NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a move that would be another blurring of a previous red line and could draw the United States and Europe more directly into the war.
Ukraine’s manpower shortage has reached a critical point, and its position on the battlefield in recent weeks has seriously worsened as Russia has accelerated its advances to take advantage of delays in shipments of American weapons. As a result, Ukrainian officials have asked their American and NATO counterparts to help train 150,000 new recruits closer to the front line for faster deployment.
So far the United States has said no, but Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Thursday that a NATO deployment of trainers appeared inevitable. “We’ll get there eventually, over time,” he said.
Sure, NATO advisors will be training 60-year-old Ukrainians to fight. They need the draft age to go down to 14 years old.
What do you suggest as an alternative? Allow Russia to annex Ukraine?
Do what the article says, Make like Russia in LDNR and send in “volunteers on leave” to help out the Ukrainians. The breakaway republics would never have held out this long without Russian volunteers.
Russia does not want to annex Ukraine, and it is doing so anyway, so that is irrelevant. It is a demilitarizing process. The nuance is key. Since NATO is a persistent threat that likes to test boundaries, they will annex is the Russian-speaking oblast of Ukraine or make them their own republics. Ukraine ideally was supposed to be a neutral buffer zone between NATO and Russia. There is no trust for that, so the Russian elites decided that the next best thing is to invade Ukraine in order to eliminate its war fighting capability. Ukraine conflict made the Russian military stronger and made the Ukrainian army much weaker. The issue is trust between NATO and Russia. If NATO and the EU left Ukraine as a non-aligned, neutral country, the Russians would have not invaded. There is a reason why the Russians did what they did, not because they want to, but for future survival. The decision to invade Ukraine did not come easy. Israel on the other hand chooses to bomb Gaza and Hamas is nowhere near the threat that NATO is to Russia, in the eyes of the Russians.
The problem with this, is that NATO is a defensive treaty, that requires countries to ask to join.
So this characterization of Russian foreign policy is, if true, just stupid. So fucking STUPID.
Quick edit to add: I’m not necessarily calling your assessment of Russian foreign policy stupid. I’m calling this foreign policy justification stupid.
No, the assessment is stupid as well. It’s just parroting propaganda, while ignoring the mountains of information (in some cases literally officially published by the Kremlin, like Putin’s essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”) that Russian leadership doesn’t even consider Ukraine to be a real country and very much does want to annex it because it is “Russian”.
And they have annexed part of it already. That’s the stupidest part of that person’s comment. You can’t say Russia doesn’t want to annex Ukraine when they’ve already done so for territory they control.
Then it’s weird that they already annexed part of it.
In 2014.
Lol. Lmao, even. 2nd victory day parade in a row featuring a single ancient tank. This time it wasn’t even a Russian tank. They’re sending mothballed Soviet stock to toss turrets at the front. They’re building sheds around vehicles because they can’t stop drones. They’re still using Soviet style meat assaults with minimally trained conscripts and suffering hundreds of casualties daily. They’re so short of or stingy with armor, troops on the front use unarmored Chinese golf carts to move around. Ukraine is striking Russian soil with homemade drone bombs. Ukraine is destroying aircraft on the ground. Ukraine has struck several training areas and large gatherings of troops because your officers STILL don’t understand why massing within range of HIMARS is a fucking stupid idea. You’ve lost a quarter of your fleet to a country with no navy. Your pmc was so mistreated and mismanaged they fucking marched on Moscow. Russia still can’t maintain air presence without getting shot down. Do you even have usable A-50s left? The war was supposed to be over in 3 days, vatnik. Why is it 2 years later? Russia used to be thought of as the second strongest military in the world. Why is it currently the second strongest military in Russia?
Edit: WHY DO THINGS KEEP EXPLODING IN RUSSIA? I’M SO CONFUSED HELP ME IVAN
What the actual fuck are you talking about. Strong “you should have complied” energy.
Too bad it isn’t NATO, the EU, or Russia’s decision who Ukraine is aligned to and who they favor. Get your shitty imperialism out of here. Ukraine can do what Ukraine wants to do and you just have to deal with it.
Russia screeched that an old colony would dare leave their sphere of influence and invaded. And in the process, they exposed themselves as a global laughingstock. Their military is pathetic and weak, just like their leader – a projection of strength hiding a feeble fool.
It doesn’t matter if the Russian military has even slightly improved in one aspect – which I highly doubt – because their ability to project military might is gone. No one will take their threats or military seriously anymore. Everyone knows they’re impotent.