Russian warship, go f**k yourself!

Zelensky moves against his commanding general now aren't helping the situation,remembering back its Zelensky who pushed the summer offensive demanding results, the smart thing after the disastrous first few weeks of it would of been to call a halt and conserve manpower/ammo/equipment, they didn't and with the us/eu dithering on aid, it looks like Putin is in the driving seat

To have any hope, they needed to drop conscription age down to 18 last summer/autumn and have these reserves now available to them, russia was always going to grind it out, how Zelensky thought it was going to be so easy to achieve his stated goals on reflection was sheer arrogance, he started to believe his own hype,

I really wish you'd stop with this overly simplistic and ridiculous truce "solution" you keep suggesting. Russia aren't interested in one, and if you'd really looked in to how Russia/Putin operates you'd realise who really benefits from any truce/pause.

Russia were and continue to be in a stronger position; the shear scale of resources available always means that. Ukraine is fighting for its very existence.

They had a reserve of men before the counteroffensive. Now they seem to have shortages of men everywhere according to reports. Presumably that difference between now and then are dead or severely injured

The "Negotiating with Russia" is frightfully naïve in the hope that it would be in anyway genuine. You really need to look in to what Russia and Putin have done and would do in that situation.

The solution is for others to front up an support Ukraine or realise that Russia will be on our (EU) doorsteps, both figuratively and literally, within 5-10 years.

What good are men if they don't have weapons?

I'd like to see you're stat to say all Ukrainian men are trying to avoid being drafted.

Being under Russian rule is no guarantee of carrying on living either.

Maybe they never existed and were made up for propaganda purposes. But they've gone from supposedly having excess men to being short.

Zaluhzny gone for whatever reason

In 2h 2022 they had to turn volunteers away because the military had enough soldiers. The Ukrainians have shown extraordinary almost super-human solidarity and bravery against a much larger foe, and still do, but bravery and sacrifice has limits, it's two years in and there's an approximate stalemate, recruitment is more difficult now.

A significant number of posters here have said they'd never fight if e.g. Ireland were attacked. People are human beings.

So the line "They are all trying to avoid being drafted" has no real substance.

Any link posted throughout this thread you've generally hopped on as unverifiable twitter info or media bias yet you're making things up as you go along and touting some impromptu sit down as a done deal. It's bar stool stuff and used car salesman techniques.

It's going to be very difficult, but Ukrainian leadership don't have the option to shrug and give up. They must either make progress this year, or go to "negotiations" from a position of strength. Putin will never stop unless forced to, or pushed back.

Tucker Carlson "interviewed" Putin, who went on one his usual long rambling diatribes.

Some highlights:

"Mr Putin claims that areas in the south and east of Ukraine "had no historical connection with Ukraine whatsoever". Conquered from the Ottoman Empire by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great in the seventeenth century, the Russian president says that means these lands are in fact rightfully Russian. Mr Putin later refers to them using the seventeenth-century term "Novorossiya" - New Russia.

Mr Suny points out that the inhabitants of these lands when they were conquered by Russia were neither Russian nor Ukrainian, but Ottoman, Tatar or Cossacks - Slavic peasants who had fled to the frontiers."

"Mr Putin went on to claim that "Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at [Joseph] Stalin's will," arguing that Ukraine was created by the Soviet leadership in the 1920s and received lands that it had no historical claim to.

In a sense, he is correct, says Prof Radchenko. The Soviet leadership drew up the borders of Soviet republics "almost like the Western colonial powers drew up borders in Africa - kind of randomly.

"But that does not mean that Ukrainians did not exist."

More broadly, Mr Radchenko denies Mr Putin's claims that Ukraine is not a real country because it was formed in its modern form in the twentieth century. "Any country is a fake country, in the sense that countries are created as a result of a historical process.

"Russia was created as a result of decisions taken by the Russian tsars, such as the colonisation of Siberia, which came at the considerable expense of the local population.

"If Ukraine is a fake country, then so is Russia."

"Perhaps Mr Putin's most inflammatory claim was regarding Poland. Mr Putin claimed that Poland - which was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 - "collaborated with Hitler".

The Russian president told his interviewer that by refusing to cede an area of Poland called the Danzig Corridor to Hitler, Poland "went too far, pushing Hitler to start World War Two by attacking them".

For Prof Prazmowska, President Putin's interpretation of history is a flawed reading of the historical record. She says that while it is true that there were diplomatic contacts between Poland and the Nazis - the first treaty Hitler signed after coming to power was a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1934 - Mr Putin is conflating diplomatic outreach to a threatening neighbour with collaboration.

"The accusation that the Poles were collaborating is nonsense," says Mrs Prazmowska.

"You can't interpret these things as if this were collaboration with Nazi Germany, because it just so happened that the Soviet Union also signed treaties with Germany [at the same time]."

In September 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland according to the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed between both states earlier that year."

Denmark is sending it's entire stock of artillery to Ukraine but afaik they are keeping their air defense systems in place. They have called on other European states to sent ammunition. It's probably due to the fact that the US Republican party have continued to block the vote on the recent aid deal.

I think we're giving them enough of what we have.

I feel very sorry for what is happening to their country, but I'm failing to get services here for my sick child due to "budgetary issues"