re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Maybe someone could even take one for the team and argue that it isn't a proxy war to make him feel better.

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I mean, this didn't start as a proxy war. It started as a Russian invasion of a neighboring country. No one gave anything to Ukraine in the runup to the war except the US and the UK. The week before the war, Germany wouldn't even let the UK fly its plane of NLAWs over their airspace on its way to Kyiv.

No, it was just Putin trying to put the USSR back together by conquering a weaker neighbor -- Ukraine was no one's proxy. But Ukraine fought back, and fought back well. And Russia made incredible mistakes and showed remarkable weaknesses.

So, as Ukraine proved responsible with Western donations, and as they used them to inflict incredible damage on the Russian military, the US and NATO increasingly invested in Ukraine's defense.

So, of course it's a proxy war now, but it didn't start as one. And that's what so many Putin apologists are trying to do with that conversation. They are trying to argue that NATO used Ukraine to start a war with Russia "fight to the last Ukrainian," etc. That argument is absurd, as every serious report indicates that the US did everything in its power to prevent the Russian invasion.

But yes, now NATO countries are giving Ukraine equipment (mostly old equipment), and they are using that stuff to destroy Russia's military. In the next week, visually documented Russian equipment losses will surpass 10,000.

Based on the limited NATO investment in Ukraine, that's an incredible value. I don't see how any logical cost/benefit analysis could conclude anything other than that NATO is thus winning its proxy war.

The success that Ukraine demonstrated in the fall with the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives is why NATO has made such a much larger investment in the last few months. In a month, we will see if that investment pays off, and then NATO countries can decide whether to make another one.