An individual may understand that. Masses won’t.

Desperation more or less, from what I understand. The old system was terrible and they figured it can’t be much worse if they don’t opt to continue it.

Am not from the US, so I don’t care a bit about Pelosi. Assange itself made it apparent he’s on a russian payroll.

For one, when the Panama Papers came out, Assange was quick to critise it for badmouthing russians. To quote them:

#PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID and Soros"

Hell, let’s take Assange’s words about why they never poke Russia?

In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as Navalny are part of that spectrum. There are also newspapers like Novaya Gazeta, in which different parts of society in Moscow are permitted to critique each other and it is tolerated, generally, because it isn’t a big TV channel that might have a mass popular effect, its audience is educated people in Moscow. So my interpretation is that in Russia there are competitors to WikiLeaks, and no WikiLeaks staff speak Russian, so for a strong culture which has its own language, you have to be seen as a local player.

He’s either an asset or a willful idiot.

Oh no, a russian asset going down.

Maybe he’s still waiting in the respawn queue.

The population ratio ia roughly 3:1 though, so even 120:70 is far from sustainable or winnable sadly. I’d imagine those numbers would be way better if the military aid was not drip fed…

Eh, this is what Ukrainians say on this matter.

“Avdiivka is important for them to control the space around Donetsk, you have control of dominant heights there, and they can build logistics corridors to supply a large area of the front,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in an interview in Kyiv earlier this month, explaining the importance of holding on to Avdiivka. “This is not about symbolism, this is about the operative importance of a particular territory,” he added.

From https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/16/ukrainian-forces-give-up-some-positions-in-avdiivka-as-russian-assault-continues

Who’s the speaker of the house blocking aid, again? Oh, it’s a MAGA GOP guy.

Avdiivka is actually fairly important, unlike Bakhmut. It was both a transportation hub and (one of) the most reinforced part of the frontline.

Article says they were coming from a carry-on bag. Someone was pulling a prank or was having a mental break, I guess.

It’s advertised as a cheap lightweight fighter, it’s standout feature being that a minimal amount of crew can operate it in adverse conditions. Which is most useful if you want a peacetime or “guerilla” fighter. There’s exactly two countries in Europe - beyond Sweden - that use Gripen, and I do know that in one of them (Hungary) they beat the F16 by basically buying off Orban and his cronies. …who, ironically enough, are now blocking Sweden’s entry into NATO.

I’d think that at least in Europe you’d see more adoption of the plane if it weren’t mediocre.

Yeah, as opposed to any other country with arms which have a totally nonviolent history.

If we were able to succesfully do so, I would agree with that. We aren’t succeeding in supplying enough to keep Ukraine in the game right now, though.

We can’t supply Ukraine with enough weapons… or even munitions, as the self-pledged 1mill 155mm shells will be only halfway met (hopefully). The few self-designed combat aircrafts we have are painfully mediocre (Eurofighter, Gripen, Rafale…).

Definitely don’t think we would fare any way decently in an actual war without US backing nowadays.

Europe would do well to become military self-sufficient. Of course once they are, there’s not much reason to keep US forces in their territory either, so I’m not sure how much the US really wants that.

He’s a protoss main at heart.

Nothing new in the east.

As long as russia can keep pushing forward, they won’t care about losses. Even by UAF’s own admission, they will probably be forced to abandon Avdiivka in 2 months or so at the current rate of things.

The real important question is whether the western political climate turns for the better or worse. If Ukraine would get all the aid it needs and start pushing back, that’d be a whole different situation; but if the aid ebbs, this can turn into another finnish winter war where Russia gets away with annexing a bunch of territory.

Russia isn’t producing as much as they waste for sure, but to say they are hardly producing is a misconception.

They outproduce the west in artillery ammo on their own,for example. . They are also ramping drone production. They are shitty shaheds with virtually nothing great about them, but that does not mean they cannot cause damage by zergrushing a target with them.

Sure, currently they cannot make more than 200ish tanks a year, but if their stockpiles start running low, nothing stops them from mass producing shitty T55-alikes. Would those be useful against a par military? No way in hell. Would they be enough to enable zergrushing like at Avdiivka? Possibly.

At any rate, I wouldn’t count on the russian army running dry. Currently the western aid running out is more likely, sadly.

They won’t. The west has been meming that russia will run out of something or collapse any moment now… for months now. They will simply push the war economy harder and produce low quality but working vehicles when they start running so low.