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Ukraine’s Top Military Leadership: We Are Starting to Win, Russia Is Starting to Lose
(www.kyivpost.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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I honestly don't know how to read the situation. Ukraine's fought terrifically, but their status seems far less sustainable even if you discount the Trump stuff. I don't put a lot of stock in these claims that Russia is on the verge of imploding due to the stress of the war, any day now. It is possible, but mostly seems like wishful thinking.
External aid changes the situation a bit, but not ultimately that much because no Western power seems willing to directly intervene with troops. Barring that, the overall situation between the two countries feels a bit like what Shelby Foote said about the US Civil War: "the North fought that war with one hand behind its back... If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back."
This is true to an extent. But in 1862 the US didn't have to worry about an invasion from Canada. If the Russians remove too much from the Far East though, China is going to rename Vladivostok to Haishenwai. Also ISIS is going to start infiltrating from Central Asia, again. Russia has real security concerns on it's borders that require a real military presence. They could not easily strip their border guard (a national paramilitary police that's commonly included in their military headcount) or border military units. They also cannot strip the major metro areas of their paramilitary units, such as the elite units guarding Moscow. Otherwise the next Prigozhin could succeed.
Russia already stripped what they could from the Far East at the start of the war so now they're largely left with units on NATO borders that haven't been called in yet. As much as it sucks, we all know NATO isn't going to attack Russia. And in fact this is where most of the reinforcing units are coming from for things like the Kursk Salient.
The next issue is battlefield saturation. In the American Civil War how many troops you could field was largely limited by control of water ways and rail lines. With modern vehicles and supply chains the limit is reached differently these days. Basically there's a point at which if you add another division to a line it starts to be detrimental instead of helpful. They will actually get into each other's way. This has remained largely unchanged since World War 2. And in fact the number of troops Russia has in Ukraine is reminiscent of World War 2, In June they reported they have 700,000 troops in Ukraine. This is likely the maximum amount of pressure they can put in the area.
So as long as Ukraine can deal with that number of troops efficiently, they could theoretically fight forever.
Are there any real pretensions on the territory on China's part? It sounds like it would just cause more problems than it's worth (though it's not like that fact prevented Putin from attacking Ukraine), and possibly kill off BRICS.
Uh yeah. China is literally building islands to expand it's ability to access resources. The Russian Far East is also very resource rich. That's a pretty big incentive right there.
Out of the BRICS nations, the least important is Russia. They have oil and land. And although China gets through a lot of oil, not much if it comes from Russia.
That said, I highly doubt China would invade any part of Russia. They don't need to. Superpowers tend not to poke the others directly.
Russia isn't a super power. And the reason countries don't poke each other outside of cultural ones is fear of retaliation. If the military is gone then what retaliation is there?
It won't be an invasion - it will be a special military occupation as the citizens in those areas really want Chinese representation.
This is hopium, they kind of have to say this otherwise why would European countries keep supporting them?
Remember when Putin was sick and dying? Or when the Russians would revolt and oust the government? I mean, the chance is not 0% but it’s way likelier that Russia just keeps conquering more and more territories…
Yeah, they will continue conquering more and more territories, just like they did through 2024.
During 2024 they advanced faster than expected. And managed to conquer a whopping 0.7 % of Ukraine's total territory. Less than kne percent. Or even less, if you take into account what they lost in the Kursk province.
(Also, what is weird about a person having cancer and surviving?)
Faster than expected by whom? If you were listening to the Western media, Ukraine was about to launch a counter-offensive and regain the lost territories; not only did that not happen, they lost even more territories.
Nothing weird about someone having cancer and surviving. The weirdness is claiming Putin's had several different cancers, Parkinson disease, leprosy and would soon die, repeatedly over the years, notably in 2014, 2020 and 2022.
They were indeed about to launch a counter offensive and indeed did. In 2023. They did not get almost any of the equipment the west had promised to supply for bringing the offence plans to reality, so the counter offensive got botched. In 2024 there was no talk of a counter offensive. Remember that the last two quarters of 2024 Ukraine got zero military help from USA.
You're mixing up the years.
Also, the several different claims about different cancers were guessed by different people.
Ukraine got tremendous military help from the USA throughout last year. It's not because more funds had not been appropriated that the already appropriated funds and military assistance wasn't provided.
I am not mixing the years, there were also a counter-offensives in 2024.
Which counter offensives?
Kharkiv and Kursk come to mind.
Kharkiv? That was in 2022, wasn't it? And the incursion into the Kursk province has been a better success than expected. What had you thought it would result with? It became the most important part of the front.for Ukraine. I'd say it is a great success, but how is it a counterattack? And how does that show that something big was promised but failed? What had been promised, to your knowledge?
Russia has been slowly gaining territory back in Kursk. In June 2024, Ukrainian forces began small-scale counterattacks in the Kharkiv region and recaptured a settlement.
How is it a surprise that the Russia has been making gains in the Kursk province? That's been one of the three most important points in making the incursion.
Most importantly, it was needed as an insurance in case that Trump becomes president. It would have been easy for Putin to get Trump into pushing Ukraine into a "ceasefire" where the frontline would turn into a de-facto international border until the Russia is able to restart its invasion. But, if any part of the front runs inside the Russia, it becomes impossible for Putin to accept that. The Kursk incursion turned the very simple and clear-cut deal into one that is difficult to get done. Putin still needs the front to become a border, but he needs to include the exception that Ukraine will hand some of the territory to the Russia, but the Russia won't hand anything to Ukraine. It would have been easy to get Trump to help Putin win if all the front was inside Ukraine. Now it's not.
Then, the second most important reason: even though the Russia is advancing so slowly that the advances have no strategical significance, it is still advancing all the same. And when advancing, the Russia razes all encountered towns to rubble. All the advances the Russia has made in its Kursk province have been away from advancing in Ukraine. It has saved thousands of Ukrainians from suffering that the Russia has been razing its own villages, not Ukraine's villages. And, we've observed that the Russia is much less violent regarding its own villages than with Ukrainian villages. This means, it attacks less with artillery and more with troops. And since Ukraine is primarily not trying to gain/retain land, but destroy as many Russian soldiers and destroy as much of Russia's equipment as possible, this is a wonderful thing. Advancing in Kursk province, the Russia has suffered very much bigger losses than it would have suffered in Ukraine.
And then, the Russia has had to spread its troops more thin. Because the Russia has a bigger problem with availability of troops and equipment than Ukraine does, each extra metre of front causes more difficulty for the Russian armed forces than it causes for those of Ukraine. Even through Ukrainian army has trouble with those as well, the Russia having more problems with the same means that Ukraine gets a relative advantage from making the front longer. The incursion into Russian territory has done that.
As long as Ukraine holds any part of Russian territory anywhere, its campaign for attacking the Russia has been a huge success. Without the Kursk incursion, there would already have been a ceasefire. And that would have meant Ukraine becoming a part of the Russia, sooner or later. Now that won't happen.