of strike drones from short range FPVs that carry RPG warheads, to Switchblade 300 and 600. The Switchblade 600 has a 50mile range and carries the same warhead as the Javelin ATGM that has been so devastating to Russian tanks.
The longest range drone the US is providing is the ALTIUS-600, which has a maximum range of 276 miles.
As I have said before, many of these drones can be flown from well behind the front lines by scrawny Ukrainian teenagers, or tech/gamer nerds if they are needed.
And let’s not forget GLSDB. 90 miles is a good range for this type of weapon when the distance to the Sea of Azov from the front line is a less than 50miles. GLSDB is not a ballistic trajectory weapon. It can be fired from the north by Ukraine, fly over the Sea of Azov and come back around to strike. Likely to cause pure chaos in the Russian ranks when employed in large numbers, and/or in conjunction with other long range precision weapons.
Plenty of videos already emerging of Ukraine flying drones right into Russian armored vehicles on the move, and right into trenches…killing large numbers of Russians with the Ukrainian version of precision air support.
Yes it is the tenacity of Ukrainians battling Russia’s 300,000 extra troops to a standstill… with the help of their version of air support.
Bottom line: Davis is a dinosaur trying to live past the extinction event for his way of thinking.
Another epic fail.
Brett
April 4, 2023 at 6:16 pm
I feel compelled to join others in debunking this article. The subtext is that Ukraine shouldn’t try an offensive because if it fails they may be in a worse position than they are now and also, somehow, a worse position if they succeed!
A slow grinding was of attrition favors the side with more resources. Davis believes that is and will continue to be Russia, but that is debatable. While Russia has a larger population it is not infinite nor do the soldiers have the motivation of defending their homes from invasion. The percentage of citizens that can be incorporated into defense is greater than those that can be trained for offense – and as Davis has pointed out before, minimally trained troops can potentially hold ground against a fearsome adversary with defensive works. On the materiel side, the collective west is producing more and better weapons for Ukraine to use. It is possible that if Davis had the courage of his conviction he would reassess the ‘fundamentals’ – it is clearly not so lop-sided as he has continually professed.
If Ukraine launched an offensive and failed, the situation would remain exactly as it is today. If Russia could launch an overwhelming counter-counter-offensive they would have. Ukraine might be more willing to negotiate, Russia probably less…
But Ukrainian victory? If annexed territories were wholly reclaimed by Ukraine the possibility of a rapid collapse is not impossible – rabid nationalists will need a scapegoat and poor leadership from the top has already been offered as a plausible explanation. Successful enough and there’s only a question of whether Ukraine can compel the payment of reparations on top of the territorial restoration.
Davis wants to self-deter support for Ukraine because he has always believed Ukraine’s success is impossible. Well, according to Davis we’ve already seen three impossible miracles in rapid succession with the reclamation of Kherson.
There’s a lot of hard fighting left, and there’s a lot that could go wrong. But the biggest mistake would be not to take the chance when Ukraine has done so much to shift the odds in its favor.
In 3 months I will look at thus article and compare his prediction to mine. Mine: by July 15, 2023 Melitopol, Marisol and Donetsk itself will be under the Ukrainian flag.
3L130
April 4, 2023 at 6:51 pm
Western armor is designed to be used in combined arms tactics. (Air-Land Battle). Large units. A few tanks here and there, while nice to have, will not do much. Once the larger numbers of Leopard 1s arrive, that may change. IFVs then, working in conjunction with them, should accomplish more. At this time, artillery, ( I am a former Marine 0802, artillery officer, so biased), and related ammunition. Having these will allow the Ukrainians to attrit Russian forces until the armor/IFV numbers are large enough to form a fighting force of Division size. To use the armor as it arrives, in “penny packets”, will be to lose most of them. Think 1st Armored.
Jack Hughes
April 4, 2023 at 7:08 pm
For once I agree with mr Davis the weapons systems themselves are not magic bullets, but think about it the Ukrainians are being trained in combined arms warfare, have shown themselves capable of shaping the battlefield and have access to US provided intelligence.
Furthermore they’ve knocked out a good proportion of Russia’s pre war stock of tanks, with old Soviet kit and NATO castoffs. Sure I wouldn’t want to be in their quartermasters shoes but please give the Ukrainians some credit.
Still this is ‘realist Davis we’re talking about so Ukraine could have taken Crimea and he’d be prognosticating doom for them
Walker
April 4, 2023 at 7:10 pm
I’m starting to think Davis is just trolling for clicks.
If anyone thinks western weapons are infallible and/or invulnerable, they have to be idiots. So why is Davis making such a stupid statement? It is his modus operandi. Make ridiculous statements that Ukraine can’t win for some ridiculous reason while stating Russia can’t loose because of its great nuclear weapons and population advantage. I mean first he said Ukraine will lose within weeks and now that they have been giving worse than it is receiving, he is reduced to being absolutely obtuse.
I have also come to conclude that he is 100% dishonest. Look at how he said that “wow, Russia had 300,000 troops in Ukraine in Febuary, they were going to destroy Ukraine, but somehow they couldn’t, but they are still there, or some of them anyway.” This force completely failed, and he knows it, yet he can’t admit it completely.
Put this with the assumption that Ukraine is going to squander the weapons given to them by not using them “right”.
I get it that 1945 wants a contrarian point of view, but it’s time to be honest. Davis doesn’t know his head from the hole in his rear end. And yet, somehow, I can understand that. There really isn’t too much difference between the two.
Trevor
April 4, 2023 at 10:28 pm
Gee, tanks are vulnerable: who could possibly have changed they can be destroyed? They make a difference, if you use them properly, which the Russians have failed to do again and again. Same thing happens with Saudi Arabia when they don’t bother to perform combined arms operations.
This great Russian offensive was supposed to overwhelm Ukraine, yet they haven’t even managed to seize Bakhmut, let alone the Donbass. Russia’s mobilization might have prevented collapse, but it hasn’t helped with any real gains.
Russia might win a victory in the sense of claiming territory, but the price they’ve paid and will continue to pay, renders it worthless.
len
April 4, 2023 at 11:07 pm
Western weapons sent to Ukraine is the rea$on that this war continues. A great observation in this article is ‘the dog’s breakfast’ of weapon variety sent to Ukraine is actually complicating the UAF’s efforts. The author also focuses on the reality check of the slim chances of a Ukrainian victory, regardless of the types of weapons used.
How can US/NATO not see these facts? Because the US/EU politicians and defense contractors can continue to make profits on the plight of the Ukrainian people through their corrupt Western puppet government. Meanwhile, blaming Russia for a totally unprovoked invasion. Assuring Western sympathy so the war machine keeps turning.
Looks like a good time to invest your money in defense stocks, but a bad time to be a Ukrainian.
Enfield
April 5, 2023 at 6:22 am
The Red giant has just finished its latest enlistment round with good results. Drafted and volunteers together yielded over 700 000 new recruits. Something that Western media do not want to talk about. It will take time to get these fresh troops ready for battle but hold on to your hats. The Red giant is planning something really big. Hope lives on for a few who still believes that Red giant can be won in conventional warfare. Good luck with that.
Johny
April 5, 2023 at 7:39 am
You’re as dumb as Elon Musk that said: “Why should we give Ukrainians tanks for defending territory, tanks are useless blah, blah, blah!” You cannot win a war without attacking and counterattacking and the best weapon for this is the tank.
Christophe
April 5, 2023 at 7:41 am
Make Russia Great Again ideology and defeatist whataboutismm at their best. Nothing factual and sure, except one thing: Davis is a Russian dictatorship fellow traveller.
Walter Johnson
April 5, 2023 at 8:58 am
Losing a few tanks in battle with any force is hardly an indictment of those tanks. Weapons and men are always lost in any war. There is no invulnerable weapon, nor a war without consequences. The recently killed in Saint Petersburg military blogger was advocating for serial war crimes and genocide of Ukrainians with 500,000 followers on his Telegram channel. For Ukrainians, this war is a fight for both individual and collective survival.
The same is not true for Russian soldiers, and in fact, Ukraine has been so successful at killing Russian officers, I wonder how many of them even want a promotion to get a bigger target on their person!? A few units have even refused orders to go to battle. In one case a soldier even threated the commander with a grenade with the pin pulled, if he didn’t leave, and the commander left. The training of those 300,000 mobilized men was so minimal, as were their supply lines, they were little more than cannon fodder trying to force depletion of Ukrainian munitions. In contrast at least the Ukrainians have gotten some training and enough basic weapons to defend themselves. Some of the Wagner Group soldiers were left with so little ammunition they resorted to using trenching shovels as swords, rather than risk being killed by their own side if doing unauthorized retreat.
The defense of Ukraine will be decided less by grand battles than by grand strategies using state of the art intelligence from the West, and by the willingness of soldiers to give their lives, if necessary. During the initial invasion when a Ukrainian combat engineer was rigging a bridge with explosive charges, he blew up the bridge while he was doing his work at the cost of his life to save the lives of his fellow soldiers when Russians forces got on the bridge before he could get away.
In contrast some of the Russian soldiers have fought reluctantly, only because if they did not, their own force would kill them retreating. Many have even surrendered to hovering drones, and more have called a Ukrainian hotline for safe surrender instructions.
Ukrainians have also proven themselves more adaptable, even improving weapons software and modifying warplanes to hold weapons they were not designed to carry, and using consumer level electronics to rig drones to drop obsolete anti-tank grenades that required being too close for prudence to an enemy tank.
War games do not decide the outcome of wars. Ultimately soldiers do that. The Ukrainian soldier has far more at stake in this war than the Russian soldier, and that is reflected in morale. There are not just men in combat in the Ukraine forces either. There are women soldiers too, many well educated and in unit command positions.
Russia has already committed to the battle in Ukraine, all of the professional soldiers it had and the best units. You can talk all you want about how many more men Russia can conscript into battle, but you cannot overlook how many other nations or even criminals and spies might see opportunity in the dramatic thinning of Russian border defenses. Russian subsidized Belarus is the only ally Russia has and the peoples of Belarus are opposed to Belarus helping to the point that workers in Belarus aided Ukraine by disrupting railroad tracks. In contrast 50 nations are giving material support, although not always weapons and ammunition to Ukraine in addition to the nations selling new weapons and munitions to Ukraine, as cash customers.
Do not forget Russia borders 17 nations, and it has had a history of attacking many of them sometime in the past, while empire building. It also has 17% of Earth’s dry land and a land border that is 12,438 miles long. It cannot risk taking soldiers from border defense for long without risking being invaded itself. Nor, are the soldiers in the nuclear force available whether used for security or command and control. Against Finland, Russia had the best trained soldiers who were also equipped and trained for winter warfare. It sent them to Ukraine with the wrong equipment, the wrong training, and inadequate supplies to assure survival in combat. It replaced them with conscripts, who in Russia serve only a year including training time.
Goran
April 5, 2023 at 3:55 pm
Daniel Davis (November 16, 2022): “It must be admitted up front, however, that any negotiated end to the war will necessarily involve ceding some territory to Russia. The alternative, however, is to seek the complete return all lost Ukrainian territory, Kyiv continues to refuse to negotiate and, in the process, loses far more territory than might be surrendered if a deal could be reached before Russia launches its winter offensive.”
OK, now what, the winter offensive you threatened with was a dud, what will you try and scare the Ukrainians with this time?
Roger Bacon
April 5, 2023 at 4:33 pm
At this point I think we have enough articles from Mr. Davis that I could give them to ChatGPT and it could continue the series on its own. Maybe I’ll do that and see how it comes out.
Fred Leander
April 5, 2023 at 6:30 pm
To announce the recent Russian “offensive” as a dud one must first know if it actually was an offensive. Was it an “offensive? I am afraid the Ukrainians and their backers have put too much into their so-called “victories” in the Kherson and Kharkow regions seeing that the Russian withdrawals were rather controlled. It is otherwise called “shortening of the front”.
VIST
April 5, 2023 at 9:42 pm
Ay! Thinkers.
Have you tried turning your head on?
If you are all so smart, answer me these questions:
Why was the attack on Ukraine preceded by an ultimatum to NATO? Who is Putin fighting in reality?
Why did Russian troops enter Ukraine like a parade?
Why in the captured cities, the Russians did not even try to establish their own administration? Did not deploy the military police?
Why, having met the resistance of the population, did the Russians leave the Chernihiv and Sumy regions without a fight, and also retreated from Kyiv and Kharkov? Putin announced the implementation of plan “B” – what does this mean?
Why, stuffed with the troops of Azov and Western advisers, they took Mariupol, and little Bakhmut was tortured for 2 months?
Why didn’t the strikes on the energy system of Ukraine completely destroy it? Why were they hitting substations and not power plants?
Why don’t they destroy the railway bridges, which are important for supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine?
Why is the Russian army not participating in the offensive, only PMC Wagner is fighting?
Why does Putin need Ukrainian cities? What to do with the hostile population? Who will feed him? Who will restore everything?
When will it dawn on you fools that the purpose of the operation is not to conquer Ukraine?
The purpose of the operation is to change the world order. Break up the dictates of the globalists, which should please you as well.
Rick
April 5, 2023 at 10:50 pm
Bad news: Davis is unlikely to say anything intelligent.
Walker
April 6, 2023 at 12:01 am
Lol, Fred, you are a comedian. So what exactly is Russia waiting for then? Russia is all so planned and in control of the situation? Why didn’t they just take Kiev to begin with? It’s really funny how you make excuses for everything, except if things were as rosy as you say, there would all along the way never be a reason to be in the situation Russia is in. So while you try to paint a rosy picture, you actually raise more questions than you answer and your excuse make no sense.
VIST
April 6, 2023 at 7:48 am
Ukraine is a gray area. The government is completely under control, even the supreme judge is appointed in Washington. The business is completely under control – any of them can be accused of crimes and capital can be taken away. The press is completely controlled, belongs to the oligarchs. All dissenting press and political parties have long been banned.
Patriots covered with Nazi tattoos run around in this territory. They get away with burning 50 people in Odessa.
They arm themselves and dream of how they will pass through Red Square.
What happens if a missile attack is launched from this territory on Moscow, and NATO says that it does not know who did it?
Why were there so many NATO advisers there? Why are biological laboratories placed there? What bases did the British build there?
Putin went to Ukraine to change the power in the country. He has never stated that he wants to take Ukrainian land.
When it turned out that the Ukrainians were ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of NATO, and the West was ready to put everything at stake, they started plan “B”.
A war of attrition has begun. The task is not to exhaust NATO, it is necessary to exhaust the financial system.
We need to end the hegemony of the dollar. Western sanctions are very conducive to this.
Now the governments of all countries are forced to decide whether they want real resources or talk about justice.
Tension stimulates the restructuring of logistics and the transition to national currencies. The process is not fast. Therefore, it is necessary to fight, but there is no hurry to win.
Sofronie the Monk
April 6, 2023 at 11:26 am
Uuu, so we’re talking now about nuking Oslo? Keep up this propaganda and people are rightfully going to start asking why not preemptively nuke Russia off the face of the planet.
And once they start asking this, people in Russia, in turn, are going to start asking themselves if they really want to start glowing in the dark for Putin’s imperial dreams. And then a new Nicholas II moment will be just around the corner.
VIST, can you at least keep your propaganda straight? Putin only wanted to liberate Ukraine, Putin denied Ukraine is a real country, Putin only wanted to “free” the Eastern parts of Ukraine. So either your propaganda is as good as your army, or he’s delusional. Or both.
from Russia with love
April 6, 2023 at 12:56 pm
@VIST
dude, kill it! I have been writing to them for two years now. :))) but these guys stubbornly continue to come up with what, in their opinion, Putin should do (they have a cult of personality and impose the idea that everything is done by the terrible dictator Putin) and if Russia acts differently, then these idiots begin to joyfully write that Putin’s plans are thwarted . :))) They came up with it themselves, they crap themselves, they themselves rejoice. these guys are completely self-sufficient. 😉 for the entire site 2-3 adequate people able to think with their heads. but in order to laugh at idiots is quite a normal resource.
from Russia with love
April 7, 2023 at 3:32 am
@Sofronie the Monk
“Keep up this propaganda and people are rightfully going to start asking why not preemptively nuke Russia off the face of the planet.”
you’re a fool? The United States, and therefore all of NATO, has been saying this since 1945. from 1945 to the present day, the US and NATO have threatened Russia with a nuclear strike and are constantly conducting nuclear strike exercises against Russia. what do you want to surprise us with? Now Russia is ready to act on the same principles as NATO. now Romania can turn into radioactive ashes if the old senile Biden says something wrong. how do you feel? 🙂 somewhere across the ocean, some old man with dementia will make an inadequate statement and your country and you will burn with it in the fire of a thermonuclear reaction. do you like to feel like a sheep on which it does not depend on whether to shear it or let it go for meat? 🙂
“And once they start asking this, people in Russia, in turn, are going to start asking themselves if they really want to start glowing in the dark for Putin’s imperial dreams.”
you want to say that so stupid people live in Romania and Finland that they were not smart enough to ask themselves the question “do they want to glow in the dark” when joining NATO? what are the imperial ambitions of Pktin ??? near the borders of Russia there is a hostile aggressive military alliance that has attacked 11 countries over the past 30 years and has been explicitly declaring for more than 10 years that Russia is an enemy of this alliance. yes, we will beat this alliance and all those who entered it out of their stupidity, including Romania and Finland, and if necessary with nuclear weapons. 😉
pink & blue prince
April 9, 2023 at 12:28 pm
If NATO weapons don’t win the Ukraine War,it’s not bad news, it’s good news. Russia should have taken all the Russian Speaking regions of Ukraine in 2014. If they did that, there would be no war there now.