OK, but many people who lived in Donbas identified with Russia and many even identified as Russian, right? The people living in Donbas overwhelmingly voted for the Russian-aligned leader that Maidan overthrew.
Kind of, I mean yes to the second part, but I don’t know what ‘identifying with Russia’ means here, I’m pretty sure they all knew they were living in Ukraine.
Just that probably many living there would prefer Russian rule. So I agree it’s all “Russian led” and the weapons all came from Russia but there’s been Ukrainian citizens who volunteered to fight in the various rebel militias since 2014.
The people of Donbas overwhelmingly voted for independence from Moscow the only time that was ever on the ballot:
Even the population of the crimean peninsula voted for an independent Ukraine.
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I have no special insight here, but I’d expect a pretty small number of Russian speaking Ukrainians living in the East preferred Russian rule if preferring Russian rule means they wanted to be absorbed into Russia. Some, probably most, preferred to associate closely with Russia economically and didn’t care that much about the EU, even still what the nearest oligarch was up to was probably their main concern. But speaking Russian and living in a country that was not Russia wasn’t some insurmountable burden.
Ukraine was not as homogeneous as say Belarus, but it was also not Yugoslavia. If Russia didn’t intervene, Maidan would have ushered in a government that the people in the East may have despised and thought illegitimate, but it was unlikely to lead to civil conflict, if for no other reason than that for the sake of stability, everybody important was going to get paid off.
On the one hand it was maybe good for Russia that they got those territories, but on the other hand by annexing the most pro Russia parts of Ukraine they basically ensured Ukraine would majority support reorienting toward the west for the foreseeable future. So maybe it was a phyrric victory in the long term, if the rest of Ukraine is such a core interest to them.
I reject this premise. What was NATO encroaching on? Just like I can’t dictate who my neighbor is allowed to invite to a barbecue, Russia doesn’t get to decide who Ukraine is allowed to associate with.
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Y’all can save everyone’s time and just read mtracey and get a 12-36 hour heads up on SK’s posts.
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To clarify, Ukraine should be free to choose any association it wants. I think Keed and I were on the way to agreeing that the Russian narrative about NATO encroachment is primarily about Russia fretting about the loss of its ability to pressure its neighbors militarily if other means fail, and not about fears of a NATO invasion of Russia. I think that’s an accurate assessment, but not one that implies that Russia has any right to do this or threaten nuclear war over it.
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Yeah, for sure.
Ban for both for agreeing in a forum discussion
Just saw a new interview with Oberst Reisner and that wasnt very optimistic. The time is playing for Russia as they can continue to dig in and bring in more material. Ukraine needs much more than few tanks which get easily outnumbered by Russia. Not to mention that countries like Germany havent even started to ramp up production. He compared the current situation to 1915 where disillusion sets in and people realize it doesnt really work and everything grinded to a standstill. According to him in 1915 the countries realised they have to switch to war production. He also said that Ukraine is already in its 8th or 8th wave of mobilisation and the concripted men get older. So its not only tanks and planes there will be a point where they will need people for the fighting.
Some Wagner dude: “I never thought the Leopards would eat MY face.”
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Der Spiegel usually is a reliable source so I don’t think they’d post that article without being confident it’s true.
Maybe this is what finally made the Germans change their minds. People keep saying Abrams aren’t the tanks Ukraine needs, but maybe they’re the tanks Ukraine needs to get the tanks they need. 
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besides abrams and leopards, the rest of the package has 100+ t72 and challenger tanks, and even more armored infantry vehicles like bradley, senator, amx-10, bastion, etc. some are wheeled yes, yet some are equipped better than what we think of as AFV, eg bradley rocket kit is likely closer to a tank capability than a 30mm cannon.
so, while it is certainly plausible that ukraine does not have enough equipment to launch a counteroffensive right now, it is getting closer to having accumulated serious firepower that can pull off operational advances if they had air or rocket artillery’s support.
so in a way, the leopards discussion is a good media headfake, and in reality nato leaders are already planning out the next round of help with some combination of f-15/16 and atacms.
I guess that would be good but it also means it’ll be a while before the Ukrainians can be ready to employ all of that equipment in an offensive. Several months, I guess. They will first have to weather whatever Putin has planned.
both sides would be wiser to wait for spring/summer conditions for an offensive, although i still think time is benefiting ukraine, get more kit while depleting more mobiks in ill-fated assaults in bakhmut and zaporozh’ye.
i know people think of mobilizations as a way to ramp up power, but that kinda goes against conventional logic with a corrupt corp like russia. every month makes economic outlook of the MIC worse, while mobiks are either eating through food reserves and bullets.