[bildung]

> Russia will conquer Ukraine, any other prediction at this point is absurd.

Are you sure? They are advancing, sure, put look what they paid for to achieve this: 300k dead, 700k wounded, depletion of their souvereign wealth fund, 20%+ inflation, lower oil production and so on.

[watwut]

Unfortunately, yes. USA is doing everything but openly support Russia at this point too. It could have been different if Ukraine got proper support, but instead it is being undermined.

Europe could do more, but at least most states dont play for Russia (Hungary and Slovakia excepted).

[tim333]

I think we may be at peak Trump though which will limit his power to bail out Putin. The midterms won't go well, the Epstein stuff is embarrassing, the Republicans are starting to get unruly.

[master_crab]

Yeah, it wouldn't be a bad bet to wager this is going to be a Pyrrhic victory for Russia.

[Ray20]

> They are advancing, sure, put look what they paid for to achieve this: 300k dead, 700k wounded, depletion of their souvereign wealth fund, 20%+ inflation, lower oil production and so on.

Russia is a totalitarian dictatorship led by the communist Putin. As if communist dictators care. Look at North Korea, it's just the results of an unremarkable year.

[jacquesm]

Putin is a lot but he is not a communist.

[somenameforme]

I think literally nobody knows the price either side is paying right now. And I do mean literally, including Trump, Putin, and Zelensky. The fog of war applies to participants, let alone outsiders who are basing our views on figures and claims that obviously going to be driven heavily by propaganda.

But beyond this, I don't think this war is about Ukraine anymore than a war in Taiwan will be about Taiwan. It's little more than a proxy for hegemony in both cases. Russia did not want NATO parked in their Achille's heel of the Ukrainian flatlands. NATO did, and we pushed forward against endless threats of it being a redline, essentially as a means of indirectly imposing our will on Russia and establishing a hierarchy of dominance.

And similarly, for those that don't the Taiwan-China history - the Mao led Chinese revolution was a success. The existing government of mainland China fled to Taiwan where they brutally oppressed the locals, in an era known as the 'white terror' [1], and established power through 40 years of martial law. And of course we backed them, solely to use them as a weapon against China, because geopolitics.

This is why these wars are so important for the participants. The US couldn't care less about Ukraine, but withdrawing without ruining our ability to militarily threaten other peer or near peer countries is difficult. And similarly the last thing Russia needs is more land, but if they never act on claims of red lines, then they can never expect their interests to be considered in the case of a conflict in interests between them and the West.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)

[tim333]

I don't agree on the Russia Ukraine motivations. Ukraine is not part of NATO and was not going to become part of NATO. There were already two NATO countries bordering Russia near Moscow and St P if NATO had wanted to invade which they had no thoughts of doing. Russia lies constantly on this stuff. I think they basically regarded Ukraine their land as part of the Russian empire they were restoring.

[wqaatwt]

> Russia did not want NATO parked in their Achille's heel of the Ukrainian flatlands

Russia (i.e. Putin but also Russians in general) wanted to rebuild their empire from the beginning. Anything else is just an excuse.

> interests between them and the West

Of course this conflict has been mostly one sides till the 2014, with Obama and Merkel bending over backwards to appease Putin.

Also the implication that Russia has some God given right over dominion of half of Eastern Europe is a bit appealing..

> our will on Russia and establishing a hierarchy of dominance.

That is a very Ruso-Imperialist mindset. A society pretty permanently stuck in the 1800s politically and psychologically… e.g. Germany, France, Britain were somehow able to step over their ambitions and are doing relatively fine (even without having millions of foreigners subjugate)

[rebolek]

Thank you for repeating Russian propaganda. But the truth is that Ukraine is sovereign nation and has every right to decide their future and give a fuck about Russia feelings. Russia is the aggressor and blaming anything on NATO is laughable propaganda.