Just in case anyone is in any doubt as to the nature of US 'help'.

My job [in Syria] is to make it a quagmire for the Russians — US envoy James Jeffrey

You mean protect innocent Syrians surely?

"...sorry, who are the Syrians?"

At least it shows that this choice of equating, say, MM. Biden and Putin by comparing them or any other leader with Nazi figures is not, in the view of some, an obviously superior choice morally, politically or philosophically speaking.

There's nothing inherently noble in neutrality.

Karl Popper wrote a whole book defending open societies against their enemies. And the main point is that open societies aka democracies, however imperfect, are perfectible while closed societies, not so much. And that gives democracies an inherent strength as compared to dictatorships.

I'm a believer in democracy. Would be nice if we had one.

In any case even if I were to agree that Western imperialism is, in fact, some way better than Russian imperialism, it doesn't change the fact that neither I, nor anyone, is obligated to don the pom poms in favor of the former.

Also Popper sucks, like, the most. Maybe second most after Ayn Rand. Both cold war polemicists pretending to be philosophers.

No NATO membership for Ukraine ✓ (main demand met and has been for some time now)

Where's Putin?

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — For a month now, Russian forces have repeatedly attacked Ukrainian medical facilities [...] with at least 34 assaults — War Crimes Watch: Russia's onslaught on Ukrainian hospitals (Mar 26, 2022)

^{AP News is usually taken to be reliable. Declaring the report fake or the like would require something material.}

Yeah...not really...looking good.

Meanwhile "We're open again!" :victory: :)

Mutually Assured Commitment to Chickening out? — FreeEmotion

That has happened many times. Which is the good thing here. And that's why it's largely hypothetical the idea of "escalate-to-de-escalate" and the whole debate about the use of nuclear weapons is hypothetical. The use of let's say conventional ballistic missiles isn't: there in use, actually with both side in the Ukraine conflict.

I remember a story of Leonid Brezhnev. He was participating in a military exercise in the Soviet Union as head of the state. So when the exercise came to moment where he would confirm the launching of the Soviet nuclear weapons (and Soviet doctrine was based on using nuclear weapons to counter Western air superiority), he started to panic and fearfully started to ask: "This is an exercise, right?".

Another telling anecdote I read came from the memoirs of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Reagan and Bush, admiral Crowe. Usually high level wargames that had nuclear weapons ended with both Cold War sides refraining to use them. So they wanted to see what would happen when they were used and tilted the wargame that nuclear exchanges would happen. The result was that the wargame itself became so tense and nerve wrecking for the participants that one had to be hospitalized.

It's obvious that nuclear weapons aren't thought of as just weapons with more firepower than ordinary weapons. Which is a good thing.

Is there anything "morally wrong" about total disarmament? I am missing something here. — FreeEmotion

It's not just a moral question and when all war is morally wrong, I guess total disarmament is morally correct.

However:

Switzerland is surrounded by EU countries that likely won't invade it or militarily pressure it. Why would it need it's army? Well, the argument is that we cannot know what the future brings us and once you have disbanded your deterrence, hard to get it back. Similar with nuclear weapons. If someone accepts to disarm totally the nuclear arsenal and then simply lies and others go through with it.

A side with nuclear weapons when others don't have it can quite freely make military excursions and use military force, as can be seen from the example of Israel or Russia (with Ukraine).

On an unrelated note, the new narrative is hilarious. All the stalling out and counter attacks are actually part of a grand strategy.
— Count Timothy von Icarus

Some, uh, experts seem to go along with this narrative:




On a related note, I think that some of the commenters (and I don't entirely absolve myself) tend to hold official Russian rhetoric to a standard of truthfulness, rationality and consistency to which it does not hold itself. For example, some say that after repeatedly and forcefully stating their objectives in this war, the Russian side cannot afford to back down and leave with much less - something that they could have achieved sooner and easier, with far fewer losses. Most of all, because that would threaten its standing at home. This analysis does not appreciate just how little bearing facts and common sense have on what Russian officials and propagandists are saying, and how abruptly they can switch their talking points. (How much any of this matters to the Russian populace is a different and more complicated question.)

For people on the outside, the depth of denial, absurdity and cynicism in the official rhetoric may be difficult to fathom, but here is just one example. One of the principle justifications for the war (which cannot be called a war) was and remains the "genocide" of the Russian people in the separatist Donbass. Apparently, the public is more receptive to this narrative than to others, and so propagandists put it front and center (for example, when talking about the not-war to schoolchildren). But contrary to what one might expect, this narrative was almost entirely absent from the public sphere until about two weeks before the invasion, when suddenly it was being blasted out of every TV set. Neither actual numbers nor the record of news stories and official statements over the past several years bear it out. And yet it appears that this jarring switch went unnoticed by many. In true Orwellian fashion, a sizable number of people (according to some surveys) now believe that a genocide has been ongoing all these years.

I am not going to make any predictions, but my point in all this is that there are more live possibilities here than some prognosticators admit. It is entirely possible that at the end (if there is an end) the Russians will declare that their goal was always whatever it is that they will have decided to settle on, and that will be it. The record showing otherwise won't matter in the slightest.

t is entirely possible that at the end (if there is an end) the Russians will declare that their goal was always whatever it is that they will have decided to settle on, and that will be it. — SophistiCat

Not only entirely possible, but very likely. Putin's Russia has already moved a lot into the realm of Soviet style information policy and narrative.

The fact that calling the war a war is forbidden tells this totally clear. There are more political prisoners in Russia than there were in the Soviet Union in the 1970's according to some observers. The exact number is obviously unknown.

Just a year ago:

The number of political prisoners in Russia today is nearly five times higher than it was five years ago, according to the latest report from the Memorial Human Rights Center. Activists began maintaining a list of Russian political prisoners in the late 2000s, and for a long time it was made up of a few dozen names. But this tally has increased sharply since 2015. Today, the country has 420 political prisoners and is poised to catch up to the numbers seen during the twilight years of the USSR.

And now, btw, the Memorial Human Rights Center, the oldest human rights group in Russia, which now is being foreclosed. It's primary function was to record the crimes against humanity during Stalin and the Soviet Union.

I'm not Russian, nor talking to any Russians. Why would I morally condemn them? This is a discussion forum, not a socialising site. You're not 'getting to know me better' by my writing a little puff piece about all the things I like and dislike. — Isaac

To think strategically or morally about this war doesn’t require you to be Russian, nor to talk to Russians. So your question is grounded on a non-sequitur. Maybe what you are implying here is that your readiness to voice your moral condemnation of the Russian aggression is conditional on your capacity of affecting their choices. But that’s a very weak argument, indeed if you can not affect directly their choices (assumed you could just by being Russian or speaking to Russians), you could affect them indirectly by promoting western governments’ decision to support Ukrainian defense precisely because Russian aggression is morally wrong. Additionally it sounds contradictory wrt your further claim: this is a discussion forum, so we can discuss things just for the sake of discussing them.
Finally the purpose of my argument was not to socialise but to discuss in a philosophical forum about this war. And the point is precisely that your analysis about this war instead of proving to be more objective, it just proved your preferences.

Morally - People have implied (outright said in some cases) that 'the West' bears no responsibility for what's happening. I think that's morally wrong, so I oppose it. No one has said that Putin's is blameless, so there's no cause for me to write anything morally condemnatory about him. — Isaac

And what are the moral principles or the moral values which the West has infringed and therefore should bear responsibility for the Russian aggression of Ukraine? Besides if the West did something morally wrong, why isn’t the West being attacked by the Russians but Ukraine? Are you including Ukraine in the West?

Strategically - Again, no one has commented to the effect that we should not take America's strategic interests seriously, so there's no cause to write anything to the effect that we should. People have, however, treated Putin as if he were a psychopath with no legitimate security interests, I think that's wrong so I oppose it. — Isaac

That people are treating Putin as a psychopath should be welcome if it advances western strategic interests, unless of course you are against advancing Western strategic interests. Are you? Or do you believe that Western strategic interests are better served if people do not treat Putin as a psychopath?
And, even if you discuss for the sake of discussion, what do you mean by “legitimate security interests”? First of all if we reason in strategic terms, then no geopolitical agent has legitimacy beyond what its competitors are willing to accord, precisely because we have excluded morality as a primary source of legitimacy for strategic action. Besides any geopolitical agent can rationally decide to respect or infringe any agreements and sphere of influence if it proves effective in advancing as long as possible their strategic interests. In other words, even legal legitimacy based on international law is strategically irrelevant if it is not granted by a super-national overwhelming deterrence power.
Secondly, why are you so convinced that Putin acted primarily out of security concerns? Just because Putin claimed so? I think that there are enough strong evidences that is matter of geopolitical influence not of national security per se for the following reasons:
How can a non-nuclear power as Ukraine constitue a threat for a nuclear power like Russia in the first place? And if the threat Putin perceives is about letting Ukraine have nuclear missiles in some far future, then why didn’t he demand an agreement analogous to the one between US and Soviet Union during the cuban missile crisis in the first place, instead of invading Ukraine? Besides no other eastern European country has nuclear missiles even if they are NATO members, so why having Ukraine inside NATO is a security threat for Russia as a nuclear power?
BTW if he so afraid of Russian national security why is he so quick and vocal in menacing the West to escalate to a nuclear war when nobody in the West or Ukraine is planning to attack Russia?! Or why did he limit his demands to the denial of NATO membership to Ukraine, and the acknowledgement of the annexation of Crimea as well as the independence of a couple of Ukrainian regions instead of going for the annexation of the whole Ukraine or at least for a pro-Russian regime change to ensure that no other competing power could turn Ukraine against Russia?!
Finally the military presence of Russia in the Middle East and in Africa has nothing to do with national security concerns, but with a world power struggle. And Putin’s strategic choices wrt all other eastern European countries [1] and western European countries (given the Russian lobbying in American and European politics) seem more aiming at becoming more politically influent in Europe then supporting national security concerns per se. Indeed economic ties would have been sufficient to preserve peaceful relations between EU and Russia, and things could have gone even more awesomely if Putin boosted democratisation and the rise of a middle class in Russia to the point of making Russia eligible to join NATO as he wanted. So all he’s proven with his war against Ukraine is that he’s willing to take military action if lobbying doesn’t suffice to reach his ambitious strategic goals that certainly go beyond national security concerns.



[1]
“The demands, spelled out by Moscow in full for the first time, were handed over to the US this week. They include a demand that Nato remove any troops or weapons deployed to countries that entered the alliance after 1997, which would include much of eastern Europe, including Poland, the former Soviet countries of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Balkan countries. Russia has also demanded that Nato rule out further expansion, including the accession of Ukraine into the alliance, and that it does not hold drills without previous agreement from Russia in Ukraine, eastern Europe, in Caucasus countries such as Georgia or in Central Asia.”. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/russia-issues-list-demands-tensions-europe-ukraine-nato)

Are they jailing people for protesting for democracy? Because that would be a good sign, in a way.

For people on the outside, the depth of denial, absurdity and cynicism in the official rhetoric may be difficult to fathom, but here is just one example. One of the principle justifications for the war (which cannot be called a war) was and remains the "genocide" of the Russian people in the separatist Donbass. Apparently, the public is more receptive to this narrative than to others, and so propagandists put it front and center (for example, when talking about the not-war to schoolchildren). But contrary to what one might expect, this narrative was almost entirely absent from the public sphere until about two weeks before the invasion, when suddenly it was being blasted out of every TV set. Neither actual numbers nor the record of news stories and official statements over the past several years bear it out. And yet it appears that this jarring switch went unnoticed by many. In true Orwellian fashion, a sizable number of people (according to some surveys) now believe that a genocide has been ongoing all these years. — SophistiCat

In other news - what 'people on the outside' just don't realise about the French is that they wear onions around their neck, berets and stripy jumpers, and they're all called Jaques

...

Who would the "people on the outside" be? You really can't think of anything, anything at all from the Western World which nobody had heard of one day but was global issue number one the next simply because of press or social media coverage?

I don't object to Russia being held to these standards, but this underhand insinuation in it all the the West stands above that kind of skulduggery is little short of propaganda itself.

When was the last time you saw a Yemeni flag above one of our public buildings?

On Wednesday, a donor conference in Geneva aimed at raising funds for Yemen ended with world leaders pledging little more than a quarter of the target amount.

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said he was “deeply disappointed”. “More people are in need this year in Yemen than in 2021. More lives will be lost. More children will starve … yet somehow, we will have less money to support them. World leaders must not allow this to happen.

“The people of Yemen need the same level of support and solidarity that we’ve seen for the people of Ukraine. Especially as the crisis in Europe will dramatically impact Yemenis’ access to food and fuel, making an already dire situation even worse. We need to step up now to avoid thousands more dying from hunger.” — https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/17/aid-agencies-race-food-to-ukraine-cities-kyiv-kharkiv-dnipro

I'm supporting the people who I think would be harmed by the policy I'm opposing. — Isaac

Quite a broad group of people. And what does it translates into, under the circumstances? What policy prescriptions do you make (or not make) as a result?

To think strategically or morally about this war doesn’t require you to be Russian, nor to talk to Russians. So your question is grounded on a non-sequitur. — neomac

I didn't say it was 'required' did I? I said I had no reason to. Not liking cricket gives me no reason to play cricket. Is that the same as saying I'm 'required' to like cricket in order to play cricket?

if you can not affect directly their choices (assumed you could just by being Russian or speaking to Russians), you could affect them indirectly by promoting western governments’ decision to support Ukrainian defense — neomac

Only if I thought it would help. If I though it would cause more harm, how would that be the moral option?

it sounds contradictory wrt your further claim: this is a discussion forum, so we can discuss things just for the sake of discussing them. — neomac

Again, me finding no reason to and me being unable or not allowed to are two different things.

And what are the moral principles or the moral values wrt which the West has infringed and therefore should bear responsibility for the Russian aggression of Ukraine? — neomac

These have been discussed at length, but recklessly endangering millions of people by knowingly provoking a ruthless tyrant without any meaningful protection for those he might attack is immoral.

if the West did something morally wrong, why isn’t the West being attacked by the Russians — neomac

Wtf? I assume it's because Putin is an immoral turd and would probably applaud them.

That people are treating Putin as a psychopath should be welcome if it advances western strategic interests, unless of course you are against advancing Western strategic interests. Are you? — neomac

Yes.

what do you mean by “legitimate security interests”? — neomac

An interest some party might have about their security which actually relates to their security (as opposed to a connection made only for political rhetoric).

why are you so convinced that Putin acted primarily out of security concerns? — neomac

I'm not.

How can a non-nuclear power as Ukraine constitue a threat for a nuclear power like Russia in the first place? — neomac

By serving as a base for much better equipped allies like the US.

BTW if he so afraid of Russian national security why is he so quick and vocal in menacing the West to escalate to a nuclear war when nobody in the West or Ukraine is planning to attack Russia? — neomac

Because his concern is not an attack on Russia. A land invasion of one's country is not the only thing that comes under the umbrella of a security concern, obviously. Do you think anyone is going to invade the US? Clearly not. Do you think the US has legitimate security concerns?

why did he limit his demands to the denial of NATO membership to Ukraine, and the acknowledgement of the annexation of Crimea as well as the independence of a couple of Ukrainian regions instead of going for the annexation of the whole Ukraine or at least for a pro-Russian regime change to ensure that no other competing power could turn Ukraine against Russia? — neomac

Because those demands were more likely to be met.

economic ties would have been sufficient to preserve peaceful relations between EU and Russia — neomac

Exactly. It was Yanukovych's attempts to create just such a relationship and the EU's refusal to countenance it that acted as one of the precipitators of this whole thing.

all he’s proven with his war against Ukraine is that he’s willing to take military action if lobbying doesn’t suffice to reach his ambitious strategic goals that certainly go beyond national security concerns. — neomac

Not sure what the 'all' is doing there.

Have you read Popper? Probably not, or you wouldn't compare him to Ayn Rand.

And what does it translates into, under the circumstances? What policy prescriptions do you make (or not make) as a result? — Olivier5

I'm not writing them all out again. I've already stated them, you opposed them with your knee-jerk tribalism, I pointed that out...now you want to avoid that whole discussion by pretending it never started. Fascinating though they are, there's a limit to the effort I'm willing to put in to play your games. It's entertaining to watch you dance, but if it takes too much to wind you back up again...

Take a week off. Take two. Not just not posting; don't even login to see what's going on.

In mil-speak: Do not allow the forum to dictate the tempo of your actions.

I've already stated them — Isaac

Just summarize them briefly, will you?

Thanks - please I don't want to detract further from this thread.
I regret making my decision public.
I will respond to you and any others by PM :sparkle:

Switzerland is surrounded by EU countries that likely won't invade it or militarily pressure it. Why would it need it's army? Well, the argument is that we cannot know what the future brings us and once you have disbanded your deterrence, hard to get it back. Similar with nuclear weapons. If someone accepts to disarm totally the nuclear arsenal and then simply lies and others go through with it. — ssu

This is a good point. From "Russia is not the enemy" to the present day stand, people and events change drastically, so plan to keep your army and nukes because one day someone might need them or justify their unnecessary use.

That has happened many times. Which is the good thing here. And that's why it's largely hypothetical the idea of "escalate-to-de-escalate". — ssu

Tell me, if you and your best friend were presidents of two opposing nuclear powers, how would you approach the subject? Total disarmament? "I found president X very disarming" or would you plan for the day one or both were replaced my madmen, 'neocons' or imperialists? Would you win any elections. I don't think there will be any peacenick presidents in our future.

Definitions for Peacenik

(noun) a person who opposes war or warlike policies
(noun) someone who prefers negotiations to armed conflict in the conduct of foreign relations


They are counting on there being wars in the future. Very optimistic, of course they assume they can 'win'

U.S. adversaries—China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorist groups—will likely remain constant, but U.S. allies are liable to change, and the location of where the United States is most likely to fight wars may not match the locations where conflicts could be most dangerous to U.S. interests.

Above all, barring any radical attempt to alter the trajectory, the United States in 2030 could progressively lose the initiative to dictate strategic outcomes and to shape when and why the wars of the future occur.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2849z1.html

All wars are about the future as well as the past.

Yeah, looking back over the past year, it almost looks like the authorities knew all along that all that tosh about human rights and freedoms would soon become irrelevant. With everything else that's going on, there's no more need for even halfhearted pretenses.

As soon as Russia was kicked out of the Council of Europe ("you can't fire me - I quit!") Dmitry Medvedev (who many thought to be softer and more liberal than Putin) gleefully declared that now Russia was finally free to reinstitute capital punishment.


I don't know who you are jumping up and down for, but if it's on my account, then don't bother. Go back to bickering with whoever cares.

Yes, they do propaganda and we do propaganda too. Theirs is often outlandish and laughable and I've pointed that out at the start of the thread. Ours is often more run-of-the-mill, like panic-denying any narrative that doesn't make the Russians look bad. E.g. When someone points out that the 'Russia's war is going disastrously' narrative might not be entirely accurate, these people open their skull, drop their brain on the floor, and start babbling about any other bad thing Russia has done as if you must support that because you're not agreeing with everything they're saying.

whataboutism
/ˌwɒtəˈbaʊtɪz(ə)m/
nounBRITISH — Wayfarer

Well, it's nice to see that you care about Ukrainians. I'm sure Ukrainians care a lot about their Australian brothers and sisters, too.

However, IMO emotions shouldn't be allowed to cloud judgement. It doesn't follow that if you label someone's counterargument "whataboutism" you render it invalid. You still have to explain why the West is waging economic jihad on Russia for invading Ukraine, but not on China for invading and annexing Tibet, or on Turkey for invading Cyprus and Syria, etc., etc.

In fact, NATO's Stoltenberg even tried to justify Turkey's actions by claiming that Turkey has "legitimate security concerns":

Minister Cavusoglu and I also discussed Turkey´s ongoing operation in Northern Syria … Turkey has legitimate security concerns … Turkey is a great power in this great region and with great power comes great responsibility… - NATO Joint press conference, 11 Oct. 2019

So, according to NATO, and to NATO jihadis in general, it’s OK for Turkey to invade and occupy Kurdish territories in Syria, but not for Russia to invade Ukraine!

Plus, whichever way you choose to answer this, the fact remains that the West's sanctions on Russia show that the world's economy and finances are dominated by America and its client states. And, this in turn shows (a) that there is no democracy and equality in the world, and (b) that nations who don't want to submit to US dominance have a right to resist.

if it's on my account — SophistiCat

It isn't.

When someone points out that the 'Russia's war is going disastrously' narrative might not be entirely accurate — Baden

A bit more analysis on whether the failure to advance further on Kyiv was a disaster or intentional or something in between.

https://twitter.com/defencewithac/status/1507498359812149261

"I think it was all about Donbas from the start. The stuff In rest of country was a feint. Fact Kyiv remains mostly untouched while Mariupol is flattened speaks volumes."

Defence With A 'C' @defencewithac: Seen a number of similar suggestions that Kyiv was a mere feint, which I think are equally as implausible as the idea that Kyiv was the Russian centre of gravity, which we shall examine... err, now. /1

One of the opening gambits for the Russians was a failed air assault on an airport on the city outskirts, which suggests an attempt to capture Kyiv via coup de main. More specifically, it suggests an attempt to capture the Ukrainian government via coup de main. /2
·
19h
The persistent advances on the city from both north and east, and the attempts to encircle it, would also imply that Kyiv was more than just a mere feint, and that a reasonable effort was being made to try and capture it. /3
·
19h
That said, operationally Kyiv is far more important to the Ukrainians than it is to the Russians, which would explain why Ukr has expended so much effort in its defence, stripping other areas of units and systems in order to protect the capital. /4
·
19h
Conversely, the Rus deployed most of their units in the south and east, which suggests that while certainly Kyiv was an important target, it wasn't the central axis upon which the operation hinged. Otherwise it would have made sense to deploy vastly more forces to it. /5
·
19h
As for why Kyiv has been less bombarded (relatively speaking...) than other cities, the simple answer is that the Russians haven't gotten as close and are having more difficulty bringing artillery to bear on the main city. /6
·
19h
The Rus approach to urban conflict has long been one of "find the enemy with probes, flatten that area with artillery, then send in troops to clear the rubble." This is what we've seen in Mariupol for example. /7
·
19h
But in Kyiv they haven't really gotten close enough to do that on the core city, though residents of the suburbs and surrounding towns/cities would beg to differ that their region has somehow gotten off lightly. /8
·
19h
This incidentally seems to be half the Russian's problems in places like Chernihiv and Sumy, where small probes by single/pairs of tanks with a few IFV in support are routinely getting ambushed and overwhelmed by local Ukrainian superiority. /9
·
19h
Thus, I don't think Kyiv is really one or the other. It doesn't seem to be the central goal that everyone is obsessing over, but to call it the object of a mere feint is to give the Russians too much credit for an otherwise mediocre advance. /end

----

Vastly prefereable and more enlightening than 'It's all a disaster' or 'It's all going exactly to plan'.

Tell me, if you and your best friend were presidents of two opposing nuclear powers, how would you approach the subject? Total disarmament? "I found president X very disarming" or would you plan for the day one or both were replaced my madmen, 'neocons' or imperialists? Would you win any elections. I don't think there will be any peacenick presidents in our future. — FreeEmotion

It's a long process for countries to change their views of others from "possible enemy" to friend. Now many politicians indeed can have "peacenick" ideas, but it takes a while before the militaries themselves have "peacenick" ideas.

Just think of the United States and the United Kingdom. After WWI they had been allies.

Even after the two countries fought WW1 together, the US had warplans called War Plan Red to fight the British alongside their plans for a possible war with Japan (War Plan Yellow).



Now how incredible does that sound? What's the reasoning behind it? Well, not much if anything. And just how easily tensions can rise is when you look at the relationship that China and the Soviet Union had. So from being on the same side in Korea, later they had a border war.

Nearly the last thing to disappear is the hypothetical possibility of a conflict, and a lot of integration and friendly ties and relationships happen before. And far more likely before total disarmament is that your generals and your best friends generals are cozily sharing planning joint actions towards a possible third country as a hypothetical threat.

I follow where the evidence leads. — Baden

So let's speak about evidence. One month in, and they have not even 'liberated' Donbas. They are losing men by the thousands, not counting the prisoners. They've been pushed back from the vicinity of Kyiv, in the first successful large Ukrainian counter-offensive. That's to be compared with the idea they had prior to attack, of a walk in the park among a joyful and grateful populace welcoming them.... Looks pretty disastrous to me.

The have more or less another month worth of cannon fodder to go, perhaps two. After that, that is to say, if they and the Ukrainians can both last that long, then either they launch general conscription, use chemical weapons, or sign a peace treaty under significant military pressure.

If true, interesting. And of course, the numbers can vary.

Yet what is likely that Ukraine hasn't used it's armored forces heavily as it tries to preserve it's strength, just as it tries to preserve it's meagre air force. A conventional counterattack might give a too good target to the Russian forces and cause severe attrition to the fewer Ukrainian armored units.

(Forbes) Ukraine has lost at least 74 tanks—destroyed or captured—since Russia widened its war on the country starting the night of Feb. 23.

But Ukraine has captured at least 117 Russian tanks, according to open-source-intelligence analysts who scrutinize photos and videos on social media.

In other words, the Ukrainian army might actually have more tanks now than a month ago—all without building a single brand-new tank or pulling some older vehicle out of storage.

The Russians meanwhile have captured at least 37 Ukrainian tanks—a sum inadequate to compensate for the roughly 274 tanks it is believed to have lost to all causes.

The disparity in captured tanks speaks to Russia’s lack of preparation for a high-intensity war against a determined foe. But it also speaks to the advantages any defender possesses over any attacker.

They've been pushed back from the vicinity of Kyiv, in the first successful large Ukrainian counter-offensive. — Olivier5

I've read various reports on this but nothing solid yet. Its significance depends too on Russian plans. If they are as they say they are concentrating on the South and East now, that's where Ukranian victories would be most significant.

After that, that is to say, if they and the Ukrainians can both last that long, then either they launch general conscription, use chemical weapons, or sign a peace treaty under significant military pressure. — Olivier5

OK, but the first two of these scenarios are disastrous for Ukraine and the third only a win if the Russians make significant compromises. So, your outlook appears no more optimistic than mine.

Why is Russia attacking Lviv? It doesn't make sense. I thought they would go to Odessa next, based on captured territory, going to Lviv completely thins them out.

To be clear, No, I do not want more deaths. I want this assault to be over quickly - if it lengthens, more people die and everything gets worse for everybody.

I mean, it's pretty clear or looks clear, that Russian intelligence completely botched whatever analysis they made of an invasion of Ukraine. Pretty shocking given these countries share a border.

Was that stalled convoy also part of the plan?