Ukraine War

[Listener2307]

I think the question of whether Ukraine will recover is missing the point.
Russia has destroyed itself and will never recover. They will never recover from the loss of the natural gas market, nor will they regain their military equipment sales.
Putin will remain a wanted man whose travel is restricted until his death.
A great many industries, including oil and gas production, will continue to decline as sanctions and boycotts strangle the Russian economy. Much of this will not be felt until after the war, when Russian civilians no longer work building war materiel, and find their old jobs have disappeared.

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by BusinessManIT

The war should be won by the end of summer if not before.

As much as I would like the war to end, that is some weapons grade optimism.

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by Wintergirl80

Thanks for responding.

Imo, I don't think Russia will allow Ukraine win this war, but we'll have to see how this ends.

There has been so much destruction in Ukraine; it's going to be years before Ukraine can recover from this. The environment, the re-building, the people, the animal population, all negatively affected by this war.

Given the amount of damage done, nobody is winning this debacle and it may yet go on for years.

Every country has its problems. My biggest concern for Russia isn't now but what happens when Putin is no longer the leader. That's the challenge with such a larger than life fixture of Russian leadership going on decades and decades (official or otherwise). Going to be a large power vacuum if not handled properly and that can be bad.

[BusinessManIT]

Originally Posted by Mathguy

As much as I would like the war to end, that is some weapons grade optimism.

Just looking at this realistically. Russia is now advancing more rapidly with many Ukrainian brigades refusing to fight in the Russian meat grinder. Ukrainian surrenders all over the place. Ukrainian collapse is more imminent as the bottom of the barrel of trained soldiers is reached. And Russia has still not committed all of its troops into battle! The Ukrainian electrical grid has been compromised with extreme power outages. If there is no electricity, then it is difficult to move troops around and even just live normally. The Ukrainian military intelligence chief said that things are going to get much worse for Ukraine by mid-May. The Russians could be starting a major offensive by then. So, yeah, this war could end this summer.

However, warnews247 is reporting that some NATO nations are moving to get involved despite the risk of nuclear war. Great Britain and France are planning to go into a war economy. 90,000 NATO troops are being prepared to intervene in Ukraine. I would post these articles here but they are in Greek, where the policy for city-data states that posts must be in English. I am able to see these articles in English because I have translation software available. So this new wild card may alter the situation including starting a nuclear war. The best that we can do is to watch and see what happens.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Mathguy

Given the amount of damage done, nobody is winning this debacle and it may yet go on for years.

Every country has its problems. My biggest concern for Russia isn't now but what happens when Putin is no longer the leader. That's the challenge with such a larger than life fixture of Russian leadership going on decades and decades (official or otherwise). Going to be a large power vacuum if not handled properly and that can be bad.

What is scariest about Russia would be a collapse of the government and various warlords fighting for control. That is what Putin is pushing the country towards.

[BusinessManIT]

Update on my earlier post about warnews247.gr:

This site now has an article that says that the US and Great Britain are in the process of moving a MASSIVE amount of war materiel the likes that have never been seen before in this conflict to Germany and Poland. This materiel is for the gathering NATO troops that are slated to go to Ukraine and fight Russia. 90,000 so far and counting. Stay tuned.

[erasure]

Originally Posted by lancers

With all due respect if you think the US has a two party system then you are surely not watching what is going on here. They all serve the same master. As far as being an authoritative country in Russia we are quickly catching up to you.

I do, and let me tell you how I personally perceive the latest events on Ukraine, what took place in Congress.

For starters, to make things clear, I always considered Russia to be in the right in this Ukrainian conflict, and US in the wrong ( that infamous "F*** the EU" of Nuland back in 2014, made the picture pretty clear I think.)

But Russia being in the right, doesn't mean PUTIN being in the right, starting from the fact that he failed to protect Donbass from Ukrainian nationalists back in 2014, with his bragging at that point, that he "managed to avoid the war, that the West was trying to trick him into."
Fast forward, once the inevitable happened ( i.e the war that was simply postponed, but not cancelled out all together,) and Putin teamed up with China and Iran, this fact was not easy to ignore ( even for the anti-war forces in America).

So while Putin enjoys his authoritarian rule, pretending that "the whole of Russia is united behind him," he hoped to use American multi-party system ( and difference of opinions) to his own advantage, thinking that the West would get tired of this war politically and financially, and will bring it to an end, thus making him a winner automatically.

But anti-war Republicans I think, as much as they've had enough of this war, couldn't miss this side of the story at this point already - that it's not just Russia that was benefiting from the end of war as the result of lack of funds, but Russia, united with China and Iran.

And that's why they decided to play safe, and not to hand Putin what he was looking for - i.e. the benefits of US multi-party system, that he was hoping to use to his own advantage.
Instead, they decided to act as united front, along with the Democrats. Which has put now Putin in a difficult position.
See, as long as he was doing away with the likes of Navalny, the kind of internal Russian opposition serving Western interests, Putin's actions were justified in the eyes of many in Russia.
But once he killed Prigozhin, who in no way could have been accused of being "Western asset," this changed a lot.
See, Prigozhin dared to criticize those handpicked by Putin for their failures during this war, their corruption and inefficiencies. And even though he avoided ever using Putin's name, he was assassinated as someone who dared to criticize Putin's authoritarianism.
Which in turn proves that Russia is NOT as united behind Putin personally as he advertises.

So as I've said, while he was counting on using American "weakness," suppressing any criticism and dissent in Russia simultaneously, Republicans didn't hand it to him, as he hoped.

So I feel sorry for Mike Johnson kinda, since he now carries the brunt of it all, but Putin was deprived of the victory, the way he planned it. So now we are coming to an impasse, with both sides ( Russia and US,) having numerous pros and contras to lose/win this war, and what will come out of it, remains to be seen.

I can only guess that the assassination of Prigozhin will cost Putin dearly among other things, not to mention his betrayal of Donbass back in 2014.

[double6's]

damn the torpedoes....full speed ahead..

[double6's]

watch this video from 15:30 to 18:00 minutes...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbJ12cUdvUI&t=34s

[erasure]

Originally Posted by bu2

What is scariest about Russia would be a collapse of the government and various warlords fighting for control. That is what Putin is pushing the country towards.

There are no "various warlords fighting for control" in Russia.

You are confusing it with Ukraine.