Ukraine (Mod Note & Threadbanned Users in OP)

And Ru should count it’s lucky stars that the Ukr has not seriously retaliated on a Russian soil. Say, 10 specialist individuals placing 10 + bombs in 10 strategic places and in strategic towns / utility places could send a significant message to Putin proving that nothing and nobody is safe inside the Ru border

Russia hasn't even mobilised conscripts yet. They are rotating their soldiers to and from the frontline which is a luxury Ukraine no longer has. Ukraine has mobilised conscripts which is why the pace has picked up exponentially since the closure of the Zolote cauldron. The people currently being forced to the frontline for Ukraine are untrained and have no desire to die or kill like the hardcore idealist nationalist soldiers who have mostly been caught, killed or injured at this stage.

Lisichansk fell within days and reports are coming in that Siversk is in the process of being surrounded. I have read that Bakhmut is heavily fortified and defended by a lot of Ukrainian troops and will be easier than Siversk to hold. If Siversk and Bakhmut fall as quickly as Lisichansk then the exponential collapse of the Ukrainian forces in the Donbass will become apparent.

Russia hasn't even mobilised conscripts yet.

So the positive point for Russia is that they haven't yet resorted the the last desperate throw of the dice? Hard a silver lining.

The point you were replying to wasin relation to the amount of resources Russia has to expend to take these places, which you didn't address. Russia making some advances doesn't really mean a lot to Ukraine, as long as they impose losses on the Russians while minimising their own (likely why it appears easy for Russia to take some places), they are moving towards the eventual collapse of the Russian army.

The US/EU sanctions are not going to be removed (imo) no matter what Russia does here, as long as Putin remains in power. No, Putin and Russia cannot be trusted but I think with a lasting peace in place Ukraine would rearm far quicker than (sanctioned) Russia will rebuild its military strength to launch another attack.

I've thought (since this began) that Ukraine's national sovereignty, the ability to ally with and obtain weapons they need from who they want + maintain a large army post war is the main thing to secure here, even if the cost of such a peace deal is losing even more territory to Russia.

The next time out, Russia would likely be facing an EU member (or a country well on the way to it) with a fully modernised & well armed Western military, more like Sweden or Finland's but much larger. In addition there could be some US security guarantee, but I think Ukraine's ability to arm itself may be more important than this. So another invasion of Ukraine will not be just an offensive war fought almost entirely on Russia's terms. Would expect it to be harder to conduct a brazen war of choice like this, even in a dictatorship with information control, if people are likely to experience some of it for themselves without having to sign up for Russia's army.

That is why I think unfortunately Putin won't want to accept any peace now until he's compelled by the circumstances. He knows it is really the final crack at taking over all of Ukraine and dragging it back to face towards Russia by force. Once the war ends, it's probably just going to be too costly and risky for Russia to try this on Ukraine again.

Maybe they have been reading up on the last major war in the region...

'Advancing' in a war would normally mean taking five or ten miles of territory a day though. Being bogged down in a slugfest and taking a half a mile or a mile of territory a day does not exactly describe an army that is on top or securing big victories,

I would disagree with all that entirely and completely, and think a lot more would too.

More lies from the proven liar of such lies as Ukraine violated the Budapest agreement.

The welfare and protection of their ethnic cousins?

How many of these ethnic cousins have died as a direct result of Russian actions, war crimes and atrocities in their illegal invasion?

They didn't come to Ukraine to save anyone, or they wouldn't be indiscriminately flattening cities their ethnic cousins live in.

Russia have interests in the conflict, the selfish base interests of a gangster fascist dictatorship on a land grab, rape and pillage.

Russia has proven by act and deed it has absolutely zero regard for the welfare of Ukranians, or they wouldn't have launched an illegal war displacing millions of them and killing thousands of civilians.

A pack of lies from start to finish.

Oh and you know what country is run like a puppet state? Fellow fascist gangster dictatorship Belarus. Ukraine is fighting to avoid such a fate. Russia will only permit such corrupt puppets around it and that is what it wants to turn Ukraine back into. The US supports Ukraine as a fledgling democracy to take its eventual place as an equal member of the EU.

Seems like some of our fellow posters are intent on putting the sick into sycophancy.

It is for them a post truth, post morality sphere where they are free to condone naked agression and war crimes with rhetorical moral equivalence.

Nice to imagine how their line would go down in mother Russia.

"Is that how we're reframing the "Historical Russia" angle?"

Its not an angle. They invented the country. Their people make up a large percentage of the population. The name Ukraine basically means "Borderland" in Russian.

More lies.

The USSR consitution declared that republics, including Ukraine, could leave without conditions. Whatever some state soviet then had to say to leave the USSR is irrelevent, unless you want to admit gangster state Russia didn't even abide by it as the USSRs successor state? It has zero standing as a document recognised or between sovereign countries.

Russia and Ukraine, as sovereign countries, signed the Budapest agreement. You claimed Ukraine violated this agreement yet were completely unable to explain which clause they violated. I even showed lies from the Russian foreign minister that the Budapest agreement only had 1 clause about nuclear weapons - it did not. Russia agreed to respect the territory of Ukraine including Crimea and Donbas. Russia violated this agreement. To suggest otherwise is a lie.

Anyone who comes out saying Russia has gone in to protect ethnic Russians when they are victims of Russian war crimes and atrocities and indiscriminate attacks on civilian locations is therefore a denier of war crimes and atrocities.

You are only here to sow and create the confusion of a post truth world and spreading a bunch of lies to defend Russian atrocities and war crimes and an illegal invasion.

You are a proven liar and denier of war crimes and atrocities.