The war did not begin in 2022. It started in 2014 with the US/EU supported coup of the duly elected government of Ukraine. This spawned the separatist movement in the Donbass and the first Russian invasion (unopposed) that resulted in the annexation of Crimea. This happened under Obama/Biden and his national security tram of Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan, and Powers. This same group of fools and knaves led by a compromised "elected" President Biden provoked a second Russian invasion by ignoring a Russian red line first announced by Putin in 2008 that Ukraine would not be allowed to become a NATO member.
Here is the chronology of how we got involved in Ukraine starting in 1990.
By my definitions, Vlad the Invader lost his war on Ukraine in March of 2022 and ever since has only been trying to run up his own Russian body counts high enough to make the war worthy of an ignoble defeat. Russians have regained nothing of significance since their decisive defeats in 2022.
Now, in 2024, Russians have nearly doubled their average daily losses in both men and materials -- from circa 800 per day in January-February to over 1,500 per day in October-November. And for almost no gains in territory.
Simply not true. Russia has made significant gains in territory since the second invasion in 2022. They are rebuilding Mariupol.
Re Russian losses: The first casualty of war is the truth. What is your source for Russian losses? How many casualties has Ukraine suffered? We are being lied to by the USG and the Ukrainians. It is part of the propaganda spewed in every war by adversaries. Inflate the losses of the enemy and minimize your own. How many times have we been told that Ukraine was winning the war or that it is now a stalemate.
BBC: Ukraine front could 'collapse' as Russia gains accelerate, experts warn
President Biden’s decision to provide anti-personnel mines to Ukraine, and allow the use of long-range missiles on Russian territory comes as the Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line.
Data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) shows that Russia has gained almost six times as much territory in 2024 as it did in 2023, and is advancing towards key Ukrainian logistical hubs in the eastern Donbas region.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region is faltering. Russian troops have pushed Kyiv's offensive backwards. Experts have questioned the success of the offensive, with one calling it a "strategic catastrophe" given manpower shortages faced by Ukraine.
That may or may not be true. Nobody today even knows what negotiations will take place or how they will turn out. I fear they will not prove as quick and easy as Pres. Trump hopes for.
It may not be quick or easy given Biden's attempts to Trump-proof the war, but Trump will hold the veto pen when it comes to additional funding for Ukraine and as CIC, the clandestine US participation in the war will be curtailed. Trump has the leverage over Zelensky. Support for the war in Europe and Ukraine has declined significantly. Zelensky will lose if he reopens the election process.
Most of that is pure nonsense. In fact, funding for Ukraine's war comes from roughly as follows:
33% from Ukraine itself
25% from the USA
25% from other NATO allies
17% from non-NATO allies (i.e., Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc.) and NGOs.
LOL. Where is Ukraine coming up with the money to finance 33% of the costs of the war? Its economy is in shambles.
CBS: In Ukraine, U.S. tax dollars are funding more than just military aid We are funding small businesses, 57,000 first responders, seeds and fertilizer for Ukrainian farmers, etc. The war has also impacted Ukraine's financial standing, with the country's economy contracting by an estimated 31% last year, according to the United States Agency for International Development.
To date, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has obligated $22.9 billion of the appropriated funding for direct financial support for the Government of Ukraine's (GOU's) central budget.
The share that the US is paying for the war has been intentionally understated and the European portion exaggerated including pledges of aid that don't materialize. The Kiel Institute has been the locus for much of this misinformation.
So, even if the US withdraws all support for Ukraine, while other allies increase their support by 25% each, then Ukraine could still carry on at roughly the current levels.
Nonsense. The US provides most of the military aid and intelligence. Without US support, Ukraine is dead.
It would not be ideal for Ukraine, but it would also not be the end of Ukrainian resistance either.
The Ukrainian people don't have a suicide wish. Millions have fled the country rather than serve. Corruption is rife as the oligarchs get rich. 80% of the electricity has been cut with winter coming on. How long do we allow this proxy war to continue? If we truly cared about the Ukrainian people, we would have thrown the towel in a long time ago.
kabar:
"The war did not begin in 2022." Of course, but the current phase did, and Russians have not made significant territorial gains since their defeats & retreats in the spring of 2022.
kabar: "It started in 2014 with the US/EU supported coup of the duly elected government of Ukraine.
This spawned the separatist movement in the Donbass and the first Russian invasion (unopposed) that resulted in the annexation of Crimea. "
Sure, that is the standard Kremlin propaganda and it has no connections to anything factual or truthful.
It's all lies.
The truth is, there was no "coup", period, so all that talk is pure nonsense. Instead:
December 2013 Sen. McCain addressed
circa 800,000 Ukraine protestors in Maidan Square, Kiev:
- Historically, in 2004 (Orange Revolution) and again in 2008 (Euro-Maidan Revolution), the US supported Ukraine's democratic movements against corrupt Russian efforts to suppress Ukraine and prevent closer ties with the European Union.
Nothing the US did was illegal or unethical while everything Russians did was both. - In 2004, Ukraine's Supreme Court ruled that the election of Putin's Stooge-traitor Yanukovych as president was corrupt and invalid.
It ordered a new election in which Yanukovych was defeated. - Then in 2010, Putin's stooge-traitor Yanukovych was again elected and then immediately began prosecuting his political opponents.
Yanukovych had run again in 2010, this time pledging closer ties with the EU, but when the time came in 2013, he reneged on his promises and turned instead towards Russia. - In 2013, Yanukovych's betrayals (not the CIA!) sparked the Euro-Maidan protests, in which hundreds of thousands of entirely peaceful demonstrators were addressed by US & other political figures such as Sen. John McCain, in December 2013.
Vlad the Invader's Little Green Men in Ukraine, 2014:
- On January 22, 2014 Yanukovych's goons began shooting protestors and at least five died.
Over the following month a hundred more died at the hands for Yanukovych's Moscow supported goons. - On February 20, foreign ministers from France, Germany and Poland arrived in Kiev and,
on February 21, Pres. Yanukovych signed an agreement for interim government, constitutional reforms and new elections. - That evening, Yanukovych fled to Moscow, along with other leader from his Party of Regions.
There he invited Vlad the Invader to invade his own country! - On February 22, Ukraine's Parliament voted 328 to zero to remove Yanukovych from the office he had already abandoned.
Sure, Russian propaganda calls that a "coup", but the facts are that Parliament's actions were entirely constitutional, Yanukovych was a traitor and the CIA had nothing to do with it.
Also, there was no "separatist movement", or "civil war" until after Vlad the Invader's forces took over Crimea and parts of the Donbas, beginning in March 2014.
So, it was always just a Russian invasion, never a home-grown rebellion against Ukraine.
kabar: "Here is the chronology of how we got involved in Ukraine starting in 1990."
I read the whole thing -- do you even know who you're quoting here??
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a pro-Russian Left Wing radical Columbia University professor of environmental studies and climate change activism.
For years Sachs lived in Russia and is highly sympathetic to official Russian propaganda.
His version of historical events is always one-sided and often inaccurate.
When Sachs appears on TV news, it's on MSNBC, CNN and BBC!
Since when did Free Republic begin taking radical Democrats as authorities on anything?
kabar: "This same group of fools and knaves led by a compromised "elected" President Biden provoked a second Russian invasion by ignoring a Russian red line first announced by Putin in 2008 that Ukraine would not be allowed to become a NATO member."
It was Biden's weakness on display in Afghanistan which provoked Vlad the Invader's SMO, period.
NATO Membership: historically, during the 1990s both Russia and Ukraine became NATO Partners for Peace, conducted joint military operations and exercises with NATO and were invited to join NATO, though without specific dates ever set.
In 2002 Putin himself addressed a NATO summit meeting and expressed no problems with Ukraine joining NATO.
Over the years since, Putin's attitudes changed towards hostility to NATO and against Ukraine's membership.
But Ukrainians themselves were uninterested in joining NATO, until Vlad began invading Ukraine in 2014.
Then Ukraine's attitudes changed sharply towards NATO.
In 2021, Ukraine still had no firm plans to join NATO, but regardless, Vlad the Invader began ramping up his propaganda war on Ukraine, and issuing ultimatums to NATO and the US.
And, of course, the real cause of those demands was the gross incompetence and weakness on display in the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, not any imaginary threats to Russia.
kabar: "Simply not true.
Russia has made significant gains in territory since the second invasion in 2022.
They are rebuilding Mariupol."
Mariupol Children's hospital bombed by Russians, March 2022:
What's true is that Russian invasion forces made significant progress in February and March of 2022, but then suffered serious reverses, giving up about half the territory they previously conquered.
Since taking all of Mariupol in May 2022, Russians have made no major new gains, though they have suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties taking small stretches of land and towns.
As for Russian construction in Mariupol, it's done nothing to support the Ukrainian people of Mariupol.
Instead, Russians plan to move 300,000 Russian citizens into Mariupol, to replace the 300,000 Ukrainian civilians that Russians killed or drove out of their city.
kabar: "Re Russian losses: The first casualty of war is the truth.
What is your source for Russian losses? How many casualties has Ukraine suffered?
We are being lied to by the USG and the Ukrainians.
It is part of the propaganda spewed in every war by adversaries.
Inflate the losses of the enemy and minimize your own.
How many times have we been told that Ukraine was winning the war or that it is now a stalemate."
By some definitions, Ukraine "wins" every day Russians can't defeat them, so yes, every day you see a report from Ukraine, it shows them "winning".
As for estimated casualty levels, there are many different sources, and they all roughly agree, except, of course with anything from the Kremlin's Ministry for Agitation and Propaganda.
Ukraine publishes daily and cumulative estimates, while others attempt to summarize different sources weeks, or months, later and so show numbers as of previous time periods.
They all show over 500,000 Russian casualties, and most show over 700,000.
Ukrainians claim their own casualties are only 1/3 or even 1/6 Russia's.
Russians claim Ukraine losses are the same as Russia's -- about 700,000 total.
Other estimates are somewhere between, including some that support the "1/3 to 1/6 of Russian losses".
The lower numbers for Ukrainian losses make better sense when Ukraine fights defensively in fixed positions against "Crazy Ivan" "meat wave" assaults.
kabar: "Data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) shows that Russia has gained almost six times as much territory in 2024 as it did in 2023, and is advancing towards key Ukrainian logistical hubs in the eastern Donbas region."
Regardless, the numbers for Russian advances are still very small -- a few hundred square miles at most, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties.
Total Russian gains in 2024 roughly match those of Ukraine in Russia's Kursk Oblast in August.
kabar: "Meanwhile, Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region is faltering.
Russian troops have pushed Kyiv's offensive backwards.
Experts have questioned the success of the offensive, with one calling it a "strategic catastrophe" given manpower shortages faced by Ukraine."
Those are matters of opinion.
What's certain is that Kursk has drawn Russian forces off their lines in the Donbas, reducing Russian attacks there.
It is also known that Ukrainians have prepared extensive fortified defensive positions in Kursk and are giving ground only slowly and at great cost to Russian and now also NoKo forces.
kabar: "It may not be quick or easy given Biden's attempts to Trump-proof the war, but Trump will hold the veto pen when it comes to additional funding for Ukraine and as CIC, the clandestine US participation in the war will be curtailed.
Trump has the leverage over Zelensky.
Support for the war in Europe and Ukraine has declined significantly."
We don't know what approach Pres. Trump will take in negotiations, so your guesses are as good as mine there.
What's certain is that Ukraine is unlikely to ever agree to terms that betray the cost and sacrifices Ukrainians have made in their war for independence from Russia.
It also highly likely that, if Pres. Trump withdraws US support from Ukraine, then Europeans and others will step up to fill in the gaps, just enough to keep Ukraine in the fight and not force a disgraceful "peace" on them.
kabar: "Zelensky will lose if he reopens the election process."
Again, that is your opinion, but the most recent Ukraine polls still show Zelensky in the 80% approval range.
Yes, when elections are finally held, Zelensky might well be defeated, as was Winston Churchill in 1945, at the end of WWII.
Since their independence in 1991, Ukrainians have held seven presidential elections (about every five years), electing six different presidents -- only one was ever reelected, Kuchma in 1999.
So, there is ample precedent to say that even very popular wartime leaders can be defeated for reelection once the peace is won.
kabar: "LOL. Where is Ukraine coming up with the money to finance 33% of the costs of the war?
Its economy is in shambles."
Ukraine's economy was only ever about 10% the size of Russia's and that is still the case, but Ukraine has now devoted roughly 40% of its economy to its war for independence from Russia -- the same level of war-time economy the US reached during World War II.
So, 40% of Ukraine's economy devoted to the war provides about 1/3 of all the war's funding.
The remainder is divided up roughly as I showed.
kabar: "We are funding small businesses, 57,000 first responders, seeds and fertilizer for Ukrainian farmers, etc.
The war has also impacted Ukraine's financial standing, with the country's economy contracting by an estimated 31% last year, according to the United States Agency for International Development."
Only about half of US Ukraine aid is direct military support.
The other half has been humanitarian, reconstruction & financial aid.
Recently Ukraine's Pres. Zelensky reported to NATO leaders that as of now he needs more ammunition, not more money.
kabar: "The share that the US is paying for the war has been intentionally understated and the European portion exaggerated including pledges of aid that don't materialize.
The Kiel Institute has been the locus for much of this misinformation."
I'd agree that most, if not all, the numbers are suspect.
To cite just one example -- if Poland or Slovakia fixes up an old Soviet T-72 tank and sends it to Ukraine, how much is that really worth?
On the books, maybe $4 million but, in reality, next to nothing, even though Ukrainians will doubtless put it to good use.
Many of the Ukraine aid numbers are like that.
Regardless, they do show some commitment, and certainly do help Ukraine's war efforts.
kabar: "The Ukrainian people don't have a suicide wish.
Millions have fled the country rather than serve.
Corruption is rife as the oligarchs get rich.
80% of the electricity has been cut with winter coming on.
How long do we allow this proxy war to continue?
If we truly cared about the Ukrainian people, we would have thrown the towel in a long time ago."
Oh, how quickly you forget!
The Biden administration did "throw in the towel" -- in the beginning, in February 2022, just as they had in Afghanistan in August 2021.
Biden was all set provide Zelensky transportation out of Ukraine, to which Zelensky famously responded: "I need ammunition, not a ride".
So, Biden decided to support Ukraine (weakly), "for as long as it takes", which means -- in Democrat-hive-think -- until Democrats could figure out a way to blame Republicans for Ukraine's loss.
And that's where we are today.
As for Ukrainians' willingness to keep on fighting -- so far at least, they've stood strong, bolstered by the certain knowledge that this is Ukraine's one, and perhaps only, opportunity to establish a truly independent Ukraine, free of Russian domination and corruptions.
Finally, we can remember that it's been less than three years since Vlad the Invader's February 2022 SMO began.
By comparison: the US Revolutionary War lasted seven years (1775-1781), was only won due to massive aid from several European powers, then took another two years of negotiations in Paris and was even followed 30 years later by a second war with Great Britain (War of 1812), in which the Brits burned down Washington, DC!
Total US casualties in our Revolutionary War were, relative to our population then, the equivalent of 3 million Ukrainians today.
So, independence is not always so quick and easy to win.
1781 Battle of the Chesapeake, French Navy defeated Brits,
Americans won independence:
