Sometimes. 
It IS a good point that the losses on both sides should not be blithely dismissed.
Posted on 06/13/2022 8:05:33 PM PDT by Mariner
ARIS/BERLIN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Is it better to engage with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine or to isolate him? Should Kyiv make concessions to end the war, or would that embolden the Kremlin? Are ramped up sanctions on Russia worth the collateral damage?
These are some of the questions testing the international alliance that swiftly rallied around Ukraine in the days after the Russian invasion but that, three months into the war, is straining, officials and diplomats told Reuters.
As Western governments grapple with spiralling inflation and energy costs, countries including Italy and Hungary have called for a quick ceasefire. That could pave the way for scaled back sanctions and end the blockade of Ukrainian ports that has worsened a food security crisis for the world's poorest.
Yet Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics warn that Russia is not to be trusted and say a ceasefire would enable it to consolidate territorial wins, regroup and launch more attacks down the line.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
They'll finish like drunken whores fighting over a bottle.
The stupid advocates for NATO (I am not one of those) have done great harm...to themselves and to NATO.
Russia is winning decisively on the ground and will take as much of Ukraine as they want. They'll turn over what they take to their militias to keep the peace.
And, they are winning the economic war just as decisively. On this key battlefront the west is at great political risk. NATO "allies" know they need a way out and fast. Hell, EVEN the Biden admin is beginning to realize the enormous political and economic costs they've imposed on the American people.
Russia has won this war in a walk.
idiots abound
“What next? Ukraine’s allies divided over Russia endgame”
Not sure the point of the article. What Ukraine looks like, assuming they even exist as a country, will be TOTALLY up to Russia. My hunch is that the longer the Neocons drag out their war against Russia, the less of a chance they’ll even have a Ukraine remaining...so as to provide them with a launching point for their next war.
Considering the strategic gain, that’s a walk.
Those here trying to tell the rest of us otherwise, as late as several days, have a whole lot of explaining to do.
Why did they believe the Biden regime when it lies about everything else? Did they willingly spread Biden regime propaganda? Are they Deep State or GOP establishment trolls?
Sometimes.
It IS a good point that the losses on both sides should not be blithely dismissed.
Just ask yourself this...
Who in NATO will now advocate for Ukraine joining?
That is completely and indisputably off the table, with universal recognition it will never occur.
That alone is a major strategic win for Russia. Certainly worth their losses.
Who will now take Russia seriously when they state their essential national interests are at stake? Uh....everyone.
And there are more wins coming when the sanctions regime implodes.
and are they aware that the sanctions placed on Russia have failed in that Russia is selling more oil than before at a much higher price and now Biden and the UN are asking the world to buy Russian fertilizer and wheat. Russia is making out and the US and west are suffering. What’s going on???
Africa moves closer to Russia. Neocons push to sanction countries that want to use Rubles
Serbia ignores EU sanctions, secures gas deal with Putin
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4067112/posts
Ten more European gas buyers open ruble accounts for payments
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4063734/posts
Give the Russians credit. They successfully changed tactics and are winning. Despite their fascination and commitment to armor, they stopped frontal attacks with tanks which the new technologies have made costly and ineffective. Yet they remembered that in WW II the majority of soldiers killed were from artillery barrages. They now concentrate on locating Ukrainian positions and pulverize them with concentrated artillery fire and aerial bombardment. The Ukrainians have not been able to direct effect counterfire, nor have they been able to significantly hinder or stop Russian resupply of ammunition. The Ukrainians are underestimating the Russian’s ability to locate Ukrainian concentrations by locating the origin of open and encrypted radio communications and other technologies.
Make no mistake. Putin made a catastrophic mistake invading Ukraine. Despite the money Russia still gets from its sale of oil, gas, coal and grain to world buyers, the progress Putin made in leading Russia out of the destruction of communism has been squandered. Tens of thousands of young Russians have been killed and forever maimed. families have been shattered Russia will never again be viewed as a conventional military juggernaut. It is a strategic reality that Russia will be hard pressed to defend its Siberian treasure house and its rich Far Eastern underpopulated Pacific possessions if China for whatever reason moved against them with serious intent. Russia is more isolated from the rest of Europe more than ever. Any win in Ukraine will be Pyrric.
+1
Moreover, Putin, who had done so much to bring about a revival of Russian Orthodox Christianity will have as his final legacy the launching of a war which was essential Orthodox Christian fratricide.
The Biden administration's soaring rhetoric re the crumbs it's providing to Ukraine is completely unconnected to reality. In 1973, Nixon mounted Operation Nickel Grass. Here's the Wikipedia blurb:
Operation Nickel Grass was a strategic airlift operation conducted by the United States to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Over 32 days, the United States Air Force (USAF) Military Airlift Command (MAC) shipped 22,325 tons of tanks, artillery, ammunition and supplies in C-141 Starlifter and C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft between 14 October and 14 November 1973.[1][2]: 88 The U.S. support helped ensure that the State of Israel survived a coordinated and surprise attack from the Soviet-backed Arab Republic of Egypt and Syrian Arab Republic.[1]
Note that Israel was fighting a bunch of Arabs it had defeated on multiple occasions - in 1948, 1956 and 1967. Here's what the US provided Israel, in the course of a month:
Consequently, at least 100 F-4 Phantom II fighters were sent to Israel under Nickel Grass,[13] coming from the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing, the 33d Tactical Fighter Wing and the 57th Fighter Weapons Wing.[14] They were flown to Lod, where American pilots were swapped for their Israeli counterparts. After the replacement of USAF insignia with IAF insignia if needed, the planes were refueled and ordered to the front, often taking to the air within hours of having arrived. Some aircraft came directly from the USAFE fleet and operated in USAF camouflage,[8] but with Israeli insignia, thus earning the Israeli nickname "Frog". Nine days after the initial attack, Israel launched counterattacks. Thirty-six A-4 Skyhawks from U.S. stocks, staging from Lajes were refueled by SAC KC-135A tankers from Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire and U.S. Navy tankers from the USS John F. Kennedy west of the Straits of Gibraltar. They then flew on to the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt southeast of Sicily where they stayed overnight, then continued on to Israel refueling once more from tankers launched from the USS Independence south of Crete.[15] Twelve C-130E Hercules transports were also transferred to Israel, the first of the type to be delivered to the IAF.[16]
Whereas Ukraine is fighting a Great Power it has *never* defeated in the modern era. My goal here is to cut through the PR flackery and get at the most likely outcome, given the measly Western support hyped up as Lend Lease* that is a tiny fraction of the real thing. At this moment, it's not looking good for Ukraine. Here's what a Ukrainian official had to say about his nation's artillery, of which there were 1500 pieces (as compared to the 100+ being provided by the West) when war broke out:
“This is an artillery war now,” said Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. The frontlines were now where the future would be decided, he told the Guardian, “and we are losing in terms of artillery”.
“Everything now depends on what [the west] gives us,” said Skibitsky. “Ukraine has one artillery piece to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces. Our western partners have given us about 10% of what they have.”
Ukraine is using 5,000 to 6,000 artillery rounds a day, according to Skibitsky. “We have almost used up all of our [artillery] ammunition and are now using 155-calibre Nato standard shells,” he said of the ammunition that is fired from artillery pieces.
They are running out of ammo for their 1500 non-NATO caliber artillery pieces. Unless the West starts providing 152mm shells for those artillery pieces, the deluge, in reverse, is about to begin. 100+ 155mm howitzers are not a substitute for 1500 152mm & up howitzers.
Now, if the administration had immediately started taking F-16's out of mothballs and training the Ukrainians on how to fly and operate them in combat, in even a subdued version of Nickel Grass (call it Nickel Dime), Ukrainians would likely be doing a number on the Russian presence in Ukraine instead of retreating, and taking up to 200 KIA a day.
Up to 200 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed every day in Russia's military onslaught, according to an adviser to Ukraine's president - and only more and more advanced Western weaponry will turn back the Russian offensive, reduce the casualties and force Moscow to the negotiating table.
When Nixon kicked off Nickel Grass, he mentioned no dollar amounts. He simply provided large amounts of late model weaponry. This administration keeps talking dollars that sound misleadingly large because it is sending minimal amounts of equipment. The idea that we can send Ukraine less equipment than we sent Israel to defeat its Arab neighbors is simply absurd. Ukraine is less competent than the Israelis. The Russians are more competent than the Arabs.
* Lend Lease was a thing of wonder. The only connection between the current aid to Ukraine and Lend Lease is the destination - Uncle Sam is once again sending aid to Eastern Europe. If even 1,000 tanks had been dispatched to Ukraine, the Russians would be cooling their heels over the border in Russia proper. Over 4 years during WWII, the US provided the following items to the Russians:
People talk about blowback in Afghanistan. WWII US aid to the Russians not only helped the Russians win - it literally kept them alive. The Russians repaid that aid by sending copious amounts of equipment to North Korea and North Vietnam, helping to kill a cumulative 100,000 GI's.
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin raised a toast to the Lend-Lease program at the November 1943 Tehran conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.
"I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war," Stalin said. "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war."
Nikita Khrushchev offered the same opinion.
"If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me."
The big battle will be for Odessa.
Apparently, there are 54 European companies that are customers of Gazprom. Short list of nine? that aren't a-gonna pay them rubles. They got cut off.
[Give the Russians credit. They successfully changed tactics and are winning. ]
As I pointed out earlier - Burisma = Putin. Vladimir the Greater has Biden by the short and curlies.
Biden has slow-walked aid to Ukraine since day one. Before Trump the Dems scene non-lethal aid like MREs and helmets. As usual the dems have no energy and initiative in anything.
The so called AID was never meant to go to Ukraine it was ALWAYS meant to line their pockets to be laundered into their offshore accounts!! BANK ON IT!!
You sound so happy.
Don’t blame Ukraine for American corruption. Ukrainians have proven they can fight. The Russians have proven that they raise their hammer and sickle over conquered towns and steal everything.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.