Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Losing thousands (possibly tens or hundreds of thousands) more soldiers forcing that.
Playing macho may seem cool from your chair, but if Ukraine could force that without significant losses, it would already have by now.
Their behavior also shows that they don’t see their victory as that close and certain. Even though the statement itself is by a stronger side definitely, unlike in the first few months since the war started.
Eastern European countries love their “macho” leaders. Putin has been doing the whole shtick since forever and Zelensky started it too since 2022. Fucking hate this shit.
Lots of countries have this problem. Their people are looking for strong leaders, not smart leaders, and many interpret bullying as strength.
Well, it sometimes pays off. You can see how Pashinyan is regarded as opposed to Zelensky or literally anyone not as miserable. Looking weak is bad. Humans are still apes. And politicians in some sense are even more apes than the general population - they mostly participate in some free for all without any moral boundaries, which is an environment more macho-friendly than any other.
I mostly meant that people calling for Ukrainian offensive don’t quite feel that it’s not a movie, most of the soldiers are mobilized men, and Ukraine has already tried a few times. Turns out it’s not as cheap as one would have thought.
They likely want to stockpile weapons, train people better (especially commanders, since their recent attempts were just as Soviet-styled as what Russia does), make preparations. Maybe wait for something unexpected happening for Russia leading to it being distracted.
Or maybe they want to wait until the terrain freezes, so that it would be easier to push. Or the other way around - due to Russian problems in logistics, they want to push in the shortest possible window before frosts, so that territory taken would be easier to hold. I dunno, I’m not a military expert.
Democratic leadership hasn’t really done much for Ukraine. The Russians still have Bakhmut (their big gain from last winter). Almost the entirety of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been dedicated to an area of land less than twenty kilometers across. Meanwhile, Russian forces are massing North of Kupyansk and Ukrainian supplies are drained.
The West doesn’t seem to really care about Ukraine - while Russia has been able to bring their economy into war footing in about a year, the West is happy to dig around and play accounting tricks to scrounge up what they can. The recent shipment of ATACMS missiles was, well…
“A surprising discovery could also ease the administration’s choice to send the weapons: The U.S. has found it has more ATACMS in its inventory than originally assessed.”
That’s what we’re stuck with? Hundreds of billions of dollars down the drain and aid is only being sent because they miscounted inventory?
We’ll see. Ukraine is still regaining land, albeit slowly. In some moments - rather fast and cheap even.
But also yes, the Russian forces have learned something.
Fast and cheap? Is that what you call losing 60 thousand lives to eke out a salient on low ground?
I said “in some moments”. There were days and places under Kherson a few months before.
Just goes to show you the disparity right? NATO is keeping ukraine in the fight against a country which brought its “economy into war footing in about a year” by sending whatever they find lying around down the back of the couch.
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