Posted on 10/20/2025 10:38:51 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Former British senior army officer Lord David Richards has told UK newspaper The Independent that Ukraine cannot win its war with Russia without NATO military support and should instead negotiate peace terms with Moscow.
Speaking to The Independent’s “World of Trouble” podcast, the “five star” ranked former Chief of Defence Staff who led NATO forces in Afghanistan, said: “What we have done in the case of Ukraine is encourage Ukraine to fight, but not given them the means to win.”
The former commando added that even with the right resources, Ukraine “would not win” as “they haven’t got the manpower.”
Whilst conceding that the West is in a de facto “hybrid war” with Russia and that there are “genuine affections for so many Ukrainians”, Lord Richards said he did not believe NATO will join the war because “it’s not in our vital interests.”
In the podcast, he did praise President Volodymyr Zelensky’s inspirational leadership but said “my instinct is that the best Ukraine can do… is a sort of a score draw.”
Lord Richards’ downbeat position appears to contradict a more optimistic tone struck by US President Donald Trump in September that Ukraine could reclaim all its land with help from Europe, citing Russia’s economic problems.
However, following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a meeting with Zelensky in Washington on Friday, Trump appeared to pivot from that position and said that Ukraine and Russia should “stop where they are.”
(Excerpt) Read more at kyivpost.com ...
They never had the man power in the first place. So some dumb ass convinced the other dumb asses they could win when the dumb ass knew they couldn't and the other dumb asses listened to the dumb ass anyway and went to war.
Dumb asses, one and all!
Well the Rooskies [W be upon them] tried a BlitzKrieg that failed.
Then into WWI mode, which has been a disaster for both sides.
Too bad the Ukes were convinced to give up their [locally placed, CCCP’S] Nukes....
Slowly, slowly...
BoJo the Clown
Given that Dead Hand is still operational in Moscow, maybe not the worst thing that they didn’t have the nukes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand
Dead Hand or Perimetr only has US and *maybe* Chinese targets loaded.
Seems like this system shoulda been brought up to speed in the last decade.
Since when does Iron Maiden’s guitarist write for the Kyiv Post?
Ukraine cannot win, yet neither can Russia. That more or less calls for a cease fire in place. Or, the two countries can continue to go at it, with Ukraine hoping that Russia’s army or economy breaks.
The hardware probably has been updated - but there’s no reason to really update the target list for a fail-deadly system intended to launch based on a surprise attack. Especially not in an era where there are terrain following missiles that you *won’t* get launch warnings on.
If your capital and leadership is dead, you probably want to make sure that your most powerful rivals, whether responsible for the attack or not, won’t be able to take advantage.
What would a British Field Marshall no anyway? Britain never had much of a military more than certain distance from the port?
Russia was supposed to be in Poland in two weeks, why has haven’t they won already?
They didn’t convince Ukraine that they could win. They knew all along that it was not possible. They didn’t need Ukraine to believe they could win, they needed to convince the people of the United States that Ukraine could win so they could launder those billions of dollars. I’m not sure if launder is the right term because it was a mechanism to distribute huge amounts of money to politicians far more efficiently than USAID was able to do.
“ Former British senior army officer…that Ukraine cannot win its war with Russia…”
Gee. Retired ESL teacher, me, said that right after the evil Rooskies occupied Crimea. Of course, I haven’t had as much military or political training as this guy. That’s probably why it took him a decade to figure this out.
I’m an old lady who has never been in the military, but knowing history, led me to that conclusion long ago.
It was a ploy all along to suck as much money and weapons out of Biden for as long as they could. When Trump got reelected, they shit their pants because they knew the gravy train was ending.
Hack the system and have a Uke attack provoke a China only response...
It did not take a Field Marshal to reach this conclusion. All it took was Captain Obvious.
They have never had the manpower, the natural resources, the manufacturing nor the GDP to win a war with Russia.
Any other conclusion was and is fantasy.
That’s also part of why they haven’t updated the target system - reportedly, the base Dead Hand target list is *hard coded* in and lives on ROMs that can’t be hacked, because you would have to physically swap out the chips.
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