KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces have secured “combat control” of areas where Russian troops entered the northeastern Kharkiv region earlier this month, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Meanwhile, two people were killed Saturday in an aerial attack on the city of Kharkiv, which is the region’s capital, according to local officials.
Kharkiv is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border. Moscow’s troops have in recent weeks captured villages in the area as part of a broad push, and analysts say they may be trying to get within artillery range of the city. Ukrainian authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people from the region since the start of the offensive on May 10.
“Our soldiers have now managed to take combat control of the border area where the Russian occupiers entered,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Friday evening.
Zelenskyy’s comments appeared to be at odds with those made by Russian officials.
Russia have half a million dead, wounded or missing while holding less than 20%. They have lost control of the black sea, they lost a submarine to a force that doesnt have a navy. They have fucked their economy and made complete dicks of themselves on the world stage.
Lets not pretend there is an inevitability here, at the beginning we were told they should abandon ship, then we were told they cant hold and now the likes of you are speaking as if there is a foregone conclusion.
Yes, you make good points, but still Ukraine is not winning.
Propaganda and deception are vitally important in any war.
It is strategically important for Ukraine to have the world think they will win, otherwise other countries are less likely to assist at all.
Is this rephrasal more palatable?
All of that can be true and they could still “win”. A pyrrhic victory is still a victory.
But any talk of winning or losing doesn’t really matter unless you can clearly define what the conditions of winning and losing are.
Russia is losing in terms of casualties suffered. Ukraine is losing in terms of actual territory lost. It just depends on how you decide to spin it.
A pyrrhic victory is absolutely not “still a victory”. Russia faces long-term demographic collapse, outmoded energy infrastructure, a permanent insurgency in occupied territories, and the inability to pivot away from a wartime economy heading into a century where millions or billions of climate refugees will pop into existence, while simultaneously vast swathes of Russian land will suddenly become habitable and arable. You do the math.
That’s an insult to the intelligence of the Ukrainians who have been battling against Russian incursions for the past 10 years. Even Zelensky has been left frustrated by the “just wait bro” strategy of the west. Hoping for a complete Russian collapse and withdrawal at some undetermined point in the future is a recipe for disappointment. We can also look to the past as a good indicator for the future, and Russia has for better or worse always been very resilient in times of war.
On your point about insurgency; the whole Donbass conflict arose from pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine. Donetsk PR and Luhansk PR welcomed the Russian invasion with open arms. To date, the vast majority of insurgents in Ukraine have been on Russia’s side.
The foregoing was not intended as a contribution to Ukraine’s strategic outlook. I think they’ve still got a chance at a meaningful victory and it’s incredible how well they’ve done with the often shambolic allies they’ve got. My only point to be made here is that even if Russia does win in Ukraine, they’re fucked beyond words in no small part due to this ill conceived war.
It’s absolutely a forgone conclusion and your assertions are unhinged. Ukraine is losing eminently, and actively. They have lost, permanently a lot of territory and have trouble keeping the lights on. The economy is entirely decimated and without foreign weapons and monetary aid they would fall within weeks.
Sure thing buddy, Russia is getting bent over by China and Iran right now. Taking in weapons from North Korea, with terrible quality assurance because their own logistics, forecasting and top minds could not stand up to the results of their own actions.
Guys, I mean this what I’m talking about lol. I guess the answer to my question must be in another thread hahaha. Have fun
The only relevant answer is that nobody knows for sure. Ukraine is doing their very best but they’re fighting not only Russia but also the combined effort of all the fuckwits that support Russia materially, i.e. China, Iran and North Korea etc. it’s not exactly an easy position to be in, even if their tech is of lower quality than what we have in the west they’re also able to churn out a lot more, and that shows.
On the other hand, it’s pretty telling that Russia is resorting to what amounts to long range terror bombing in between human wave attacks. They used up a lot of manpower last summer, and it can’t be easy to replace those losses. They do have access to a lot more human resources, but again, of dubious quality.
Russia is certainty hoping for another 4 years of the orange fuckwit in the White House though. That’s where the real danger is. If that happens all bets are off.
I mean, you are probably right, I have no clue lol. But this entire thread is exactly what I was NOT asking about. And you guys get mad with me for pointing this out lol. I was literally asking about a place to check “raw” data about the conflict. Thankfully, some dude actually shared a site like this in a different reply. Obviously, I will have to check it to decide how reliable it’s. But that was what I was asking about, not this …
That’s true, I’m sorry.
There were some twitter accounts worth following, but after what happened over there I don’t know if any of them are still active. Likewise there were some subs in Reddit that had decent amounts of factual posts, but I don’t know about them anymore either.
Other than that, what’s wrong with piecing together news from the most reliable sources? The Guardian has excellent coverage of the war. Anything that goes on for this long will obviously suffer from some story-fatigue but they’re at least more trustworthy than anything from Russia.
It’s called fog of war for a reason though, you’re never going to get 100% unbiased and correct information about ongoing battles, for opsec reasons if nothing else.
Thanks for a nice response! My main problem with checking news sites is that it’s quite a bit of work and I’m very lazy hahaha. Specially because of what I said, for me this is mostly about my curiosity, so I can’t invest the time required to properly inform myself this way. Plus there is the issue of bias, I only speak spanish and english, so my sources are biased that way by default (fuck Putin just in case anyone mistakes this for support for that prick lol).
In my naivety I was hoping to get a few websites with like a minute to minute of the developments. I remember seeing several beautiful sites like these for the Syrian civil war, and I assume there are some for this conflict too. Obviously, as you pointed out, these sites will surely be biased (some to one side, some to the other) and incomplete. But if I have a few of these, I can at least go and take a look at them everytime I see a headline like this and create my own uneducated opinion lol.
My pleasure. The great thing about The Guardian especially, besides the fact that they do try to cover the negative sides as well, is that they tend to separate ongoing events into their own pages. You can bookmark only Ukraine and check what has happened recently easily.
Granted, these days it’s mostly whatever bombings Russia has done during the night sprinkled with whatever counter attacks Ukraine manages, but still. In my opinion they’ve been quite quick with the updates when something major has happened. They covered Prigozhin’s road trip to Moscow last year very well, almost minute to minute.