PJM:
victor Davis Hanson-
Russia started the war with Ukraine in late February with a shock-and-awe effort to grab Kyiv. It failed both to decapitate the government and absorb half the country in one fell swoop.
Soon the conflict descended into a war of attrition in Eastern Ukraine over the occupied majority Russian-speaking borderlands.
That deadlock was eventually going to be resolved by relative morale, manpower, and supply.
Would the high-tech weaponry and money of the United States and Europe allow heroic Ukrainian forces to be better equipped than a larger Russian force — drawing on an economy 10 times greater and a population nearly four times larger than Ukraine’s?
After the latest sudden Ukrainian territorial gains and embarrassing Russian retreats, we now know the answer.
Russia may be bigger and richer than Ukraine, but it is not up to the combined resources of the United States, along with the nations of NATO and the European Union.
Most are now in a de facto proxy war with an increasingly overwhelmed Russia. And so far, a circumspect China has not stepped in to try to remedy the Russian dilemma.
So, what will become the next, and most dangerous, stage III of the war? more
Winter is coming.
Will Putin launch nukes on Ukraine? I’ve seen that story in the news lately. Putin is sick, maybe dying, ready to go full bonkers dictator rather than lose. Or so they wonder. It’s within the realm of possibility.
All that, and a brain-addled, low IQ, Pedo sitting in the White House.
“Would the high-tech weaponry and money of the United States and Europe ”
You mean the not so United States. We have a ton of Spec Ops guys over there. Some Ura Peon news station was interviewing a Uke soldier yesterday. He only spoke English. With a southern drawl.
Russia made money selling oil, Ukraine got our tax payer money, and our politicians got their kickbacks. Only loser is the US taxpayer.
how much taxpayer money has been sent to the money laundering, human trafficking hub called ukraine
don’t forget … 10% for the big guy
Anyone who trusts that Zelenskyy bastard needs their head examined.
When Russia takes him out I hope he’s standing next to some dim bulb dem celebutard…
Little bitch is stealing from US taxpayers an Alzheimer-ridden old fool!
Friend of mine’s son is a CDN MIL SNIPER.
He has not been home in months.
Hmm.
Wonder where he is…
Outside of corruption and money-laundering, we have no dog in that fight.
No one can explain why our blood and treasure are being squandered in Ukraine.
In re: Russia’s war aims, I don’t recall them being broadcast.
The whole affair could be nothing more than a huge, bloody training exercise for the Russians – they haven’t done any fighting since … what … Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Chechnya?
Now that Russia’s putting the energy screws to Western Europe with winter approaching, we may see a new dynamic.
Basically, we have no business there – Biden’s Personal War just as Iraq was Bush’s – only this time the Lapdog Media is wagging its tail and pissing all over itself in support.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
VDH is good with the big picture, as it relates to things here at home, and California specifically. However, he seems out of his depth when he goes goes off into military operations far beyond our borders, especially when he uncritically soaks up Western propaganda without serious consideration of alternative information or possibilities.
VDH is a historian and really great at looking at the past. But…
The areas of the Ukraine the Ukrainians have attacked are mostly those where the native Ukrainians make up most, if not all, of the forces. I.E., the Russian Army has not fully engaged.
For the ebb and flows, see this channel https://rumble.com/v1k82qn-ukraine.-military-summary-and-analysis-15.09.2022.html
And perhaps after the conflict, VDH will write an excellent summary.
ukraine getting more US taxpayer money & 10% for the big guy
https://t.me/realKarliBonne/120573
Ok IOTW critters, let me break this down for you non veteran types.
The war is being fought from UK High Command and the Pentagon using one of our best current warfighting LTG\\\\\\\’s. Not the soft 4 star political pussies although they will take the credit of course.
The UK Generals and the US LTGs are using our incredible intelligence assets to nominate targets across the rear area to decimate the already poor logistics of the Russians with Himars. We also advised the UA/USF to take out their ground lines of communication and logistics and their air cover.
We lured them onto an archipelago and turned that into an island by cutting of a mobile retreat by blowing the bridged. They are trapped
They will walk or swim back across the Dnieper river in 3 weeks.
The classic shaping of the battle field took place over the last 8 weeks and then we had the UA fix them by the nose in Kherson while spanking them on the ass in Kharkiv.
They have no army. The UA has killed every warfighting General. Colonel and most LTC\\\\\\\’s.
The cream of their fighting army is gone and they are fighting with mercenaries, police squads, local military Chechans, and prisoners now.
They are communicating the battle by cell phones while we are capturing every conversation.
They cannot concentrate forces now to repel attack because we have had the Intelligence Preparation of the entire Battlefield locked down for months, and blow up any formation over 5 vehicles.
We will be sending sending ATACMS and Excalibur next to cut of retreat or resupply to and from Crimea.
They will either retreat and surrender or mobilize their entire country or use tacnukes. The only other option is China and NK save their bacon.
They have lost 10k prisoners and 1/3 of their major end items (armored vehicles, artillery, planes, helicopters,etc) and 30% of their ammo since September 5. Overall they have lost 50% of their men and warfighting capability with the remaining isolated and cut off from resupply. Any new \\\\\\\”soldiers\\\\\\\” to the front have no arms, uniforms, weapons, food, or ammo.
They have no leadership above Major directing operations. Their leadership infrastructure has bugged out of Kharkiv, Kherson, and even Crimea.
We have been saturating the area with electronic warfare and sweeping up Electronic Intelligence, they can\\\\\\\’t fart without us telling the UA what they had for lunch.
They have no chips to build new weapons are are down to dumb munitions or super expensive missiles. Everyone they fire cannot be replaced.
So it\\\\\\\’s either Ukrainian victory or WW3. Time will tell.
Well apostrophes abd quotation marks seem to be wigging out the scripts. Must be Alphabet interference.
“let me break this down for you non veteran types.”
OK, armchair general.
Although Cisco Kid’s summation is plausible and he very well may be right, for me, based on the hard lesson I learned early, they (The Russians, Ukrainians, and our own government/military) are all liars, and all have particular motivations for spinning the story to appease their own people. The only thing I know for sure, unequivocally, is that some folks are shooting and killing other folks in Ukraine, and our Dopey president keeps sending our treasure, much needed right here, over there because his binary way of thinking tells him it is good vs. evil.
VDH is generally on target when hes in his wheelhouse, but hes pretty much completely wrong here
1) Kiev is a city of 3 million which is also the capital of Ukraine, which would be defended house by house and then pacified. Youd need one hell of a lot more than 100K troops to take Kiev. At the end of WWII, The Red Army, under the leadership of Georgui Zhukov and Ivan Koniev, stormed Berlin (similar size, similar importance) with almost a million troops
And as far the 30 mile traffic jam of Russian vehicle .. rather than being a sign of Russian incompetence, it was all the evidence you needed that Ukraine had no chance. If the Ukros had any kind of artillery and Air Force at all, they should have transformed that situation into a kind of Ultra Highway of Mega Death, with tens of thousands of Russian KIA
What is clear, in retrospect, is that Russia was probably trying to overawe Ukraine into a quick surrender. Failing that, it turned into a feint that forced Ukraine to keep the bulk of its troops near Kiev allowing Russia to capture some 30,000 sq miles of Eastern “Ukraine”, which, BTW, is at least half Russian, who, BTW, were being brutally persecuted by the fanatical nationalists who sezed control in 2014
Gee Wally, are you saying that what Miss Landers has been saying about Ukraine is just as false as every other MSM narrative has been this entire millenium … Gosh Beeve, thats exactly what Im saying
One other thing. Kiev is the birthplace of Russia, and is also the founding city of the Russian Orthodox Church. So, in its way, it is far more important to Russia than ANY city in the America is to the US. So, the very idea that Russia was going to level this city is preposterous.
Ranks right up there in ifiocy with the idea that the leader of Russia, the worlds largest oil and gas exporting nation would attempt to steal an election for Donald Trump,the only politician on the planet who supports fracking