Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Why would the hastily trained Ukrainian recruits be any better than the Russian ones? Ukraine looks to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, since they’re now also conscripting HIV positive and mentally ill men. It also looks like Ukraine has higher losses, especially now with the offensive, meaning that over time more experienced Russian soldiers are going to be fighting Ukrainian fresh recruits.
Russia also has more equipment and ammunition. And don’t start talking about quality: Most of the stuff that was sent to Ukraine is old stuff, and Russia also has a mix of old and new stuff. Even when you compare the numbers of roughly equivalent types of weapons, Russia comes out ahead in pretty much every category.
These stories about the superior NATO weapons, superior NATO training and whatnot are propaganda. There are warhawks that use this story to dismiss the obvious quantitative difference, bigots that love to believe in Russian inferiority and incompetence, and weapons manufacturers trying to advertise their Wunderwaffen. It’s all bunch of crap.