Alternate headline...
Russian warlorld says statehood of nation he invaded at risk if they don't give up immedately
Ukraine’s statehood could suffer an “irreparable blow” if the pattern of the war continued, and Russia would never be forced to abandon the gains it had made.
Fun fact: Ukraine has re-captured more than 50% of the territory Russia occupied since the last time Putin made this ridiculous threat.
This is very true. Unfortunately, the Russians have had time to build some significant defense lines and the Ukrainians don't have the manpower to waste like Russia does. Generally, a defender has a significant advantage and an attacking force needs to use a lot more resources. Attackers have to move forward, generally in the open, and then build new defenses themselves. The Russian approach to breaking defenses is scorched earth. Flatten a city and overwhelm defenses and take the city. However, they are having to use North Korean artillery shells now so that doesn't imply very good things about their domestic supplies and not allowing them to use as much artillery. (Rumors are that the lack of good barrel replacements combined with shoddy NK artillery shells have led to some interesting failures.)
The lines have been fairly static for a while now, unfortunately. Aside from occasional larger pushes from Russia, it's mainly been lots of skirmishes and the front lines getting pushed back and forth.
Southwest Ukraine is just weird right now. The Ukrainians jumped the Dnieper a bit ago but haven't really moved much after that. However, Russia has lost quite a few aircraft because of that move as it allowed Ukranian air defense to move much closer.
While this sounds a little grim, it kinda is. What Ukrainians do have is the ability to hold their current ground well against Russia and continue to let Russia waste resources. Ukrainians also have much more accurate weapons and better intelligence. This allows them to hit targets that hurt and see troop concentrations well ahead of any attack.
Edit: I should add that while the sound bites of one side gaining x% of land over another sound nice, it's not usually the complete picture. The tankie counter to the "50% gain" is usually a twisted version of what I wrote above and with much less of the "why". If you change the timeframe a hair, it's easy to show land gains in the Russians favor. It's all about how data is presented and what type of battle is currently being fought.
This whole comment is predicated on Russians having some kind of defender's home field advantage which itself is a false premise and there goes the whole argument. There are no Russian supply lines in the eastern territories out of striking distance of Ukrainian combined forces anymore, which is why Putin has returned to terror bombing civilian populations regularly. He needs to create political leverage for negotiations before his occupiers siege themselves to death.
Edit: added "anymore"
Just the opposite? Ukrainians have the home field advantage, of course, and they are reinforcing the west as well. The surovikin line in the southeast seems like a royal pain still and the Russians are quite fortified there. The longer Russians occupy a territory, the longer they have to build up their own defenses. (That creates a "home field advantage" of sorts.)
I also eluded to Ukrainians having the intelligence and accuracy advantages which aligns with what you are saying about destroyed supply lines, especially around Avdiivka. There have been many videos of armor getting destroyed way in advance of any possible attack in that area and Avdiivka still stands as a result.
Didn't these jokers already try to overthrow their capital city, angling for a total annexation of Ukraine within the first few days of the conflict?
If Ukraine had not fought back, it's statehood would have been history over a year ago.
What he is trying to say is that "My presidency is at risk if pattern of war continues"
"My life is at risk if I can't spin this as a considerable win for Russia"
Gawd, I wish that were true.
Ok so stop invading them.
We need to publicly and openly call all of his bluffs. All he has is bluffs and anemic threats.
Whilst largely true, he does have a significant nuclear capability that will be alluded to as part of his dick swinging. I am all for calling him out on his bluffs, I'm not so sure how far he can be pushed until he throws a tantrum with greater consequences.
His threats cannot be allowed to work. If we all die, so be it.
Spoken like a true keyboard warrior
So he is saying he is willing to end the war if he can keep the territory he has stolen... But if he can't keep it, he won't end the war.
I think that fits Ukraines stated war goals of not ending the ear until ALL 2014 territory has been liberated.
So they agree on something! The war isn't over.
Why is routers suddenly posting all these "Putine says..." articles?
The depopulation of Russia will continue until morale improves!
Concede now or daddy will get angry.
The pattern of #Ukraine #murderfucking #Ruzzian serfs?
We are about to start selling Ukraine NATO weapon systems with what used to be your money, #Putin. What do you think about that "pattern", shit for brains?
How do those F-16's taste? How about 30 more?
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/