comment: >
  
  Every time Ukraine talks about difficulties, losers crawl out of the woodwork to justify their anxiety or other mental issues and defeatist propaganda.
  The reality is that the majority of people are more than aware of the difficulties and tragedies facing Ukraine but maintain a strong outlook and unwavering support of Ukraine.
context: that's an amazing video and channel, thanks >
  
  The deluge of footage of Russian troops on the back foot, plus constant posts of Russian forces surrendering seems to paint a dangerously misleading picture on Reddit. Based on these posts alone, you’d think the Ukrainians are on the verge of annihilating the Russians.
  Yet a year later, both sides are bogged in a brutal war. I’d take Zeleksnsky’s warnings over an overly rosy picture being painted by well-intentioned but terribly selective Reddit posts. >
  
  Both sides are in a race to re-arm and recruit over the winter for the spring offensives. >
  
  They're also in a propaganda battle. As important as winning is convincing the opposition that you winning is inevitable. >
  
  There Zelenskyy has a tricky line to walk as well. 
  He has to convince his people that they will win of course. He also has to convince the international community that they will win if they get sufficient support, while telling Russia that they are getting more than enough right now but also letting donor nations know that they really do need more. >
  
  Which is why the west should just go all in. Russian can't hope to match their spending and production capability, the quicker they're removed from Ukraine, the better. >
  
  That is when the nukes come out, the West (America really) are totally fine with bleeding Russia out in a protracted inconclusive conflict, it's been an American fantasy since Vietnam to trick their enemies into the same mistakes. >
  
  We already got that when the Soviets entered Afghanistan. Though, that uh, kind of backfired on us >
  
  And it could again while it appears much less likely given the relative performances on the battlefield, in cyberspace, in info war, etc. >
  
  A heavily militarized/traumatized nation with a history of corruption and nationalism sharing a border with a crumbling former nuclear power will not lead to a very peaceful future. >
  
  Not if the traumatized nation properly rebuilds with support from like minded nations.
  No reason to obfuscate; the problem is russia and its nukes. >
  
  It’s starting to feel like April - august again which was the hardest time for Ukraine in this war so far. The artillery storm then has just been replaced by human wave tactics. It’s just that Russia has so much damn equipment. And it feels like they’re starting to learn a bit from their mistakes too. No more easy convoy and ammo dump hits. >
  
  It never got better, the war, for Ukrainians, it's not at that point yet. We just stopped hearing as many updates because they stopped causing outrage and instead became just sad. And depression doesn't get more clicks like outrage does. Right now Zelensky's visit got media excited to report from that again.
  Right now Ukraine has a surprisingly good fighting chance, no one expected Russia to screw up so badly early on, and Ukraine has, up to now, but missed a beat. But Russia still has massive weapons cache and a large amount of reserves to keep their pressure on. The wave tactics I don't know what you're talking about. This was the strategy from the start. And the Russians haven't changed to core of it. What's happened it's that Ukrainians are now pushing against highly entrenched Russian positions, and it's a slower push. Also we're in winter now, and climate is making a push very limited. It's not the push itself, but holding it afterwards, the weather makes it very hard to quickly set up a good enough base, which needs to be able to handle the cold. >
  
  This comment section is a great case study for dunning-kruger syndrome from people who don't actually follow the war and get their opinions from headlines >
  
  Yeah for sure >
  
  This must be so hard to endure, I can't imagine having to fight just to have your freedom, and I can't believe there is still war in 2023... I guess as long as dickheads live, these things will keep happening... >
  
  We don't need to wait until those dickheads die.  We can defund Russia's war by boycotting India, China and any other nation that continues to feed Russia's war machine with cash and parts. >
  
  Have you heard of The Tuttle Twin Books? The next Putin is in 2nd grade and being groomed. >
  
  Find him and eat him >
  
  You are what you eat >
  
  Ukraine needs long range missles to decimate Russian military infrastructure. They used drones to hit Engels airport and destroyed some planes, a command center. Missles could destroy the entire runway and the planes there. Russia can't get those back quickly. Those are some of the planes hitting Ukrainian infrastructure. This won't cause Russia to use nukes, wake up and stop playing into Putin's narrative. >
  
  Destroyed planes and a command centre? Umm evidence? 
  All I heard was that it was shot down last minute and crashed killing 3 soldiers.
  Also what makes you think Russia would not just escalate to nukes? Why do you think Russia would just accept losing? >
  
  Why do you think it will use Nukes? They don't want to lose the little support they have from India and China. Nukes are just for threatening which they are already doing. Sude rhey won't accept losing but in worst case rhey will declare victory wirh whatever they occupy currently. >
  
  Ukraine won’t accept “what Russia currently has” and Russia won’t accept losing Crimea + Donbas. That means nukes. 
  Russian nuclear policy is “if the territorial integrity of Russia is threatened”, aka, losing Crimea. Russia will sacrifice china’s favour for that. >
  
  It doesn't matter how well you fight, war never changes. There's no wins, just losses, and those few acres will never be worth the lives lost.
  Of course it's nice to see a lot of Russian soldiers share our beliefs in that fighting for the russian frontlines is not worth the effort, but that on it's own doesn't end the war. >
  
  Sometimes those few acres do matter to the survivors. >
  
  Surviving defenders, but not surviving invaders.
  The discontent of Russian war vets regarding this pointless war should be felt for decades and there will be many. >
  
  
  "The occupiers are deploying all resources available to them -- and these are considerable resources -- to make some sort of advance."
  
  (emphasis added)
  It is important to remember this.  There is a lot of Russia left.  If Putin had brought everything to bear from the very beginning, this whole invasion would be very different right now.  One of Ukraine's great saving graces from the start of the war was poor Russian use of available military power.
  Why that happened is no doubt a subject that will interest students of military history for a long time to come.  But whatever the reason, it's a big part of why Ukraine has been able to achieve such successes against Russia.  Yet there is still more left.  As the one guy said... there's a lot of sausage to eat. >
  
  
  It is important to remember this. There is a lot of Russia left. If Putin had brought everything to bear from the very beginning, this whole invasion would be very different right now. One of Ukraine's great saving graces from the start of the war was poor Russian use of available military power.
  
  That is not accurate, unless you believe the Russian stance on them having 1 million active personel, which other data doesn't really back up. Yes they didnt deploy everything, but it's fairly clear that they dedicated most of what they could afford deploying for an invasion(most of the rest needed to guard other borders). For example, out of around 170 total BTGs, 110 were used in the initial invasion. And if they had a million men, they wouldn't have needed to mobilize after the losses they had till then.
  The considerable resources Russia has is that it has a shit ton of equipment in storage and manpower to spare throwing away thoughlessly(and political ability to do so). The failure at the beginning of the war was Russian logistics, not that they didn't dedicate enough troops to it. >
  
  
  most of what they could afford
  
  Well this is where we disagree.  Russia could easily have afforded more.  They just chose not to.  (For whatever reason ... it seems like there are some complicated dynamics that have been going on this whole time in the Kremlin, that are pretty opaque at least to non-experts like me.  But whatever the reasons, it's clear what the net effect is.)
  For example... I agree completely about the million men.  That is actually my point.  Russia could have spent 2021 mobilizing those reserves and having them ready to participate in the invasion.  A few hundred thousand was just not enough.
  That's in addition to the logistical issues, of course.  Even the too-small number of troops weren't given enough food or fuel to reach their objectives.  But again, Russia started preparing for this operation a year in advance.  Obviously that's not enough time to cure the fundamental systemic ills of the Russian military procurement system but it's enough time to at least find a way to meet the needs of an upcoming operation.
  Would that have been expensive?  Food, fuel, uniforms, equipment, and weapons for 1 million troops?  Sure.  But as poor as Russia is, it's not so poor that it couldn't have afforded all that.
  It was Russia's choice not to. >
  
  I don't think mobilizing before the war even started was ever a possibility.
  And the logistics issues was due to the entire invasion being poorly planned. They had the supplies for their invasion plan, but said plan was shit.