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Posted on 02/17/2026 9:43:31 AM PST by Grzegorz 246
Ukrainian forces managed to liberate over 200 square kilometers of territory from the Russian troops last week, marking their most successful breakthrough in 2.5 years, AFP reports.
According to the outlet, these gains are confirmed by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Between February 11 and 15, Ukrainian troops recaptured 201 square kilometers from Russian forces.
AFP reports that Ukrainian soldiers took advantage of disruptions in Russian access to Starlink terminals.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsukraine.rbc.ua ...
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In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Ukraine achieves fastest battlefield progress in 2.5 years, AFP reports, Texas Eagle wrote: According to the outlet, these gains are confirmed by the Institute for the Study of War Ah, yes. The old Institute for the Study of War. Ehhhhhh, just one question, Chief. What is The Institute for the Study of War?
Like many such 'outlets', the ISW claims to be non-partisan. Yet, the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times etc. do publish her work, which I suspect means she writes content of which they approve. Of course, those news outlets hate President Trump.
Grok's analysis of opinion of the website on Reddit, Social Media etc. is neo conservative war hawk, and they are partially funded by military contractors.
"Overall, while ISW maintains a non-partisan facade, the prevailing online critique—especially from left-leaning and anti-interventionist voices—frames it as neoconservative with a pro-military bias, substantiated by its leadership, funding, and policy advocacy."
From the Institute's website: "David Petraeus, then the Commanding General in Iraq, was an early consumer of ISW’s Iraq Reports. He invited Kim to Baghdad to advise him along with General (Ret.) Keane, now the Chairman of ISW’s Board, who played a critical role in Washington in shaping the new counter-insurgency strategy that General Petraeus would implement. "
Below, an excerpt of the bio for the founder and head of the organization.
https://understandingwar.org/people/kimberly-kagan/
Dr. Kagan is a military historian who has taught at the US Military Academy at West Point, Yale, Georgetown, and American University. She is the author of The Eye of Command (2006) and The Surge: A Military History (2009), and editor of The Imperial Moment (2010). She has published in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Weekly Standard, and Foreign Policy. She co-produced The Surge: The Whole Story, an hour-long oral history and documentary film on the campaign in Iraq from 2007 to 2008. She co-founded and co-teaches the Hertog War Studies Program at ISW, a highly selective, intensive, longitudinal educational program for undergraduates.
Dr. Kagan is an expert on the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She served in Kabul for seventeen months from 2010 to 2012 assisting commanders of the International Security Assistance Force, General David H. Petraeus, and subsequently General John Allen. Admiral Mike Mullen, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recognized Dr. Kagan for this deployment as a civilian volunteer with the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest honor the Chairman can present to civilians who do not work for the Department of Defense.
Dr. Kagan had previously served as a member of General Stanley McChrystal’s strategic assessment team in Kabul during his campaign review in June and July 2009. She served on the Academic Advisory Board of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Center of Excellence at USCENTCOM.
In Iraq, Dr. Kagan conducted many regular battlefield circulations between May 2007 and April 2010 while General Petraeus and his successor General Raymond T. Odierno served as Commanding General, Multi-National Force Iraq (MNF-I). She participated formally on the Joint Campaign Plan Assessment Team for MNFI – US Mission- Iraq in October 2008 and October 2009, and as part of the Civilian Advisory Team for the CENTCOM strategic review in January 2009.
Never-Trumper, neocon filth Bill “Scumbag” Kristol’s on the Board of ISW. Victoria Nuland’s married to Kagan’s son. Ugh.
Ukraine hurry up and accept peace terms before Russia loses its willingness to settle.
—
Russia still maintains that the only settlement they will accept are the terms they put forth in 2022 - total capitulation.
In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Ukraine achieves fastest battlefield progress in 2.5 years, AFP reports, Rocco DiPippo wrote: Never-Trumper, neocon filth Bill “Scumbag” Kristol’s on the Board of ISW. Victoria Nuland’s married to Kagan’s son. Ugh.
Thank you for the reminder. I suspected Kagan was a known propagandist, but I couldn't remember where I'd read her name before.
Here are some sources of funding according to GROK. I've seen these names on sites studying child trafficking, globalist agendas and war mongers- YMMV.
Key funding details include:
- Corporate sponsors: ISW acknowledges support from corporations, particularly U.S. military contractors such as General Dynamics, Raytheon (now part of RTX), CACI, and DynCorp (now Amentum). These provide general operating support and sponsor events/educational programs.
- Foundations and philanthropic vehicles: Grants have come through donor-advised funds and trusts, such as Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program ($1.376 million in FY2023), Schwab Charitable Fund ($533,140 in FY2024), and National Philanthropic Trust ($401,000 in FY2023). These often facilitate anonymous or aggregated private donations.
Confirms my suspicions. Putin wants time to recover so he talks peace while he reloads. And those who yield to him enables him.
I have slowly realized that Trump is caught in a dilemma: How to not let Russia succeed while simultaneously booting the European arse into defending itself. Those are hard goals to balance.
Casualties, shamulties, scamulties.
Since Ukraine is losing by every measurable REAL metric, we retreat into the realm of make belief casualties like in Vietnam: https://youtu.be/jeKQvfnrFGw?si=DoT_T2CAd7VRruVc
The problem with that is Ukraine has nearly the same casualties, despite us avoiding that subject, AND Russia with 3.5 TIMES the population can absorb those casualties while Ukraine cannot.
Ukraine’s true casualties can be guestimated. Casualty notification of family, a burial, and the local papers are still happening. What you have is a blackout of those numbers at the national level where they are aggregated for Ukraine, while you get hyper inflated numbers not even remotely realistic for the Russians in our entirely factual and non-propagandist media which is willing to play along with the Ukraine. These stories are intended to keep up morale.
There are websites which aggregate these numbers for you: https://ualosses.org/
Since all these casualties can be looked up and you can find the names listed elsewhere as casualties, it makes it fairly believable.
BUT the true casualties are far worse, since these numbers are the KIA and MIA, not the WIA which almost always are far higher in a bigger conflict like this. In Ukraine you’re looking at about 5:1 WIA (serious injury which takes you out of the fight) for every KIA (based on CSIS). They likely are basing this off historical data they tweak and generally higher than this. Considering some of the issues plaguing both sides in this conflict (casualty evac can be difficult in the era of drones and massive proliferation of MANPADS etc.) as well as access to high level medical care.
If you look at the Newsweek leaks you realize Russian casualties were about 1/3 - 1/2 what were being reported in our media at the time for Russia, and the leaked documents were the information which our government actually believed to be true at the time: https://www.newsweek.com/2023/05/05/read-leaked-secret-intelligence-documents-ukraine-vladimir-putin-1794656.html
In 2023 Russia was likely in the ballpark of 2:1 to Ukraine’s favor, which is far from the 3.5 needed just to break even. However, since then, Russia has backed off with the big offensive campaigns since they have largely achieved their goals 1.) Seize the more ethnic Russian areas of East Ukraine. 2.) Block NATO accession by Ukraine.
It was NEVER a war of complete destruction or to take over all of Ukraine, nor invade NATO countries, and that was clearly stated by Putin, Lavrov, etc. That’s something our side made up to stir up fear, show we succeeded in some way, etc. We may as well claim we won because Russia hasn’t taken Paris.
It has been Ukraine that went on a casualty heavy offensive which failed 23-24, while Russia adapted its tactics and fielded new equipment which counters the effectiveness of some of our high tech toys, example Excalibur.
If anything, it is most likely that the casualty ratio has narrowed!
You can make up your own goal posts, move them, or throw around make belief figures to feel good...
Meanwhile, Ukraine is running down kids in the streets because they are scraping the bottom, changing their conscription laws twice, and Russia is relying overwhelmingly on contract soldiers and implemented a troop rotation schedule a good year before Ukraine did (hint: these are fairly solid indicators on who is actually more hard up).
A good imagination is healthy, but it can also make you believe things which aren’t so.
Europe is flipping roughly 2/3rds of the bill for this war so far. They spent about the same as we did from day one and under Trump they became the primary.
https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/35554.jpeg
They are dealing with the majority of the refugees. We in fact took on very little of them!
They have supplied much of the military hardware, from day one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukraine_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war (look at the listing of hardware)
They will deal with the bulk of the post war clean up and economic rebuilding.
They are the ones from where the bulk of mercenaries and their casualties (volunteers from the West) come from:
https://strategic-culture.su/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/inf181_kia-01-scaled.jpg (2 years old, the numbers are vastly higher today).
What are you talking about?
red6 “It was NEVER a war of complete destruction or to take over all of Ukraine”
That is incorrect. Putin prior to 2021 has always been repeating that he doesn’t see the other East slavic states as “valid entities” separate from Muscowy.
He wants them absorbed - the same “gathering of the Rus” project that Ivan III started. The Muscowites then expanded that to “gathering of the Eastern Orthodox” and “gathering of the Slavs”
The aim in Feb 2022 was to behead Ukraine and swallow it whole.
Muscowy has partially got what it wanted in Bialorus with the “Union state” - look it up - and wanted the same in Red Rus (Ukraine).
As an ever expanding state, it has to constantly look for expansion otherwise it collapses.
I should also add, that it’s the Euro’s that are far more threatened and impacted by this war than we are, both in security and economically.
The idea that Europe isn’t carrying any weight or contributing their share is simply put another cliche, no differently than the Cold War feelings some try to conjure up to pretend like the Russians are this huge threat.
Have the Euro’s carried their weight in the past? No. Have they been the most reliable allies we can depend on? No. They historically were quick to call NATO (the US) into action (say the Balkans and conflict with Serbia) but then slow to come to help, post 9-11 in any tangible way (i.e. military).
They won’t want to see that about themselves, but they really have been moochers (historically, post Cold War) that want the security provided, but not stick their necks on the block (bleed) or pay for our collective security.
But claiming they aren’t contributing with Ukraine, is simply factually inaccurate. With Ukraine they have been contributing from day one and in many aspects carry more than we do.
It's four years into this war on their doorstep and if the Ukraine war ends, several hundred thousand Russian troops will be in western Belarus and across the river from Estonia. The Suwalki gap is something like 60 miles and Estonia is less than 250 miles wide. The Baltics and Poland do not have Ukraine's depth to cede territory while responding. Yet four years in, there's no comprehensive European build up or plan to correspond to the threat, although Poland and the Scandinavians have taken significant steps.
As you said, this is primarily a European problem for which they have the means to respond, but not the will or organization: they're still looking to the US for guidance and counting on US to be there first should SHTF.
Their support for Ukraine is laudable, but overall it's a failing strategy even in the near term. All these plans and pledges so far are just talk: the West Germans refused to cough up more than 1% of GDP even for East German integration, and I think a solid plurality of Germans would sign a new von Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement with Russia and give the whole Warsaw Pact back to Russia tomorrow if they could.
As I said in another post, Trump faces the dilemma of forcing Europe to be ready to defend itself first, with the US only as backup, while not allowing Russia a clear-cut victory in Ukraine. The major powers (UK, France and Germany) all seem fantastically recalcitrant to admit this reality, at least in terms of real defense buildup and planning. There's lots of talk, but little being done concretely. The French, for example, are using the EU/US rift to push the Europeans to buy French weaponry, but are refusing to share tech and production, so Germany just backed out of its joint fighter development program with France. Europe's real problem is political weakness and there is as of now no real political framework to fix that.
It took them 3.5 months to move the forces into place for this invasion and call up reserves: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/01/satellite-russia-ukraine-military-518337 (It was written about extensively)
Ukraine even had EU membership in reach before this war.
You're taking a statement out of context, or not really meant nor realistic, and running with it.
Russia was OK with Ukraine (not happy) and tolerated OUR BULLSHIT (sponsoring coups, building 12 CIA bases, etc.) until we decided to make Ukraine a military proxy officially and bring them into a military alliance. That is unacceptable for us as it's unacceptable for the Russians.
This is what you're really saying: We the big and always right USA are allowed to defend our sphere of interest: Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Greenland, Mexico. We will build up military forces on their borders and shore, coerce and threaten neighbors, invade nations and bomb the crap out of them, kidnap their leaders and put them before a kangaroo court... But Russia has no such right if the world's most powerful nation, and the world's most powerful military alliance, wants to build any number of bases, station any number of troops, types of equipment (to include nukes, missile defense and hyper sonic missiles) and numbers thereof, conducting any sort of missions, for any duration of time, without any sort of inspections or oversight on their border.
You are unrealistic.
What we did in October 2021 was likely precipitated by the idea that Russia is seen as weak and no longer a conventional near peer by our policy makers, that we believed Russia is not willing to pay the price to stop us.
We basically crawled over the fence into someone's backyard, took a $hit, and then when they came on the porch yelling at us, gave them the middle finger. Finally, we pretended to be surprised and outraged (unprovoked war of aggression nonsense) that they came into the yard with an axe handle wanting to hand out a beating/clubbing.
In fact, what we did, was so outrageous, so ridiculous and over the top, that you should be asking yourself if we didn't do this intentionally? Specifically, cause a war so that we can gobble up the Russian oversea possessions more easily. We have been going after them for YEARS: Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2014, Venezuela starting long long before 2026. If we intentionally cause a war in Ukraine, Russia gets depleted and their resources (military and especially their special forces, intel, logistics, mercenaries, law enforcement/security) are diverted as this will become their highest priority.
You will have the Euro's flipping 1/2 the bill, the Ukraine doing all the bleeding, and we stand to benefit in EVERY way! Europe moves away from Russian oil and gas, meaning they use more of ours (or from areas where we have control such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar...). Russia becomes weaker on the world stage and has a hard time holding onto their oil and gas producing possessions we have been eyeballing for years. Our war industry is happy.
Think about it, for us it was a "win-win." If Russia acquiesces and lets NATO in, we win, huge. We now have a proxy on Russia's border with a vehemently anti-Russian junta we installed which we can leverage against Russia at will. Russia is at that point no longer a world power. If they go to war to stop us, we also win, as they become weaker on the world stage and we gobble up more of what once was under them and shore up control in those areas which are still contested like Libya. This is the game of Risk and it is us that is the most powerful player on the board, that is making the first moves they react to, squeezing Russia, not them threatening us (they do not even have that ability realistically).
“The Russians didn’t even have a military force CAPABLE of threatening Ukraine....” in 2021
—> that is incorrect - Russia absolutely HAD the forces to crush Ukraine pre-2022. It had 900K active troops vs Ukraine’s 196K and vastly more armor/aircraft.
The politico article you linked from Nov 2022 actually describes a NEW buildup starting lat Sep 2021 involving elite Ruski units like the 1st guards tank army. Thsi was a deliberate escalation, not weakness.
By Dec 2021, over 100K Russki troops were massed and the full invasion force was ready by Feb 2022 after months of preparation. This was strategic positioning for a quick strike and win.
“when we decided to bring Ukraine into NATO.”
What are you talking about? The USA didn’t “decide” to do this - Ukraine begged to be let in, but France and Germany rejected.
And in 2021, there was no question of them even raising a request, leave alone it being accepted.
No invitation of Membership action plan was issued in the year before FEb 2022.
ukraine only applied in september 2022 AFTER the invasion.
“Ukraine even had EU membership in reach before the war”
huh?? EU membership was far, far away - they were at least a decade away from fulfilling the criteria
“Tolerated our bullshit like coups anc CIA bases”
The 2014 Maidan wasn’t a US sponsored coup - on the contrary the US state department as caught completely off guard. Claims of US orchestration are Muscowite propaganda with no evidence.
As to CIA bases - no proof has been provided by Moscow even AFTER they conquered 26% of Ukraine in March 2022
OK,
Maybe we should not have started that game and sponsored a whole series of attacks across Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Vladlen_Tatarsky (~2023 we started this game)
Who do you think took out the Nord Stream pipeline already in 2022?
We were the ones that kept escalating the conflict as Ukraine began losing and the window of salvaging things closed.
Ukraine doesn’t do anything without us checking off on it. We control that place at the top level and it was our side which began a series of terror attacks in Russia (of course we deny it all).
Coincidentally the culprits caught on several instances had communicated with Ukrainian officials, were trying to escape to Ukraine, and somehow magically would have been able to conduct a “passage of lines” in what is an active battlefield with drones, mines, snipers... Our side were the ones to send long range missiles (example: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/63539) to Ukraine so they could hit deep into Russia. We were the ones that kept sending weapons systems of greater lethality and range to Ukraine (even bragged out this in case you forgot about it) in the hopes of turning things around as Ukraine began stalling. Now you’re shocked that a Russian drone might be in Poland or that the Russians do sabotage missions in Europe?
Are they hitting us back? Of course they are: https://kyivindependent.com/russian-saboteurs-likely-behind-arson-attack-on-german-factory-security-officials-tell-wsj/
He who controls the money, the intel, the weapons has the say in such a conflict. What Ukraine does, like a child in a store breaking $hit, becomes “our” (the parent) problem/fault and Ukraine started playing with outright terrorism already in 2022, while we at a minimum knew and went along with it. Starting 2024 we started sending longer range weapons to Ukraine so they could strike deep into Russia, and you expect the Russians to not retaliate?
Russia has troops along the Finish border, along the Baltic states borders, in Syria, Libya, Armenia, Belarus, Chechnya, they used to have folks in Venezuela, strategic forces that can’t really deploy (nuclear forces etc), and like us cannot surge all their people to one place in the spotlight that day.
You are wrong.
Had Russia been able to invade earlier after our ill advised NATO expansion move, they surely would have. Every day they wait meant we were pumping Ukraine up even more.
Russia FACTUALLY didn’t invade for 3.5 months because that is how long it took them to move the forces into position and call up reserves to be able to invade Ukraine. They did not have the ABILITY to invade prior to that.
You first wrote “The Russians didn’t even have a military force CAPABLE of threatening Ukraine....” in 2021
now you write “Russia has troops along the Finish border, along the Baltic states borders, in Syria, Libya, Armenia, Belarus, Chechnya, they used to have folks in Venezuela, strategic forces that can’t really deploy (nuclear forces etc), and like us cannot surge all their people to one place in the spotlight that day.”
They shifted troops to the border with Ukraine in 2021 - with nearly 200K troops by Feb 2022
“Had Russia been able to invade earlier after our ill advised NATO expansion move, they surely would have”
What “NATO expansion move”?
You don’t seem to get it - the Baltic states, Poland, Bulgaria etc. all begged NATO to join, they fulfilled criteria to join and they requested to join. Their requests had to be unanimously accepted by the members of the club.
There was no drive “let’s get these guys in”
“Every day they wait meant we were pumping Ukraine up more”
That flies in the face of the fact that
1. Germany and France had not changed their minds about keeping Ukraine out and continuing to get cheap gas from Russia
2. Biden withdrew American diplomats etc. well in advance
Ukraine was preparing itself for a war of defense along the Donbas as Russia had invaded in 2014 - did you forget that?
“Russia FACTUALLY didn’t invade for 3.5 months because that is how long it took them to move the forces into position and call up reserves to be able to invade Ukraine. They did not have the ABILITY to invade prior to that.”
That makes no sense - they didn’t invade because they were waiting for winter to end and for Biden to abandon Ukraine
It does not matter if they begged to join NATO as you claim.
Cuba begged for Russian missiles too.
Venezuela wanted Hugo Chavez and to be aligned with Russia and China, not us.
Panama wanted to have a Chinese firm operate the Panama canal.
All the big powers have a “sphere of influence,” that extends into a military realm (Nations like Germany or even Switzerland also have a sphere of influence but it is economic, political and cultural).
Ironically as we tear open our flap and claim Russia has no right to a sphere of influence (your argument and that made by others) OURS/the US is the biggest of them all, covering all of the Caribbean, Central and South America (the Monroe Doctrine is basically still in effect even though we don’t state such), Western and Central Europe, most the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim.
In fact, it is the US that has invaded more nations, bombed more nations, spends more on war, has sponsored more coups, exports the most weapons, has more troops outside it’s borders, is based in more countries, has the largest mercenary force (shadow military), was the only one to ever use a nuke on someone, has conducted the most nuclear tests to include in outer space, has the largest war industry in terms of people employed... But sure, Russia, Russia, Russia. If we use your reasoning of right and wrong in Ukraine, how do we look? No one on this planet has bombed and invaded as many countries as we have.
The basic premise of your argument: https://www.axios.com/2021/12/01/nato-russia-ukraine-invasion Russia has no right to a sphere of influence.
Ask the Solomon Islands 6,600 miles from our Western sea shore if we respect their “sovereignty?” When the Chinese offer them a sweat deal we come in and coerce them not to do this because we see it in terms of the Chinese expanding their military reach into the Pacific.
Ask the Mexicans how we respect their “sovereignty?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD4kFxyHALo We were talking about invading them, then doing drone and missile strikes...
No major power wants another playing on their border - PERIOD. All the powers of this world have a security sphere of influence: China, the US and Russia.
Had we respected that, no war.
We would have NEVER had dealt with China and the Taiwan issue the way we did Ukraine. What is the difference? China is powerful (militarily and economically), Russia was perceived as weak. China is economically significant to us (market for sales - one of the largest in the world, US securities held by them, as a manufacturing hub for US industry) whereas Russia is merely a competitor in oil and gas sitting on land we want to control.
We simply no longer respect Russia as a near peer conventionally and thought we could steamroll over them. We are not worried about their nuclear arsenal, because contrary to the “madman” garbage we spew about Russia and Putin, we know they are actually extremely predictable (doctrinal, stable, logical, measured). Their (Russia’s) moves are calculated unlike say Iran that is a state where there is a high degree of uncertainty in how they react.
Not saying Russia carries no fault, but this war in Ukraine was MOSTLY caused by us, since we control Ukraine and NATO is our club. This caused a war, and you simply cannot get around that: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-zelenskiy-holding-talks-with-biden-adviser-says-2021-12-09/
As to the rest? Junk to rationalize we have some moral superiority/high ground in all of this.
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