Replies

The reality is that both sides are hurting badly, and Russians attacks are down by around 25% so far this year. Russians have not gained significant new ground since 2022.

Even for someone pro-Ukraine, we should not promote sheer nonsense. Russia is in a frontal war with Ukraine and NATO. It changed from a decapitation / blitzkrieg in February 2022, to front-line positional war / trench warfare in April 2022. Russia is in the process of destroying Ukraine's (second) army, removing all productive and war-making power from the whole of Ukraine, and eliminating NATO weapons.

Russia still relies completely on volunteers to fight this war. It has not been forced into conscription. It is not hurting badly

Promoting the lies you have for the purpose of continuing this globalist/EU/neocon inspired slaughter is immoral

The propaganda war is still running hot.

I've often wondered how much Hillary's Uranium One scandal influenced Russia's decision to attack Ukraine. The result is the U.S. owns a lot less uranium, which means less energy security in an era that the left hates on oil and natural gas drilling and coal mining.

A nation's energy security is part of the calculus to a nation's military security. If Russia thinks that the U.S. has less ability/desire to interfere, combined with Russia making some money when their wars increase the price of oil and natural gas, that might be part of Putin's decision to lean a little bit towards invading Ukraine.

Even now, with Trump in office, if we build nuclear power plants we'd have to buy even more uranium from Russia than we're already doing. So if we go full boar on nuclear power, I'm afraid that we'd be in a pickle if Russia decides to hold back on selling us uranium.

PGR88: "Even for someone pro-Ukraine, we should not promote sheer nonsense. "

I'm seeing a lot of sheer nonsense in your post, so where did you get it, if not from the information sewer pipes of the Kremlin's Ministry for Agitation and Propaganda?

PGR88: "Russia is in a frontal war with Ukraine and NATO.
It changed from a decapitation / blitzkrieg in February 2022, to front-line positional war / trench warfare in April 2022."

"WWI style trench war" and "attrition war" are the normal terms.
Maneuver warfare (as opposed to static "frontal warfare") was launched by:

Russians in February 2022
Ukrainians in March (Kiev), August (Kherson) & September (Kharkiv) 2022
Ukrainians in Zaporizhzhia in June 2023
Russians near Kharkiv in May 2024
Ukrainians in Kursk in August 2024.

As for saying NATO is fighting alongside Ukrainians, that's strictly a Russian propaganda point unrelated to facts on the ground.
It's similar to saying that Americans fought against Russians in Korea and Vietnam, rather than against North Korean (+Chinese) and North Vietnamese troops.

PGR88: "Russia is in the process of destroying Ukraine's (second) army, removing all productive and war-making power from the whole of Ukraine, and eliminating NATO weapons."

Ukrainian civilians killed in Bucha, 2022:

The Russians' own battle death-toll is running around three-to-one overall -- and in Russian "meat wave" assaults, up to five-to-one and more -- compared to Ukrainian losses.
Wounded is a different matter, and those numbers typically run three-to-one over KIAs, but "wounded" includes both seriously wounded and lightly wounded -- lightly wounded being able to return to service, at least in some form.

My point is, it's not only Ukrainians who are being attritted in attrition warfare.
Russians are also suffering as much or more, relatively speaking.
Of course, if your information sources are Russian propaganda, you won't know that, right?

On Russia's destruction of Ukraine's infrastructure, there's no doubt it's serious, with over 50% of Ukraine's electric generation and 20% of hospitals hit by Russian attacks, not to mention historical buildings and whole towns reduced to rubble.
However, Ukrainians are good at making rapid repairs and even today, in the cold of winter, Ukrainians still receive over 2/3 of their minimum electricity needs.

Battle of Bakhmut, 2023:

Ukraine's military is a different subject -- it is still roughly 1,000,000 personnel, still adequately equipped & trained and still backed by significant Ukrainian military-industrial capacity.
For examples, in 2024, Ukrainian industry delivered over 1 million air, ground & sea drones, plus 155mm artillery howitzers & ammunition, Neptune & Sapsan missiles.
Overall, Ukraine's military industry is said to supply roughly 30% of Ukraine's needs.
The rest comes from Ukraine's allies.

PGR88: "Russia still relies completely on volunteers to fight this war.
It has not been forced into conscription.
It is not hurting badly"

Of course not, if you believe Russian propaganda.
In reality, Russians have suffered more deaths and wounded than in all its conflicts since 1945 combined, and remember, the Old Soviets abandoned Afghanistan in 1989 after suffering only a small fraction of their losses in Ukraine.

Putin & Solovyov:

As for conscripts, Russians are indeed using conscripts among the 60,000 troops they've deployed in counteroffensives against Ukrainians in Kursk oblast.
As for "volunteers", many Russian troops were "volunteered" as the alternative to lengthy prison sentences for very minor "crimes".

Moscow and St. Petersburg are paying enlistment bonuses that amount to nearly two years of average workers' salaries.
The result is, Russians have been able to replace their average monthly losses in Ukraine.

But so have Ukrainians.

PGR88: "Promoting the lies you have for the purpose of continuing this globalist/EU/neocon inspired slaughter is immoral"

Drinking Russian propaganda Kool-Aid is not only immoral, it's stupidly insane.

"globalist/EU/neocon" is 100% fact-free Russian propaganda talk, straight out of the mouths of Vladimir Solovyov, Olga "Iron Doll" Skabeyeva and Margarita Simonyan.
Simonyan, Solovyov, Skabeyeva, Nordkin:
So, regardless of how much you love your fellow Russians, you people invaded Ukraine and so must suffer the consequences of fierce Ukrainian resistance.
There is no evidence today that even one Ukrainian wants to live under Vlad the Invader's jackboots, or is willing to accept Russian military victory over Ukraine.
The cease-fire that Pres. Trump will negotiate will likely leave Russians still in occupation of Ukrainian territories, but it will also put Ukraine in the EU and EU peacekeeping troops in Ukraine.
Some $350 billion in frozen Russian assets will not be returned to Russia and can be used to help rebuild Ukraine.
It will further increase NATO military spending by hundreds of $ billions per year, thus guaranteeing that Russian empire building ambitions will be thwarted in eastern Europe.
As for your alleged "globalists" and "neocons", those are empty Russian propaganda weapon-words intended only as insults, not as anything factual or meaningful.