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this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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As far as Russia is concerned, Zaporizhzhia is Russian territory and there is no chance of Ukraine actually recapturing it. Anybody who thinks that Russia would cause a major nuclear disaster on their own territory is beyond reason.
The difference is that Ukraine is now entirely reliant on the west to continue fighting. This creates incentives for Ukraine to continuously seek escalation that could potentially get NATO directly involved in the conflict. Incidentally, US senators already introduced a resolution calling for NATO involvement in case of such an incident
https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/6/graham-blumenthal-introduce-resolution-to-address-threat-of-russian-tactical-nukes
Because that's obvious to anybody who's been paying any attention to what's been going on for the past two years. This ultimately comes down to manpower and logistics. Ukraine has far less people than Russia, and the west lacks the industrial base to continue supplying Ukraine at the current levels. This is well documented in western media by the way.
This was also understood long before the war started. Here's what Obama had to say back in 2016:
The reality of the situation is that the west gave Ukraine everything they could for this offensive, and it will not be possible to replace that in the near future. The offensive was supposed to make a decisive breakthrough in the first 24 hours. In fact, this was critical for any sort of success https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/18/ukraine-russia-war-counteroffensive-attack-bakhmut-himars/
It's now been a month, and Ukraine has failed to reach even the first line of Russia defences while suffering horrific losses.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/06/27/25-tanks-and-fighting-vehicles-gone-in-a-blink-the-ukrainian-defeat-near-mala-tokmachka-was-worst-than-we-thought/
The offensive is going so poorly that even CNN calls it disappointing
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/politics/ukraine-counteroffensive-western-assessment/index.html
The most likely outcome here is that Ukraine will burn through their men and equipment, and once the offensive fizzles it's likely that Russia will go on the offensive of their own against a demoralized and depleted Ukrainian army.
John Mearsheimer has a pretty sober analysis of what can be expected to happen realistically that I highly encourage you to read
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/the-darkness-ahead-where-the-ukraine
Ukraine is fighting an existential war because now that Russia has committed itself to military action they're not going to settle for the status quo. Best case scenario for Ukraine at this point is that there's going to be a rump state left in western Ukraine where nationalist sentiment is the strongest. Meanwhile, Vietnam is actually a good analogy, but with US deciding to drop support for western Ukraine once they realize the war is not winnable.