The media won’t give me great answers to this question and I think this I trust this community more, thus I want to know from you. Also, I have heard reports that Russia was winning the war, if that’s true, did the west miscalculate the situation by allowing diplomacy to take a backseat and allowing Ukraine to a large plethora of military resources?

PS: I realize there are many casualties on both sides and I am not trying to downplay the suffering, but I am curious as to how it is going for Ukraine. Right now I am hearing ever louder calls of Russia winning, those have existed forever, but they seem to have grown louder now, so I was wondering what you thought about it. Also, I am somewhat concerned of allowing a dictatorship to just erase at it’s convenience a free and democratic country.

  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Define “winning”.

    Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.

    • ErC@lemmy.cryptoriot.org
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      1 year ago

      Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground

      That doesn’t seem right. In 2023 they actually lost more ground than they gained. At least that was the situation until this september, but i don’t think there where significant developments in the last 2 months.

      • wewbull@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        The numbers are so small, it’s not an argument worth having. What is certainly true is that Russia is sending wave upon wave of men to their death against Ukrainian defences. All for very little gain. Russia lost more people in November than any month so far in this conflict, and any month during Afghanistan. The numbers are horrific. Putin has just ordered another round of drafting, and they were scraping the barrel last time.

    • Ganesh Venugopal@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      Ukraine is, slowly and painfully, gaining ground, so by that measure, they are winning.

      Really? I was hearing the opposite all this while. PS: Slowly and very painfully, fuck, I wish there was an end to this war and we could return to status quo!

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I was hearing the opposite all this while.

        From where? There are multiple, reasonably reputable maps available that show the lines, and regardless of who the map makers support, they have to be accurate because of how easily they can be proven wrong if they make false claims.

        Besides, much like Vietnam, or the many wars in Afghanistan, victory won’t happen on the battlefield, it will happen when the invader finally gets tired of paying the price of war.

          • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Interesting. I know they’ve historically been close to Russia, I didn’t realise they still had so much support.

          • Waker@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            India is absolutely leaning (hard) towards Russia. They probably never bought gas/oil and fertiliser so cheap.

          • Gamma@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            I watch this channel for daily updates: https://youtube.com/@RFU

            It obviously leans pretty heavily pro-Ukrainian, but it seems to do the daily updates accurately enough from the times I’ve double checked.

          • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Tankie is to liberals as woke is to conservatives but y’all aren’t ready for that conversation

            • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Tankie seems more targeted then woke. Woke is everything left of Reagan sometimes.

              Tankie is, at it’s most general, anyone supporting authoritarian measures for “left” wing reasons.

                • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 year ago

                  Jt does support statist solutions. I mean so do I so yeah he’s not a tankie to me, but for some anarchy is the only acceptable end game.

                  Again it’s not generally a “too left” thing, but “too authoritarian” thing.

      • lurch (he/him)@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        From euronews news bulletins I know Ukraine has crossed the dnipro and cleared a stable bridge head to get more troops to that russian occupied side. Also they said that nuklear reactor the russians occupied, near the front, is in danger again, because it has been cut off from electricity and had to run gasoline generators to cool it.

        This shows ukraine is advancing slowly.

          • remotelove@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            Russian army is currently routing Ukrainians in Avdiivka as we speak

            Not hardly. Russian sources keep misreporting this battle. The coke plant is a great example: How many times has it been “taken”? Was capturing it once not enough? That kind of location doesn’t switch hands on a whim, btw.

            The troop movements by Russia into that city are horrendous. The sheer numbers of soldiers that get turned into paste while charging into useless locations already zeroed by artillery is just weird.

            A proven fact of war is that attackers are always at a disadvantage. Troop losses will be generally be much higher for any side that goes on the offense. The number 38k is just mind boggling low for the length of time it takes for Russia to take a city, especially against western weapons.

            If 38k losses for Russia were actually a thing, there would be no need to increase their army size. Medvedev stated that Russia was able to recruit an additional 420k soldiers. That number is probably only about 100k, because Russia has their own numbering system for a lot of things.

            Wagner alone lost ~10k prisoner conscripts in Bakhmut. Depending on the weather, or whatever, Wagner existed, or they never existed. Those numbers don’t count as Russians, I guess.

            If you want a much better source of evil western fake data and propaganda, use the ISW. They also confirmed a NATO statement about Russia being at the 300k loss mark. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates

            Normally, I would say that 300k is likely over-inflated as well. However, just looking at how attacks are conducted by Russia makes that number believable.

              • remotelove@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                Assuming that everything we both are saying is false, the fact remains that Russia hasn’t hardly been able to move the lines at all. You can flash that chart you want with land gains from 2023, but it doesn’t really apply.

                Russia is still an attacking force, they are still the invaders and they are locked in a slow stalemate with a much smaller force. Russia does have many more resources, so it must be their choice to have stretched this conflict out for as long as it has been going, for whatever reason. (Without a doubt, you have a long list of counter arguments and media links to the contrary. Even your boy Rybar doesn’t align with what you are saying.)

                I respect the work of Mediazona to a degree, but they are open about their inaccuracies. They appear to define “casualties” as only deaths. Of those deaths, they are only counting verified ones from social media, local news and from government sources that aren’t named. If they aren’t counting a casualty in the true definition of a “war casualty”, the numbers are going to be different. (Their own estimates put true numbers of deaths around 55k in July which would put allow for a wider casualty estimate of around 165k casualties. You use the napkin math of 1:3, killed:removed from battle permanently)

                “The figures we provide are sourced from publicly available information, including social media posts from family members, local media coverage, and official statements from local authorities. However, these figures represent only a partial account and do not reflect the full extent of the casualties.”

                And yeah, it’s the Russian M.O. to use mass instead of quality. It’s their thing. Little value is placed on a single soldier or even an artillery shell. That concept is baked into all of their military hardware designs and strategy.