T1000

Yes! Same as you copying from your NPR and Madcow crap!

T1000

You guys are just as guilty. Total hypocrites. Especially since all your fake news and war reporting haven’t changed the fact that Russia has the advantage by a landslide. Tell me more about how bad Russian forces are as Ukraine continues to get beat down. Also you rip on Cargo even though his argument that EU and NATO suck is correct.

Lowslung

Correction to your position: everyone thought that "Russia [had] the advantage by a landslide" as you say. They should've overrun Kiev within a matter of days. Yet here we are, two years later, and despite their advantages on paper, the Russians have been unable to achieve air superiority, demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of maneuver warfare or joint operations, and despite their adversary lacking a navy, continue to lose capital ships on a regular basis. The fact that the country that was apparently superior in every measure by a long shot before it invaded its neighbor has barely been able to grab a few provinces that it basically controlled before the war is absolutely, positively, an abject failure and, regardless of the ultimate outcome, will be looked upon as an example of how to completely bungle a military operation by historians and educators for years to come. Feel free to continue to buy into Ruskie propaganda though....I'm sure you will.

T1000

Call it what you want, but Ukraine is never getting back the territory that Russia just annexed .

T1000

If it makes you feel better from your gated community school training and college brainwashing you too can buy into your own propaganda from whatever source you believe in.

Stan446

Well said Comrade. Now we will bask in Russian victory!, um maybe not. The facts show Russia isn't gaining anything from this and has lost any threat to the West in terms of military might. All Russia has now is nukes.

Excargodog

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but I'd still like to comment.

The initial Russian invasion was badly botched. Why? I'm not sure, although I'd guess poor intel and the sort of poor military leadership you get between wars. We had as bad at the start of WWII when American troops got their butts kicked in North Africa at the Kasserine Pass. During long periods of peace you get sloppy and accumulate inept senior leadership, even if you aren't taking orders from an ex-KGB punk who knows nothing about warfighting. So basically the Russians charged in thinking it was going to be a cakewalk, got badly overextended without the logistical support they needed to either continue the fight or even to hold their positions. They had to retreat as their logistics were inadequate and their positions were too exposed to even hold the ground they had initially taken.

Second point, NOBODY has really achieved air superiority over the Ukraine. Ukraine is possibly the largest and most dense collection of antiaircraft technology ever assembled. Even with good EW jammers, if you fly you die. Perhaps if the Russians were willing to put their more stealthy newer fighters at risk they MIGHT do better (or us with our F-22s) but right now between MANPADS and a bewildering array of state of the art and legacy systems the actual combat areas are pretty much a no-fly zone. Russian Air is NOT penetrating deep into Ukraine held territory although their attack helicopters and SU-25 can sort of peck away at the edges although even that is proving costly. Likewise, long range air to air and surface to air missiles launched from behind the FEBA and by Russian aircraft from (largely) inside Russia and Russian held territories is keeping Ukrainian aircraft (excepting a few attack helicopters) from employing their weapons. And the sort of tactics that can somewhat defeat the large numbers of antiaircraft=systems - like terrain masking - are largely negated by the areas the fighting is occurring. Most of them are fairly flat and at low elevation.

So now it has sort of devolved into a war of attrition and in a war of attrition the country with the most to attrit generally wins and the longer the war goes on the more likely that will be the outcome. That's not a value judgement on the morality of the situation, but the opponent with more resources can afford to wait and burn more of those resources. They can afford - at least up to a point - to sustain a worse casualty rate than the smaller population.

As for the sea battle, it almost doesn't matter except for logistics. Nobody is going to sink either the Crimea or the Ukraine and as long as they share a common border the logistics don't require shipping by sea nor were the Russians mounting amphibious attacks.

METO Guido

Annex is a verb or noun. Killing field occupation using global extortion is the story in progress. Any attempt to retell it without horror is pathetically dishonest.

Lowslung

What's a "gated community school?" Is that some sort of school for fancy communist's kids? Sorry to burst your bubble, but my worldview has been largely shaped by sitting in secure facilities, on alert, and participating in exercises preparing to fight a nuclear war with the assho!es you're so quick to defend. My opinion is also formed by watching their real world operations that happened to be going on adjacent to our own. Interestingly, Russian information warfare tactics were an increasingly urgent topic of study during the later part of my service. That's one area where I will give them some credit. I'm honestly quite shocked at how effectively they've manipulated folks who consider themselves proud Americans into taking their side. Makes me a bit sick to my stomach when I think about it.

Lowslung

Again, Russia started this war with a vastly superior force. The Ukrainians had a few tired MiGs & Flankers, and a handful of Frogfoots. The Russians have produced some very advanced aircraft over the last decades (or at least that's what they'd like the world & their export customers to believe), and have a massive numerical advantage over the Ukrainian Air Force. They should've had air supremacy on day one. It's shocking that they couldn't achieve control of the skies within a matter of weeks, much less years. The fact that the Ukrainians can still deny access to their airspace is nothing short of a miracle.