Despite American doubts, Ukrainians say that defending places with little strategic value is worth the cost in casualties and weapons, because the attacking Russians pay an even higher price.
  • somethingchameleon@lemmy.ca
    3·
    8 months ago

    Symbolism and strategy.

    Symbolism for the Ukrainians, strategy for the West.

    Every western military analyst has been saying Ukraine is a good investment for the west. This means, Ukrainians get to kill Russians with our equipment and Ukrainians die instead of NATO members.

    It’s pretty scummy all around, but that’s how the world operates. Maybe we should stop supporting shitty world leaders? Nahhhhhhhhhhhh.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
      93·
      8 months ago

      It’s not really clear this is actually working out the way western analysts expected in this regard either. We’re now increasingly seeing admissions in mainstream western media that Russian army is becoming stronger as opposed to weaker. Russian military now has two years of large scale warfare experience that no western military has. It has ironed out logistics, communication, and built up a vast military industrial complex. Russian economy didn’t collapse as was expected, and now there’s a whole alternative economic bloc forming around BRICS. All of that is directly at odds with western interests. Europe in particular is now seeing massive reduction in the standard of living, and it’s likely to get worse as more resources will be diverted towards military spending.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Ukraine recaptured it last summer, in the high-water mark of a counteroffensive that not only failed to achieve a breakthrough, but left the Russians in a strong enough position to start pushing back across the southern front.

    Ukrainian forces occupying that bulge in the front line can be attacked from three sides, creating a dilemma: Abandoning that pocket would ease the pressure on them, but it would also signal a symbolic setback in the war, losing territory they gained last year at a high cost in casualties and destroyed weaponry.

    Overall along the frontline, Russia is firing seven times as many artillery shells as Ukraine, General Ivan Havryliuk, a deputy minister of defense, told Ukrainian media on Monday.

    Throughout the war, American officials have repeatedly raised concerns that Ukraine was holding out too long in defending such places, committing soldiers and ammunition to cling to devastated towns with little strategic value.

    In the Donbas, a region of rolling hills dotted with coal mines and factories, Russia has been pressing along four lines of attack, seeking to exploit openings created by capturing Avdiivka.

    Still, it is a fierce fight in the south, over a landscape of open fields, muddy roads, ruins of farmhouses and countless blown-up vehicles, facing Russian forces on three sides.

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