I don’t blame them. Ukraine needs to take the war to Russia to win.
I like the Economist but maybe posting their articles here should be avoided since no one can obviously read them so everyone is just commenting about the headline.
Why the fuck is the US telling them that in the first place?
I think the US doesn’t have a pressing reason to tell them to stop, and I guess the article is right - messaging has been low-key, in the fasion of “it would probably benefit us in the short term if you stopped attacking more of X, unless you really must”.
It’s been speculated that when Ukraine sent its drones to degrade the Russian oil refining industry, the US administration feared a sudden rise in oil prices. The result was an estimated 15% drop in Russia’s refining capability (they had to request gasoline imports from Belarus and Kazakhstan) - but also, without doubt a hasty re-deployment of air defense from the front lines to the rear (giving Ukraine some space and perhaps reducing S-300 strikes at ground objects, since Russian air defense can shoot at ground and often does).
Then however, Ukraine changed the target profile and news about oil refineries stopped coming. Instead, drones flew to military airfields (but with limited results, as those were all defended) and one particular chemical plant was struck, and some electrical substations powering military or industrial objects took hits. Ukraine is constantly facing the dilemma of what to strike with limited resources, so I think they’re constantly searching for gaps in Russian defense and trying to throw their opponent off balance (trying to cause re-deployment of air defense).
There’s no doubt that Ukraine would like to strike at occupying troops, but those are often dug in under good air defense cover. A drone might not reach them, or might not hurt them appreciably - so striking a factory that supplies them lubricant of fuel can be more effective, while troops fight troops with artillery and rockets. Since by agreement, Western missiles cannot be used to strike into Russia, it’s the drones that go there, and it’s logical.
You dont keep th armed they gotta do what they gotta do. Buy in or bug off
How about this: we’re allowed to tell them how to run their war as long as we supply them an uninterrupted pipeline of the shit they need to win it the way they’re telling us to.
Oh wait: we already tried that, except we not only didn’t even do it well, but also didn’t hold up our end of the bargain because of fucking fascist far-right politicians. So we kinda fucked that one up, didn’t we?
I hate that it took this long but the aid package cleared the house and is expected to clear the Senate. This just happened yesterday https://www.npr.org/2024/04/21/1246170238/ukraine-military-assistance-house-vote-mike-johnson-volodymr-zelenskyy
Oh I know. All I’m saying is that any semblance of justification for exerting strategic oversight of their war is gone, considering the political fuckery we just pulled in the last 6 months that had very real and negative consequences for Ukraine.
And why shouldn’t they?
