Posted on 08/24/2025 4:43:36 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Donald Trump’s message – or rather, the message he transmitted from Vladimir Putin – to Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington on Monday was stark: accept the deal Russia is offering, because otherwise you’ll lose the war.
But if Moscow appears strong now, Ukraine and its European allies believe, it’s partly because Trump’s choices have made it stronger – namely, his decisions to curtail US military aid, interrupt intelligence sharing and, above all, accept Putin’s insistence on a peace deal before a ceasefire.
And in fact, Russia is far from battlefield supremacy. Just hours before the Oval Office discussions, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) declared it would take 4.4 years of fighting at current rates of advance for Russia to capture the remainder of territory it has “annexed”.
It would also, according to the MoD calculations based on Ukrainian estimates of Russian casualties, cost Russia an additional 1.93m killed and wounded to achieve Putin’s goals. That would be on top of the more than one million casualties it has already sustained.
In other words, Russia could be headed for breaking points of its own.
How long can Russia last? All of which raises the question, if Trump chose to throw his weight behind Ukraine, could he change the tide? Should the US president be asking not how much Ukraine must surrender, but how long Russia can last?
Sam Greene, professor of Russian politics at King’s College London, points to two potential Russian breaking points: the military and the economic. Predictions about when either will come has become something of a mug’s game, he cautions. Nor should we underestimate Russia’s capacity to keep going. “But eventually they do reach a pinch point: there are strains on the economy. There are strains on the military. A breaking point will come,” he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
British “news” BS again. Always with them
So Ukraine can win if Russia has to fight the US too? Gotcha. GFY limey wankers.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine will be allowed to end this war.
2 million-on which side?
I understand how they are looking at the numbers here to show linear progression in future based upon past. The pertinent issue is that future advances do not occur in a predictable linear fashion; they may happen slowly then all at once depending on unknowable future events and ability to or failure to exploit them. As someone adroitly posted here earlier, the Allies were still sitting pretty close to initial beach head for some time after D Day but then rapidly advanced to Berlin after that. This would not have been foreseen by this “model” of predicting and thinking here. A setback can become a disaster then a collapse then a rout, leading to a surrender or massacre.
If europeans believe Ukraine can win then simply arms them up and heck even commit their own troops.
It is not right for US taxpayers to spend billions while Euros sip their wine.
Russia's strategy for more than a year has been to deplete the Ukrainian military to the point it collapses.
Russia never wanted to do more than liberate the annexed area, a goal that had the consent of the majority there. And, only tiny part of Donetsk is left to be liberated.
The total number of Russian deaths Mediazona (run by a Russian dissent and pro-Ukraine BBC) can document for the ENTIRE war is 121,507 deaths.
Open end war.
With the dictator who personally controls the largest stock pile of nuclear weapons in the world.
To determine who will control Ukraine, which is the poorest country in Europe.
Yeah sure…Trump’s fault. You betcha
Ukraine had 11 years to fortify the Donetsk 'fortress belt' against Russian attacks. So far, the Russians have failed to make a breakthrough.
weird because the whole active duty army apparently amounts to just 1.32 million active soldiers... So every soldier plus their non military brothers are gonna die?
If the Europeans feel otherwise, they should step up and provide the military and financial aid the US will be pulling back.
” British Ministry of Defence (MoD) declared it would take 4.4 years of fighting at current rates of advance”
On June 14th, 1944 the allies had advanced only a mile from the beaches of Normandy. Yet, they were in Berlin a year later.
Armies crack a little here, a little there and then all of a sudden they collapse.
And everyone fighting there knew it was over far before that year of advances by the Allies had passed.
Armies crack a little here, a little there and then all of a sudden they collapse.
They did not have drones and satellites during WWII.
Ukraine and Russia are fighting a near-peer war.
The analysis is sound. Yet it does not make a persuasive case that the US should back Ukraine with resources when Europe is plainly unwilling to do their share.
Unicorns and skittles...
“It would also, according to the MoD calculations based on Ukrainian estimates of Russian casualties, cost Russia an additional 1.93m killed and wounded to achieve Putin’s goals. That would be on top of the more than one million casualties it has already sustained.”
God Help anyone making policy decisions based on “Ukrainian estimates”
It doesn’t matter which side, but, the more the better. They’re intent on keeping the plan going. The numbers are good for escalation and buy-in because “the humanity.” You know this.
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