Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Sankari said:
The West could have helped end this war a lot earlier by giving Zelensky everything he asked for and more.
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In fairness, western support is the reason that Zelensky isn't currently either the leader of Western Ukraine, the leader of the government in exile of Free Ukraine, or simply dead.

We could (and should) have done a lot more, but hindsight is very advantageous and it's not really like any western governments had the public support to fully back Ukraine at the time.

Case in point I was looking back earlier at pages from Feb '22 for a good laugh at how off the mark the predictions of Kremlin men like Enkore and Amnesia were, and something I found quite disappointing was that it was only really myself and Rroff who thought Ukraine had a change and that we should be helping, pretty much everyone else (Kremlin bots aside ofc) either didn't think Russia would really invade, didn't think we should help as it wasn't our problem or simply didn't care.
 
I don’t think anyone expected Russia to be so incompetent. Russia have been forced to dig in to extreme levels and are still losing ground.
 
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Supplying advanced kit without the training to go with it would have been an utter waste and given Russia lots of PR victories when they took them out easily due to inexperienced and inefficient use or simple lack of logistics to support them properly. "Dumb" stuff like shells etc, yes - with the benefit of hindsight the west should have been gearing up production much earlier. We got this wrong: thinking it would be a rapid turn around, not slow attrition.

Also, few predicted the huge increase in the effectiveness of drones that's come about since this started. Necessity has indeed been the mother of invention ! Ukraine will have a lot to teach everyone else when this is done.
 
ubersonic said:
In fairness, western support is the reason that Zelensky isn't currently either the leader of Western Ukraine, the leader of the government in exile of Free Ukraine, or simply dead.

We could (and should) have done a lot more, but hindsight is very advantageous and it's not really like any western governments had the public support to fully back Ukraine at the time.

Case in point I was looking back earlier at pages from Feb '22 for a good laugh at how off the mark the predictions of Kremlin men like Enkore and Amnesia were, and something I found quite disappointing was that it was only really myself and Rroff who thought Ukraine had a change and that we should be helping, pretty much everyone else (Kremlin bots aside ofc) either didn't think Russia would really invade, didn't think we should help as it wasn't our problem or simply didn't care.
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There were a lot of people at the start who did not think it would be a cake walk for Russia. Did they ultimately expect a Russian victory based on how utterly poor Ukraine performed “defending” Crimea? Yes and quite frankly that could still be the outcome.

The much vaunted summer offensive has showed Russia have learned from early mistakes. That takes nothing away from what Ukraine achieved without air superiority. The idea the west should do more is wonderful in hindsight but in no way could the west (especially NATO) go all in for Ukraine. It is worth remembering Ukraine and Zelenskyy were ignoring ALL the warning signs and western intelligence that Russia was about to invade. Had Ukraine taken that threat more seriously instead of sticking their head in the sand, the Russians would never have got anywhere near as far as they did.

Like I said, just hindsight. So this “the west need to do more, or didn’t do enough” tends to ignore the utter mess Ukraine made defending their borders in the first place. If it wasn’t for the western advanced intel and donating a lot of long range artillery, Ukraine and at least Moldova would be Russian puppet states over a year ago.
 
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ubersonic said:
In fairness, western support is the reason that Zelensky isn't currently either the leader of Western Ukraine, the leader of the government in exile of Free Ukraine, or simply dead.

We could (and should) have done a lot more, but hindsight is very advantageous and it's not really like any western governments had the public support to fully back Ukraine at the time.

Case in point I was looking back earlier at pages from Feb '22 for a good laugh at how off the mark the predictions of Kremlin men like Enkore and Amnesia were, and something I found quite disappointing was that it was only really myself and Rroff who thought Ukraine had a change and that we should be helping, pretty much everyone else (Kremlin bots aside ofc) either didn't think Russia would really invade, didn't think we should help as it wasn't our problem or simply didn't care.
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I didn't think Ukraine would do as well as they have - especially in the north, and south where the regional administration pretty much acted traitorously, I thought would be a lot more guerrilla style war until Russia got in range of the bigger cities.

In fact if the organisation against the invasion in the south hadn't been undermined by some officials who were either in Russia's pocket or cowards Russia probably wouldn't have got anything like as far as they had, as forces had to be pulled away from elsewhere to shore up the defence there.
 
ubersonic said:
I was looking back earlier at pages from Feb '22 for a good laugh at how off the mark the predictions of Kremlin men like Enkore and Amnesia were, and something I found quite disappointing was that it was only really myself and Rroff who thought Ukraine had a change and that we should be helping, pretty much everyone else (Kremlin bots aside ofc) either didn't think Russia would really invade, didn't think we should help as it wasn't our problem or simply didn't care.
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In the lead up to the Feb 22 I had been doing a lot of detailed research into the region as I had been given that region as an assignment to do a presentation on for my senior leadership course. Literally everything was pointing to a genuine threat of them rolling across the border. Even within the group I delivered the presentation to (All SNCO's) there was a lot of doubt that it would happen. Two weeks after I delivered that presentation it happened.
I wont lie though, at the time I genuinely didnt expect Ukraine to survive that initial surge, I mean they very nearly didnt.

I think Russia overestimated their influence in the Northern/Western regions. I think they expected what happened in the south to happen on a greater scale, where they had prominent people in their pocket and practically rolled over and allowed the Russians to roll through.
 
ICDP said:
There were a lot of people at the start who did not think it would be a cake walk for Russia.
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Nah that is revisionism - 99% of people either were convinced there wouldn't actually be an invasion or alternatively that Ukraine didn't stand a chance if Russia did invade and it would be all over for them. Less so here but I had some quite belittling, even derogatory comments aimed at me elsewhere by people utterly convinced this kind of war couldn't possibly kick off in this day and age and never got an apology for it LOL.
 
Germany says its approved budget funding to continue sending military aid to Ukraine until at least 2032

While Biden struggles to get funding for more than one year passed, Germany has secured funding for Ukraine for the next 8 years, nice!

kyivindependent.com

General: Germany's military support for Ukraine will continue at least until 2032

Germany has already earmarked funding for Ukraine in its budget planning until 2032, Bundeswehr Major General Christian Freuding said in a Nov. 3 interview with the German news outlet Stuttgarter Nachrichten.
kyivindependent.com kyivindependent.com
 
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I’ve never understood why the funding has been so hand to mouth. We can play the long game too, and the west has far deeper pockets than Russia.

The Cold War was essentially won by bankrupting the USSR. The same is required now. We don’t even need to spend the money , just make it abundantly clear that we are 100% prepared to.

I would also like to see the strategy and spending broadened in scope to the whole of the NATO boarder with Russia.
 
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Stretch said:
I’ve never understood why the funding has been so hand to mouth. We can play the long game too, and the west has far deeper pockets than Russia.

The Cold War was essentially won by bankrupting the USSR. The same is required now. We don’t even need to spend the money , just make it abundantly clear that we are 100% prepared to.

I would also like to see the strategy and spending broadened in scope to the whole of the NATO boarder with Russia.
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I could understand the hesitation early on into the war when the risk of corruption and equipment being captured was high, but absolutely we should have moved faster and harder once it was clear that the Ukrainians held democratic values and was prepared to deal with reforms.
 
FishThrower said:
if you give everything what Zelensky has asked for... we would be giving him Eurofighters and F35s, which would have been a mega dumb move, there has to be a limit of what you can give out with a lot of thought on it, otherwise you will end up crippling yourself
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I see no problem giving Ukraine the best we have to offer if it results in a defeated Russia, it means we don't have to use them ourselves against a victorious Russia

 
jigger said:
Looks as if Vladolf is pulling out of Azerbaijan and Armenia and leaving them to it. Question is weather it’s because of the losses the Ukrainians have inflicted.
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No, it's not.

It's because of the recent Armenian government pivot to being pro-western. Russia punished them by letting the Azeris (and Turkey) stomp them.
 
steve45 said:
Even within the group I delivered the presentation to (All SNCO's) there was a lot of doubt that it would happen. Two weeks after I delivered that presentation it happened.
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Same at our place, lots of "it'd be the stupidest time to invade when everyone (in the military) is expecting it which is why he probably won't" followed by lots of "well that was dumb" when he finally did. The general consensus was that he'd run up to the border over the next few years just to get everyone used to it and get bored of Ukraine being the "boy crying wolf" before suddenly not stopping at the border one year. That'd probably have been more successful initially, even if it did give Ukraine a few more years of prep.
 
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jigger said:
I could understand the hesitation early on into the war when the risk of corruption and equipment being captured was high, but absolutely we should have moved faster and harder once it was clear that the Ukrainians held democratic values and was prepared to deal with reforms.
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The country that was in the lowest group for corruption in the world and hasn't held an election since has fully reformed?

Lol.

Source: https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/


Amid all the pressure to root out corruption, I assumed, perhaps naively, that officials in Ukraine would think twice before taking a bribe or pocketing state funds. But when I made this point to a top presidential adviser in early October, he asked me to turn off my audio recorder so he could speak more freely. “Simon, you’re mistaken,” he says. “People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow.”

Even the firing of the Defense Minister did not make officials “feel any fear,” he adds, because the purge took too long to materialize. The President was warned in February that corruption had grown rife inside the ministry, but he dithered for more than six months, giving his allies multiple chances to deal with the problems quietly or explain them away. By the time he acted ahead of his U.S. visit, “it was too late,” says another senior presidential adviser. Ukraine’s Western allies were already aware of the scandal by then. Soldiers at the front had begun making off-color jokes about “Reznikov’s eggs,” a new metaphor for corruption. “The reputational damage was done,” says the adviser.

When I asked Zelensky about the problem, he acknowledged its gravity and the threat it poses to Ukraine’s morale and its relationships with foreign partners. Fighting corruption, he assured me, is among his top priorities.
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StriderX said:
Did the UK have an election during WW1/2? No I guess that makes us corrupt or something.
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Churchill ran a coalition government with the leader of the Labour party, Clement Atlee, as the Deputy Prime Minister. Churchill concentrated on the war while Atlee was running domestic policy.

After Germany was defeated Churchill asked Atlee if he wanted to continue the coalition until Japan was defeated. While Atlee was agreeable the Labour party voted against it. So the war government was a coalition and a general election was held while Britain was still at war in the Pacific.
 
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Orangeade said:
The country that was in the lowest group for corruption in the world and hasn't held an election since has fully reformed?

Lol.
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There were two rounds of elections in 2019? If i'm not mistaken with the next scheduled for 2024 as Ukraine runs 5 year terms, Zelensky is also limited to two terms.
 
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