- Ukraine says it has liberated four villages in the south-east, calling these the first settlements won back from Russia since Kyiv’s counter-offensive began
- On Monday morning, officials reported that “the national flag is once again waving” over Storozhove, in the Donetsk region
- A day earlier, footage showed Ukrainian troops celebrating in Blahodatne and Neskuchne - and a minister said nearby Makarivka was also taken
- The settlements are relatively small - and Moscow is yet to confirm any retreat
- The Institute for the Study of War backs up Kyiv’s claims, saying Ukraine captured “multiple settlements” along the frontline over the weekend
- On Saturday, President Zelensky acknowledged that the long-awaited counter-offensive was under way
ITT: Russian sympathisers coping
It’s good news; though, nothing spectacular like the earlier offensive. It’s to be expected though, the muscovites have had time to build up those defences.
It’s shit like this that makes this one of the hardest wars to follow. Before that, it was Syria.
The Russian commanders, who were wrong to invade, have learned a lot since the initial invasion. It’s the same reason that Assads army was much better after they lost a lot of their soldiers. When you have a lot of your army die, on average, the ones remaining are the ones who managed to stay alive who, again on average, are now much more experienced combat troops.
The Russians did exactly what Ukraine did during the Russian offensive. They pulled back behind their minefields, and then used artillery to drop more mines on the assaulting force that was in the process of clearing mines. This was the same tactic that the Ukrainians used to great success that caused a bunch of Russian tanks to be blown up in columns in Vulhedar.
Remember, good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. If the basis of your view of why you think a given side is losing is because you don’t like them, then you aren’t actually interested in the war. Just in cheerleading your team.
Honestly, I can’t understand the strategic goal of how the Ukrainians are running this particular offensive. It truly seems to be to spend as much Ukrainian blood to secure western financial and logistical support. Not to actually gain territory they can hold. At least, that’s my best guess with articles like this in the American media: Politico
you know it’s possible to ‘dislike’ Russia and at the same time know that they will completely overpower Ukraine, right? you’re letting your hatred for Russia blind your understanding of military power and strategy
Anyone that “knows” they will completely overpower Ukraine apparently stopped paying attention to reality many years ago. They’ve been proven to be incapable of it.
oh cool, i’ve found the military understander. so what is Ukraine’s strategy here? What does victory look like for them?
In weapons, ammunition, and soldiers Russia outnumbers the AFU, as assessed by any reasonable expert. Russia sees this as a special military operation, not a war. They are comfortable being conservative with their resources and not committing too many at once (which is what they’ve done so far). Even with this restraint, they are killing Ukrainian soldiers at a higher rate than Russian soldiers are dying. Russia has an army, including reserves, of around 2million soldiers.
Look I hate seeing young men sent into a meat thresher because they are serving the interests of NATO and capitalist interests. I wish the AFU had the courage to not waste the lives of their soldiers and come to the negotiating table so that no more lives are senselessly wasted
What’s to negotiate? Russia has seized Ukrainian territory. Ukraine wants it back. There’s nothing for Ukraine to concede.
The only side “wasting” lives here is Russia, if they’d just go home the war would be over. Ukraine’s not going to try seizing any Russian territory.
i am once again urging you to understand that the war began in 2014.
the LPR and DPR regions are ethnically russian. they were living peacefully until 2014 when their political parties were disbanded and they’ve been systematically shelled by ukranians every day since 2014. minsk 2 would have reintegrated Donbas with Ukraine with some protections for its minority population, but Ukraine didn’t even implement the first step. zelensky was elected on a platform of ending the war, but when he tried Azov told him they would rather coup his government than stand down. at some point when negotiations are broken down the only thing any organization has left to do is resort to violence, which the Russian state did when it felt threatened enough by NATO (which if you’ll recall spent months warmongering prior to the invasion start) to justify the risk.
Of course, the people of the Donbas were just sitting there peacefully doing nothing when all of a sudden the Ukranians started shelling them. That was the start of the military action, silly me. Good thing all those vacationing Russian soldiers happened to be there a the time to defend them.
In 2022 it also just happened that russia was hosting possibly the largest military excercise in recent memory right on Ukraine’s border when the situation turned too menacing. Good they happened to have all those cruise missiles ready as if they hadn’t acted, russia would have been wiped out or something…
Occam’s razor cuts well on the two “possible” viewpoints of this war.
First is that big country sees an opportunity to capture land from a smaller one. In multiple stages between 2014 and 2022. A very limited amount of assumptions that can explain what is happening…
Second presumes that all the occupied areas secretly wanted to be a part of russia, nato is threatening russian territory while not being present, non affiliated soldiers with russian (but not russian) equipment occupy areas, a jewish president turns out to be in charge of a genocidial nazi regime that just has to be replaced with a peaceful one, and finally all of this is best achieved by a 3 day (actually 476) special military operation that has a goal of achieving something, but nobody actually knows what.
You really need to stop sniffing your own farts.
Every world leader and military strategist since the 1930s has understood Ukraine to be critical to the national security of Russia. That’s why the Third Reich invaded Russia across the Ukrainian border. When the USSR was being dismantled, all world leaders understood Ukrainian neutrality to be a critical component of Russian national security. It was openly discussed. It’s been a known component of international security for decades.
And yet, when we got access to leaks, we learned that simultaneously while NATO was telling Gorbie that Ukraine would remain neutral, Clinton was working internally to figure out to get NATO to establish presence in Ukraine. Despite Russia telling NATO and the world that Ukraine is critical to their national security, the war machine just kept on rolling. Despite Russia not reacting to all other border occupations by NATO in the Baltic states, this was the one red line that everyone knew about publicly that would tip Russia over the edge.
And that’s exactly what happened. The idea that NATO wasn’t threatening Russia because it wasn’t physically installed yet is such a ridiculous point. Are you proposing that Russia would only have a casus belli after NATO finished installing nuclear capabilities? Are you proposing that Russia should wait until NATO is ready to fight before choosing to fight?
It’s clear that you’ve only read analysis from the last year and only from Western sources. Just go read about this history from the 90s. Actually engage with the historical context here.
Funny thing is what you sarcastically said is very close to what happened. I think you should be part of reddit legion on Ukrainian frontlines.
That’s the most tankie shit I have read in a while. I don’t get how anyone with a modicum of humanity can go out of their way to defend the war of aggression Russia is waging against the people (mostly civilians!) of Ukraine.
You seriously need to stop living in your tiny bubble. The shit you are spewing is just sad and you probably don’t even get why what you say is awful.
So I sincerely ask you to either become a better person or just stfu.
Stop, you will make them cry back to lemmygrad!
I love how you think the person who is going against the dominant Western narrative is the one living in a bubble when the US operates the largest, most effective, and most funded disinformation and propaganda apparatus in the history of the world.
The “Muscovites”?
Russians, without any double meanings that Russian sympathizers could jump in and say “aha, racists!” or “aha, russophobes!” over.
The two places in Russia that aren’t pro-Ukrainian war, are Moscow and St Petersburg.
Putins powerbase is sort of the equivalent to Trump or Erdogan. The people in the larger cities don’t like him, but the rural areas love him.
He is a Russophobe. Report him.
Russophobe because he’s antiPutin and anti-invasion? Tf you smoking tankie
You are the one sniffing, projecting neofascist.
Sure, you just keep gargling Putin’s cock and calling everyone else fascists. lmao. I’m a Marxist. Proud anti-imperialist. Full-on America-bad here. But I’m not going to defend a literal authoritarian dictator and an obvious war of aggression. You 🤡
Why do you libs always go with the homophobic insults?
Lmao sure. Keep simping for the dictator that literally locked up Pussy Riot and LGBTQ folks for existing. Your projection and false concern bullshit doesn’t work for people with more than two neurons to rub together.
Pussy Riot are a CIA op.
If you are a proud anti-imperialist Marxist, I am Karl Marx and strip you of your Marxist label right now. You are a weasel and a grifter, and a useful idiot of genocidal Anglo empire.
In a few days you weasels will experience horror, if you think this is too much. And your brain will either be dewormed or you get contained in some obscure Lemmy instance, or go back to Reddit, the CIA hometown.
Pretty sure that describes pretty much the entire planet now.
The entire planet according to dronies.
The only coping here is coming from people who think that the fact that Ukraine hasn’t even reached the first line of defence in over a week is some kind of a stunning success. To give people some perspective, here’s what western media said Ukraine would have to achieve in the first day in order to succeed https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/18/ukraine-russia-war-counteroffensive-attack-bakhmut-himars/