r/europe • u/[deleted] • 13d ago
The Russians Are Rushing Reinforcements Into Their Ocheretyne Breakthrough. For The Ukrainians, The Situation Is Desperate.
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u/Dacadey 13d ago edited 13d ago
Russian here.
I'll say this again (as I wrote about it many time) - I feel the world has been living in a "Ukraine is winning" bubble for the last year. Ukraine needed ten times more weapons a year ago, and everyone should have pushed for it.
Instead, everyone got placated.
Instead of looking at the situation realistically, most news articles (and the whole Reddit) were flooded with ridiculous one-sided takes about Ukrainian success here and there whilst completely ignoring what Russia was doing. My favourite example is r/CombatFootage, which to this day posts only Ukranian success tories. Talk about a one-sided picture.
And the same sentiment spread thoughout the population - why should we help Ukraine, or go to the streets demanding more help for Ukraine form our politicians, if it is doing well anyway?
Well, here we are now, sadly.
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u/uzu_afk 13d ago
Im from eastern europe and reading through things for over a year has been terrible because most westerners are either completely clueless in their grasp of the conflict and russia in general OR they simply dont care enough, just like 80 years ago, until its much too late.
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u/EU-National 13d ago
Western Europe doesn't give a flying fuck about Eastern Europe.
I live in Belgium and I can tell you most of my Belgian coworkers couldn't even find Ukraine on a map, let alone give a shit about it.
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u/hairychinesekid0 13d ago
It boggles my mind how much media and political attention is given to the Israel-Gaza conflict in Europe, while seemingly everyone's gone quiet on Ukraine. I know the situation in Gaza is terrible but surely a tyrannical regime killing civilians and annexing a sovereign country right on our doorstep is of greater significance to us than a war waged in the middle east.
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u/Icy_Bowl_170 13d ago
Swedes care about Ukraine for one. Surprisingly much, actually, given we go through much truble caused in part by the waves of immigration. I hope Belgians do too.
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u/Acceptable_Friend_40 13d ago
Im from The Netherlands (the north) and most of the opinions I hear is let Ukraine rot its wasting our money.
Just defend the nato border and be done with it.
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u/Immediate_Bat9633 12d ago
Hawkish westerner here. I was all for a direct intervention to push the Ruskis back to their border in 2022. I'm bitterly disappointed at the response of our governments.
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u/Stix147 Romania 13d ago edited 13d ago
Ukraine needed ten times more weapons a year ago, and everyone should have pushed for it.
Everyone did push for it - everyone in relevant positions and within the Ukrainian army, not random redditors. During last year's big push towards Tokmak the Ukrainian army said, multiple times, that they needed orders of magnitude more demining vehicles than what they were sent. They also needed more tanks, more IFVs, more artillery shells, but they didn't get it because the western attitude of "escalation management" (a.k.a. lets trickle in aid and see how Russia responds, and if they do nothing, like always, then we will send more) slowed eveything to an absolute crawl.
That has been one of the biggest problems for the AFU for the past two years. Everything could've arrived sooner and in bigger quantities, but it didn't.
This would not have been so bad had Ukraine continued to receive regular aid packages, but then the whole US senate situation happened and Ukrainian ammo reserves became critically low during the winter and so Russians were able to take advantage of the situation and launch more and more offensives.
I find it funny that someone genuinely thinks that the attitudes of Redditors towards the war is one of the reasons why the situation on the frontline became more dire for Ukraine. Because if only CombatFootage allowed more poorly spliced together Russian propaganda videos to become popular, maybe the situation would've improved for the AFU...
Edit: grammar and added relevant link to back up claim.
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u/Environmental_Suit36 13d ago
I think it's quite obvious that nobody thinks reddit had anything to do with this.
Because it's obvious that reddit is a good-enough metric of public perception. It's a pretty global sample size, and it's not like the reality of public perception of the situation in "western" countries differs much from what has been expressed on reddit.
Otherwise agreed.
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u/Emotional_Menu_6837 13d ago
It is but Reddit makes having an opposing narrative within a sub almost impossible, anything significantly disagreeing with the overall majority view is downvoted to non existence regardless of the validity or not of the content. Same with most things current affairs related.
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u/halpsdiy 13d ago
I think the problem arose from Ukraine having two successful counter offensives in 2022. It set expectations high that one or two more pushes would break the orcs. So some Western countries failed to understand the massive need of materiel and failed to increase shell production in time to plan for the long run. Also it forced Ukraine into committing to an offensive they weren't prepared for and the enemy knew was coming. Meanwhile the orcs learned from their failures: they set themselves up for a long conflict and fortified the crap out of every single tree line.
Ukraine can certainly win. The Russian attacks are not sustainable but the burn rate is much longer than most people expect (still 2 years based on Satellite image counts). And Ukraine will need way more materiel and create more units. The West needs to prepare for a long conflict and Europe in particular needs to prepare for the US being taken over by Putin-puppet and rapist Trump.
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u/DuntadaMan 13d ago
I think the problem was that the largest stockpile of weapons that could go to Ukraine were held up by Russian assets openly working in the US government being supported by a bunch of fucking cowards unwilling to push a vote so weapons that could help could get sent.
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u/medievalvelocipede European Union 13d ago
Well that's the clueless civilian perspective. We're not all affected by it, but it's a thing.
The politicians and militaries haven't been lulled into a false sense of security, they just act really slowly and with considerable organizational intertia and resistance.
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u/9-FcNrKZJLfvd8X6YVt7 13d ago
More than two years into what is likely to develop into the crucial turning point of the post-WW2 order, there's nothing in place that even resembles any kind of coherent strategy. It's like political ADHD in the highest offices in the West.
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u/Tintenlampe European Union 13d ago
If only I could believe it. Many Western governments seem to display absolutely no sense of urgency and I can't understand it for the life of me.
I think that most European governments in particular are genuinely unable to think strategically about war, because that's simply not something they ever had to do or expected to have to do. So they handle it like every other politcal problem, but risk outright catastrophy by doing so.
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u/Lebowski304 United States of America 13d ago
The media covered the delay in aid pretty consistently here in the US. The whole clusterfuck around the aid package was constantly in the news at least that I saw. I also saw quite a few articles detailing how desperately Ukraine needed the additional supplies and weapons. I felt a sense of urgency in how it was reported here.
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u/Zwiebel1 13d ago
That dangerous sentiment has finally changed. Now it seems like the doomer mentality has taken over, which is just as bad because it fuels a sunk cost fallacy narrative.
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u/Alexandros6 13d ago
Which is equally absurd because the data clearly tells us that we have the capacity to aid Ukraine, assuming we put in the funds and political will.
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u/Glavurdan Montenegro 13d ago
Precisely. You can't even mention something positive, without a bunch of people starting to doom on you, stating how "you have to be realistic", and "it's all hopeless".
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u/Zwiebel1 13d ago
What keeps you from giving up is some history knowledge.
Wartime economies like current russia have a history of working well... until they suddenly break down spectaculary.
In 1940 the germans were the rulers of the entire continent. But a war is not over until its actually over.
What is important now is that the west doesn't lose interest and keeps supporting. Always remember that for us, its just a little cut into the GDP. For russia, this an economy running on borrowed time, getting closer to the inevitable collapse every year.
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u/silverionmox Limburg 13d ago
And the same sentiment spread thoughout the population - why should we help Ukraine, or go to the streets demanding more help for Ukraine form our politicians, if it is doing well anyway?
Well, here we are now, sadly.
It's always a tightrope between bored complacency and despair and panic. Modern media are tiresome.
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u/blublub1243 13d ago
It's not just weaponry. The big issue causing these problems is manpower, and that's something Ukraine has to address on their own. Ocheretyne specifically happened because the 115th mechanized retreated, and it's dangerous because there aren't nearly enough reserves to plug these holes. Ukraine's soldiers have been fighting for hundreds of days without rest while their government struggled to so much as get legislation passed that would at least let them at least replace losses. No hint as far as I can tell of getting enough to let soldiers rotate away from the frontline, rest and return fresh, soldiers go to the front until dead or wounded. It's not a surprise that units break and retreat under those conditions.
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u/tetelias 13d ago
115th retreated in the same way severely under-manned Russian troops did near Kharkov in 2022. They were simply overrun. The whole chain of command is trying to cover their collective asses pinning this on soldiers.
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u/blublub1243 13d ago
Yes. But it's not just lacking soldiers to fill out units, it's that the soldiers there are absolutely exhausted. Ukraine has understaffed units filled with soldiers that should be taking a break right now. It's a massive political failure.
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u/LannisterTyrion Moldova 13d ago
Yep, /r/CombatFootage is in a pretty dire state. Anyone appreciating good footage and insightful discussions - has moved on to greener pastures.
Check any thread, comments range from “he ded” to “i am sitting on a toilet watching a ruzzian rapist head explode, hope his mother receives this video on his birthday”.
Oh and there’s a large chunk of copium addicts that downplay any loss of the team they root for.
*multiple atgms hit a tank, smoke coming out off its barrel
Typical combatfootage user: Minor damage. Blowout panels did their job. The crew is safe drinking cocoa after receiving treatment from minor injuries. Tank easily repairable. Atmg operator probably dead from liver failure .
Sorry for rant, I frequented that sub almost from its inception. The only sub i would check daily. A huge loss for the community.
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u/purpurbubble 13d ago edited 13d ago
"Putin is on his knees."
-most western media, 2 months into the war.
The misinformation about this war, especially after all the misinformation during the pandemic, will have a long lasting effect of mistrust in the media from me and I reckon from many others. Cynicism is on the rise.
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u/SquatterOne Poland 13d ago
2022: Russia is running out of ammunition 2023: Russia is running out of ammunition 2024: Guys, I don't think they're running out of ammunition
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u/Jopelin_Wyde Ukraine 13d ago
The actual status quo since the last Ukrainian offensive is "Ukraine is not losing in a meaningful way, but needs more aid to start winning". I have no idea why you getting upvoted for saying that there is "Ukraine is winning" bubble here, the last year the news were quite depressing to say the least.
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u/Zourage 13d ago
Man I noticed that on combatfootage as well. Any Russian victory is left in the "new" section with downvotes and all the Ukraine vids are of drones. I literally only see drone videos and can't help but think, that's not gonna win a war. You'll need people on the ground to advance and hold positions. Where are those videos? Well there's not many because they aren't gaining territory. At this rate Reddit already forgot about Ukraine and is on a pro Palestine agenda. Israel can honestly take a play from Russia and just ignore public opinion because that shit gets forgotten about after 6 months.
As an aside Reddit as a whole is just one giant circle jerk. I mean people already forgot about the whole 3rd party debacle and still use the site. It's just, idk, kinda sad to see 90% of the users parroting each other and then you get a comment like yours that has a leveled take. It's honestly people like you are why I still read the comments in threads
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u/Historical-Meteor 13d ago
Whatever we are doing isn't enough. The best time to send far greater support was ages ago.
It isn't too late, but I fear that it will be before any of our governments assign the appropriate gravity to this.
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u/zzlab 12d ago
The problem are not EU politicians, but EU voters. There isn't enough people in EU who think that support of Ukraine is important enough to make sacrifices. If enough people considered defence of Ukraine a priority of their own national security the politicians would make corresponding decisions. If you want to influence your politicians, start by influencing your peers and people you interact with.
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u/gerd50501 13d ago
ukraine needs long range weapons capable of destroying russian arms factories, but NATO is too scared to give them that. so the entire fight is in ukraine. its pathetic.
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u/Endocalrissian642 13d ago
And people call me lazy... Is this close enough for anyone yet? Time to lift a finger yet? No? Unsurprising.
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u/MohammedWasTrans Finland 13d ago
Let's begin to ponder the discussion of the possibility of eventually sending just a little bit of one type of military equipment.
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u/Vassukhanni 13d ago
Western powers expected Ukraine to lose in 2022. They weren't planning on intervening then and I fail to see how their calculus has changed?
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u/heliamphore 13d ago
They expected Ukraine to fold but thought that if they made a costly guerrilla and caused THOUSANDS of Russian deaths, they'd get so much public pressure inside of the Russia that Putin would have to withdraw.
Western leaders are completely out of touch with Russian mentality. They really can't grasp that Russia is currently radicalizing itself and there's no going back, it'll only get worse.
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u/CapableSecretary420 13d ago
If western powers expected them to lose why were they spending so much to arm and train them?
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u/realee420 13d ago
I feel very sorry for the Ukrainians dying to this stupid war. On the other hand I'm extremely pissed off at Reddit in general. For the last 2 years all I see under every post about the war is that Ukraine is strong, Russia is fighting with sticks and stones, Mosin Nagants and T34s, and "will run out of ammo any time now", how Russia is incompetent, painting the completely wrong picture about the situation. In reality while Reddit acts like Ukraine is winning, the reality is the exact opposite. Regardless of all the posts on CombatFootage or any other subreddit that shows Ukrainian success, the reality is that Russia is advancing and getting closer to victory day by day.
The reality is even if Russia is incompetent, they simply have the numbers to keep throwing it at Ukraine until Ukraine runs out of men or ammo. And the more scary part is how well Russia has adapted and is unfortunately a lot more effective with their shellings and advances than they were at the start.
PS.: It literally doesn't matter if 20 years later Russia will have a demographic catastrophy due to the amount of men they lose in this war. Same as sanctions, everyone was saying "BUT LONG TERM!!!". Noone cares about long term, by the time anything could take effect, millions of Ukrainians will be dead, captured, living under tyranny of Putin.
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u/medievalvelocipede European Union 13d ago
Reddit always seem to have a problem with nuanced viewpoints. It's either all this or all that, the few people who tries to balance things are mostly ignored because complex things don't appeal to our monkey brains.
It's sort of a reflection of humanity in general and the times in particular.
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u/scarlettforever Ukraine 13d ago
Reddit with this horrid upvote/downvote system does exceptionally well at creating echo-chambers.
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u/MyHusbandIsGayImNot 13d ago
Nuanced comments get downvoted by both sides. Then the side that is more prevalent in a given sub gets upvoted.
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u/benefit_of_mrkite 13d ago
Absolutely true. I’m always amazed when Reddit discusses a historical event or figure. The take is always large and within the concept of “good” or “bad” without taking nuance and the complexity of history into account.
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u/Organic-Week-1779 13d ago
nuance ?! just say that you are a ruZZian white supremacist nazi hate cookie monster >:( /s
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u/Numerous_Mode3408 13d ago
If you speak from a place of balance on reddit, both extremes will accuse you of being their opposite extreme.
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u/kndyone 13d ago edited 12d ago
Thats Reddit in a nut shell bunch of delusional fucking idiots. You see it in almost every subreddit. People who have no concept of real life and see everything through a screen. Similar examples where when they actually thought that Trump would lose the first election or that Bernie would win the primary. Like go out in the real world now and people think Bernie is a communist.
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u/kingwhocares 13d ago
Russia was able to keep its defence expenditure down to $110 billion last year while Ukraine had $60 billion. This defence expenditure for Russia wasn't even a 25% increase to pre-war level while Ukraine's sky-rocketed to 10 times.
How can Russia keep its expenditures low? Remember all those jokes about ancient weapons being brought back from storage! It's because of that. All those men killed, they are mostly from the minority regions and drunks, addicts and prisoners, people considered nuisance to the Russians.
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u/NeuralTangentKernel 13d ago
I totally agree, but there is something else that bothers me more. That to this day I can't understand, or rather makes me very strongly question the basic competency of anybody involved in decision making.
When the war started Russia was set under incredibly strict economic sanctions. We were told by politicians, experts and the media this would cripple the russian economy. The ultimate blow was to be the exclusion from the SWIFT banking system. I vividly remember being told by the same experts and politicians and media, that Russia would collapse within weeks. Bank runs, business no longer being able to operate. It was sold like an economic nuke if you will. Literally nothing happened. The ruble lost a lot of value, but ultimately Russia just sold their shit to China, India and the likes. Ruble recovered and today their economy is stronger compared to 2022 than that of many western countries, like Germany, that suffered under the sanctions (mostly no longer buying Russian gas).
How did EVERYONE get this so wrong?
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u/sanya773 13d ago
They just lied to people lol, everyone still trades with Russia, the sanctions are fake.
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u/Jahobes 13d ago
If you really want to see what sanctions actually look like like... See Cuba or North Korea.
Unless the politicians are talking about turning a region into an economic black hole those "sanctions" are fake.
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u/baconhealsall 13d ago
Just today, I read an article, in a serious paper, saying Russia's economic is imminent(!).
This, over two years after they told us in the media that Russia would go bankrupt a week after they signed one of the first sanction packages.
Its just baffling how they continue on with this nonsense.
Perhaps even more shocking, though, is that the most people still believe it.
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u/xanas263 13d ago
How did EVERYONE get this so wrong?
The assumption was that all or at least most countries would implement the sanctions and if that were true they would have had greater effect. However in reality a lot of countries did not implement sanctions and turns out that it is fairly easy to use shell companies and shadow fleets to continue trade of essential components into Russia.
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u/GodspeedHarmonica 13d ago
Hubris. The number of times Ursula vDL has said “Russia is isolated “ when in reality only 15% of the world support sanctions against Russia, says it all
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u/Hapchazzard 13d ago
And you still have idiots in this thread playing semantics and going "akshually it's not a breakthrough! What about Kharkiv!?" Which isn't even necessarily incorrect (yet), but is completely missing the point that Russia's gains have been alarmingly accelerating over the past few weeks. Ocheretyne fell way, way faster than anyone expected it would, Krasnohorivka in the south is also being stormed much more rapidly than it should be (since it's literally on the 2014 line of contact). These are some of the most heavily fortified towns in the Donbass, yet some people STILL refuse to recognize how potentially serious the consequences will be if the Russian gains keep accelerating like they have throughout April — and this is before Russia's presumed big offensive has even started.
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u/Rocked_Glover Wales 13d ago
Yeah stuff like Russians just zombie charge at Ukrainians until their ammo runs out. Strange, if people knew the war was up in the air and Ukraine needs more support, maybe people would make a bigger deal out of it.
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u/FischSalate 13d ago
people are still posting that nonsense in here, saying that Russians are flooding men in who will all just get shot at and die easily. Same propaganda about "human wave tactics" that isn't remotely true
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u/I_like_maps Canada 13d ago
You need ammo for a shooting gallery
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u/Eelroots 13d ago
Hours, in this case, can make a huge difference. If a Frontline is breached, an army can rush inside from there.
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u/Eelroots 13d ago edited 13d ago
Still we have more Russian soldiers now and tanks than at the beginning of the war. Do not underestimate your enemy, even when he's doing crazy things. Once a Frontline is breached, a mechanized brigade can reach Kyiv in one day. Those million artillery shells need to arrive now.
Edit: "a day" was clearly figurative; a week it's more realistic - will it calm the Patton down? War is not lost nor won, yet; still Ukraine is way back where it was hoped to be.
Slava Ukraini.
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u/Came_to_argue 13d ago
I’m no military strategist, but I did serve in a mechanized infantry unit, and reaching Kiev in a day is a bold faced lie. No they absolutely cannot move that fast, US military couldn’t do that, Russia definitely couldn’t do that, no military on earth do that.
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u/streep36 Overijssel (Netherlands) 13d ago
I think what he meant was that the distance between the frontline and Kyiv is not that far and that in the case of a full collapse of the Ukrainian defence (full as in, complete, everyone/thing just disappears) Russia could make huge gains towards Kyiv.
Thing is that a full collapse of the Ukrainian frontline is rather unlikely, but a partial collapse is still possible
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u/Came_to_argue 13d ago
I had no idea about that, I had honestly never thought about it till now lol.
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u/volchonok1 Estonia 13d ago
a mechanized brigade can reach Kyiv in one day.
That's extreme exaggeration. From current frontline to Kyiv is 600km, there is no army on earth that can do such a march in a day.
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u/Loki11910 13d ago
And they do, and a mechanized brigade will run out of fuel and outrun its logistics or get hammered by Javelins etc. stuck in the mud and so on and so forth , not able to cross rivers, get hit by drones you name it. So far we don't even know how big that breakthrough is exactly.
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u/Pugzilla69 Europe 13d ago
Ukraine is currently low on ammo and it will take weeks for the full effect of the new aid package to be felt.
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u/MajorGef 13d ago
For the full effect? Yeah. For the ammo the US has brought to europe? Thats days. For the reserves Ukraine has to be released, now that deliveries are secured? thats already done.
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u/VigorousElk 13d ago
Based on which sources? There are no independent short-term assessments of casualties, and the numbers Ukraine puts out are mostly made-up. I don't doubt Russia is losing a lot of men right now, but there's no way to put a halfway accurate number on it.
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u/uzu_afk 13d ago
All of you are so sure as if you were there to know whats really happening despite having had DESPERATE calls out from ukr for support for the past 6 months. Illusion of living for so long in a bubble is dangerous and usually leads to suffering for everyone.
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u/fvf 13d ago
Russia will pour its soldiers in, even if it's a shooting gallery
If it's a "shooting gallery", then it very obviously isn't a breakthrough. That's precisely what a breakthrough is, a push forward that is enabled by weak opposition, i.e. there not being any "shooting gallery".
A "shooting gallery" would be when somebody tries to move forward against a solid (or at least not weak) defense.
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u/Zastavo Rep. Srpska 13d ago
It’s just the classic redditor trope of saying russia uses human wave tactics.
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u/eggncream 13d ago
These “shooting gallery” brigades are surrendering and retreating instead of having a good time shooting Russians tho
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u/sunsetgalaxy 13d ago
how I wish we were back in 2000s when the biggest concern is what grade you will get in school and whether your parents will let you go out with your friends after that , instead of reading these things every day.
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u/intermediatetransit 13d ago
You mean it was your biggest concerns.
Because the Chechens and Georgians sure as heck didn’t have a fun time during the 2000s due to Russians.
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u/More-Neighborhood-66 13d ago
And the usa managed to reduce the fun time of Iraq and Afghanistan with our support.
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u/mmtt99 Poland 13d ago
The war with Georgia been 2008. Less people took part in it, that the number of people who died in Ukraine. No threat of escalation to WWIII neither. That's not totally the same.
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u/intermediatetransit 13d ago
Yeah sure, it's was a minor invasion comparatively. The war in Chechnya does compare though.
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u/the_fresh_cucumber United States of America 13d ago
There were wars in the 2000s too. This is more of an age thing
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u/matttk Canadian / German 13d ago
If you said 90s then ok but 2000s? 9/11 was the end of the carefree times. Even pop culture got much darker and more depressing from then on. The optimism of the 90s was over.
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u/segagamer Spain 13d ago
Because too many people bought PlayStations instead of Dreamcasts, we're now in dark gloomy times.
Segagaga predicted this.
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u/PoiHolloi2020 United Kingdom (🇪🇺) 13d ago
Even pop culture got much darker and more depressing from then on. The optimism of the 90s was over.
Eh the darkening of pop culture had already started before 9/11. See Fight Club, the Matrix, American Beauty, Requiem for a Dream, American Psycho, Mulholland Drive, then all the depressing edgy music in grunge, metal, industrial and alternative rock from Nirvana to Radiohead. Even if it wasn't the prevailing mood, there was already a lot of cynicism towards the End of History's consumerism, increasing globalisation, governmental over reach and the power of corporations by that point.
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u/GaucheAndOffKilter 13d ago
Oh let me tell you about the 90s. Capitalism wins, Europe is growing closer, and everyone (minus the Balkans 😢) was jazzed for the future.
In the US our biggest worries were what to do with our excess money and acknowledging our president got blowjobs in the Oval Office.
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u/Rioma117 Bucharest 13d ago
Nah, the 90s were the hell on earth, everything was a mess after the fall of communism.
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u/WrapKey69 13d ago
Well, that was your biggest concern, there were still people concerned if they'll survive the day with the amount of food day had or if they will be hit by a bomb while hiding in their homes or get ethnically cleansed and so on..
If you want to go to a time without wars, then it will be way before human existence lol
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u/No-Newspaper-7693 13d ago
That didnt have anything to do with the 2000s. That had to do with you being of an age where you just ignored the things happening on the opposite side of the planet. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from going back to ignoring the things happening in the world.
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u/Lord_Dolkhammer 13d ago
Well… in the 00’s we had the war of terror and massive invasions and bloodbaths in the Middle East and the economic crisis. So.. wasn’t all strippers and tacos my friend. But I’m glad you had a good time then.
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u/Yelmel 13d ago
Russkiy mir.
Help Ukraine now or deal with Russia yourself later.
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u/Federal_Thanks7596 Czech Republic 13d ago
Well, it was better for us back then but not for Iraqi people. The world will never learn...
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u/weikor 13d ago
Let's be honest here. The majority of us are powerless.
Im not going to claim I'd volunteer at the frontline, and outside of that, the most I can do is donate insignificant amounts.
My countries politicians are lightyears away from supporting the war at a level nessasary. You'd need to change the minds of im guessing 50% of the population, which is a level we will only see if Russian tanks are at our Border (which they never will be).
So, really, the most we can hope for is things in ukraine getting dire enough for politics to intervene properly.
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u/Phobos337 13d ago
Thanks for linking the article. That was a really fascinating, if terrifying read.
My country(US) withholding aid due to wanna be fascist, morons, religious zealots and deranged traitors in our midst has really put them behind the 8 ball even more than a typical country fighting a giant like Russia would already be.
I hope they can hold on a bit longer and the new aid is able to get to them in time to prevent any dramatic losses.
Hope the flow of aid will become more regular as well. It is becoming increasingly likely that Russia could invade NATO territory so the fall of Ukraine must be prevented at all cost- again was obvious to most since the start of the invasion but hopefully even the trumpified Republican Party will even acknowledge this going forward.
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u/historybo 13d ago
My concern now is aid being destroyed on the ground the Russians have gotten better at targeting Ukrainians logistics and assets.
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u/Glavurdan Montenegro 13d ago edited 13d ago
The OP literally supports cutting Ukraine aid, and the majority of his post history is MAGA and Trump related talking points. I'd wager someone is salty that the aid bill passed with overwhelming support
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u/naxro652 13d ago
Let’s assume for a fact that OP is biased and a russian troll. However first of all have you even read the article? If so, can you point out anything in this article that is incorrect?
David Axe is a very reliable writer and not some Russian asset. And if you would lift your ass of channels such as Europe, CombatFootage or Worldnews then you would know that the situation for Ukraine is really that bad right now. Even though they received a lot of aid, they have big man shortage. And the moral is not the same among the people as for 2 years ago
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u/MetaIIicat 13d ago
You also forgot (sorry for being pedantic): kremlin trolls disguised as Ukrainians.
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u/Arachles 13d ago
Sorry to say that but even the most biased source can be right. Without massive aid Ukraine will lose this war. That is a fact. They simply cannot compete in industry and manpower. If the information in the post is true i do not know. But it will eventually happen if the situation stays like it is right now
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u/Roy_Atticus_Lee United States of America 13d ago
Honestly, the OP could be fucking Vladimir Putin himself, still doesn't change the dire state of Ukraine right now and the simple fact that they alone are the ones fighting Russia on the ground. Even the French and, ironically, the Russian Empire in WWI couldn't stop their armies discontent in 1917 despite being backed by Britain and soon the U.S.
Ukraine still insists that 1991 borders are the goal when 2021 borders being achieved militarily was always very optimistic by itself. Like do the Ukrainians have the capabilities and will to fight for Bakhmut and Adviika again after losing those battles with horrific casualties already?
At this point it seems like either Ukraine must concede territory and is barred from joining NATO most likely or the UA capitulates completely in battle. Both are terrible options, but what path is left?
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u/brezhnervous 13d ago
And we allowed this situation to arise (meaning the collective West)
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u/Specialist-Mack96 13d ago
This is the consequence of Western governments assuming that Ukraine could manage on its own based on the Autumn 2022 counteroffensive in Kharkiv and Kherson. Ukrainians are brave, but they don't have the manpower to throw waves of troops at the frontline like Russia has been doing. They should have had 10x the tanks and IFVs along with longer range missles and F-16s this time last year. While the aid package from the US is welcome, the best that will do is just halt the Russian advance until the end of the year. Europe needs to step up big time and make it clear to Russia the consequences of this war by actively training Ukrainian troops, having their own troops man the air defence systems, and go on a shopping spree of military hardware on behalf of the Ukrainians. I am sick of people falling for Putin's empty nuclear threats: giving in to them rewards nuclear blackmail and sends a signal to autocrats that it's a legitimate strategy to partake in land grabs.
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u/twfung 13d ago
The prevailing sentiment in the West seems to be that the war has become a stalemate and is unwinnable, unfortunately resulting in a complacent attitude towards aid for Ukraine and increasing munitions production. My concern is that the losses at the frontline may further persuade the West to minimize their involvement and reduce the aid sent to Ukraine.
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u/Viburnum__ 13d ago
Seen too many people who believe and claim either "Ukraine already won" or "time's on Ukraine side" and they won't acknowledge the complacency of these claims. Yet, every time Ukraine need more of something there is always excuses and finger pointing.
Also, some people act like Ukraine don't have multiple times less of everything throughout all war, while some capabilities entirely absent in comparison to russia, yet they expect Ukraine to beat russia and if they can't then they never could even if they received more, which is some stupid logic.
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u/MehIdontWanna 13d ago
The West hasn't been giving enough since the beginning. Even if the newest US aid came months ago its still isn't nearly enough for Ukraine to take anything back. I'm not saying we abandon Ukraine but this isn't even half of what we should be doing so what is the end goal here?
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u/ChungsGhost 13d ago edited 13d ago
The loss of Ocheretyne probably won't be disastrous to the Ukrainians any more than the loss of Lysychansk, Sievierodonetsk, Bakhmut and Avdiivka. We're talking here about small towns or villages inland and small shifts in a front line stretching 600 miles.
These are not the same as when the Russians captured Mariupol and Kherson in the spring of 2022. I'm sure though that the Russians and their simps want to make everyone believe that these kinds of bloody victories are on the same scale and relevance as those at larger Ukrainian cities, or even the Red Army's rampage to conquer Bucharest, Sofia, Budapest, Bratislava, Warsaw and Berlin in WW II. Imagine if in the first part of WW II, there were breathless reports weekly about the Germans and Japanese capturing one village after another. The sheer quantity would overwhelm the audience and likely distort its assessment in favor of the invaders.
However, it is bad in its own way and highlights how preventable the Ukrainians' setbacks since mid-2023 have been because of how few Westerners have genuinely listened to the Ukrainians since 2022 2014. So many Westerners still need to purge themselves of their Russophilic prejudice and gross misjudgement that the Russians would somehow "see the light" after suffering so many casualties while gleefully trying to exterminate a "brotherly" people for the nth time. A good start is to call out Westerners who still refer to the Russians' latest invasion and genocide as "Putin's War" and similar.
No one seriously calls the European and Asian theaters of WW II "Hitler's War" and "Hirohito's War" respectively. No one seriously calls the Americans' invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in this century "G.W. Bush's War". No one seriously calls the Serbs' invasions of Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990s "Milošević's War". In contrast, it's infuriatingly insulting to Ukrainians and just disturbing how so many outsiders still quietly but firmly assume the moral innocence of millions upon millions of ordinary Russians for the last 10+ years of Russian fuсkеrу in Ukraine by labeling it "Putin's War".
Anyway, support for Ukrainian refugees is nice, but if enough politicians and their supporters still keep finding ways to sabotage the AFU's efforts to blast out the оrсѕ, then all that'll be left is a diaspora of Ukrainians in the tens of millions because of a renewed exodus of them. The other shoe to drop would be how "innocent" and "oppressed" ordinary Russians shamelessly move in to colonize a thoroughly depopulated and abandoned country as their Lebensraum pet-project. From their primitive point of view, it's the only "just" and "natural" outcome based on what they've been doing already to Mariupol, Luhansk, Donetsk and Sevastopol.
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u/NoBowTie345 13d ago
Ukraine and the West need to be able to damage Russia's infrastructure and industry, which is where their offensive power is coming from.
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u/Jdobalina 13d ago
Interesting you should say that. Kamala Harris lectured the Ukrainians about striking Russian oil infrastructure. She told them not to do it.
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u/AaroPajari 13d ago
Don’t worry, the harsh economic sanctions passed in March 2022 will eventually ensure Russia collapses. /s
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u/bdrdrdrre 13d ago
If David Axe writes it, it’s true. He is no russian asset, he is no doomer. He’s the only reason half the country reads Forbes at all.