Neither were cowards, both corrupt war machines started to break down when the flow of US money dried up. It has nothing to do with individual bravery, everything to do with a puppet state being cut off after it proved insufficient for our needs
These motherfuckers need materialism
the taliban offensive lasted 3 months and the result was the complete control of afghanistan and the seizing of billions of dollars worth of american equipment by the taliban
we’re over 6 months into the hyped ukrainian counteroffensive and all they have to show for it is some miniscule dots on a map and huge casualties on their side
fight for their own freedom.
“Freedom” once again just means “Western rule”.
Pretty sure it makes very little difference for the average Ukrainian whether wholesome100 Cpt Zelenskyy or evil Putler is in charge of their government. Russians are not any less “free” than Ukrainians, if anything, their freedoms are limited by Western sanctions and being banned from participating in international competitions.
I love how they conveniently ignore there has been mass emigration of Ukrainians to the rest of Europe (and I’m not blaming them to be clear, it’s a war, I probably would too).
Hell, a German MP recently said there are around 200k able Ukrainian men (as in able to fight) in Germany and they need to fuck back off to Ukraine and fight (apparently, Europe and the West in general has decided to fight to the last Ukrainian, Ukrainians’ opinion about the whole thing be damned).
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/ukraine-unterstuetzung-kiesewetter-100.html
It comes down to blood. Which side can bleed more. And the answer is Russia. Someone can correct me on this story, but it goes like this… A country goes to war agains China. Every day the Chinese lose one million fighters. After 100 days the enemy surrenders to China. Suffering and dying is part of the Russian psyche. They will bleed their own country dry and consider it a patriotic gesture.
They actually still believe they are dying in droves, just naruto running into the bullets in human wave attacks.
“The slavic brainpan is predisposed towards human wave attacks and death” is…certainly a take to have
I hear chuds parrot that line, inserting Russia instead of Slavic brainpan, and people including libs nod along because they saw Jude Law in Enemy at the Gates in the early oughts.
They used to say it about China during the Korean War. Boomers will swear up and down that the PLA sent waves of guys to die until the Americans ran out of bullets as a deliberate tactic.
This dude’s definition of Slavic is anywhere east of Prague. Chinese Slavs, amazing.
The racist story of “those hoards in the east don’t value human lives as much as we do”.
“those hoards in the east don’t value human lives as much as we do”
Coming from the part of the world that brought us:
CW: Genocide
- The Holocaust
- The Congo Free State
- The Bengal Famine
- The Korean Genocide
- The Native American genocides
- I could keep going but I think I would actually exceed the character limit
There was a line in a German newspaper recently that said “Israel is a democracy, where every life matters”
These deeply unserious people managed to find an old bottle of vintage N*zi Germany era anti-Slavic racism and have been gulping it down heavily. It’s literally the “superior Western Europeans cannot be defeated by the inferior and stupid Slavic hordes RUZZIAN ORCZ. Operation Barbarossa will be a success!” all over again.
When you kick in the door but the whole rotted structure doesn’t collapse
Russia won’t pull out, Putin has to appear powerful. It doesn’t matter if it ruins Russia economically, he won’t ever stop.
Russia is the fastest growing economy in Europe.
They have a birth rate well below replacement and are bordering on demographic collapse. They can’t afford to lose millions of men like they could in WW2.
Once about 32 million Russians die (probably early 2025) then the door will be locked in and the whole rotten edifice will fall down.
What I hate is most people don’t seem to realise it’s not only about Ukraine. Letting Russia win opens a whole other can of worms. Do we really want authoritarian powers with imperialistic ambitions around the world to think they can just invade what they want and wait until the West gets tired?
The west is the vanguard of anti-imperialism.
Meanwhile, Russia has had to sell oil at loses, has had assets frozen, has suffered heavy sanctions meaning lack of materials and equipment/technology, and has had to switch to a war time economy. Meanwhile, it has barely made a dent in the wests finances.
Russia the fastest growing economy in Europe.
Meanwhile, it has barely made a dent in the wests finances.
How long do you think it’ll take liberals to figure out that derivatives and oil futures don’t translate into ammunition and rations if you outsourced all your factories?
They never will, the signs are already bad for the Ukrainian side.
In March 2023, the EU made the historic decision to deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine within 12 months. But the number that has actually been sent is closer to 300,000.
According to the armed forces of Ukraine, over the summer of 2023, Ukraine was firing up to 7,000 artillery shells a day and managed to degrade Russia’s logistics and artillery to the point where Russia was firing about 5,000 rounds a day. Today, the Ukrainians are struggling to fire 2,000 rounds daily, while Russian artillery is reaching about 10,000.
Russia is likely to be able to fire about 5m rounds at Ukraine in 2024, based on its mobilised defence production, supply from Iran and North Korea, and remaining stocks. Despite the flippant observation – often made by European officials – that Russia’s economy is the same size as that of Italy, the Kremlin is producing more shells than all of Nato.
This is not to say “Russia stronk, victory imminent”, but that there’s a rising tide on the Russian side which has, amusingly, more stable allies, that can actually ship war supplies on time. Even this lib commentator is not shying away from noting the Ukrainian counter-offensive floundered. The closer you get to the actual details, the less gung-ho you are about the war, funny that.
One of the worst and best things to happen to the world was the rise of the private defense contractors.
Obviously I don’t need to explain why it is one of the worst things. But as for the best? Man, if all of the worst excesses of capitalism and neoliberalism aren’t captured in a microcosm that is defence contractors…
The sheer amount of graft and inefficiency and boondoggles and everything else that comes from putting profits first in a captive capital environment. That’s not to say that truly free-range capital is somehow a force for good but when defence contractors know that they’re going to get handed billions upon billions of dollars every year and that they’re competing against maybe a couple of other contractors, and sometimes none at all, then they’re largely insulated from the forces of the market that tend to drive capitalist innovation.
The fact that the US had basically emptied its stocks of certain munitions really early in the Ukraine war speaks volumes about how fragile of a paper tiger the military-industrial complex really is. Obviously the US would have strategic stockpiles tucked away for when the shit hits the fan but last I checked it was going to take years for stocks of certain munitions to be replenished.
And the US isn’t even in close to being in a full-blown war right now.
If it was like the old model the US would be able to take direct intervention into production, command-economy style, to produce weapons in order to fill the current shortfall in production but it would probably require an all out war with the US at the centre before they’d even consider abandoning their precious and fundamentally hamstrung neoliberal model.
Shit’s rotten to the core and it is glorious thing to behold.
more stable allies
An important thing that westerners forget. Aside from rampant privatization in western counties, they frequently alienate the global south by demeaning them, their cultures, and refusing to provide any aid to substitute China’s and Russia’s aid. They expect Africans, Latin Americans, and Asians to just shut up and sanction everyone to the detriment of their people and economies.
What I hate is most people don’t seem to realise it’s not only about Ukraine. Letting Russia win opens a whole other can of worms. Do we really want authoritarian powers with imperialistic ambitions around the world to think they can just invade what they want and wait until the West gets tired?
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THE LAST THIRTY GODDAMN YEARS OF MILITARY CAMPAIGNS BOMBING AND OCCUPATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST WERE – IF THERE IS A STANDARD WE SET IT
imperialistic ambitions
Libs always say this about Russia but Putin has been at the helm for a long time, like 25 years. In that time the war in Ukraine is really the only major conflict Russia has been involved in - the rest has been operations in places like Dagestan or Chechnya which may or may not have been justified, idk. Russia has displayed zero “imperialistic ambitions”.
Now compare that to totally not imperialist USA, who had started unprovoked, major wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya in that same time frame.
Russia is the fastest growing economy in Europe.
Source? I couldn’t find anything that backs this up
Do we really want authoritarian powers with imperialistic ambitions around the world to think they can just invade what they want and wait until the West gets tired?
Biden said the same thing during a UN speech. I cannot and will not take these people seriously, even if i truly wanted to.
Meanwhile, it has barely made a dent in the wests finances.
… what? This entire comment has to be a joke right.
You can’t keep people down like the Russians are trying after what Ukraine has experienced of even fledgling democracy and freedom.
