[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: Eight

[Snowygerry]

Sorry if I sound totally stupid. I am looking for a serious answer. What is wrong with using pack animals to carry ammunition and supplies?

Nothing we did it in 1914. Better ofcourse is if you don't go invading neighbouring countries, obviously.

If you are following your donkey through a muddy trench in the year 2025, you just know something went horribly wrong in your nations history.

 

[red_elk]

It does look like the end is close. And it will be a very bad end for Ukraine.

It will be much worse than they could get in March 2022 in Constantinople, that much is clear.
Zelensky will present it as victory in any case, something along the lines "Ukraine is still independent".

 

[Gedemon]

if Ukraine is still independent with territory losses it's a defeat for both side, but it's known since some time that no one involved had something to "win" from that war

 

[really]

Sorry if I sound totally stupid. I am looking for a serious answer. What is wrong with using pack animals to carry ammunition and supplies?

The question is why are they doing it now?
Because this is a practical, reliable way of delivering supplies to the front line?
If so why haven't they been using them from the start?
Or is it because they have started to run out of the specialised, armoured equipment they would prefer to use, or even non specialised equipment which would be preferable.

Separately I find Trump's actions concerning. Negotiating directly with Russia without the seeming involvement of Ukraine seems to be designed to railroad Ukraine into a decision not in their favour.
The only small positive I see in it is that Russia seems keen to talk suggesting they think this is as much (land) as they are going to get at the moment.

 

[Kyriakos]

if Ukraine is still independent with territory losses it's a defeat for both side, but it's known since some time that no one involved had something to "win" from that war

A defeat for both sides is no change of borders - or Russia just keeping Crimea. US officials (eg defense secretary) already said that such expectations are entirely unrealistic.

Trump’s Ukraine ‘plan’: What each side wants from a peace deal

Donald Trump's phone call with Putin has shocked both Ukraine's president Zelensky and allies alike, but is it enough to start peace talks?

www.bbc.com

Even if some leaders of Eu countries will try to speak of Russia losing too - despite gaining an average Eu-country-sized new region (the area it currently occupies) - the problem is that Ukrainians themselves will not feel that they have not lost.

 

[red_elk]

Win by points instead of knockout, yes. And frozen conflict for decades to come.

 

[Gedemon]

NATO is still here, bigger and closer even, "nazi" are still governing Ukraine, demilitarisation is not planned, on the contrary, and EU troops will be on the borders.

there is a territorial gain, and a huge political impact on the years to come, yes.

but I'm pretty sure Putin will not accept that deal, lost too much, not enough gain.

 

[red_elk]

Lavrov and Ushakov going to Riyadh today, don't see it in English language news yet.

Песков: Лавров и Ушаков вылетают в Эр-Рияд по поручению Путина

Подробности читайте на vedomosti.ru

www.vedomosti.ru

First meeting is tomorrow.

 

[red_elk]

Team Trump’s shakedown diplomacy​

The american demand was brutal. President Volodymyr Zelensky had hoped to present his offer to give America access to Ukraine’s rare minerals directly to Donald Trump. When America’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, turned up in Kyiv a few days ahead of this weekend’s Munich Security Conference, Mr Zelensky then hoped he’d be talking about continued financial support. Instead, the Ukrainian president unexpectedly found himself presented with a memorandum. The proposal demanded his country’s mineral wealth in its entirety. Mr Zelensky had “an hour” to agree, according to three sources with knowledge of the exchange.

Unaccustomed to such blunt treatment, the Ukrainian president declined, and pushed the discussion to the Munich conference. There, the Americans pressed once more, demanding Ukraine pledge “$500bn worth” of natural resources as a back payment for military aid supposedly already delivered. By the end of Saturday, February 15th, the Ukrainian team had negotiated a stay of execution, and agreed to start a process of negotiation. At a press huddle in Munich, Mr Zelensky cautioned that the American proposal contained none of the security guarantees that Ukraine needs. “We can think about how to divide resources once security guarantees are clear,” he said.

Team Trump’s shakedown diplomacy

America has just tried to grab Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth

www.economist.com

 

[Gedemon]

welcome to the new imperial era.

 

[Kyriakos]

Nothing new about it, that's why support (by countries, not people) is given=>they expect to gain in material.
The tragedy is that, in this sense, Ukraine will pay with mineral wealth to the US, its own territorial shrinking to Russia.

 

[red_elk]

The era is the same old one, the empire just dropped pretense.

 

[Ordnael]

The era is the same old one, the empire just dropped pretense.

And this is why EU should rearm itself to the teeth!

 

[EnglishEdward]

Win by points instead of knockout, yes. And frozen conflict for decades to come.

Possibly, possibly not. Vlad Putin may hold out for Crimea and the formal abandonment by Ukraine of the entirety of the four provinces
they have decided are Russian with a guarantee that western troops, missiles and strategic radars etc are excluded from Ukraine.

After which there is simply a new border with border guards to prevent smuggling etc.

But Vlad might refuse to settle for that and demand much more and one does wonder how the Donald would respond to that.

 

[red_elk]

Possibly, possibly not. Vlad Putin may hold out for Crimea and the formal abandonment by Ukraine of the entirety of the four provinces
they have decided are Russian with a guarantee that western troops, missiles and strategic radars etc are excluded from Ukraine.

After which there is simply a new border with border guards to prevent smuggling etc.

But Vlad might refuse to settle for that and demand much more and one does wonder how the Donald would respond to that.

Formal abandonment of the entirety of the four provinces sounds unrealistic given the current territorial control.
Trump has no reason to concede that much and nothing indicates he will. Russian diplomats may be skillful, but they cannot do miracles.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Maybe, but if Vlad thinks he is winning he will want more than the status quo.

It is a shame there was not an oblast by oblast plebiscite in 1991.

The role of China may be key.

I wonder if it wants the war to continue or not ?

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

A defeat for both sides is no change of borders - or Russia just keeping Crimea. US officials (eg defense secretary) already said that such expectations are entirely unrealistic.

Trump’s Ukraine ‘plan’: What each side wants from a peace deal

Donald Trump's phone call with Putin has shocked both Ukraine's president Zelensky and allies alike, but is it enough to start peace talks?

www.bbc.com

View attachment 720304

Even if some leaders of Eu countries will try to speak of Russia losing too - despite gaining an average Eu-country-sized new region (the area it currently occupies) - the problem is that Ukrainians themselves will not feel that they have not lost.

I don't have a primary source (nothing that's not twitter anyway), but Hegseth reportedly retracted those comments late last week. So I am a little relieved. Still it was very amateurish for him to say those things he did.

NATO is still here, bigger and closer even, "nazi" are still governing Ukraine, demilitarisation is not planned, on the contrary, and EU troops will be on the borders.

there is a territorial gain, and a huge political impact on the years to come, yes.

but I'm pretty sure Putin will not accept that deal, lost too much, not enough gain.

Putin can hold out until his dying day, if he wanted. Who would challenge him in his own country if he doesn't strike a deal? I bet that is the calculation going through his mind, and so I bet that is what's going to happen: no deal; meanwhile Trump is gone in 4 years (tops).

 

[red_elk]

And yet another good news for today.

Ukraine will not accept a Saudi-talks peace deal, says Zelenskyy​

Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine would not recognise any peace agreements made without its participation, as top Russian and US officials prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia for high-stakes talks on the war in Ukraine.

“Ukraine regards any negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine as ones that have no result, and we cannot recognise any agreements about us without us,” Zelenskyy said on Monday. His comments came as Russian and American officials travelled to Riyadh ahead of Tuesday’s talks aimed at ending Moscow’s nearly three-year war in Ukraine, with Kyiv and Europe excluded from the negotiations.

Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukraine will not take part in the talks. “Ukraine did not know anything about it,” he said.

Ukraine will not accept a Saudi-talks peace deal, says Zelenskyy

The EU and Ukraine have been excluded from high-stakes negotiations between top Russian and US officials

www.theguardian.com

 

[Gedemon]

how's that a good news ?

 

[red_elk]

Good for Russia of course. They reject the deal in advance, both sides of negotiations will know it.