Comments by "UzuMaki NaRuto" (@UzumakiNaruto_) on "Military Summary"
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@snagletoothscott3729
Thw Troops in Bakmut aren't pushing hard. most of time time not at all. They only push when their's an oppurtunity. So comparitevly their losses are few compared to the Ukrainian's ,wo are aconstantly shiffling troops in Bkamut to replace thier steady stream of losses as they keep trying to attack to push them out.
The Russians have been attacking Bakhmut for several months and they definitely ARE pushing hard. If you've watched any videos coming out of that battle you'll definitely see that the Russians don't care about their troop's lives with the way they keep throwing themselves at the Ukrainians.
18,000 dead Russians vs 390k dead Ukrainians. Those are the US numbers, by the way. That's not sustainable. At this point, Russian doesnt even need to push. All they need to do is stand their ground for a year and half and Ukraine won't have any troops left at all, as they keep throwiing them into the meatgrinder tat is the Russian Wall.
Can you please show me which US source says that the Russians have only lost 18,000 dead during this entire war so far? Can you link me a legitimate source that actually says this? I'd really like to see it.
If you truly believe that the Russians have only lost 18,000 men after all this time, then no wonder you think they're doing fine. Obviously though if you care about the facts this clearly isn't the case and the Russians have lost far, FAR more men than they've reported.
You don't go out and mobilize 300,000+ recruits just to replace 18,000 KIA and more importantly you wouldn't be rushing many of them to the front to try and stabilize things if you've taken so few casualties. You would instead take your time to train and equip your troops properly rather than calling them up and throwing to the wolves almost immediately.
Also if the Russians weren't taking heavy casualties then why do you think that Putin waited for so long and did everything possible to avoid calling for mobilization? During the entire war he tried recruiting men from everywhere to avoid mobilization within Russia and finally when the casualties were too much and the Ukrainian offensives were taking back territory, Putin had no choice but to concede that mobilization was necessary and unavoidable and so he did it.
On the other side if you also believe that the Ukrainians are taking such huge casualties, then in a few months we should be seeing older men and poorer quality Ukrainian troops on the battlefield that the Russians should easily defeat. Time will tell who's facts are actually true.
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@snagletoothscott3729
18,000 is from a recent document, from the Center of War Studies, which is a think tank for the US military and intelligence agencies, as 18,000 dead....which would be about right at known rates.
Again please show me legitimate links that show reputable sources that claim that the Russians have only had 18,000 KIA during the entire war to date. I really want to read it and see how they count casualties to arrive at that extreme low number. Even if you don't believe Ukrainian claims of Russian casualties, there's ZERO CHANCE that the Russians have only suffered 18k dead after all these months of hard fighting.
Wagner pushed hard up into Bakmut, but once they got inside the far eastern suburbs they met stiff resistance. Wagner has since and for quite a while only done attacks of opportunity and probing, largely to keep the Ukraine fixed in Bakmut, while their forces continue to push hard to the north and the south to surround Bakmut. The Wagner forces in Bakmut are there primarily as a thorn, to keep the Ukrainians attacking and draining troops trying to push them out.
Well if these attacks are designed to drain Ukrainian troops its clearly not working when they're still pushing the Kherson and Kharkiv offensives. So either this means the Ukrainians has tons of troops to throw at various fronts and still be able to take large casualties and keep going or else it means the reports of them dying at high rates aren't completely true.
The call up wasn't just to replace loses. It largely because the Russians were severely overstretched. They called up enough to replace losess, to fill the gaps in the line, and to have enough left after that for more offensive to push futher into Ukraine.
If the Russians weren't desperate for more troops at the front then they wouldn't be pushing under trained and under armed troops to the front to be cannon fodder would they? The only reasons you would be doing that is either you've taken heavy casualties and need replacements ASAP to replace those losses and/or your troops are performing so poorly that you need to rely on numbers to try and stop the enemy advance.
On the otherhand if you believe the Ukrainians are taking such heavy casualties then ask yourself why they're not doing the same in rushing more soldiers to the front with little training and under equipped? If the Ukrainians are desperate to replace their supposed high casualties the ask yourself why do they have time to send their new recruits outside to NATO countries to have them spend several months to get properly trained and equipped before having them come back to be sent to the frontlines?
10,000 Ukrainians spent 2-3 months in the UK to be trained by the British and they recently returned to Ukraine to be sent to the front. Ask yourself if the Ukrainians are taking such huge losses why they're able to take the time to have their new recruits to be sent away for months to get trained instead of having them sent immediately to the front?
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@paulmelonas7263
I'm as serious as a heart attack. IF you can put down your Kool-Aid glass for a moment you might recall that from day 1 Russia said their goal was 1- de-militerize Ukraine and make it neutral. 2. De-Nazify Ukraine. 3- Protect the Donbass. They NEVER said anything about taking all of Ukraine or even taking major cities like Kiev, Kharcov, or Kherson.
Of course Putin never said it outright that taking all of Ukraine was his objective, but its plainly obvious that that was his number 1 plan when he launched a major attack from Belarus directly towards Kiev from the shortest distance possible between the Belarus border to the capital.
How is that apart of the 'Denazification' and 'demilitarization' of Ukraine when he could've done that anywhere else along the front. Heck he could've concentrated his forces in the east and south and completely ignored the western part of Ukraine and the result would've likely been much more successful and Donbas/Luhansk and the southern part of Ukraine maybe perhaps even to Odessa might've all been in Russian hands long ago.
Only reason to launch airborne attacks and a major attack against the capital is if you wanted to take it or at the very least get rid of Zelensky and his government. There's no other reason to attack along that front.
The reason for the annexations was two fold. 1- that makes those territories Russian ( which they traditionally are anyway ) and the citizens can now have dual citizenship if they so choose or they can be either Russian or Ukrainian if they choose.
You don't annex those territories unless you intend to keep those areas and as you said allow the use of mobilized troops in those places. This means that Putin absolutely went into Ukraine with the intention of taking territory and the destruction of UA forces is just a by product of fighting them and taking territory from Ukraine.
I mean what sounds better to the public? That they invaded Ukraine to get rid of the evil nazi elements within the country or that they wanted to take Ukrainian land and perhaps even the entire country and bring it back into the Russian sphere of influence?
Once again try and put down the the Kool-Aid glass concerning losses. I will point to Reuters and The Washington Post and Bloomberg News. ALL western sources that favor Ukraine. They have reported that the differential in losses has been 7 Ukrops killed for every Russian. WHY do you think the Ukrainian Army which began with 600,000 troops has had to mobilize 8 times and Russia who started with 200,000 troops has only mobilized once? Russia is grinding the Ukrainian army into dust. THAT IS THEIR PLAN. DEMILITERIZE UKRAINE.
I find it interesting that all the pro-Russian hacks constantly say that western media is biased, unreliable and is just pro-Ukrainian propaganda, but somehow when casualties are mentioned, they're all of a sudden 100% reliable sources that cannot be disputed? OK. 🤣😂😅🤣😂😅
Seriously if the number of casualties was anywhere near as high as you believe they are, then the Ukrainian ability to launch anymore offensives in the future should be over and done with. Conversely if Russian casualties were so low then they should be able to launch much more larger and effective offensives than they have in the last few months.
The reality on the battlefield is that the things are the opposite of what you say. Namely the Russians haven't launched any major armored offensives ever since the Kiev retreat and even their Donbas offensive was relatively limited and involved mostly infantry because they lost so much of their armored forces.
On the otherhand the Ukrainians have been on the offensive since early September and they haven't stopped since and they've gained significant ground in those attacks. If the casualty rates are as high as you claim, then there shouldn't be anymore major Ukrainian offensives because they've lost so many men.
I don't doubt that the Ukrainians have taken significant casualties during this war, I just doubt that they've taken more casualties than the Russians and their allies and mercenaries have.
Regarding equipment. IF I can put an old but upgraded 1980's tank on the field by the thousands and use up what you have left, WHY should I put out my new and best?
The Russians didn't have many modern tanks to begin with which is why we didn't see many if any T-90s at the beginning of the invasion. Then they started losing tanks and other armored vehicles by the hundreds which is why they had to resort to bringing back Cold War era vehicles to fight with. Could you ever imagine the Americans losing so many Abrams tanks that they had to turn to bringing back M60 tanks into service to make up for their losses? That would NEVER happen.
Yet here we are seeing the Russians fighting with 1960s era tanks on the frontlines. And again the biggest indicator that the Russians have taken a major beating with regards to their armored vehicles is the fact that they haven't launched a major armored offensive since the Kiev retreat. If they weren't hurting so badly for armor they would've used much more in their Donbas attacks rather than resorting to exposing infantry to enemy fire.
Russia doesn't have to even pick up all their broken down tanks from the battlefield they have so many. Ukraine has to try and salvage those derelicts and make them workable again because all they have left is Russias leftovers.
That's kind of a huge problem that you don't seem to understand. The fact that the Russians are losing such large quantities of vehicles and then allowing the enemy to salvage many of those vehicles that were merely broken down or just abandoned and then having them be used against you on the battlefield and you don't see it as being a serious issue? Really??!?!
Its bad enough that the Russians lost those vehicles to begin with, but to have a significant portion of them be salvaged and turned against you is just plain stupidity and incompetence of the highest order.
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@paulmelonas7263
Warning Long reply!
Once again you speculate without using any kind of common sense. Do you honestly think if Russia really wanted to completely level Kiev they would have any trouble doing it?
Putin didn't want to level Kiev, he wanted to TAKE IT. You could see from the very beginning of the war when the Russians invaded that they wanted to keep Ukraine largely intact and outside of a few accidental or intention strikes on civilian targets most of their missile attacks were aimed at military targets.
As the weeks went by and the fighting became harder and it became increasingly clear that they weren't going to take all of Ukraine, then that's when the Russians cared less and less about what they destroyed and recently they've been actively targeting civilian infrastructure likely as a form of punishment in response to their battlefield defeats.
All the facts point to Putin believing that this invasion would be short and sweet and that Ukrainian resistance would be relatively low and would collapse quickly as they did in 2014 in Crimea and later on in Donbas. He was dead wrong and now his army is paying for it and sadly the Ukrainians have to suffer too.
Regarding the annexed land let me ask you this question, what percentage of the people in those areas are Russian? Those people need Russias protection because the UkroNazis were murdering them. It was a genocide against those people only because they are Russian speaking Ukrainians.That's why they voted overwhelmingly to become part of Russia.
Please show me proof that before 2014 that Russians living in Ukraine were getting slaughtered and wiped out Rwanda style? I'd really like to see proof of this so please provide legitimate sources that show this was happening?
Also just saying that even though the Donbas region wanted more autonomy and independence, very few people living there actually wanted to separate from Ukraine let alone wanting to join Russia right?
https://www.iri.org/resources/ukraine-poll-majority-want-donbas-to-remain-in-ukraine/
"A combined 80 percent of Ukrainians nationwide and a combined 73 percent in the Donbas region believe that separatist-controlled areas of the Donbas should remain under Ukrainian control. Only six percent nationwide and four percent in the Donbas believe that these areas should either be separated from Ukraine or become part of Russia."
If the people of Donbas were so mistreated and needed help then why did the majority of them still want to remain as apart of Ukraine?
From time to time I sight western sources for the simple reason that if the Ukrainian propaganda press has to acknowledge that Ukraine losses are brutally higher when compared to Russian losses then maybe it might shake some sense into the fans of Ukraine.
If you include civilian casualties then sure I can believe Ukrainian casualties are higher than Russian losses, but if we're only talking about military losses then I highly doubt that the Ukrainians have lost more people than the Russian forces have.
In most cases the side that is fighting defensively usually takes less casualties and Ukraine for the first few months were on the defense and with the help of NATO weapons largely stopped all Russian advances from going too deeply into their territory except for in the southern region where the Russians made their deepest gains.
With how Russian armored and motorized units were getting mauled in the early parts of the war, there's very little chance that the Ukrainians took more losses than the Russians and you could see this in the decision making of Russia's leadership in abandoning the Kiev front when they realized that they took too many losses to be able to push any further forward and their logistical lines were too far stretched to be able to properly keep that front supplied. Hence they made the decision to leave that front and concentrate their forces more in the east and south.
During the Donbas offensive is when the Ukrainians started taking more casualties because the war was more static and it allowed the Russians to use their artillery and missile system advantage to cause more damage to UA forces. Having thousands of shells and hundreds of missiles fired at your static positions daily as well as more close quarter combat in several cities, its difficult to not take more casualties.
Then during the recent Ukrainian offensives, even though they're on the attack the number of casualties taken is probably still less than what UA forces were taking during the Donbas attacks, mostly because the Ukrainian troops taking part in the offensives were better trained and equipped and also the opposition they faced was relatively weak and ran when the Ukrainians started attacking in larger numbers in Kharkiv area.
The point is I think the UA took their highest losses during Russia's Donbas attacks and now they're somewhat lower thanks to the war becoming more mobile again in some areas and having better trained troops.
I have read the rest of your post and all I can say is wait and see. I don't know how long this war will last but I can assure you that when it does end and especially if it doesn't end soon Ukraine will be left a wasteland.
If Germany that was legitimately devastated after WWII and having lost millions of people can be rebuilt from all that ruble to become the mighty economic power that its become today, then Ukraine can definitely be rebuilt suffering much less devastation and population loss if western and other countries are willing to help them to rebuild.
What Ukraine needs most in order to be able to rebuild is stability, good leadership and a guarantee of safety from anymore foreign attacks. If hypothetically Ukraine is able to join the EU and NATO, then it will have gained that stability and guarantee of safety and there's no reason why other countries won't help Ukraine rebuild and become an even stronger and more stable country than before the war.
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@paulmelonas7263
Ukraine agreed to stop shelling Donbass and to allow a referendum for autonomy to take place. France and Germany swore to make sure the Ukraine stayed true to the Minsk agreement. Ukraine broke their word and so did France and Germany. IF Minsk was enforced this would never have happened.
The thing is why don't you rewind things to much earlier and not mention that Russia in the beginning was supporting a relative small group of separatists in Donbas with arms and encouraging them to turn to violence when the vast majority of people living there didn't want to separate from Ukraine to begin with and certainly almost no one wanted violence.
If Russia stayed out of Ukrainian affairs then none of the events that happened afterwards would've happened to begin with. Ukraine should've been left to resolve its internal issues on its own, but Russia didn't want that and chose to stick their nose into their affairs and stir shit up and why not when they already have taken Crimea so why not keep going?
In reference to neo Nazi groups in Russia, those groups are purged with "extreme prejudice." Russia lost 27 million people to the Nazis in WWII. Russia doesn't tolerate Nazis. They all flee to Ukraine. Ukraine loves Nazis. As for the composer Wagner, He was and is a favorite of millions and I've NEVER heard a weaker apologetic than what you just offered.
The founder of Wagner group Dmitry Utkin is reported to be a fan of the Third Reich and there's a photo of him with tattoos of a Reichsadler eagle on his upper chest and the famous SS lightening bolts and SS rank tattoos around his neck. Hard to deny that he isn't a fan of the Nazis when he has symbols on his body from the most feared and fanatical units of the German army in WWII.
Once again your reading comprehension seems to need fine tuning, I didn't say UkroNazis had "concentration camps" I said "I'm sure if left unchecked Ukrainian Russians would have also started disappearing in the middle of the night." Here's a short list of names of Ukrainian people that UkroNazis DID "disappear" i.e. murder simply because they happened to support Russia or peace with Russia.
You've provided a list of people who are reported to be Russian sympathizers. When you say the Russians are mistreated and things might get worse if it goes unchecked, I thought you meant the average Russian citizen and it doesn't seem like that's the case. Namely your average Russian living in Ukraine isn't going to get randomly murdered or beaten or something.
The funny thing is Russia is famous for disappearing people and having many others mysteriously falling out of windows of tall buildings but who cares about those people right?
The problem is that the offspring of the many Ukrainians that joined HITLER and fought for the Nazis still live in Ukraine too. Not only live there, they are in the military and government. The same military and government that murders the Russian speaking offspring of those patriots that fought Hitler. THAT'S the problem. Ukraine needs to be DE-NAZIFIED.
Again provide me proof that the average Russian has anything to fear living in Ukraine? Also provide proof that the vast majority of the Ukrainian population are fans of Nazism? Seems like that's a tiny minority and again that's an issue that Russia has no business in sticking their noses in.
Communism was and is a vile and murderous system. Russia is NO LONGER COMMUNIST. Russia divorced itself from Communism and from the "Cold War." America is still fighting the cold war with Russia because America must feed it's Military Industrial Complex.
Russia might not be Communist, but it still keeps many communist symbols, traditions and ideals around. Also no one wants Russia as their enemy, it just wants Russia to stop doing dumb shit that causes instability in the world and instead pursue endeavors that promote economic growth and peace.
Russia has become a sad story in that it has so much potential, but because of the wrong kind of leaders being allowed to gain power and turning it down the wrong path it has advanced very little in the past several decades.
You look to China and they too could've easily gone down the same path as Russia has, but fortunately after the disaster of a leader that was Mao, they had Deng Xiaoping become their next leader and he guided the country to the most peace, unity and prosperity that China has seen in probably all its history. It makes me wonder if Russia had its own version of Deng Xiaoping running Russia if they wouldn't be more like China these days instead of the tire fire of a country that it has become.
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@paulmelonas7263
Another long response.
I'm sure we will have opposing viewpoints of how and when this whole thing began. From my viewpoint America is the root cause of the problem NOT Russia. Not even Ukraine. America never stopped fighting the cold war. Russia did stop. Russia made every effort to become a friend to America and the EU. Russia even tried to join NATO and they were refused entry.
The US is responsible for alot of things, but this isn't one of them. And you must be joking to think that Russia ever wanted to be a friend of the west. Right after WWII things started turning cold between the western allies and the Russians and it certainly wasn't the west that wanted that.
Heck even before the war ended why do you think that so many Axis soldiers wanted to surrender to the allies rather than to the Soviets? Because they all knew that they would be treated decently by the west and they would be lucky to survive if they were taken in by the Soviets. So even people who were surrendering already knew how bad things would be if they were taken prisoner by the Soviets.
The short version of causes for this conflict is that Ukraine has been an economic train wreck for many decades.
Why do you think Ukraine and most every other nation in the USSR ended up having poor economies and a crappy standard of living? Because big brother Russia placed them into that position with their dumbass economic, social and political decisions. Even Russia themselves who was at the top of the pile and were the ones running things, for the average Russian their life wasn't very good under their own government's rule either.
The entire Soviet system of running things was corrupt, inefficient and largely a disaster and that spread to all the other nations within the USSR. Why do you think that when given the chance most every nation RAN from Russia's sphere of influence? People and nations don't run from things that they like and are beneficial to them and Russia was neither of those things.
The EU certainly has its share of problems, but in general the nations in that union became prosperous and the standard of living rose for the vast majority of people and its why countries are looking to get into the EU to this day and the UK probably wouldn't have even left if it was for the whole migrant crisis and perceived loss of self-determination.
The people of Donbass who supported that President and looked forward to improved economics then declared their region to be independent. The vote wasn't just about staying in or out of Ukraine. There were several options offered, but overall 65.5 % supported separation from Ukraine (source) wikipedia plus WAPO and Bloomberg.
If people in the Donbas actually wanted economic improvement then they would be dumb to look towards Russia instead of the west. Also I LOVE that you left out the part above the statistic that you quoted.
The poll did not claim to have scientific precision, but was carried out to get a basis from which to judge the outcome of the referendum, given that independent observers were not present to monitor it.
Also you left out these stats from the same link:
'A poll released by the Kiev Institute of Sociology, with data gathered from 8–16 April, 41.1% of people in Donetsk were for decentralisation of Ukraine with powers transferred to regions, while letting it remain a unified state, 38.4% for changing Ukraine into federation, *27.5% were in favour of secession from Ukraine to join the Russian Federation*, and only 10.6% supported current unitary structure without changes.'
'Another poll, taken by the Donetsk Institute for Social Research and Political Analysis, found that 18.6% of those polled in the region opposed changes to the government structure, 47% favoured federalisation, or at least more economic independence from Kyiv, *27% wanted to join Russia in some form, and 5% wanted to become an independent state*'
'According to a survey conducted by Pew Research Centre from 5–23 April, 18% of eastern Ukrainians were in favour of secession, while 70% wished to remain part of a united Ukraine.'
So its clear that while many people living in the east wanted reforms and change, relatively few people even in the Donbas region actually wanted to leave Ukraine let alone to leave them to join Russia.
The list of names I provided were of journalists and elected Ukrainian officials who were "disappeared" by Ukraines SBU. As far as who's getting murdered. It has been documented that Ukraine has criminalized any citizen who even so much as accepted food and water from Russians. Jailed or killed for accepting humanitarian aid is quite cold.
You make it sound like many of these people weren't Russian sympathizers and weren't actively working towards subverting Ukraine and making it easier for the Russians to conquer them. Look at how Russia has dealt with people who tried to protest the war at the beginning of the invasion? Yet you criticise Ukraine for tracking down and arresting people who are trying to help in bringing on Ukraine's demise? OK.
Regarding any "left overs" in Russia from the Soviet era don't forget the sacrifice Soviet Russia made to defeat Nazism. I don't think you or I can fully understand the depth or length of the scar left from losing 27 million people. I heard it said that during WWII in America if everyone living east of the Mississippi River was killed it would be equal to Russias loss.
Losing 27 million people in WWII is largely because of Soviet incompetence and their complete lack of care for their own people and how little their leadership valued the lives of their own citizens. The kind of things that the Soviets did to their own people and their own troops, the west would NEVER do. Even those internment camps that the Japanese stayed at in the US during the war would be considered luxury resorts compared to how much the average Soviet citizen suffered from both the Axis powers as well as from their own leadership's decisions.
If the Western Allies had fought against the Germans on the Eastern front although their casualties would've been significantly higher, I seriously doubt that the allied armies would've taken the 10 million or so soldiers killed that the Soviets did during the entire war. No way no how.
The way the Russians do things in war hasn't ever changed. Its always been to get the job done no matter what the cost is. We saw it as recently during the Chechen wars and we're seeing it on an even larger scale in Ukraine right now.
Russia has retreated beyond its old borders even though its traditional borders always included Ukraine. On the contray America has advanced towards Russia after promising never to come closer than Germany. America has, is and always will destabalize the world.
Going back to my earlier point, the US and the west DID NOT advance towards Russia. I know it certainly looks that way from the Russian perspective, but it seems like Russians can't just accept that it wasn't the west COMING TOWARDS them, but rather it was Russia's former subjugated nations RUNNING AWAY from Russia as quickly as they could.
Imagine if you were the oldest of 6 brothers and growing up you constantly bullied and abused your younger siblings. Then when all your younger brothers finally turned 18 years they all moved away and never contacted you again. You might feel hurt that all your brothers left you and didn't want anything to do with you ever again, but why don't you remember that it was YOUR ABUSIVE BEHAVIORS that was what drove them away to begin with?
This is the same relationship that Russia had with most of the former countries that were apart of the USSR. Is it any wonder why when they finally had a chance to escape Russia's sphere of influence that many didn't immediately jump at the chance to do so?
As far as advancement in society don't forget Russia went through WWI, a revolution, Stalinism, WWII, The cold war, the fall of the Soviet Union, reconstruction and they are still one of the worlds most powerful and richest countries. Likewise Chinas history is one of struggle.
That's right both China and Russia have had hugely difficult histories with brutal leadership and governing that led to countless millions of deaths and plenty of poverty. The difference is that China finally got a proper leader into power who was able to direct their nation onto a path of peace, prosperity and increased unity and look where they are now. Russia on the otherhand has yet to have that kind of leadership and the Russian people are still suffering as a result to this day.
That's how important it is to have the right people in power to lead a country and China got lucky on that one and Russia didn't and they continue to have a long line of shit leaders who have little to no care about improving the lives of the average Russian and even worse a man like Putin who would take their nation into another major European war that's getting worse and worse for them.
I will make a sad prediction. Before 2050 America will become more like a third world nation but with nukes and Europe will resemble their past feudal era. Russia China and the BRICS allaince will be the big dog on the porch.
I can see China possibly rising to the very top as an economic power, but I don't ever see Russia joining them or being anywhere near their level as long as they have poor, corrupt and self-serving leadership. The US and Europe may or may not be in slight decline, but they'll be fine.
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@paulmelonas7263
Yes America and the Soviet Union were eyeball to eyeball with an "iron curtain" in between, BUT that all supposidly ended in 1990. Russia desolved the Soviet Union. Russia withdrew back to Russia and let their former Warsaw Pact countries free to decide their own fate.
Cmon man. Russia DIDN'T WILLINGLY want the USSR/Warsaw Pact to end EVER. They saw that the USSR was collapsing and they had no way of stopping it and simply accepted the inevitable. If the USSR could keep the whole Warsaw Pact of nations together it would've done so indefinitely. I seriously doubt Russia ever wanted to give up the power and influence it had and its why they're fighting in Ukraine now to prevent them from moving towards the west.
Regarding axis soldiers surrendering to western allies.YES because axis soldiers didn't rape and murder Americans or Brits. They raped and murdered Russians and payback is indeed a bitch.
The vast majority of Axis troops weren't rapists and civilian killers and they knew that their chance of survival would be low and that they would suffer if they surrendered to the Soviets. Why would Axis soldiers expect decent treatment when the Russians didn't even treat their own troops and people well?
Also lets not pretend that Soviet troops also didn't have a long history of raping and pillaging its way westward in revenge to what happened to them. That's apart of war that every country has to deal with and the difference is how well a nation manages their soldiers to minimize these crimes and its clear that the Soviets weren't very good at that.
Regarding the former Soviet Union and the satellite countries and their economies what you don't get is we are talking about the FORMER Soviet Union. Russia hasn't been that since 1990. It's almost like you and America just can't get over the Soviet Union. You DO know that Russia forgave 68 billion in debts owed to the Soviet Union and Russia paid off every debt owed by the Soviet Union. Russia got over being the Soviet Union. Maybe YOU and the west should give that a try too.
When Ukraine and other countries have been apart of a corrupt and largely ineffective system for so long, its often difficult to change those systems unless you're lucky enough to have good leaders to help bring that country out of the past and into a better future. Unfortunately it seems Ukraine didn't have those kinds of leaders when it left the USSR which is why it didn't get much better for so many years.
The funny thing is when many Ukrainians were finally fed up with their previous Russian friendly governments and chose to take action, people like you are calling it unjust and how wrong it is for Ukrainians to overthrow a supposed democratically elected government that clearly wasn't working for them and they were tired of the same bullshit and wanted change.
AGAIN you miss the point because your prejudice demands that you do. REGARDLESS of how Russia lost 27 million people, the people of Russia despise WAR AND NAZIS because they lost 27 million people. What part of that don't you get? I swear you think of Russians like the KKK thinks of black people.
I get that the Soviets sacrificed in WWII and that's not in disputeT, but the sacrifice didn't have to be anywhere nearly as great as it was except for the fact that the Soviets were idiots for so long in how they ran their military and didn't give a damn about their soldiers and their people.
The sacrifice could've been much less if the Soviet leadership actually cared about the people they were ruling and valued their lives and took more care to preserve them, but as we see in the present day war in Ukraine, Russian leadership still doesn't give a shit about its people after all these decades.
Regarding former satellite countries running away and America not moving toward Russia. Why did they need to run? They were released, FREED by Russia from being in the Soviet Union. Russia said decide your own fate. Russia even forgave all debts owed to them by those countries and Russia made no moves against them
Again as I said above all these former countries of the USSR WERE NOT 'FREED', they were allowed to leave because Russia had no more ability to keep them under their rule. If Russia was powerful and wealthy enough do you seriously believe that they would ever want to breakup the USSR/East Bloc that they were the leader of out of the goodness of their own heart? LOL. Of course not. We would still have a USSR today if the Russians had the choice to do so and could hold things together.
And also YES many former USSR/East Bloc countries DID FLEE FOR THE WEST as soon as they could.
Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia all applied to join the EU within 5 years of leaving the USSR. If that's not considered fleeing than I don't know what is. There are also a number of other former USSR countries who want to join the EU in the past and present, but they haven't met the qualifications at this time otherwise they'd be apart of the EU already.
All these countries willingly applied to join the EU and then eventually NATO. No one forced them to join these organizations. These countries wouldn't be fleeing Russia's sphere of influence if life under Russian rule wasn't so horrible for them. If the former USSR was as successful and prosperous as the EU post-WWII to present day do you really believe the majority of these countries would be leaving? Maybe a few might, but I doubt most would because why would you want to leave an organization that was treating you well and was bringing your country and people prosperity?
Of course that's never been the case and many of these countries who joined the EU post-USSR breakup have enjoyed more success and growth than they've ever had in the USSR and its why more countries continue to apply and want to join the EU.
Regarding China and Russia let me see if I got this right, you think the repressive Communist Chinese government is FAR superior to Russia?
Yes absolutely 100% China's government is 1 MILLION TIMES BETTER than every Russian government in the past few decades. Ever since Deng Xiaoping took control, he laid the foundation for China's future success and growth and they've been steadily improving their economy and the standard of living for their people ever since. Most Chinese people aren't fighting and demanding democracy because the current government is doing its job in providing for its citizens and raising their standard of living. Do you really believe that China's current government would still be standing if it were stuck with Russia's development level or worse in 2022? I seriously doubt it and the Chinese people would likely be up in arms as its done a number of times in its past.
Ask yourself what has any Russian government done for its people in the past several decades? Very little in comparison to what China's done for its people. So yes the Chinese government is VASTLY SUPERIOR to any Russian government.
As for the future let me remind you BRICS means Russia and China are partners. Their goal will be to eliminate America and the E.U. economically and it WILL happen.
I can guarantee this will NEVER happen, EU and the US will still be strong long term. China will be an economic power for many years to come, but its laughable to believe that Russia will be able to join them when they haven't done shit in the past 30+ years since the USSR fell.
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@paulmelonas7263
Regarding the fall of the Soviet Union. haven't you continually said how barbaric and evil the Soviets were? WHY would they accept their fall as "inevitable?" Wouldn't a desparate evil regime like the Soviets just "push the button?"
What 'button' are you referring to that the Soviets could push that could save the USSR when it was about to fall apart? There was no saving it by that time.
Yes, Russia is trying to keep Ukraine from allowing NATO to be on Russias doorstep. What do you think America would do to Mexico if Mexico signed an agreement with Russia allowing Russia to put nukes along the Rio Grande?
This argument makes no sense. Back in the 60s and earlier when nuclear armed missiles had a much shorter range you had two choices. Either have bombers fly nuclear weapons close to or into enemy territory to drop the weapon on them or else have countries bordering your enemy to allow you to put nuclear missiles there to threaten them.
However ever since nuclear ballistic missiles were developed where you could hit almost any place on the planet from your own country or if you want mobility then nuclear ICBM submarines that can park along your enemy's coast and launch on them without them knowing until the missiles were in the air, the need to border your enemy to threaten them became obsolete.
So the Russians saying they're afraid of having NATO on their doorstep is meaningless when 1) NATO never has and never will have any intentions to invade Russia because its a defensive organization and 2) Modern warfare has progressed so much that you never have to border your enemy to threaten them.
Regarding axis troops surrendering you apparently don't understand a simple basic fact. The evil actions of a few invites retribution against all. Not all Germans were rapist and murders ( many were ) but all it takes is a few.
I understand that an eye for an eye is apart of war. If your enemy is brutal to you then you are probably going to be brutal to your enemy in return. However there is plenty of proof that the Russians were brutal to their own civilians and soldiers as well. What kind of leaders do you have to have that would have no problems with brutalizing your own people?? As if the people of USSR didn't already suffer enough from being invaded by the Germans, they also had to deal with the abuses and brutality from their own leaders.
About changes in government re-read what you wrote and apply it to Donbass. Ukraine is known to be a totally corrupt proxy state. Many western politicians have family members sitting on boards of Ukrainaian companies. Their job is to STEAL.
Again Ukraine and many other former Soviet nations are a product of the useless, inefficient and corrupt system that they've been ruled under for many decades. Often its difficult to change overnight from a way of doing things quickly and it takes time for that change to happen.
As I said I find it funny that you criticise Ukrainians for overthrowing a Russia friendly Ukrainian leader that wanted to continue the pattern of corruption and being a lackey to Russia instead of supporting their actions to push for a less corrupt and more accountable government that actually works for the people.
Russia had no other choice than to try and throw everyone they had at them to try and slow Germany down. It wasn't bad strategy it was their only choice. NOW Russia fights to preserve their forces and guys like you still say Russia doesn't know how to fight.
I'm not talking about the beginning of Barbarossa where the Russians were caught off guard and took huge losses. I'm talking about the middle and end of the war where the Soviets continued to throw their soldier's lives away by sending them into battle poorly trained and equipped and ordering them to throw themselves against the enemy regardless of how many casualties they took.
The Battle of Berlin is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The war was already won and Germany was all but defeated and yet Stalin chose to order his troops to launch a full scale assault on Berlin to grab the glory of taking Germany's capital city and at the end of that battle the Soviets had lost 80,000 killed, 280,000 wounded and over 2000 tanks.
All those losses just to capture your enemy's capital and gain the glory of saying you conquered your enemy and who cares about all the Soviet lives lost who spilled their blood for Stalin to have his victory right? That's what I'm talking about when I say the Russians don't care about their own people.
By the way many of the countries you listed as EU members are equal war criminals with Nazi Germany and Ukraine.
Say whatever you want about all those countries, but the fact is when they were finally freed from Russian dominance they all quickly chose to join the EU and the west because they wanted a chance at peace, prosperity and freedom from oppression. No one ever forced them to apply to the EU and yet they all rushed to do so and a number of countries are still continuing to apply to join. Ask yourself when has any country jumped at the chance at joining the USSR/Warsaw Pact?
I believe Russia will defeat Ukraine by playing the long game. Just dig in and degrade Ukrainian infrastructure, degrade the Ukraine Army and wait. I read today that the Neatherlands is having second thoughts about helping Ukraine. Italy has said they're done.
Well I'm glad you finally admit that the Russians can't beat the Ukrainians on the battlefield and have to resort to terror bombing and destroying infrastructure to really hurt the Ukrainian people.
At the beginning of the war Russia kept much of that infrastructure intact because they believed Ukraine would be under their country in short order so why destroy everything when you need it to keep the country running after you take over? Now the Russians have 100% thrown in the towel on that plan and simply just want to hurt Ukraine as much as possible which is why blowing up infrastructure has become their top priority.
Ukraines BEST hope is to get rid of the cokehead of Kiev and ask Russia to sit down and talk for real. Otherwise Ukraine might as well go back to the dark ages.
No this means the opposite. Ukraine has almost no choice but to decisively defeat Russia on the battlefield or else there will never be long term peace and safety for the Ukrainian people. Ukraine's best choice is to try and take back everything they lost during the invasion and perhaps get back the Donbas as well. Crimea might be the only concession they could make where it either remains Russian or it becomes its own state or something. They should give nothing else though.
After there is some sort of agreement to end of the war, Ukraine HAS TO JOIN NATO and the EU. That's the only way they can ever guarantee long term peace and safety and not have Russia invade them ever again. Anything less means there will always be a chance Russia will do something stupid again against Ukraine.
Also another reason Ukraine needs to be apart of NATO and the EU is because with those guarantees of peace and stability of being protected by NATO nations, rebuilding would be much easier and quicker as companies don't have to be afraid of Russia possibly invading again in a few years or a decade later.
If Ukraine is able to join the EU/NATO I could see their economy and standard of living improving a significant amount in a relative short period of time.
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@paulmelonas7263
I'm trying to not be insulting, BUT try and concentrate.I said "if the Soviet Union was as evil as you claim they were and they were falling apart, wouldn't they just say F- it and "push the button?" That means wouldn't they just have started WWIII instead of saying OK lets go home and just be friends? I mean their evil right? Why not just say F it and blow up the world
The question is why would they start WWIII over the breakup of the USSR? Its not like losing control of other nations within the USSR is the end of the world for the Russians. Sure it hurts alot and its the final nail in their defeat with the Cold War, but Russia is still a major country that can survive on its own. So I don't know why they would start WWIII over the USSR breakup and possibly cause the total destruction of their own country.
IF Hitler had nukes when he was losing the war what do you think he would have done? Heck let's bring it more up to date, IF the cokehead of Kiev E-Lensky had Nukes what do you think he would do. ???
Of course Hitler would've used nukes if he had it because he was desparate and was losing the war and had nothing to lose. Russia has plenty to lose.
E-LENSKY ALREADY TRIED TO START WWIII BY BLAMING HIS POLISH MISSILE MISADVENTURE ON RUSSIA AND HOPING IT WOULD START A NUCLEAR WAR ENDING THE WORLD
Whether the missile was Ukraine's or not Russia is still to blame for launching massive missile strikes into Ukraine that they're trying to defend against and sooner or later accidents will happen. Its kind of surprising that something like this didn't happen earlier.
Also lets be real. NATO wasn't going to respond to this minor incident with some massive retaliation strike on Russia or something. Unlike Russia, NATO will has the ability to show restraint and an incident would have to be much more major for NATO to react in any major way.
Russia on the otherhand has shown that its willing to use any excuse to start a fight with someone and even create an incident themselves and use it as a reason to start a conflict.
Now about NATO, YOU KNOW NATO was designed to defend Europe against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact ( which it did ) AND their no longer is a Soviet Union and a Warsaw Pact, then WHY is their still a NATO? It's stated purpose is complete.
The Ukraine war has shown EXACTLY WHY NATO needs to continue to exist because Russia at anytime could start a conflict and for many countries that would mean defeat whether it be quick or long term. If Russia has no problem invading a large country like Ukraine with 43+ million people pre-war, then what's to stop Russia from invading and retaking much smaller nations like the Baltic states?
Heck if the Baltic states weren't apart of NATO they probably would've already been invaded and be back under Russian rule by now. Also look at how Russia already had plans to take Transnistria and perhaps Moldova as well. If NATO doesn't exist then who's stepping in to stop these takeovers?
A number of smaller countries are only remaining free from Russian influence because they're apart of the EU and NATO. Without being apart of them these countries would be screwed.
You still didn't answer the question I asked. I'll ask again. IF Mexico asked Russia to join in a defense treaty and Mexico said they would allow Russia to put nukes on the border of America. What do you think America would do?
I already answered your question. If this were the 1950/60s then this would be a major issue no doubt, but this ISN'T the 50/60s, this is 2022 and both the US and Russia can launch missiles from the comfort of their own country and turn each other into glass if they wanted to.
Also the US has about 17 nuclear ICBM subs that they could park all along Russia's coastline and nuke them to hell in a first strike if they really wanted to. If the US can do this secretly, why would they publicly put any nuclear weapons in Ukraine and unnecessary make Russia nervous and escalate things?
Now regarding your idea about how brutal the Soviets were to their own citizens and soldiers why don't you still hold Germany responsible for what Hitler did to his citizens and soldiers?
Here's the thing you're missing. Germany in WWII fought on the Eastern and Western fronts, in North Africa and then in Italy and also the Atlantic Ocean and the bomber war against Allied bombers. Despite them fighting on so many fronts they still only suffered about 5.3 million soldiers killed or about half what the Soviets lost. So no matter how brutal you believe Hitler and his commanders might've been to their soldiers, they still lost half the number of men that the Soviets lost in WWII despite fighting on so many fronts during the war.
So it seems to me that no matter how many sacrifices German soldiers made in WWII the German leadership still cared about their lives to a larger degree than the Russians did about their troops.
Also the other point you forget is that in 2022 if Germany were fighting a war today they WOULD NOT be needlessly sacrificing their soldiers and would be very careful in trying to minimize casualties. Russia in 2022 in Ukraine ARE STILL throwing away Russian lives in how carelessly they're using their troops. Germany has changed while Russia is still doing the same thing it did in WWII. That's the difference.
In regards to Russia not beating Ukraine on the battlefield they don't have to. Russia plays chess and Ukraine and the west play checkers. I will say again UKRAINE IS A BEGGAR COUNTRY AND PEOPLE GET TIRED OF BEGGARS. Russia knows they don't have to waste men in fights for territory. They just need to sit back, dig in and wait.
If that's what you want to believe then go ahead. The reality is that Russia can no longer launch large scale offensives especially if it involves tanks and other armored vehicles because they've lost far too many already.
All these new mobilized troops unless Russia trains and equips them properly, the only thing they will be good for at most is defensive duties and if you try and use them to attack then you're just asking for them to get slaughtered. It seems the Russians have figured this out which is why Wagner is doing much of the attacking right now.
The bottom line is of course Russia is PRAYING that they can last longer than the west is willing to support Ukraine. That's they're only chance for any kind of agreement that doesn't involve them being completely embarrassed. If NATO chooses to support Ukraine for many years if not forever then Russia can never win and Ukraine will only have to worry about how big their victory will be.
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@paulmelonas7263
Of course the Soviet Union wouldn't use nukes and Russia won't use nukes either. The ONLY country that ever has used nukes is America. So no one should worry about Russians using nukes, but America has already proven they would commit a first strike. It's America the world needs to worry about.
US has only used nukes once during a world war. Not even sure why that matters in this discussion when they've never used nukes since and have only had its arsenal as a deterrence because it works. Heck if Ukraine had kept even a few nukes instead of giving them all up and had maintained them to be operational, Russia probably wouldn't have never invaded Ukraine to begin with.
Regarding locations of modern nuclear weapons if you were right America would have no nukes in Europe, but America does have them there so either you aren't right OR America has them there to provoke Russia. Which is it? Are you wrong OR is America provoking Russia?
I looked it up and it says that the US has about 100 tactical nukes in Europe. So while this isn't nothing, its a pretty small number compared to its 5,000+ nukes that the US has and they aren't ICBMs.
IF each mobilization drew only 10,000 guys and their total troop number is still about 650,000 that means Ukraine lost 80,000 guys. WESTERN sources including official Ukraine sources said Ukraine was losing about 300 guys a day. It's about day 267? 267 X 300 = 80,100. Those same western sources said the difference is about 7 ukrainians die for every 1 Russian.
Again I'm happy to be proven wrong and I keep saying I don't doubt that the Ukrainians have taken significant casualties, I just don't believe that they've taken as many as you say they have and I definitely think the Russians have taken far more based on how they're desperately recruiting and forcing anyone and everyone to fight for them.
The reason why I don't believe Ukrainian killed is as high as you say is because:
1) The Ukrainians troops are getting increasingly better trained and equipped thanks to NATO. Better trained troops means fewer casualties on the battlefield and if the Ukrainians can take the time to allow their recruits to be taken out of country to spend several weeks to be properly trained by NATO instructors then that to me means they aren't losing as many men as to be desperate enough to send untrained recruits directly to the front to be cannon fodder.
The same can't be said for the Russians who have sent at least a portion of their new recruits directly to the front to fight against the Ukrainians with substandard equipment. If you look at Ukrainian troops these past few months, most of them are pretty well equipped and look like western soldiers.
2) Ukrainians have better medical care for their wounded. Ukrainians are getting western medical supplies and first aid kits and they seem to be able to get many of their wounded to the proper places to get treated as quickly as possible. Also a number of Ukrainian troops have been sent to NATO hospitals to get long term treatment.
I really doubt the Russians have medical supplies and care that's comparable to what the west can provide and this means Russian casualties have much less of a chance of survival which means higher rates of death.
3) Ukrainian troops are better led and have better intelligence. NATO intelligence is giving Ukrainians great information on the Russians and that reduces casualties on the battlefield. Also Ukrainian troops have better leaders from the bottom up who have shown that they can adapt to the changing conditions on the frontlines and that means you can reduce casualties when you can make snap decisions on the battlefield without waiting for orders from senior officers.
This is apart of NATO training that teaches NCOs and officers that making your independent decisions on the battlefield is allowed and encouraged.
As far as Russian armor and other equipment if you put down the Kool-Aid and look you can find videos of long trainloads of brand new T80s and train loads of artilley leaving Russian factories and holding areas and heading for Donbass Kharcov, Luhansk and Kherson. Ukraine has to try and cobble together junk they pick up off the battlefield.
Except you're wrong. All those tanks that you're seeing that are heading to Ukraine are either tanks pulled from storage and have been refurbished to working condition or they're tanks taken from other units. They're 100% not new tanks that coming off the production lines.
You should read this article if you have the time:
https://www.raamoprusland.nl/dossiers/defensie/2156-one-way-ticket
'Therefore, after four months of war, it would take a minimum of 4 years to restore Russia’s armoured vehicle capacity to early 2022 levels, even with conservative estimates of combat losses. If the war continues, by the end of the year it will take 7−10 years of plant operations (and that’s leaving aside the effect of the embargo on industrial equipment and components, which can be estimated later).'
Its going to be hard for Russia to build new modern tanks when they need so many high tech parts from the west and elsewhere.
The ONLY question left is how long will the west put up with a beggar? If you open your eyes you will see NOT MUCH LONGER. Europe is broke and their warehouses are empty. This winter Europeans are going to be rioting and demanding new governments.
Again lets see what happens in the coming weeks and months. If you're right then we should see a Ukrainian collapse shortly and if you're not then we'll see this war continue and perhaps more Ukrainian advances and retaking more territory back.
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