- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reaffimed his firm refusal to cede any territory, resisting U.S. pressure for a painful compromise with Russia as he continued to rally European support for Ukraine.
“Undoubtedly, Russia insists for us to give up territories. We, clearly, don’t want to give up anything. That’s what we are fighting for,” Zelenskyy said in a WhatsApp chat late Monday in which he answered reporters’ questions.
“Do we consider ceding any territories? According to the law we don’t have such right. According to Ukraine’s law, our constitution, international law, and to be frank, we don’t have a moral right either.”
It’s a bit narrow to just write off opposing views as “Tankies.”
The vast majority of the world sees the Ukraine war as a conflict between white people. Their big objection has nothing to do with Ukrain vs Russia, it’s about the attention paid to a European conflict vs all the others around the world. Many nations notice that while Western nations have never been willing to harm their own economies to end conflicts around the world, those same nations are now asking a bunch of 3rd world countries to support our economic sanctions.
Then there’s a whole contingent of people who believe that “supporting Ukraine” is a meaningless platitude without a realistic plan for how to do it. Every sober analysis of the war concludes that it’s essentially a war of attrition. There are very few experts who believe that there is any chance that any sort of breakthrough tactic or technology will easily get Ukraine’s territory back. We know the math behind that; the rate of movement of the front is primarily determined by the number of people and ordinance you throw at the fight. Russia does significantly more of both. That’s been the case for the entire war so far and all signs suggest that it will continue to be the case.
You can go look up the movement of the front over the course of the war. To even out the numbers, we’d have to roughly triple the number of shells we send to the front (ignoring troops for now). That would likely bring the war to a stand still. To start reversing the movement at the same rate we’d likely have to triple it again. So cocktail napkin math says that if we actually want to revert back to pre-invasion borders, we’d have to increase expenditures by around 10x and sustain that for the next 3 years.
Not going to get into logistical analysis (I am behind on that). Nor will I dispute the hypocrisy of focusing only on a “white war.” That’s fair.
But I’m fervent that the justification for Russia’s action is total baloney. I can, and absolutely will, write it off.
To put it another way: even if Mexico was provably 100% Nazi, and they worshipped China and drug cartels and whatever boogeyman we have like gods, I would still be ashamed if my country, the US, invaded them as Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s beyond preposterous to think they pose a military threat to the US, or that it’s our job to purify them, much less to breathlessly excuse such an invasion as (say) Russia’s fault.
That’s what I mean by “Tankies.”
If “Tankie” means someone who thinks Russia’s invasion was justified, it’s the wrong word for many people.
There are many people who agree that Russia’s invasion was unjustified and also don’t believe that a simple “stand with Ukraine” strategy has a snowball’s chance in hell of working. If you look back into US history you’ll find a number of conflicts that we thought we could win by just offering advice, logistics, and support; they tend to be costly for the US and catastrophic for the country in question.
Justice doesn’t win wars and we know what happens when you keep throwing lives and resources at a war without a solid victory plan.
Based on what? Putin was clearly losing this war until Trump saved him. Russian losses have been catastrophic and no one can possibly consider Putiin’s invasion a success or a smart move. It seems to me like it IS working. And it’s preferable to IGNORING the Ukrainians and giving Russia an easy out.
Even before Trump Russia was slowly grinding its way west.
You could look at the various strategic objectives and see the Russians slowly and steadily surrounding them and cutting them off. You could watch the Ukrainian counteroffensives crash against defense in depth. You could see the occasional victories slip away. The HIMARS systems that were supposed to turn the tide are twisted piles of metal.
Ignoring Ukraine would also be dumb. A much better idea would be to come up with an actual feasible plan. One would have been to follow US military advice with the above mentioned HIMARS and execute a concentrated attack to the south to cut off almost half the Russian military. An other would be to accept a ceasefire on the current front, heavily entrench the border to create defense in depth, and use that time to develop an actual counteroffensive strategy.
Ah yes, the fascist plan of “Look, we all know the foregone conclusion. X person will never change their mind (certainly not saying I support them), so you shouldn’t stand against them.”
Removed by mod
Don’t look at the front lines. Look at the Russian economy. It’s more likely that the Russian economy collapses or Putin is overthrown due to some internal power struggles or uprising than it is for Ukraine to militarily defeat Russia.
That is as long as the West continues to support Ukraine with the bare minimum to bleed both sides continuously.
This is an underestimation of Russia’s economic realignment from West to East. Primarily with China and to a lesser extent India. It’s hubris to assume that Russia has to have a robust economic relationship with the West to remain solvent.
They are China’s bitch now. Not sure that’s a realignment.
Financially it’s a lucrative one and makes them more resilient to Western sanctions. China is on a trajectory to surpass the US economy in 10 years. Wealth, power and influence are gradually drifting East and South so it’s important for Western leaders to adapt now instead of disregarding reality and becoming more entrenched. Being forced to align economically with China will likely be to Russia’s long term benefit.
The West (particularly US) is currently doubling down on AGI and fossil fuels (US and Canada). The AGI bet can definitely blow up in its face in the short term. Emerging markets are already pivoting hard to renewables so fossil fuels may not be as good a long term bet as they’re hoping. The EU is a stagnant market and the UK is still limping after shooting itself in the foot with Brexit. Many of these countries are now tied up by infighting over immigration, impacting their ability to project power.
The only absolute advantage is the massive defense spending but even the majority of that is by the US so if they decide to leave the rest of the West to fend for themselves then all bets are off.
A repeat of 1917, basically.
How would you look at the Russian economy?
The best measure I can think of is GDP growth. It can be hard to estimate but it shows the change in an economy over time. The most accurate data I know of for that is the World Bank.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?end=2024&locations=US-RU-CN-JP-IN-GB-FR-DE-IT-CA&start=2019
You’ll notice that for most of that period, which includes the entire Ukraine war, Russia’s economy has been solidly on par with the other 9 largest economies in the world. They still have active trading relations with most of the world https://www.volza.com/global-trade-data/russia-export-trade-data/russia-export-trading-partners/
At the current rates, Ukraine will bleed out before Russia does.
Increased spending on war machines increases GDP. It’s not good for the country though. The opportunity cost is huge
Do you have a better measure of the economy?
Both Russia and Ukraine are destroying each other’s infrastructure do you have some data that shows Russia is suffering more from it than Ukraine is?
Western propaganda machine constantly pumps out information on Russia’s economy being on the verge of collapse. I recall buying into it years ago and, well, we’re still waiting.
I think it’s a bit of old world thinking at work. In the post WW2 period the West controlled the vast majority of global capital so being blocked out of trade by us meant guaranteed economic despair (if you weren’t big enough). The world is very different today but many Westerners (even in leadership) still perceive the world as if we’re still in that era.
Wow, way to infantilize the vast majority of the world. Believe it or not, they’re as smart as you are and as capable of leaning about a particular conflict.
It’s a bit oversimplified but essentially accurate. You can easily find a number of sources that will show you that people is Africa, South America, India, and Asia aren’t nearly as concerned about the Ukraine war as Americans and Europeans are.
I know they’re every bit as smart as I am because I’ve had many conversations with them. I find they tend to know more about the Ukraine war, and many other international topics, than most Americans seem to.
I disagree here with this for two reasons.
First Ukraine’s artillery shell production and transition into nato calibers of 105mm and 155mm is increasing, and the strategic relation of power balance between Russian and Ukrainian artillery is actively changing. This isn’t static, Ukraine is quickly developing an advantage here especially when you consider efficiency of resources applied to the front.
Second, Russian air defenses are collapsing, Ukraine is hammering them day in day out and there is no way Russia can replace these air defense radars and missile launchers along with sufficiently trained crew at a high enough rate to sustain this current situation. Russia is HUGE there is an incredible amount of territory that must be covered with air defense. I would not call the current situation a simple battle of attrition right now, Russia is facing an existential collapse of their war machine if their air defenses decisively collapse in too many areas. I am not suggesting the likelihood is high at the moment but the probability of it happening is meaningfully increasing every day.
I am not trying to reject all of your points, but I think the aspects I have brought up have to be taken into consideration. Ukraine will have the capacity to domestically produce and maintain L119 105mm howitzers, 155mm bohdana production has finally begun to hit stride as well, these are strategic leaps forward in terms of practical infantry fighting power and I find conversations tend to ignore these non-flashy but quite meaningful transformations that have happened over the past year or two for the Ukrainian military. They make this moment of Russia’s faltering general offensive a far more fragile position than people generally recognize. This isn’t to say Ukraine isn’t in a fragile position itself of course. What I am saying is I wouldn’t expect the status quo to necessarily continue indefinitely here, it will for some time and then all of a sudden it abruptly won’t.
It’s tricky to find current numbers on artillery production. The most reliable numbers I could find are about a year old and all cite a 3:1 advantage for the Russians.
Do you have sources on what the ratio is more recently?
We like to believe that Russian air defenses are collapsing but do we even know this? We know that some facilities have been destroyed but how many did they have in the first place? What can Ukraine do to exploit a gap in air defenses? Traditionally, air defenses are there to stop enemy bombers but that only matters if the enemy has bombers.
War is difficult. It takes much more than a bunch of people standing around saying, “I support XYZ.” It takes a huge amount of resources and involves a lot of dead people.
…Have you not been paying attention to the Ukraine’s campaign of long range strikes utilizing missiles and drones?
In terms of shell ratios, I am less interested in trying to find precise numbers on that since it is an incredibly difficult process to accurately do for one army much less two, but also I am not sure it is necessarily relevant in any absolute sense since Ukraine and Russia utilize their artillery so differently.
In terms of hard facts that have changed well here you go:
https://defence-blog.com/ukraine-uk-agree-on-joint-artillery-production/
https://defence-blog.com/ukraine-ramps-up-bohdana-howitzer-production-to-40-systems-per-month/
These two changes alone significantly change the strategic power balance between Ukraine’s military and Russia’s military as the L119 is unquestionably the best mass production battle tested towed light infantry support howitzer ever made and the bohdana in towed and self propelled forms is a world class 155mm howitzer that is easily compatible with a global constellation of militaries who may increase military aid at any point.
I have been paying attention to Ukraines missile and drone programs.
Missiles and drones are both very effective but neither of them is a replacement for heavy bombing and Russia still makes more missiles than Ukraine does.
Unfortunately shell ratios are an important detail. That’s why the serious policy publications (like FP) spend so much time trying to advocate for increased production.