11mo ago

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive is a huge strategic error

thehill.com

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230 comments

Itt: quite a few deeply embarrassing liberals who would unironically cheer on zap brannigan as he lost another war using human wave tactics
Get to dunking folks!
- "Russia is winning a war in which they have never not held huge amounts of Ukrainian territory" is just a fact, you don't have to like Putin to acknowledge reality you know?
  
  "russia is winning the war that they are obviously winning, and Ukraine is a nazi paradise controlled by US interests. Ukraine should surrender to stop the bloodshed" = putin apologist ok lol
  
  think you might be lost, bud
  
  There’s nothing Putin did that needs apologizing for
looks like western sponsors of the war might have had enough of Zelensky
It is time for sober reflection. The Ukrainian people deserve leadership focused on practical, achievable objectives, not on grandstanding gestures. While courage and defiance are admirable, they must be tempered with strategic wisdom. The path to victory lies not in symbolic acts of defiance, but in the methodical, relentless pursuit of territorial liberation.
- Ah, so the next phase of Amerikan 'friendship' is due to start. (Y'know, the point where the betray they guy they've been funding for like a decade and send him scurrying into a mountain range if he lives, right?)
- The path to victory lies not in symbolic acts of defiance, but in the methodical, relentless pursuit of territorial liberation.
  That's just stupid. Are they really suggesting Ukraine should focus solely on grinding through fortified Russian defenses? War is more complicated than "just liberate the occupied territory". And while it's true that this counteroffensive has its risks. Everything they do or don't do has its risks.
  
  They're suggesting that everything is Zelensky's fault so they can blame him, turn public opinion against him (remember how much everyone thought he was a hero last year), so that when they coup/assassinate him people won't mind.
  
  I think they are just meant Ukraine should stick to the original strategy of prolonging the war no matter what. It's lost either way, but costly losses will finish it faster than daily grind as usual.
  
  That’s just stupid. Are they really suggesting Ukraine should focus solely on grinding through fortified Russian defenses?
  That's clearly a losing strategy, too, but the "we'll fight them to the last Ukranian" crowd is still too far from reality to admit it.
  The best decision for the Ukranian people is to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible, which means accepting that when you are losing a war the peace isn't going to involve crazy shit like getting more territory than you started with (Crimea). They've lost, and they can come to terms with it now or do so later after a bunch more Ukranians die only get a worse outcome.
  The reason the Ukranian government isn't doing that is because their NATO puppetmasters don't give a shit about the casualties of their proxies -- they just want to bleed Russia as much as possible. So without the option to negotiate, and with the impossibility of winning on the main front, they have to try Hail Mary gambits like the Kursk invasion.
  
  This is not a counter offensive, it's a political stunt for the benefit of the smooth brained western public.
- yup, and the Kursk stunt put an end to that
- Russia's current position is, that for ceasefire negotiations to start, Ukraine first has to demilitarize. In other words, no. There aren't any ceasefire negotiations starting any time soon.
A prolonged incursion into Russia could escalate the conflict, drawing in other nations and potentially leading to a catastrophic global confrontation.
Bit of a joke to write this, isn't it. The one country that is escalating things is Russia. They could have always moved back and have given up and this would all be over. Maybe Ukraine would leave the Russian territory if Russia leaves Ukrainian territory? Not sure that's on the table.
Edit: coming back to all the reactions. Just wow, hilarious.
Edit2: haha, they even come back to monitor edits. Fun times.
- They could have always moved back and have given up and this would all be over.
  Ukraine could surrender at any time and this would all be over
  
  So could Russia, whats your point?
  
  It's their country.
  Russia could surrender Moscow too.
  Would actually turn out better for Russians, liberate them from their gangster kakistocracy.
- Lmao what? Eeww dude, gross, your brain is leaking onto my shoe
- Do you know what escalation means? Russia hasn't escalated shit since it launched the invasion. Each thing Russia has done since the invasion is part of the invasion. They haven't attacked other nations, they haven't embargoed or disrupted trade beyond their own borders, they haven't introduced new weapons platforms, they haven't made attempts to decapitate Ukrainian leadership.
  Ukraine and the West are escalating. They've been escalating literally since the end of the Cold War. Each country on the border of Russia that got NATO nuclear sites was an escalation. Each color revolution was an escalation. Each sanction was an escalation. Each call for a no fly zone was an escalation. Each new weapons platform sent to Ukraine was an escalation. Each use of Western military intelligence to coordinate Ukrainian strikes was an escalation. Each time Ukraine struck civilian infrastructure inside Russia was an escalation.
  You are using words you hear people say but you don't understand them.
  Russia has had one demand since the USSR was dismantled - no NATO operations in Ukraine. When the USA escalated and supported the coup in 2014, Russia escalated and took Crimea. When the fascists in Ukraine escalated and sent paramilitary forces to terrorize and mass murder ethnic Russians, Russia escalated with paramilitary of its own in the region. When Ukraine escalated by pursuing NATO operations in its country and NATO made noise like it might, like when Trump escalated and approved the first weapons shipment to Ukraine in US history, Russia escalated by invading the border region. That's all of Russia's escalatory moves - 1 every 5 years or so. It's Ukraine and the West that have escalated since then. Sanctioning Russia was an escalation. Seizing Russian assets in violation of international law was an escalation. Sending lethal aid each year totalling more than the entire Russian military budget was an escalation. Sending Western intelligence, trainers, and even combatants to harm Russia are all escalatory moves.
  
  They also could have done to Ukraine what Israel has done to Palestine, destroy all vital infrastructure and plunge the population into the stone age
  But no, the libs are right, putin just keeps escalating omg the escalator is reaching into space!
- "The winning side could simply surrender and give everything back"
  I am a geopolitical mastermind
- The one country that is escalating things is Russia. They could have always moved back and have given up and this would all be over.
  Are you fucking serious
  What do you call expanding NATO? You think that isn't escalation because, what, "it's a defensive pact"? You really don't see how a country like Russia could view an encirclement of "defensive" pacts as aggressive, when it has constantly stated that Ukraine joining NATO is a red line?
  You don't think NATO discussing sending NUKES TO UKRAINE, putting them within MINUTES OF MOSCOW, is in any way an escalation?
  What the FUCK is wrong with you fucking people
  NATO could have simply not attempted to expand, Ukraine could have simply honored the Minsk agreement and stopped genociding Russians in the Donbas, but you don't say shit like that, you think it's entirely on Russia. Brainwashed ass motherfucker
- NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
  The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
  Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU
  US Imperialism and the Ukraine Coup
  Former German Chancellor Merkel Admits that Minsk Peace Agreements Were Part of Scheme for Ukraine to Buy Time to Prepare for War With Russia
  Zelensky admits he never intended to implement Minsk agreements
  The West’s Sabotage of Peace in Ukraine In May of [2022] Ukrainian media reported that then-British prime minister Boris Johnson had flown to Kiev the previous month to pass on the message on behalf of the western empire that “Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with,” and that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”
  History of Fascism in Ukraine: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
  BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
  Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
  The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
  The Guardian, 2017: 'I want to bring up a warrior': Ukraine's far-right children's camp – video
  WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
  Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
  The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
  Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
  Consortium News, 2022: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev
  Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?
  The Intercept, 2021: Meet NATO, the Dangerous “Defensive” Alliance Trying to Run the World
  CounterPunch, 2022: NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance
  Noam Chomsky, 2023: NATO “most violent, aggressive alliance in the world”
  Thomas Fazi, 2024: NATO: 75 years of war, unprovoked aggressions and state-sponsored terrorism
  
  Why would the Murican give such assurance to a failing empire? What would the Russians do ? Not collapse ? Kill a bunch of people as they retreat ?
  
  Do you have a source of the genocide that happened in Donbas?
  
  Russia is so terrified of Nato encroachment that they stripped their defenses along the Finnish boarder shortly after Finland joined Nato, and they've moved all the defenses at this point (first weapons, now troops) out of Kaliningrad.
- Edit: coming back to all the reactions. Just wow, hilarious.
  It's okay to admit you're incapable of grappling with reality and prefer to stay inside your NATO mind palace
- The one country that is escalating things is Russia.
  This war is literally only happening because of the US and the other countries in NATO. Don't think you should be writing such pithy statements if your understanding of the war is equivalent to a Star Wars plotline.
  
  At least in Star Wars they explain the context with the scroll at the start of the movie, libs think that Ukraine literally popped into existence in 2022.
- They're out there watching you 👀
- It's a .ml community. What did you expect?
  
  Yeah I'm on the verge of blocking ml as well as hexbear, it's insane the level of mental gymnastics that's happening. Like what do they think Russia is going to do any less damage to the world than America if they get the chance?
Death to Amerikkka
Fuck Russia. Enjoy the incursion, Putin.
- Lot of Ukrainian lives wasted on a tik tok offensive, but of course you don't care about Ukrainian lives
  
  What? Ukrainians are dying to Russian aggression in Ukraine. What twisted world are you people living in?
- Yeah, that's pretty much the sum total of all the strategic planning that went into this wet fart of an offensive
- you are, and I cannot stress this enough, a moron
  Liberals like you are the reason we're going to have world war 3, because you're too fucking stupid to actually be aware of what's going on in the world
  
  Enjoy the spartan communist architecture in your home country comrade.
- so brave!
- That's such an incredible reaction to reading an article published in mainstream western media.
  
  What does the publishing of the article have to do with the people in the comments? There's no link.
- Putin is a capitalist oligarch and a homophobe. We hate him too, obviously.
  Hating US backed imperialism and Ukrainian Nazis doesn't mean we're pro Putin.
This article was written by ChatGPT3 and they didn't even change the structure to hide it.
- is there anything more liberal than avoiding engaging with the content of an article when criticizing
- Worse, the article was written by a Koch shill: https://www.macalester.edu/news/2022/04/professor-andrew-latham-receives-grant-koch-foundation-chinas-grand-strategy-a-history/

230 comments