>>If today’s Ukrainians have anything like Bandera’s fighting spirit, a few billion dollars in equipment and food should see them pushing the Russians out of the country altogether.<<
It is so good that Russians aren’t that America-hating. A few billions in Russian aid to Iraq and Afghanistan could do wonders to US casualty figures in these respective nations.
It could have been surpassed Vietnam losses easily.
I’m still wondering why Russians are so restraint, considering a mood of many Americans who wants to see them bleeding.
Because Russians have already killed 100K Americans via Korea and Vietnam, not to mention poisoned much of the world's minds against the US via extremely effective propaganda? Given the number of restive (and violent) minorities in Russia proper, there are a lot of things the US could do to make trouble. Ultimately, unlike Russia's efforts in Afghanistan and Ukraine, the US was never going to annex either Iraq or Afghanistan, so there was never a prospect of a long term war in either of those two locations. And the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents got all the supplies they needed via their porous borders. Not to mention that their insurgents included a lot of Russian Muslim minorities who would have made life interesting for Russia if they had returned alive. Ultimately, we helped cleanse Russia of its troublesome zealots. It would be stupid for Russia to get in our way, and even Putin understood that.