re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Hey, y'all. My mom is in the hospital, and I've resolved to waste less time reading tweets from Lord Bebo and ayden (because that's what Chicken apparently wants this thread to be), so I haven't been around much and won't be, but I wanted to write this, because I don't think most people understand what's happening right now.

President Trump is trying to get Ukraine and Russia towards peace. From Trump's point of view, he trying to get both sides to move, but what Trump has been doing is looking at the situation and seeing which side seems more desperate ... and thus more willing to make concessions.

And, a month ago, that looked like Ukraine. Ukraine lost ground fairly consistently throughout 2024, with the exception of the Kursk offensive. The Ukrainian command was badly organized and recruitment was poor. Because units were almost never rotated out, many commanders would unofficially let some guys go home for a while and rest, and so desertion became something that was unofficially ignored in many units.

But so much of that has recently changed. The biggest change is that Ukraine has substantially slowed the Russian advance. Ukraine continues to improve its drone advantage, and their heavy bombers do significant damage to Russian equipment.

And Russia is finally starting to feel the pinch of its now-empty reserves of artillery and many types of armored vehicles. (I've been telling y'all for months that this was on the horizon.) Some donations from the Norks helped a bit, but Russia can't make armored vehicles and artillery pieces nearly as fast as Ukrainian drones destroy them. And improved Ukrainian air defense is resulting in Russian bombers releasing their glide bombs from further back, and that's starting to affect their accuracy.

The net result of all this is that the situation along the front is moving back towards the stalemate that we saw at the end of 2022, before the Ukrainian offensive.

And that means that Zelensky is far, far from desperate to make a deal. He has the $50 billion in loans from the seized Russian assets, and he knows that, ultimately, the EU can "loan" him more of that money (and they likely will by the end of this year, if a peace deal isn't in place).

A stalemate along the front will give Ukraine space to implement the military reforms that it's trying to put in place: reorganizing into several corps, systemizing troop rotation so that getting drafted doesn't seem like a one-way ticket to the front, improving the salary structure of soldiers to encourage enlistment and improve morale, and strengthening existing brigades instead of trying to form new ones.

Meanwhile, the enlistment bonuses Russia is paying new soldiers are unsustainable. When the front stabilizes soon, Putin is going to face the prospect of needing a new general mobilization, which he will resist as long as possible, because it will be extremely unpopular and could send the economy into a death spiral.

About a month ago, I disagreed with some posters here who were suggesting that the Russian economy was in danger of imminent collapse. It wasn't then, and it's not now. But Trump is committed to low oil prices, and Russia is continuing to slowly drain its sovereign wealth fund, and Ukrainian drones are continuing to damage Russian energy infrastructure, and the long-term economic forecast for Russia is still, ultimately, collapse.

All this is why Zelensky isn't going to be pressured into a bad deal. And it's why, very soon, you'll see Trump pivot again to pressuring Putin.

It's important to understand that Trump is NEGOTIATING. He's pushed Ukraine as hard as he could to find out how far they would go, and he's gotten some results. Some of the biggest impacts have been in a number of statements from European countries indicating that they will spend a lot more on their militaries. And make no mistake -- a lot of that spending will be in the form of US-made weapons. The EU is America's largest trading partner, and Trump isn't trying to destroy the transatlantic alliance -- he's trying to rebalance it.

So now, he's going to flip it around and push Putin more. Watch. It's funny to me that there are two groups of people saying that Trump is on Russia's side:

1) The Orban/Tucker faction of MAGA who freakishly think Russia is anti-woke, and
2) The international Left, who pretend that Trump is a Russian agent in order to raise money and mobilize activists.

These groups make up the vast majority of the online discourse, and they are analyzing the situation from the perspective of their own political desires. Personally, I think that Trump truly wants peace, and I particularly think that he wants a Nobel Peace Prize. If you try to analyze the situation from the perspective that Trump is actually trying to do what he says he's doing, then his actions make a lot more sense.

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My mom is in the hospital,

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Best wishes for your mom.

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It's funny to me that there are two groups of people saying that Trump is on Russia's side:

1) The Orban/Tucker faction of MAGA who freakishly think Russia is anti-woke, and
2) The international Left, who pretend that Trump is a Russian agent in order to raise money and mobilize activists.

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Tell Poland and France and most of Europe.

I can suspend my personal lack of faith in Trump to see that your analysis might be what's going on... but like Elon, Trump doesn't seem to understand that careless messaging creates chaos... and chaos creates instability and destroys faith... and when you've lost people's faith in you, then you're done.

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But so much of that has recently changed

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You just typed out a fairytale. You have to be the biggest NAFO troll in this thread. You are filled with hopium and copium and just make shite up in your head that makes you feel good

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You claimed in November the appointment of Kellogg signaled Trump vastly increasing Ukraine funding, the exact opposite occured and you never acknowledged being wrong.

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He always types out these scenarios that are not based on any reality on the ground. That's why he hates the tweets from Lord Bebo and Ayden because it wrecks his fantasy world in his head.

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superior wisdom and objective analysis

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They don't post analysis. They post actual video of the War and facts of what is happening on the ground. Your post read just like the Nuland Family owned ISW reports that are based on hopium and copium and not based on reality. Nobody reads ISW reports or your "analysis" unless they are into fan fiction