Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[Serb]

Why the f*ck do you think I want to waste my time to shove you with the facts, if every fact I throw into your face means nothing for you?


MY TIME WORTHS A LOT!!!

I'm not used to wasting my time!!!

[Serb]

I can give you a dozen of links proving my point, but you will reply with:
"I don't fkn care I still admire Ukrainians, even if their are Nazi collaborationists responsible for the most notorious crimes humans have ever done".
So, get lost!

[Serb]

It pisses me off when I waste my time on nothing!

[Berzerker]

Russia will take more of Ukraine and support for the war will fade and when peace comes Eastern Ukraine will overwhelmingly vote for independence like they have for decades. But otoh we sold bombs, made Russia bleed, nixed any growing economic relationship between Russia and W Europe, and sent a message to China. I think neocons want more though, they want a submissive Russia like Germany, France and England. That will require another Yeltsin in power.

[Serb]

There will be no more anoter Eltsin in power.

[Geronimo]

I can give you a dozen of links proving my point, but you will reply with:
"I don't fkn care I still admire Ukrainians, even if their are Nazi collaborationists responsible for the most notorious crimes humans have ever done".
So, get lost!

I definitively have established a large personal bias in favor of Ukraine as compared to Russia since late 2013. That obviously means I'll have to work harder to recognize the validity of facts that are unflattering to Ukraine relative to Russia.

Probably your links to the anti-Russian Ukrainian books had the biggest impact on me. They are definitely appalling to read and disappointing to see apparently successfully published in Ukraine. I was able to avoid changing my world view by imagining that these books, rather than representing the kind of education materials the Ukrainian government selects for students represent instead the worst anti-Russian Ukrainian publications that those two web sites were able to find. I have nothing to support that assumption however, so now I need to find a way of randomly sampling some Ukrainian text books (or better yet finding a report on them by someone I trust) and see if my assumption holds up.

Its not surprising that I'm predisposed to giving Ukrainians the benefit of the doubt as well owing to the fact that I currently work with two Ukrainians who are very vocal about the war and have always been the nicest most respectable people. I've worked with even more Russians but I haven't met them in literally years so those personal connections have been effectively suspended.

You basically believe that a thread of fascist ethnic hate ties modern Ukrainian political roots into Hitler's Nazis via Stepan Bandera and his Nazi followers. The CIA and other western agents used money to entice these Baderites into taking control from the duly elected Ukrainian government and after gaining control they continued to take orders from Western agents. They revealed their domination of the Ukrainian state by officially naming things after Bandera and building monuments to him as well as by showing up in thousands of videos demanding the deaths of all Russians and by showing video evidence of a campaign to exterminate the Russian speaking population of the Donbass. Notably you also believe they demonstrated their control by passing legislation that makes use of the Russian language illegal in Ukraine. When Russia spent months building a vast invasion force all around Ukraine that the Western governments frantically drew Ukrainian and (world in general) attention to, you believe the reports you saw in January that reported the Ukrainians decided this was when they would increase shelling of the civilians because you think they thought this would return the Donbass to their control and because when you see video footage of shelling and are told by Russian journalists and people claiming to be in the Donbass that these are brand new escalated attacks by the Ukrainian Nazis you believe that and don't regard there to be any possibility that this was stale footage and actors designed to manipulate your support for a very expensive invasion for which Putin had been painstakingly managing a build up over several months. You believed at that time that Russia enjoyed overwhelming military superiority over Ukraine and that an operation in response to these shocking new Ukrainian provocations would be swift and effective. When the invasion takes a long time you believe Russia is just being meticulous to safe guard the civilian population but that they are inflicting 10 to 1 losses on the Ukrainians. You believe that Ukraine in the meantime is completing so many waves of mobilization that they come to outnumber the Russian expeditionary force several times over. You believe this made Russian tactical withdrawals from Kiev, Kharkiv and Kherson necessary even though, overall, you maintain that Russia continues to inflict several times higher losses of troops and war material on Ukraine than it takes itself.

Where is my assessment of your views inaccurate?

I actually agree that Viktor Yanukovych was the properly and duly elected president of Ukraine in fair elections and that Euromaidan was about as legitimate as a mob of Trump supporters stopping the certification of the election of Joe Biden would be. However, I don't think it has relevance at this point because eventually new fair elections were had that established new duly elected leaders of Ukraine.

I disagree with almost everything else however but I constantly badger you for more information because I'm trying to figure out why you accept it. I want to know if there's something relevant that I'm unaware of.

I don't think honoring Bandera is the same as enacting his ideology. I do think it's stupid and I do think Bandera was a psychopath mass killer with an evil fascist political philosophy,

I don't think videos of expression of hate from mobs give any insight of what a state in which they live would be capable of doing. Videos of such behavior can be found in perhaps most cultures in modern history. We need to know what level of acceptance and opposition the hate has in the whole society. How free would people be to act on it? How vocal is the opposition to the hate?

I hate Ukraine's laws that dictate that only Ukrainian can be taught as a first language but I don't accept that in any way this means any language has been banned. Russian remains an official "minority language" in Ukraine.

I don't believe that any amount of money would be enough to secure durable control of Ukraine as a state. Certainly not enough to make them go to war against Russia without provocation.

I don't believe that Putin would place such an enormous invasion force around Ukraine without intending to either use it outright or to at least use it back up an ultimatum threatening its use.

I don't believe that the months of preparation would happen to occur just before the Ukrainians happened to decide to reconquer the Donbass by suddenly killing far more civilians with shelling both because that would be profoundly stupidly ineffective on the part of the Ukrainians and also because if the Ukrainians really thought that could help them they would have done that literally years ago. Its obvious that reports of Ukraine doing this were fabricated to excuse the Russian invasion much like Operation Himmler. Why would you not be suspicious of such claims?

I agree that Russia was much stronger than Ukraine in terms of war material and that at first Ukraine mobilized far more troops than Russia's expeditionary force.

I believe however that Russia must have failed to enjoy a large advantage in war material losses relative to Ukraine or it would have defeated Ukraine or held the line, regardless of Ukrainian warm bodies to throw into the fray. This probably means that Russia botched the invasion. I think this can happen to any military and I think Russian unwillingness to consider that they had botched it greatly hindered their ability to address those failures and avoid repeating them.

I hope you'll continue to discuss this areas of disagreement. The more I disagree with someone who I can engage in actual dialogue with, the more chance I seem to have to learn,

look I know you don't think I'm listening but I really am trying to understand what you're saying Serb. I'm not buying it yet, but I'm trying to listen and make sense of it.

[Berzerker]

MAGA didn't shoot over a hundred cops and protesters. And if you agree it was an illegal coup why would that be irrelevant to the voters who elected the man they ousted? If MAGA was successful and Trump sent a Nazi army to attack a state for rejecting his coup, would you tell them to just accept it?

[Serb]

6am

[Serb]

But I disagee with everything you have posted.

[BeBMan]

Russia condemned by UN as resolution calling for peace passes

The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution condemning Russia's invasion and calling for the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine and a halt to fighting.
The resolution was approved with 141 nations voting in favour, 32 abstaining and seven voting against - a similar outcome to previous resolutions on Ukraine.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-64742349

Over 140 countries are cool with Satan


Dunno if posted already, but meanwhile China presented what it calls its peace plan, which rather seems to be a more generic listing of principles.

China calls for Ukraine peace talks as it steps up engagement in the conflict

A 12-point position paper released on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion has been greeted cautiously by Ukraine

Ukraine will like the refs to "territorial integrity", and the clear Chinese position against anything with nukes is a positive thing. Otoh China does nothing to directly call on Russia to stop, instead promotes a ceasefire and negotiations. Hard to see if there comes anything practical out of this, certainly not in the near term.

[Uncle Sparky]

I look forward to Putin's speech in Ki'ev tonight, celebration his obvious victory.

[Egbert]

I see in the news that Xi Jinping wants to talk to Zelensky with proposals for peace between Russia and Ukraine.

This seems a welcome development because this war must come to an end. My great fear is that Ukraine might capture Crimea nd expect to keep it however anything less than a "status quo ante bellum" peace would be utterly humiliating for Russia and imperil the government to the point that nuclear weapons may be used.

I am not ware of any end game to all this western support upon which the Ukraine depends. There should be some point at which the "west" tells the Ukraine to make peace and yet we have heard nothing.

I am growing increasingly suspicious of western, particularly American, motives in this war. I am growing increasingly suspicious that is being used as a proxy war to weaken Russia, there being considerable oil and gas and resources in Russia.

[BeBMan]

I look forward to Putin's speech in Ki'ev tonight, celebration his obvious victory.

Putin is Xi's poodle now.

[Geronimo]

MAGA didn't shoot over a hundred cops and protesters. And if you agree it was an illegal coup why would that be irrelevant to the voters who elected the man they ousted? If MAGA was successful and Trump sent a Nazi army to attack a state for rejecting his coup, would you tell them to just accept it?

The fact that Euromaiden was an illegal coup became irrelevant to the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government following future fair elections. It never became entirely irrelevant as a lesson and as an injustice. If trump used a Nazi army to overthrow Biden in a coup I would totally reject the legitimacy of the government but after the next fair elections I would accept the government of the legitimate winner of the fair elections. So yes, after new elections I would tell the people opposing the new legitimately elected US government to just accept it.

[Donegeal]

I am growing increasingly suspicious of western, particularly American, motives in this war. I am growing increasingly suspicious that is being used as a proxy war to weaken Russia, there being considerable oil and gas and resources in Russia.

I too started to think that this may be a way for the West to weaken Russia; but what would the long (and short) term result be of a weakened Russia? The answer is starting to happen. Stronger Sino-Russian relations. Since the West (for the most part) stopped buying all those Russian resources, China could buy them cheap. We're driving huge amounts of cheap resources to our greatest competitor.

[Geronimo]

I see in the news that Xi Jinping wants to talk to Zelensky with proposals for peace between Russia and Ukraine.

This seems a welcome development because this war must come to an end. My great fear is that Ukraine might capture Crimea nd expect to keep it however anything less than a "status quo ante bellum" peace would be utterly humiliating for Russia and imperil the government to the point that nuclear weapons may be used.

I am not ware of any end game to all this western support upon which the Ukraine depends. There should be some point at which the "west" tells the Ukraine to make peace and yet we have heard nothing.

I am growing increasingly suspicious of western, particularly American, motives in this war. I am growing increasingly suspicious that is being used as a proxy war to weaken Russia, there being considerable oil and gas and resources in Russia.

The worse problem with nukes is their actual use. You are thinking that the key to avoiding that is to recognize and submit to the strongest demands and presumed desires of those who have nukes, especially lots of nukes, so that they are no longer angry or threatened enough to use them. Policies arising from that attitude will surely make nuclear war far more likely, possibly even inevitable. If any country can ever be shown to obtain geopolitical advantage, including dodging geopolitical disadvantage, owing to their nukes, then as a matter of course every other country will understand that possessing nukes will confers advantage.

Being angry, or facing unacceptable losses doesn't make using nukes more desirable or even more palatable. Being better off after using them or because of threatening to use them makes using them more likely or threatening to use them more likely.
.
Putin knows that Putin will probably be dead personally if he uses nukes. If he is insane, all bets are off. It won't pay to try plan for all possible psychotic behavior since it is irrational and there's no reason to believe caving will lead to better behavior rather than expanded psychotic behavior.

If West restrains Ukraine in hopes of staving off nuclear war, everyone will realize that is why they did it and there will be an enormous nuclear arms race and someone in the near future, probably Putin himself, will see how much more they can get with an even more "credible" nuclear threat. There's no way humanity lasts long after that.