It's one thing to make a speculative assessment, or a prediction. But the use of the implied past tense in reference to a situation that has many variables and which in any case is far from decided is definitely quite pretentious.
I don’t think anybody serious questions the outcome of the Ukraine war — as evidenced by the international realignment caused by NATOs defeat, increases talk about Ukraine relinquishing ground, etc.
What event do you believe could change the outcome at this point?
And since Ukraine was defeated, we can discuss why: their inability to match artillery exchanges for most of the war.
To clarify: Is this a hypothetical statement or is there a specific NATO defeat that you have in mind? As I understand, Russia has not directly attacked any NATO states since the state of the Ukraine war. (Leave aside the sabotage of Nord Stream natural gas pipelines.)
But that you responded with rhetoric rather than pointing out where I’m wrong suggests you don’t have an answer to what would change the outcome.
Not even his allies believe in the “Victory Plan” — and several started talking about calling Putin after reading it.
If you think I’m wrong, stop engaging in empty rhetoric and explain what you think will allow Ukraine to win… because nobody seems to know, not even Zelensky.
Sorry, but I can't engage you on this. You have to understand that your original statement, in both content and tone, simply precludes any follow-up or debate. And then when this ws pointed out, you doubled down on the same weird, time-traveling, debate-terminating formulation.
So okay, fine: HN is a big place, and there's plenty of other people you can debate on this particular point if you want. I don't think we'll convince each other of anything anyway, which is also perfectly fine.
Defeated enemies aren’t making regular incursions into the ‘victors’ land which the ‘victor’ can’t stop, or launching attacks agains the ‘victors’ capital.
Kursk was stopped after small gains and prior to any major captures — with Ukraine losing their best units. That loss has led to cities along the line of battle being captured, including the fortress city of Vuhledar.
There’s now increased talk of Ukraine giving up territory — which is their defeat.
Edit due to rate limit:
You’re citing areas Russia withdrew from during the Istanbul talks as “lost” while ignoring that Russia posses 18% of Ukraine and is advancing.
Russia isn’t losing “more and more control” on any front, they’re forcing Ukraine back — including driving Ukraine from places like Vuhledar they’ve held for the entire war until now.
To use your Canadian analogy:
It would be like if the US seized the 20% of Canada closest to the continental US and then proceeded to shell Canadian army to dysfunction from there — which would be seen as a sane and effective strategy.
Looks like Russia has lost everything but a tiny portion they gained, at immense cost - including the near total collapse of their economy.
And are going to be locked in trench warfare on land they don’t control, with uncertain supply lines, with no air superiority - going into winter.
And is losing more and more control of the little they have left.
This is Russia’s Afghanistan writ large, and will lead to the total collapse of the Russian gov’t (and society) soon.
It’s already nearly destroyed an entire generation of Russian men - in the middle of an already epic demographic collapse.
Don’t get me wrong, this has wrought terrible damage to Ukraine too. But with Russia’s economy (previously) and population being 10x larger, this whole debacle is a huge embarrassment to Russia. Even bigger than the collapse of the USSR.
It would be like if the US went to invade Canada, and couldn’t even hold Ottawa.
Edit to answer your edit: maybe if the 18% was the land near Alaska. And they’re at almost the same amount of land they had control of when this whole mess started. All the major economically productive areas of Ukraine are still under Ukraine’s control.
> including the near total collapse of their economy.
I am not here to shill for Russia, but this is certainly not true. The Russian economy has proven much more resilient than anyone expected since the start of coordinated global sanctions by the world's most developed economies. It is currently growing about 4% per year.
You're not, but given that the IMF is saying 2.6 percent (current), 3.2 percent (projected) -- how does one obtain 4 percent for "current" growth (other than from Russian government figures)?
Only if you exclude manufacturing.
> This "precision versus quantity" argument played out to greatly favor precision in Ukraine.
Until the allies of Ukraine fell behind on artillery manufacturing — allowing Russia to gain dominance and grind down the Ukrainian military.
That mass produced artillery out sustained precision munitions is a major lesson in Ukraine’s defeat.