an liathroid beag
Full Member
Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky won't say it, and Vladimir Putin can't. But Ukraine is winning the war.
Russian propaganda leaflets fluttered from the sky north of Kyiv last week. "They are trying to force you to defend the interests of others!" they declared, encouraging civilian to resist service in the military. The leaflets labeled the local regime "tycoons," "gangs" and "terrorists," claiming that the war-makers were serving only their own interests in fighting.
One problem with these leaflets: they were addressed to "Citizens of the Chechen Republic!", intended for a different audience, from a different era, for a different war. Taken out of deep storage and shipped to Belarus, they were shot across the border by Soviet-era artillery, echoing an earlier time, representing a sloppy and uncoordinated war effort, speaking to no one.
"Whether the Russians have confused them, or just do not bother, these leaflets fell on the heads of Ukrainians," Yevhen Yenin, first deputy in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said last Thursday, displaying the relics.
That's been the story of Russia's war against its smaller neighbor, now 120 days old. An old-fashioned invasion following a highly scripted choreography, tanks and armored vehicles grinding forward, with guns, lots of guns, pounding away. The Russian military machine, fearsome in numbers, backed by bombers of unimaginable power, with modern missiles and all of the accoutrements of cyber warfare, was predicted to win in 72 hours.
And then came the great reckoning. Russia had lots of guns and materiel but it proved to be a hulking monster on the ground: poorly led, badly trained. Seventy-two hours became a week, then another, then the week after, then right after the next victory, then next month, and now, in the words of NATO's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, "years."
Yet despite the setbacks, somehow the widespread notion has remained that mighty Russia will inevitably prevail over a weaker Ukraine.
It won't. At some turning point, after those 72 hours, after the bogged-down convoy, after the valiant and heartbreaking defense of Mariupol, after the failure to establish air superiority, after running low on precision weapons, after the withdrawal from the north, after more and more friends entered the fight on Ukraine's side—Javelin, Stinger, Switchblade, M777—after deaths and injuries in the thousands, after desertions and refusals to fight, after failure upon failure on the battlefield, after one month, after two, after 100 days, the tide turned.
Yet scarcely anyone wants to say that Russia has lost. Ukrainian President Zelensky, desperate for external support and more guns, motivator of the people and rouser of the troops, has to keep the tension high and the prospects dire, lest all of the urgency and attention dissipate. President Biden and his fellow Western leaders speak of the defense of freedom and democracy, of the heightened threat to Europe and the free world, of the inevitability of China following Putin's path, all to feed the military beast, excite the public, keep "national security" at the top of everyone's agenda. And Putin obviously can't admit it, determined equally to stay in power and to avoid the humiliation and danger of defeat.
Putin doesn't motivate the troops—he sends them. For weeks, Ukraine has been releasing snippets of intercepted conversations between these lowly soldiers and their parents, wives and girlfriends back home. The soldiers complain that there is no information and no support. They are confused about the point of the war and its objectives. They are not allowed to take a break from fighting. They are poorly equipped and supplied. There is not enough medicine or doctors.
"Our command has left," one soldier told his wife, referring to platoon and company commanders who were deserting their units and the battlefield. "Well, they didn't leave-- they dropped their weapons." It's a myth, the soldier says, that "Russians do not let Russians down." They've been let down and they all know it.
Morale is so bad, British intelligence says, that there have been armed standoffs between political enforcers and individuals and even units on the battlefield that have refused to follow their orders. Russia is suffering "very heavy casualties, combat stress, continued poor logistics, and problems with pay," the U.K. reported. "Morale problems in the Russian force are likely so significant that they are limiting Russia's ability to achieve operational objectives."
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, head of the British Armed Forces was more blunt. "Russia will never take control of Ukraine," he said.
"Ukraine has shown how courageous it really is. Russia has vulnerabilities because it's running out of people, it's running out of hi-tech missiles," Radakin said. "Any notion that this is a success for Russia is nonsense. Russia is failing. It might be getting some tactical successes over the last few weeks. And those might continue for the next few weeks. But Russia is losing."
"We will not give away the south to anyone," President Zelensky said on Sunday after another visit to the front. "We will return everything that's ours and the sea will be Ukrainian and safe."
"It is unrealistic to suggest that Ukraine sacrifice its people, territory, and sovereignty in exchange for nominal peace," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote in Foreign Affairs this week, admonishing those in the West who think Kyiv should sue for peace. "These declarations are premised on the idea that Ukrainians, no matter how well they fight, cannot defeat Moscow's forces. But that notion is wrong."
The Russian troops on the ground know this. "There is no other way to go home" except by shooting oneself, one frontline soldier said in another intercepted cellphone call. Commanders are telling the men in the trenches that there will be no reinforcements to relieve them and no rest, that they will be fighting until the Fall. "Even those whose contracts are about to expire will still be there until the end of hostilities," he says.
Russian propaganda leaflets fluttered from the sky north of Kyiv last week. "They are trying to force you to defend the interests of others!" they declared, encouraging civilian to resist service in the military. The leaflets labeled the local regime "tycoons," "gangs" and "terrorists," claiming that the war-makers were serving only their own interests in fighting.
One problem with these leaflets: they were addressed to "Citizens of the Chechen Republic!", intended for a different audience, from a different era, for a different war. Taken out of deep storage and shipped to Belarus, they were shot across the border by Soviet-era artillery, echoing an earlier time, representing a sloppy and uncoordinated war effort, speaking to no one.
"Whether the Russians have confused them, or just do not bother, these leaflets fell on the heads of Ukrainians," Yevhen Yenin, first deputy in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said last Thursday, displaying the relics.
That's been the story of Russia's war against its smaller neighbor, now 120 days old. An old-fashioned invasion following a highly scripted choreography, tanks and armored vehicles grinding forward, with guns, lots of guns, pounding away. The Russian military machine, fearsome in numbers, backed by bombers of unimaginable power, with modern missiles and all of the accoutrements of cyber warfare, was predicted to win in 72 hours.
And then came the great reckoning. Russia had lots of guns and materiel but it proved to be a hulking monster on the ground: poorly led, badly trained. Seventy-two hours became a week, then another, then the week after, then right after the next victory, then next month, and now, in the words of NATO's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, "years."
Yet despite the setbacks, somehow the widespread notion has remained that mighty Russia will inevitably prevail over a weaker Ukraine.
It won't. At some turning point, after those 72 hours, after the bogged-down convoy, after the valiant and heartbreaking defense of Mariupol, after the failure to establish air superiority, after running low on precision weapons, after the withdrawal from the north, after more and more friends entered the fight on Ukraine's side—Javelin, Stinger, Switchblade, M777—after deaths and injuries in the thousands, after desertions and refusals to fight, after failure upon failure on the battlefield, after one month, after two, after 100 days, the tide turned.
Yet scarcely anyone wants to say that Russia has lost. Ukrainian President Zelensky, desperate for external support and more guns, motivator of the people and rouser of the troops, has to keep the tension high and the prospects dire, lest all of the urgency and attention dissipate. President Biden and his fellow Western leaders speak of the defense of freedom and democracy, of the heightened threat to Europe and the free world, of the inevitability of China following Putin's path, all to feed the military beast, excite the public, keep "national security" at the top of everyone's agenda. And Putin obviously can't admit it, determined equally to stay in power and to avoid the humiliation and danger of defeat.
Putin doesn't motivate the troops—he sends them. For weeks, Ukraine has been releasing snippets of intercepted conversations between these lowly soldiers and their parents, wives and girlfriends back home. The soldiers complain that there is no information and no support. They are confused about the point of the war and its objectives. They are not allowed to take a break from fighting. They are poorly equipped and supplied. There is not enough medicine or doctors.
"Our command has left," one soldier told his wife, referring to platoon and company commanders who were deserting their units and the battlefield. "Well, they didn't leave-- they dropped their weapons." It's a myth, the soldier says, that "Russians do not let Russians down." They've been let down and they all know it.
Morale is so bad, British intelligence says, that there have been armed standoffs between political enforcers and individuals and even units on the battlefield that have refused to follow their orders. Russia is suffering "very heavy casualties, combat stress, continued poor logistics, and problems with pay," the U.K. reported. "Morale problems in the Russian force are likely so significant that they are limiting Russia's ability to achieve operational objectives."
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, head of the British Armed Forces was more blunt. "Russia will never take control of Ukraine," he said.
"Ukraine has shown how courageous it really is. Russia has vulnerabilities because it's running out of people, it's running out of hi-tech missiles," Radakin said. "Any notion that this is a success for Russia is nonsense. Russia is failing. It might be getting some tactical successes over the last few weeks. And those might continue for the next few weeks. But Russia is losing."
"We will not give away the south to anyone," President Zelensky said on Sunday after another visit to the front. "We will return everything that's ours and the sea will be Ukrainian and safe."
"It is unrealistic to suggest that Ukraine sacrifice its people, territory, and sovereignty in exchange for nominal peace," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote in Foreign Affairs this week, admonishing those in the West who think Kyiv should sue for peace. "These declarations are premised on the idea that Ukrainians, no matter how well they fight, cannot defeat Moscow's forces. But that notion is wrong."
The Russian troops on the ground know this. "There is no other way to go home" except by shooting oneself, one frontline soldier said in another intercepted cellphone call. Commanders are telling the men in the trenches that there will be no reinforcements to relieve them and no rest, that they will be fighting until the Fall. "Even those whose contracts are about to expire will still be there until the end of hostilities," he says.
