Im seeing a lot of posts on reddit celebrating Ukraine victories. So what’s actually happening in this war now?

  • Star Wars Enjoyer @lemmygrad.ml
    41·
    3 years ago

    the easy answer is; no

    The harder answer; As the other commenters said, fog of war and all that. But they’re currently holding many of their most logical objectives for what was laid out (non-occupation, denazification, defence of the separatist regions). Because they’ve seemingly decided against taking the major cities outright, western news media is spinning it as “Russian failure” or incompetence. If we address military theory, it’s likely Russia’s military commanders have decided to blockade and siege the cities instead of wasting life and resources trying to take them. As well, surrounding a city is virtually the same as taking it.

    If Ukraine’s leadership was wiser, they would have surrendered a good while ago, but because they didn’t Russia’s strategy is getting stretched and is in need of an update.

    • guojing
      211·
      3 years ago

      Ukraine is really not an independent country that can decide to surrender on its own. That decision is made in Washington, and they will fight to the last Ukrainian.

  • Mzuark@lemmygrad.ml
    34·
    3 years ago

    It’s so unclear. Russia basically won in the first week, but the definition of “victory” is unclear because their goal was never to occupy Ukraine. What I think is happening is that the Russians are withdrawing, but the media is spinning it to sound like they’re being chased out by Ukraine.

    • guojing
      20·
      3 years ago

      Whats happening is that Russia is preparing to attack the cauldron in Donbass where the strongest part of the Ukranian military has entrenched over the last years. About 50-60.000 soldiers. When they are defeated it will be a major blow for Ukraine.

  • chad1234@lemmygrad.ml
    34·
    3 years ago

    Reddit is mostly US government bots. The Western Fake News MSM is also providing a very distorted depiction of events.

    As the others suggested, you should read the Scott Ritter thread.

    Remember, the US pretended that it was winning in Afghanistan for 20 years. It will be interesting to see how long they keep up the illusion this time.

  • knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
    33·
    3 years ago

    As far as I can tell Russia has achieved what they planned to so far, and have plenty of resources in reserve for the battles to come. Ukraine is fucked and the only reason Zelensky hasn’t given up yet is because his balls are in a NATO star shaped vise.

    The Scott Ritter Twitter thread already linked is good to go over the general strategy. I have found Brian Berletic’s weekly updates super informative as well (YouTube, The New Atlas).

  • Idliketothinkimsmart@lemmygrad.ml
    32·
    3 years ago

    2 things to take into consideration:

    • Us officials estimate Russia still has 80 - 95% battle capacity still at their disposal
    • Ukranian presidential adviser just said Russia has completely destroyed Ukraine’s defense industry

    Have things stalled? Perhaps, I’m not a military strategist, but given the two facts, I’d say no.

    • InvertedMussolini@lemmygrad.ml
      17·
      3 years ago

      Another thing to take into consideration is that by no account is Russia intending on this being like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam.

      I think it’s quite obvious even to an average observer that Russia could have caused massive Ｓ Ｈ Ｏ Ｃ Ｋ Ａ Ｎ Ｄ Ａ Ｗ Ｅ destruction to Ukraine’s infrastructure but they did not. This doesn’t mean that Russia’s objectives in this offensive are failures, it means that attempting to understand Russian objectives through the lens of US invasions simply does not fit.

      I’d say that it’s most important to focus on the economic moves that Russia is making now and what implications they will have moving forward to the global economy. The fog of war (and propaganda) surrounding offensive is intense and largely impenetrable but what happens on the level of geopolitics and the global economy is easier to trace out and I’d argue that it’s much more important.

  • pgtl_10@lemmygrad.ml
    31·
    3 years ago

    Hard to say but if Ukraine is winning then why does the government keep asking for more weapons, a no fly zone, and NATO security guarantees? You don’t keep asking for that stuff in major publicized events if you are winning.

    That Mike Hertling guy went on CNN and when asked what Ukraine needs right now he basically listed out a whole new military.

    Slowly Western media starts admitting things.

      • AmerikaLosesWW3@lemmygrad.ml
        1·
        3 years ago

        Sort of a rhetorical question, but yes, even when America crumbles to dust, they will still be proclaiming that they are the best country in the world. There will be no end to their delusions, though I can’t say the same for their material future.

  • Shaggy0291@lemmygrad.ml
    23·
    3 years ago

    I’ve just had to write an article on this. The lion’s share of the most experienced Ukrainian soldiers seem to be encircled in Mariupol. Once the Russians finish pacifying Mariupol they’re likely to strike out west for Odessa, landlocking Ukraine. One potential end game scenario most commentators consider possible is that Ukraine will be reduced to a rump state, with all the Russian speaking people in the south and east being cobbled together into Russian aligned breakaway republics like Donetsk and Luhansk. This would leave Ukraine greatly diminished in territory and demographic power (~a quarter of Ukraine’s population is ethnically Russian), along with other economically disastrous factors like loss of access to all ports on the black sea, not to mention the loss of important urban centres like Odessa itself.

    An important aspect to bear in mind which I think is a strong indicator of which way the wind is blowing is the use of air power in this war. While at first there was a lot of footage of Russian jetss and helicopters flying low to evade Ukrainian air defences and occasionally being shot down by MANPADs it now appears the Russian air force are targeting the Ukrainian rear at Lviv, seemingly with impunity, from far higher altitudes. This suggests to me that Russia has achieved air superiority.

    • sinovictorchan@lemmygrad.ml
      8·
      3 years ago

      You mean that Ukraine military does have air force? The American fake news claim that Ukraine lack air forces and that Zelenskiy is begging for military air vehicles from NATO.

      • Edwarder@lemmygrad.ml
        12·
        3 years ago

        They had Airforce. The problem is, you need airfields and fuel for those. Ukraine suddenly started having problem with both in the recent month.

  • No_Steel@lemmygrad.ml
    22·
    3 years ago

    i also heard something about Ukraine winning fights from the radio at the store. Scary how they’re constantly feeding us propaganda no matter where we go

  • RocketLauncher@lemmygrad.ml
    21·
    3 years ago

    Ukraine is relying on foreign support so it doesn’t sound like Ukraine is winning at this moment. Not that you can’t with foreign support, but Ukraine is heavily reliant on them and they’ve lost control of their airspace.

  • KommandoGZD@lemmygrad.ml
    18·
    3 years ago

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ32cntgP_8

    https://twitter.com/gbazov/status/1508875144952958986

    https://twitter.com/RealScottRitter/status/1508813631311466496

    That’s one way to look at it. Ofc it could be cope, it’s hard to really tell what the actual situation and the Russian goals and problems are. Fog of war, propaganda and all that.

    What’s certain is that Russia announced several times it doesn’t want to occupy Ukraine. A force of about 200k moved in against a standing army of almost equal size with another 400k reserves etc. These numbers are consistent with the goals. It also seems quite clear that they didn’t really try to actually capture the major cities, but just contained them. Had they tried, those places would look like Mariupol. Massive destruction, massive grinding down of troops, material and civilians, so not sure why they’d try to anyway. It also seems to be true that they’re gearing up for a big offensive against the dug in forces in the east.

    Why this is happening the way it is is hard to tell. Maybe it is according to plan, maybe the plans have changed. Maybe they really got slapped in the north and are now pivoting accordingly. Maybe it is all cope.

  • ZDreamer@lemmygrad.ml
    15·
    3 years ago

    I see it this way:

    1. Russia is moving large amount of forces from Kiev and other places to the east, where the most powerful part of Ukraine army is holding near Donetsk.
    2. In doing so it relinquished control of territories around Kiev and some other places.
    3. Ukraine is moving large amount of forces from Kiev and other places to the east, probably to Dnepr(city, somewhat to the west of Donetsk.
    4. Overall, approximately half of the forces of each side will be between Dnepr and Donetsk (probably).
    5. There will be big battle there (it is already going and will intensify). It may decide the outcome of war.
    6. It seems that people inside Russia are fairly confident in winning this battle but it will not be easy.
    7. People in Russia do not know, what are the plans after the battle. Will we stop there? Take east/south Ukraine? Additionaly take central Ukraine (Kiev is there)? Take west part of the country? Nobody knows (except, maybe, leadership).