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
The situation is more complex than the media presents it as. The conflict started in 2014 when the Ukrainian government was coup'ed and banned opposition parties, causing seccesionists to rise up in eastern Ukraine. The involved parties signed a cease-fire agreement, but Ukraine violated it by bombarding cities in the disputed territories. Russia sent troops in in response, at the request of the separatists.
We don't write off the Russian narrative as baseless, but we do have a range of opinions about the conflict, aknowleging that historical context. Personally, I believe that there were (and are) diplomatic solutions that would minimize loss of life but they are being ignored, in part because of domestic pressure from far-right groups in Ukraine, but mostly from US pressure to have a conflict for the sake of the military industrial complex.
Yes, at this point I think that's looking like the most plausible end to the conflict, regardless of whether we keep throwing people into a meat grinder for the next 20 years or not. Ukraine's stance is that they won't consider any territorial concessions at all, including Crimea which they haven't controlled since long before the conflict started. I don't think that's realistic.
There were better options for Ukraine that would've avoided this outcome. If they'd upheld the cease-fire, if they'd allowed them to have a voice in a democratic process, maybe if they'd given them some kind of status of an autonomous zone. But with all the bridges burned at this point, the options are considerably narrower.
As for Russia, the thing is even if they withdrew, that wouldn't necessarily settle things because there's still Ukrainian seperatists. I didn't agree with Russia's intervention, but I'm not sure what they could've done differently to stop or prevent the shelling of Donbas. You could argue that they're just a Russian proxy, but a lot of people there do have cultural ties to Russia, and if the support isn't genuine, then why did Ukraine feel the need to ban the opposition parties? And you could just as easily say that the Ukrainian government is just a US proxy.
Ultimately, I just don't trust the same politicians and media that lied us into Iraq to present an honest account of things, or to have the interests of the people at heart. Even if Ukraine was able to reclaim Donbas, and even if we say it'd be good if they did (which considering their inability to get along, I'm not sure of), I just don't think it's worth the cost.
I totally agree with you there. Sometimes people here can get a little too pro-Russia for my tastes, but generally there's skepticism towards sources from both sides, while a lot of places are more one-sided and uncritical (towards one side or the other). We believe that multipolarity is a good thing for the world (especially for developing countries), but also Putin is not a socialist and sucks in various ways (transphobia for example). He's the enemy of our enemy, no more, no less.
But yeah war sucks, and I'd like it to end as soon as possible, in a way that lasts, regardless of where the line gets drawn. I wish it were possible to return to the ceasefire arrangement, or to return to before 2014 when Ukraine was more neutral and everybody got along. They're both capitalist countries so the whole thing's kinda dumb and at the end of the day, I just want everybody to be able to go home to their families.
Donbas has been defending their homes and their right to speak their native language for 8 years. Russia is not invading Donbas they have been invited. Russia is trying to stop a civil war. When western nations have assisted one side in civil wars in places like The Congo in the 60s or Yugoslavia Somalia and Haiti in the 90s they called it peace keeping.
Unfortunately Ukraine has refused to stop fighting even when faced with insurmountable odds and the USA and its vassals have given them the false hope that they could win. Had nato stayed out of the conflict Ukraine would have surrendered a long time ago likely well before the referendum on joining Russia. The DPR and LPR would have been free nations not part of Russia but seeing that the entirety of the western world was against their peaceful existence as an independent state they held a referendum on joining Russia.
TLDR: Its really not an invasion when the people of the occupied territory want you there.
Should the defenders of the DPR and LPR be forced to only fight on their own territory? If Russia's army doesn't push out of Donbas then all the collateral damages happens to the place they are trying to defend. "the best defence is a good offense."
The way to win a war is to kill enough of the enemy's soldiers that they are unable or unwilling to continue fighting. Russia is just going where Ukraine's army is. The more Ukraine resists and refuses to let the people of eastern Ukraine choose their own path the more of Ukraine is going to be occupied.
Those areas will likely be annexed and I am betting Russia will take Odessa too. The majority of Ukrainians east of the Dnipier are Russian speakers. Before 2014 the number of Ukrainians who said Russian was their mother tongue was consistently polled around 40%. Again this was a civil war between Ukraine's Banderites and Russian speaking Ukrainians. If Nato and Russia never got involved the DPR and LPR would have probably gained their independence and split the country in 2 on the same line.
Russia spent 8 years trying to negotiate a settlement peacefully and Ukraine used that time to build up their army and never implemented any of agreed measures. Putin didn't want a war NATO did. "The 2014 Minsk Agreement was an attempt to buy time for Ukraine. Ukraine used this time to become stronger" -Merkle.
In the weeks leading up to Russia's involvement Ukraine's army ratcheted up its attacks on Donetsk. Russian was goaded into action. They were given the choice between 2 bad options, invade, or let Ukraine kill civilians that share Language, cultural, and Family ties with Russia.
Say someone is kicking a dog and you say "stop it." They keep kicking it so you get in the way and despite you saying "be chill, lets talk this out" They now want to fight you so they can go back to kicking the dog. All their friends show up pushing them to fight you. They just wont stop and even if you are giving way more than you get you get hurt. Wouldn't you feel like you should take the guys other dogs as well as the one he was beating?