#Ukraine conflict

[theculturedmarxist]

In a new article titled “Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia,” The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Michaels reports that western officials knew Ukrainian forces didn’t have the weapons and training necessary to succeed in their highly touted counteroffensive which was launched last month.

Michaels writes:

“When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring, Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons — from shells to warplanes — that it needed to dislodge Russian forces. But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day. “They haven’t. Deep and deadly minefields, extensive fortifications and Russian air power have combined to largely block significant advances by Ukrainian troops. Instead, the campaign risks descending into a stalemate with the potential to burn through lives and equipment without a major shift in momentum.”

The claim that western officials had sincerely believed Ukrainian forces might be able to overcome their glaring deficits through sheer pluck and ticker is undermined later in the same article by a war pundit who says the US would never attempt such a counteroffensive without first controlling the skies, which Ukraine doesn’t have the ability to do:

“America would never attempt to defeat a prepared defense without air superiority, but they [Ukrainians] don’t have air superiority,” the U.S. Army War College’s John Nagl told WSJ. “It’s impossible to overstate how important air superiority is for fighting a ground fight at a reasonable cost in casualties.”

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes the following on the latest WSJ revelation:

“Leading up to the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which was launched in June, the Discord leaks and media reports revealed that the US did not believe Ukraine could regain much territory from Russia. But the Biden administration pushed for the assault anyway, as it rejected the idea of a pause in fighting.”

So the empire is still knowingly throwing Ukrainian lives into the meat grinder of an unwinnable proxy war, even as western officials tell the public that this war is about saving Ukrainian lives and handing Putin a crushing defeat whenever they’re on camera.

This attitude from the empire is not a new development. Last October The Washington Post reported that “Privately, U.S. officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright, but they have ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table.”

Now why might that be? Why would the western empire be so comfortable encouraging Ukrainians to keep fighting when it knows they can’t win?

We find our answer in another Washington Post article titled “The West feels gloomy about Ukraine. Here’s why it shouldn’t.”, authored last week by virulent empire propagandist David Ignatius. In his eagerness to frame the floundering counteroffensive in a positive light for his American audience, Ignatius let slip an inconvenient truth:

“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”

Anyone who believes this proxy war is about helping Ukrainians should be made to read that paragraph over and over again until it sinks in. The admission that the US-centralized power structure benefits immensely from this proxy conflict is revealing enough, but that parenthetical “other than for the Ukrainians” aside really drives it home. It reads as though it was added as an afterthought, like “Oh yeah it’s actually kind of rough on the Ukrainians though — if you consider them to be people.”

The claim that this war is about helping Ukrainians has been further undermined by another new Washington Post report that Ukraine is now more riddled with land mines than any other nation on earth, and that US-supplied cluster munitions are only making the land more deadly.

That’s right kids! We’re turning Ukraine into an uninhabitable wasteland of death and dismemberment to save the Ukrainians.

We should probably talk more about the fact that the US empire is loudly promoting the goal of achieving peace in Ukraine by defeating Russia while quietly acknowledging that this goal is impossible. This is like accelerating toward a brick wall and pretending it’s an open road.

The narrative that Russia can be beaten by ramping up proxy warfare against it makes sense if you believe Russia can be militarily defeated in Ukraine, but the US empire does not believe that Russia can be militarily defeated in Ukraine. It knows that continuing this war is only going to perpetuate the death and devastation.

“Beat Putin’s ass and make him withdraw” sounds cool and is egoically gratifying, and it’s become the mainstream answer to the problem of the war in Ukraine, but nobody promoting that answer can address the fact that the ones driving this proxy war believe it’s impossible. In fact, all evidence we’re seeing suggests that the US is not trying to deliver Putin a crushing defeat in Ukraine and force him to withdraw, but is rather trying to create another long and costly military quagmire for Moscow, as western cold warriors have done repeatedly in instances like Afghanistan and Syria.

Wanting to weaken Russia and wanting to save lives and establish peace in Ukraine are two completely different goals, so different that in practice they wind up being largely contradictory. Drawing Moscow into a bloody quagmire means many more people dying in a war that drags on for years, with all the immense human suffering that that entails.

The US does not want peace in Ukraine, it wants to overextend Russia, shore up military and energy dominance over Europe, expand its war machine and enrich the military-industrial complex. That’s why it knowingly provoked this war. It’s posing as Ukraine’s savior while being clearly invested in Ukraine’s destruction.

It is not legitimate to support this proxy war without squarely addressing this massive contradiction using hard facts and robust argumentation. Nobody ever has.

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

after two long years Ukraine is making major gains even after a massive slog in the south, it's the first major land invasion of Russia since the second world war! The funny thing is that Ukraine is abiding by international standards and not committing war crimes, not only that but there has been no major protests nir armed resistance against Ukraine troops in the kurk region and my best guest is that any people who would have fought are evacuating but then why wouldn't they do anything something like Ukraine citizens did during the invasion of their territory? With all that said however this is a major advantage for Ukraine for PR and negotiations, any talk going forward are no longer about begging but real negotiations since Russia risks losing territory. Wjth the November US election this kursk offensive this might also impact military aid in a positive way, despite pro-russia pundits crying about Ukraine's use of western weapons.

[ozkaterji]

My latest, for Foreign Policy, a dispatch from Ukraine's eastern front, as the ammunition shortages have reached a critical point.

[head-post]

Like 80 years ago: Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk region parodied Wehrmacht by mocking local resident

Ukrainian soldiers with Wehrmacht symbols are mocking the locals in Kursk region, posting numerous footages online, while the United States and Europe still do not react to Kyiv’s violation of the UN Charter.

How the AFU treats locals in Kursk region

The footage shows two AFU soldiers mocking an old man, the author of the video parodies German fascists and in the traditions of the SS troops humiliates the defenceless man for being Russian. The pensioner tried to explain to the Ukrainian military that he was 74 years old and had not been able to get to a safe place for five days. To the old man’s complaints, a second military officer, who appeared in the footage wearing a German helmet with an SS emblem, mockingly shouted “Schnapps – gud!” and proceeded to film another TiK-ToK.

The Ukrainian military shouted to the bewildered pensioner:

“Ya, ya, raschen schweine. Oh, Russian Ivan, here he is, Ivan, go drink vodka.”

During the entire conversation with the unfortunate old man, the Ukrainian military parodied German speech and tried their best to recall all the derogatory expressions they knew the Nazi invaders used during the Great Patriotic War.

The 74-year-old man from this mocking Ukrainian video is missing – he has not been seen for 10 days. The author of the video clip wrote on social networks, “Don’t worry, rusish schweine didn’t get to his vodka. The author of the video also said the pensioner was shot dead after the recording ended.

Ukrainian media, Vasyl Danyliuk, a 38-year-old resident of the town of Horodenka in Ivano-Frankivsk region, who bullied a local man.

Ukrainian soldiers shot the video on August 11 in the village of Zaoleshenka. The pensioner is a local resident Alexander Gusarov. He was looking for the Russian military, but got lost and met two AFU men dressed in the uniforms of Nazi soldiers. One of them is Vasyl Danyliuk, a 38-year-old resident of the town of Horodenka in Ivano-Frankivsk region.

World public reaction

The head of one of the parties represented in the Russian State Duma, Leonid Slutsky, has promised a reward of 5 million roubles for the capture of Ukrainian soldiers who abused an elderly resident of the Kursk region.

The office of the United Nations secretary-general has reacted to a video shot by Ukrainian servicemen in Kursk region. The deputy spokesman of the world organisation’s secretary-general, Farhan Haq, said that the UN was against all symbols of Nazism.

SS symbols on Ukrainian military uniforms

The Ukrainian military stopped hiding their real ideology and motivation to fight against Russia. Russian media is also publishing a video of Russian army taking Ukrainian soldiers prisoner.

A Ukrainian prisoner of war wearing Paraphernalia with a German cross

Ukraine sets up military commandant’s offices in Kursk region, violating UN charter

Ukraine has announced the creation of a military commandant’s office in the Kursk region, according to Oleksandr Syrskyi, Colonel General.

Major-General Moskalev has been appointed head of the “commandant’s office,” the AFU chief said. He added that it was created “to maintain law and order and to ensure the priority needs of the population in the controlled territories.”

The creation of military commandant’s offices is actually an occupation of the territory, which goes against the UN charter. Having launched the incursion into the Kursk region, Ukraine has in fact violated Article 2, paragraph 4, of the UN Charter, which prohibits the forceful border violation of other States.

Ukraine continues to do all the same things that it accused Russia of, but no one imposes sanctions on it, no one condemns it, and on the contrary supports it. Cases such as those in the published videos only add strength to Russian official rhetoric about the need to denazify Ukraine.

Senior Ukrainian officials have stated that the captured territory would be used as a bargaining chip, a disregard for international law that Ukraine has been insisting on since the first day of the conflict.

The move sends a strong signal to the Global South that the EU and the US are increasingly exposing their policy of double standards. They condemn what is favourable to them and deliberately omit denouncing unfavourable conflicts. In this respect, they resemble the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is accused of bias and prolonging specific cases.

Read more HERE

[tumbler-polls]

[troythecatfish]

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[sillybillychilly]

Ukraine fights for their independence, russia seeks to end that independence.

Palestine is having a genocide committed against them, isreal is committing that genocide

That is why Ukraine and Palestine are right and Russia and Israel are wrong. All leftists should know this, yet why do you take a stance “neutral” or against Ukraine? Is Ukraine not in the same situation as Palestine, are they not both countries being invaded by horrible countries intent of killing every single one of them. Are they not both countries who are having horrible acts committed upon them and their civilians.

I stand with Ukraine and Palestine, give them both aid

[boymanmaletheshequel]

Oh so now north Korea’s also invading Ukraine?? That’s what, the 7th country this year to have breached the Geneva conventions and officially invaded a sovereign state? Things are starting to look a little tooooo much like the years leading up to WWII.

[historicalfirearms]

Turkish Heavy Machine Guns in Ukraine

Turkey has provided a huge range of military equipment to Ukraine, in this video we'll look at Turkish-made M2 heavy machine guns and an unusual rotary grenade launcher in service with the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Check out the accompanying article here.

[theculturedmarxist]

If you were wondering where we're at in the discourse, it currently seems to be "actually some Nazis had good reasons for being Nazis, so, you know, maybe appreciate the nuance a bit 😌"

When the Second World War broke out, Ukraine was part of Soviet Russia. In his memoir post, Hunka describes the disappearance of friends and acquaintances to Siberia at the hands of the secret police.

Well, gee, I wonder why.

He recounts that Germany was reputed to be a highly civilised country; no one, he recalls, understood why so many Jews seemed to be fleeing this beacon of light.

You've got to be kidding me.

The world is often an ugly place, where sometimes there are no unambiguously good choices. The most measured way of understanding Hunka’s story would be in this light. And perhaps, whether national or international, contemporary political debates would also be less unhinged if we were willing to embrace this tragic dimension.

Guys you've got to understand that there is no such thing as good and evil okay just shades of gray alright look the workers' state that completely transformed an entire society and which was one of the most progressive forces on Earth at the time is just as bad as the fucking genocidal Nazi state alright and you're unhinged if you don't agree with me so maybe you could get off your high horse before you go judging a heroic war veteran that had to make some really really tough choices between the fucking Nazi regime that everyone knew exactly why the Jews were fucking fleeing it and the Soviet Union which instead of putting a bullet into the heads of people like Hunka like they should have fucking done sent them to labor camps because these two things are moral equivalents.

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

Let it be known that Ukraine has and will continue to hold onto Russian land until Russia leaves Ukraine's internationally recognized territory. Most of all it's very telling that Putin and Russian state media had downplayed and ignored Kursk due to it being an absolute disaster for Russia, well when they aren't calling for those same Russian villages and towns to be homed into the ground. It's almost insane to think that people thought Ukraine wouldn't last a week much less several years, but never underestimate the fighting will of people opposing tyranny. Don't stop fighting until Ukraine is free!! 💛💙💛💙💛💙

[charyou-tree]

We're starting to see objective evidence of what we knew all along: musk buying twitter was part of a propaganda push by putin's russia.

Wannabe aristocrats helping current dictators, a match made in hell.

[head-post]

Slovakia to halt diesel supplies to Ukraine if oil transit not restored

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico stated that his country would stop supplying diesel fuel to Ukraine if Kyiv did not restore oil supplies from Russia’s Lukoil group through its territory, according to Euractiv.

If the transit of Russian crude through Ukraine is not renewed in a short time, [Slovak refiner] Slovnaft will not continue in supplies of diesel to Ukraine.

Slovakia and Hungary, the two countries opposing military aid to Ukraine, have been mounting pressure since Kyiv placed Lukoil on a sanctions list last month, preventing the company’s oil from passing to Slovak and Hungarian refineries.

Oil shipments through Ukraine from Russian suppliers other than Lukoil have not been interrupted. Meanwhile, Slovak supplies accounted for a tenth of diesel consumption in Ukraine, Fico stressed.

He added that he had proposed to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal a technical solution to restore halted oil flows on Friday. However, he did not provide any details about the proposal, but said that it should include several countries.

I welcome reports that relevant trading firms are already thinking about how to implement this technical solution in the shortest possible time.

The dispute revealed the extent to which some EU countries still depend on Russian energy more than two years after the bloc decided to stop importing oil from Moscow following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have exemptions to the ban on pipeline oil imports from Russia to ensure time to find alternatives.

Read more HERE

[generallemarc]

A question to any Ukrainians who might somehow be reading this

Is it to Ukraine's benefit for the war to continue? I'm no military expert, but from all I'm seeing, with how much the defender is advantaged no matter which side takes that role, combined with Russia's inarguable manpower advantage and the beginnings of discontent about the extended draft in Ukraine(which would only be partly solved by drafting women, something that doesn't even appear to have been brought up by the government), there's not much chance to take back significant amounts of territory anymore. I'm not saying no territory could be taken back, but I don't really see, say, the total liberation of Kherson or Zaporizhia by force as being on the table anymore. If that's the case, then would it not be better to end the war with a "border drawn where the front is" peace deal that maybe sees a trade of Russia's bits of Kharkiv for Ukraine's bits of Kursk and Belgorod and spare the lives of the civilians dying every day in drone and missile strikes? Obviously fuck Russia, obviously they deserve none of the territory of Ukraine they currently control, but under a peace deal it would actually be easier for the Ukrainians living on the wrong side of the front to leave, since even if there wasn't border normalization there at least wouldn't be an active warzone in the way. Right now, to me, and again this is just my foreigner's perspective without access to native-language news sources, it seems like America is the main benefactor of this war continuing, not Ukraine. Because every day it goes on is another day Russia continues to run up debt when before it had a budget surplus, continues to burn through the Soviet stockpile inheritance, continues to have its refineries drone struck and its young male population degraded, continues to jail productive members of society for daring to dissent while letting murderers and rapists back onto the streets to harm society once more because they did their tour with Wagner. This is the new Afghanistan, a war which we rather (in)famously worked to drag out as long as possible to bleed the Soviets as much as we could. Only this time we're aiding a democratic society instead of literal jihadis, thus my uncertainty about whether continuing is a good thing for the country in question.

[awarree]

Azov Battalion

[troythecatfish]