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U.S. Pushes to Restore Russian Gas Sales to Europe Via Ukraine (www.wsj.com)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/ukraine@lemmy.world
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I mean - the cynicism and greed just oozes out of all the recent U.S. efforts pretending to be peace initiatives. They care about restoring the money bridge, not about ending the war.

But - we live in an imperfect world of realpolitik. Their greed can be used in pusuit of peace, you suppose. The war ending would be an objectively good thing, despite the secondary motives of the soulless greaseball vampires pushing for it.

Take a step back. What does this American push to restore economic and energy ties tell us? Other than that they are black hearted gangsters consumed by greed first and compassion, not at all? Well, it shows Russia's dependence on oil and gas, and it's urgent need to restore cash inflows. That is a lingering weakness that can be attacked. Ukraine would like external security guarantees, but in the absence of that....they now how to make the petromafia gangsters squeal if they get all invade-y again.

It's gross, but remember what this all means: Ukraine is going to survive this war, as a sovreign, EU aligned country with no delusions about the threat Russia poses on an ongoing basis. And it will rebuild. Things won't be the same as they were before, but Ukraine's future is the same as Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. Different, but prosperous and independent. Out of the Russian sphere. This is a permament divorce, and Ukraine will be vigilant about future corrosive fuckery. It seems unlikely they'll allow a Viktor Orban to emerge there like he did in Hungary.

If you were a Ukrainian supporter honest with yourself in terms of what would happen 5 years on after an invasion, you'd be happy where we are today. Especially if we told you that for half of that war, a KGB agent was the president of the United States.

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[–] [S] 0 points 1 week ago* (3 children)

I think you're giving Trump's pathology a bit too much credit. The evidence I've seen is that he's simply a blackmailed, indebted asset. The intensity with which he is pursuing russian re-integration to the global economic order before even discussing a ceasefire shows the game. Namely - that this is how he gets paid. He wants the illicit gravy train as Client Number One of the KGB to get back to how it was pre-war. He pursues that goal with clumsy, obsence amounts of energy and nobody even bats an eyelash to ask him why. He knows his agenda is going to have it's balls cut off in tomorrow's midterms, so he barely conceals that he works directly for the russians and wants to get their money flowing again.

We know why he does it. Because he's invested in it, this is how he gets paid and this great project to salvage his empire requires he do Putin's bidding to get a final payday. Which Putin probably won't actually pay, because....why give money to an obese octogenarian fool once he's no longer useful? Trump can't exactly go to the ICC and demand Putin deliver the promised payment for selling out the Western world to the russians just because he needs it to cover his poor business practices. That's another story though, and I would laugh and laugh if Putin did that.

RE: Mechanized armor assaults - don't see many of those these days. Their equipment losses have curtailed down to less than 10 per day by Ukrainian counts, while their personnel losses have skyrockted to 1500-2000 per day. Those two numbers are probably related. And drones are a much more effective counter to infantry infiltration than artillery is. But progress is basically neutral now for them. Is there data on artillery shell usage recently? You saw lots of data on it in the early days, but not for a long time on either side in terms of shell volume, barrel production etc. The daily focus shifted to ukrainian drone deployment and russian personnel losses.

I'm a man who loves an analogy, thanks for the french fry story. It makes sense, and aligns with Russia' passion for corrosive fuckery.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

    I’m a man who loves an analogy, thanks for the french fry story. It makes sense, and aligns with Russia’ passion for corrosive fuckery.

    Well if you understand the metaphor, make sure to understand the cruelty done to Ukraine by denying it proper artillery support for far too long even when Ukraine made it clear it needed more. Allies like the US let the situation build up in Ukraine where russia could exploit the "steal a french fry at a time" strategy of small unit dispersed infiltration and before that armored maneuver with obsolete, inadequately armored vehicles... to put it another way this is what artillery has always been for when employed defensively, to channelize the attacking enemy forces into concentrated and vulnerable pushes that can be dismantled by applying overwhelming pressure at just a few points.

    Think of artillery at present in Ukraine this way, drones have replaced the first ~15 shells of any given skirmish/battle, which is a lot and they do it with maximum precision but artillery provides the next ~250 shells. After the first ~15 shells the role of drones becomes more and more as the eyes for more traditional artillery rather than being the sledgehammer itself, it just makes basic sense.

    The problem for russia is Ukraine got so good at counterbattery operations that russia has been forced to pull back their artillery and can't place it into threatening positions to provide general artillery pressure along the front which is necessary to maintain a coherent offensive or defense... Russia has spectacularly found a temporary solution in glide bombs and you can absolutely look at the numbers there on that huge shift, but Ukraine is able to reach out and hit the fighterbombers necessary to deploy them at their home airbases so.... russia is forced to keep relying on drones to always be the eyes and the sledeghammer at the flashpoints where it really matters.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 child)

    ake sure to understand the cruelty done to Ukraine by denying it proper artillery support for far too long even when Ukraine made it clear it needed more. Allies like the US let the situation build up in Ukraine where russia could exploit the “steal a french fry at a time” strategy of small unit dispersed infiltration and before that armored maneuver with obsolete, inadequately armored vehicles… to put it another way this is what artillery has always been for when employed defensively, to channelize the attacking enemy forces into concentrated and vulnerable pushes that can be dismantled by applying overwhelming pressure at just a few points.

    Think of artillery at present in Ukraine this way, drones have replaced the first ~15 shells of any given skirmish/battle, which is a lot and they do it with maximum precision but artillery provides the next ~250 shells. After the first ~15 shells the role of drones becomes more and more as the eyes for more traditional artillery rather than being the sledgehammer itself, it just makes basic sense.

    The problem for russia is Ukraine got so good at counterbattery operations that russia has been forced to pull back their artillery and can’t place it into threatening positions to provide general artillery pressure along the front which is necessary to maintain a coherent offensive or defense… Russia has spectacularly found a temporary solution in glide bombs and you can absolutely look at the numbers there on that huge shift, but Ukraine is able to reach out and hit the fighterbombers necessary to deploy them at their home airbases so… russia is forced to keep relying on drones to always be the eyes and the sledeghammer at the flashpoints where it really matters.

    If you're looking for a defense of the western salami-slice incremental aid approach, you're not going to get it here. In the coldest calculus possible, there's a way to make an argument for it, but it by definition means you don't really care how many Ukrainians have to die for it to be successful.

    I'm from the camp that would have imposed a no-fly zone early and sunk the Baltic fleet in an hour to tell the Russians that this war will be too painful for them to pursue. The petromafia ghouls in leadership are a bunch of black hearted thieves. They want money to live tasteless lives of luxuries with dachas, yachts, caviar and mistresses. You can't steal from a smouldering crater, after all. Russia was never going to nuke the world, nor were they going to nuke Ukraine. Why do you nuke your next door neighbors in a war where you claim their yard belongs to you anyways.

    You sound like an artillery man.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago

    You sound like an artillery man.

    Maybe, but that is kind of like saying a blacksmith is an anvil man, it implies the blacksmith can do their work without an anvil and simply prefers to use it for aesthetics.

    Which I guess is what an artillery person would say....

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